In case of acute insomnia: Federal Diet Election 2017

[uppi]

I would bet that the CSU did not immediately show him the door is more due to them being blindsided and not having an immediate replacement ready than anything else.

I think a large part of the effort to keep him is the fear of the hardliners that his resignation would be too much of a defeat of their position and a victory for Merkel (even if it is just a Pyrrhic one). After all, if Seehofer armed with the political equivalent of a suicide vest couldn't make Merkel move, who else from the CSU should hope to do so. Provided that anybody would be willing to go that far.

 

[ori]

boring conclusion: the CSu/Seehofer blinked and as predicted they came up with an unworkable "compromise" that will do exactly nothing to deal with the official reason for this rucus and worse everyone knows that its unworkable and will do nothing - with the very limited exception that it includes some items that the SPD has ruled out in the past and will now either have to accept (which would be insane, but with the current SPD leadership you never know which opportunity to hurt themselves they embrace) or rule out again in which case Seehofer can throw another tantrum.

I strongly believe all the actors want an AfD/Linke coalition government or something like that- atleast they are actively working to strengthen the out of power parties...

 

[Kaitzilla]

The car thing is a rich urbanite thing, with rich Parisians being the top offenders. Here's the thing: outside of Paris' "Little Crown", and the core urban centers of other big cities, public transportation is just not sufficient in France (or any other non-tiny country). Millions of people need cars, it's not some bourgeois luxury, it's a working man's necessity. In fact the people who really don't need cars are the bourgeois who live close to the metro situations.

I know right!

Cars are essential for working peeps.
https://reason.com/archives/2018/06/18/stop-trying-to-get-workers-out/print

Simply put, cars work better for workers. A 2012 Brookings study analyzing data from 371 transit providers in America's largest 100 metro areas found that over three-fourths of all jobs are in neighborhoods with transit service—but only about a quarter of those jobs can be reached by transit within 90 minutes. That's more than three times the national average commute time.

Another study, by Andrew Owen and David Levinson of the University of Minnesota, looked at job access via transit in 46 of the 50 largest metro areas. Their data combined actual in-vehicle time with estimated walking time at either end of the transit trip, to approximate total door-to-door travel time. Only five of the 46 metro areas have even a few percent of their jobs accessible by transit within half an hour. All the others have 1 percent or less. Within 60 minutes door-to-door, the best cities have 15–22 percent of jobs reachable by transit.

Meanwhile, Owen and Levinson found that in 31 of the 51 largest metro areas in 2010, 100 percent of jobs could be reached by car in 30 minutes or less. Within 40 minutes, all the jobs could be reached by car in 39 of the cities. Within an hour, essentially every job in all 51 places could be reached by car. The roadway network is ubiquitous, connecting every possible origin to every destination. The contrast with access via transit—let alone walking or biking—is profound.

 

[AdrienIer]

US metropolitan areas lag behind european ones when it comes to public transportation

 

[Hrothbern]

Cars are essential for working peeps.

Public transportation and bicycles have the future

 

[Wastl]

boring conclusion: the CSu/Seehofer blinked and as predicted they came up with an unworkable "compromise" that will do exactly nothing to deal with the official reason for this rucus and worse everyone knows that its unworkable and will do nothing - with the very limited exception that it includes some items that the SPD has ruled out in the past and will now either have to accept (which would be insane, but with the current SPD leadership you never know which opportunity to hurt themselves they embrace) or rule out again in which case Seehofer can throw another tantrum.

I strongly believe all the actors want an AfD/Linke coalition government or something like that- atleast they are actively working to strengthen the out of power parties...

Nah, I think almost everyone actually does have some valid reasons from their point of view.

If you take the CSU, they got a horrible result at the federal election, but that didn't happen because of what they were saying, but what they were doing. More than once Seehofer acted all tough and then backed down again. He went out of his way before the election to get something done, only do back down even more spectacularly, falling right in line with the CDU, suggesting that everything was just fine. That's what the voters punished, not the stances taken, else the AfD wouldn't have fared that well. What happened is that people simply didn't trust someone who was all talk but wouldn't walk the walk. Why should someone who is unhappy with the refugee situation vote for someone who has proven to back down every time the going got tough, when he can vote for a party that hasn't backed down?

Now the election in Bavaria is coming up, and the CSU - and especially Seehofer - try to get something done before the election, to prove that they can actually keep their word and do things. Judging from their position heading into the election, they desperately need some results. Current polls would put them in a position where they would need to form a coalition with the SPD, Greens or AfD, none of whcih can be to their liking. Merkel isn't really inclined to follow that approach, because it doesn't fit to her politics, but more importantly because she doesn't want to lose power, and she knows that the SPD can't really accept these ideas.

Almost everyone is in a bad spot. The CDU is not looking good under this current debate and really can't afford to let this government fall apart. The CSU needs some successes heading into the state election, or they will lose drastically. The SPD can't really carry forward ideas they rejected just a short time ago, but can't really let the government collapse either, because a new election isn't going to help them one bit. The small parties don't have all that much to worry about when it comes to their own position, but they don't benefit all that much either. Not only is the AfD generally the main benefitiary in polls, but each of the other three parties also has little to gain by the weakness of the main parties. With the CDU as weak as it is, the FDP has no chance to get into government without a more left-wing party being part of it. That kind of situation wouldn't be benefitting it. Greens and Left meanwhile don't gain anything either, because the weakness of the SPD prevents any sort of left-wing coalition.

If recent polls are any indication, the "grand-coalition" is dangerously close to not having enough seats for a majority if a election would come up. It would basically be done to 2/3 (unrealistic) options. The one that didn't end up happening after the last election, CDU-Greens-FDP, a leftish approach that the CDU-CSU would never go with in CDU-SPD-Greens, or CDU-SPD-FDP, which seems like a tough sell as well.