- cross-posted to:
- ukraine_war_news
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine_war_news
The cat is out of the bag. After months of denial, it is now conventional wisdom that Germany — and Europe more generally — faces deindustrialisation due to the end of cheap Russian piped gas. “Germany’s Days as an Industrial Superpower Are Coming to an End,” reads a headline on Bloomberg.
From London to Berlin, Western governments do not have a serious economic growth plan. Media outlets have started to admit this grim reality because there is no longer any point in denying it.
Privately, Americans shrug their shoulders and hint that this means they will no longer face competition from Europe. But watching the economy of your most dependable ally — not to mention a key trade partner — implode is not cynical Machiavellian statecraft: it is folly. American leaders talk about creating a new economic bloc which only includes “democratic” nations, only to dismiss the destruction of the European economy. It is obvious to everyone except the truest of the true believers: America has no strategy either.
America’s negligence of its core ally will likely lead to electoral tremors across the continent in the coming years. There is every chance that Europe will drift away from American influence and start to build pragmatic relationships with other countries. The big question is where this leaves Britain, which has much closer ties with the United States than the rest of the continent. It is a question that British leaders will have to ask themselves seriously moving forward.
Sure… so much common wisdom about Germany. Including their immidiate collaps any day now for the last 20+ years. Or the 5%+ economy loss should they not get Russian gas (after all those people who froze to death of course).
In reality those massive losses -coming out of covid, still having supply chain issues and with not even a fraction of the stimulus money other countries spend to counteract on top of no more gas- are now what? +/-0? And with some more obsolete techs slowly sourcing out parts for cost reasons while new technologies open up shop there at the same time.
The only actual risk for Germany (and a lot of other countries) is that people start to believe the bullshit, the outrage farming and doom scrolling trash and all the usual propaganda they are flodded with on a daily basis.
Recession is a fact. PMI contraction is a fact. When your government has taken on debt with the assumption that number keep go up, that’s a problem.
And again, the opposite is true. They have reduced debt constantly for decades, did not spend big sums on stimuli while covid (in fact the recent budgetary discussion was about the unused covid funds) and are still not spending anything on the economy. If they actually would take on debt to invest it into economy boosts like everyone araund them does right now, they would obviously have growth.
So they sat at ~+/-0 now and everyone loudly cries recession, doom and apocalypse because two quarters in a row had a (rounded down) -0.1% which technically qualifies.
They are spending on energy subsidies, and therefore, “the economy”. It’s just not enough to prevent recession.
Machine translation of FAZ article:
Oh, no! Their debt rose by 1,x percent… to a total of ~64%. That’s nearly 20% under EU average. And while countries with rates of 100-160% (let’s not even talk about Japan or US as they are playing in another league entirely) take on more debt to push the economy in times of crisis Germany is not spending anything as no new debts (beyond 0,35%) are allowed constitutionally.
Sure… Germany totally has a debt problem. One of removed politicians stuck in economic ideas of the 1970s that still don’t understand the difference between a country’s economy and business economy. So they refuse to take on any debt when everyone else does to make their location more attractive for companies via investments.
And still the German economy is only shrinking if you round rediculous low numbers up to 0,1%. Guess the country will deindustrialise and collaps any day now. I hope someone tells the companies building massive new production sites in Germany that they are wasting their money on lost case they will lose all its industry… somehow…
FFS, recession is not a fact. Stop with that Bullshit. Yes, growth is down to 0,2% - that’s not good, but it isn’t a recession!
Edit: To all the downvotes: You realize a recession is defined as “Not growing”? Meaning a 0,2% growth is still growth?
I agree - which makes the rest of the numbers very odd, because most companies posted a substantial plus for 2023.
https://www.vdma.org/viewer/-/v2article/render/81411795 shows a net 10% decrease in orders across the entire machinery and plant engineering sector as of June 2023, but that net comes from an increase in domestic orders of 9% and decrease in global orders of 18%. It also indicates that there were over 30% fewer orders from all of Europe. Meanwhile, https://www.kloepfel-consulting.com/supply-chain-news/maerkte/vda-umfrage-automobilindustrie-deutschland-6566823/ shows that, in May 2023, in a survey of 128 automotive industry companies, 0% planned to increase their investment in Germany with 27% planning to shift their investments out of Germany. And here we have evidence that total energy consumed in Germany dropped 8% in 2023, mostly because of high energy industry doing less.
here’s evidence as of July 2023 that it was already happening, and here we see their economy faltering in an analysis from Sept 2023.