German industrial production started its decline in 2017. An energy crisis and Green madness put on the finishing touches.
German Superpower Days Are Over
German Industrial production peaked in November of 2017. Germany’s IP has since fallen to a level first seen in 2006.
Bloomberg reports Germany’s Days as an Industrial Superpower Are Coming to an End
In a cavernous production hall in Düsseldorf last fall, the somber tones of a horn player accompanied the final act of a century-old factory.
Amid the flickering of flares and torches, many of the 1,600 people losing their jobs stood stone-faced as the glowing metal of the plant’s last product — a steel pipe — was smoothed to a perfect cylinder on a rolling mill. The ceremony ended a 124-year run that began in the heyday of German industrialization and weathered two world wars, but couldn’t survive the aftermath of the energy crisis.
The underpinnings of Germany’s industrial machine have fallen like dominoes. The US is drifting away from Europe and is seeking to compete with its transatlantic allies for climate investment. China is becoming a bigger rival and is no longer an insatiable buyer of German goods. The final blow for some heavy manufacturers was the end of huge volumes of cheap Russian natural gas.
“The shock was huge,” said Wolfgang Freitag, who worked at the plant since he was a teenager. The 59-year-old’s job now is to disassemble equipment for sale and help his old colleagues find new work.
Fading industrial competitiveness threatens to plunge Germany into a downward spiral, according to Maria Röttger, head of northern Europe for Michelin. The French tiremaker is shutting two of its German plants and downsizing a third by the end of 2025 in a move that will affect more than 1,500 workers. US rival Goodyear has similar plans for two facilities.
“Despite the motivation of our employees, we have arrived at a point where we can’t export truck tires from Germany at competitive prices,” she said in an interview. “If Germany can’t export competitively in the international context, the country loses one of its biggest strengths.”
High Power Bills
One of the hardest-hit sectors has been chemicals — a direct result of Germany’s loss of cheap Russian gas. With the transition to clean hydrogen still uncertain, nearly one in 10 companies are planning to permanently halt production processes, according to a recent survey by the VCI industry association. BASF SE, Europe’s biggest chemical producer, is cutting 2,600 jobs and Lanxess AG is reducing staff by 7%.
China is now causing trouble for Germany in a number of ways. On top of its strategic shift into advanced manufacturing, a slowdown of the Asian superpower’s economy is sapping demand for German goods even further. At the same time, cheap competition from China is worrying industries key for Germany’s climate transition — and not just electric cars.
Manufacturers of solar panels are shuttering operations and cutting staff as they struggle to compete with state-supported Chinese rivals. Dresden-based Solarwatt GmbH has already cut 10% of its workforce and may relocate production abroad if the situation doesn’t improve this year, according to CEO Detlef Neuhaus.
“It’s not just energy,” CEO Klaus Geißdörfer said in an interview. “It’s also staff availability in Germany, which is now very tense.” Within a decade, the working-age population will be too small to keep the economy functioning as it does today, he added.
Foreign Direct Investment Plunges
Politico comments on the deindustrialization of Germany in its report Rust on the Rhine.
Germany’s biggest companies are ditching the fatherland.
Chemical giant BASF has been a pillar of German business for more than 150 years, underpinning the country’s industrial rise with a steady stream of innovation that helped make “Made in Germany” the envy of the world.
But its latest moonshot — a $10 billion investment in a state-of-the-art complex the company claims will be the gold standard for sustainable production — isn’t going up in Germany. Instead, it’s being erected 9,000 kilometers away in China.
“We are increasingly worried about our home market,” BASF Chief Executive Martin Brudermüller told shareholders in April, noting that the company lost €130 million in Germany last year. “Profitability is no longer anywhere near where it should be.”
The country’s reliance on industry makes it particularly vulnerable. With the exception of software maker SAP, Germany’s tech sector is essentially non-existent. In the financial world, its biggest players are best known for making bad bets (Deutsche Bank) and scandal (Wirecard). Manufacturing accounts for about 27 percent of its economy, compared with 18 percent in the U.S.
A related problem is that Germany’s most important industrial segments — from chemicals to autos to machinery — are rooted in 19th-century technologies. While the country has thrived for decades by optimizing those wares, many of them are either becoming obsolete (the internal combustion engine) or simply too expensive to produce in Germany.
By halting deliveries of natural gas to Germany, the Kremlin effectively removed the linchpin of the country’s business model, which relied on easy access to cheap energy. Though wholesale gas prices have recently stabilized, they’re still roughly triple where they were before the crisis. That has left companies like BASF, whose main German operation alone consumed as much natural gas in 2021 as all of Switzerland, with no choice but to look for alternatives.
The country’s Green transformation, the so-called Energiewende, has only made matters worse. Just as it was losing access to Russian gas, the country switched off all nuclear power. And even after nearly a quarter century of subsidizing the expansion of renewable energy, Germany still doesn’t have nearly enough wind turbines and solar panels to sate demand — leaving Germans paying three times the international average for electricity.
Volkswagen, which has dominated the Chinese auto market for decades, lost its crown as the country’s largest automaker in the first quarter to BYD, a local competitor, amid a surge in EV sales. China is the world’s largest car market, accounting for nearly 40 percent of Volkswagen’s revenue.
Germany Lags in Major Ways
Germany lags the US and China on Artificial Intelligence (AI), EVs, battery development, microchips, phones and even basic internet services.
Liechtenstein has the fastest internet speed in the world in 2023 at 246.76 Mbps according to AtlasAndBoots.
The US is number 10 at 136.48 Mbps. Germany is number 36 at 81.73 Mbps.
A December 2023 Speedtest by Ookla shows similar results.
Ookla has the US in 8th place for fixed broadband and 13th for mobile. Germany is in 51st place for broadband and 45th place for mobile.
One reason is Germany is still reliant on copper lines. While most of the rest of the world turned to fiber, Germany made little investment in its own infrastructure. Germany is still working on the last mile.
Final Blow From the Greens
Not only is Germany seriously lagging on AI, EVs, microchips, phones, and the interment, the Greens came along and demanded Germany scrap nuclear power.
Former chancellor Angela Merkel hopped on the green bandwagon. Instead of investing in infrastructure, Germany invested in silly green projects and scrapped nuclear power for no good reason.
Now, Germany is making foreign direct investment in China, a country still heavily reliant on Coal. Germany gave up on nuclear power and still needs to catch up on basic internet and phone technology. Germany stayed too long on diesel and analog phones.
Greens label this as progress. Farmers are in open revolt. The average German consumer is screwed.
Not only is Germany way behind on basic infrastructure, it lost its export prowess as well. When export dependent countries implode, they are in a world of hurt.
The entire thing, the problems Germany is facing/has faced are PURPOSEFUL. This is SUICIDE by PACT with other Western Countries. WHY?
Because they are ideologically committed to policies that are not long-term economically sustainable, for short-term personal gain.
Europe’s problems began with the decline of empires and rise of the New World, the USA. A couple of hot wars and a cold war later, they concocted this plan to remake the Holy Roman Empire, but it’s underlying purpose disintegrated with the disintegration of the USSR & Warsaw Pact.
The enormous poat-WW2 socialist benefit systems constructed since the 1970s have undermind and stagnated European economies, and following the brief boost/false dawn of EU expansion, the reversion to the mean of decline resumed. They’ve been trying to defy economic gravity through legal and now illegal mass immigration, but the fundamental problem in Europe is that too many countries live beyond their means.
This ideological problem is the engine behind the debt crisis. The least painful solution is cuts and reducing the size of the state, but the political resistance to that is ferocious: hence they are doomed to a slow decline because they refuse to change.
Everything is convoluted and inexplicable – – UNTIL – – UNTIL we realize that this was a PLANNED DEMOLITION of the LEADING EU ECONOMY: the WORK HORSE Of the EU. The Russian Pipe Line “removal” – – clearly done on purpose – – was done to HURT RUSSIA and instead they are (of course) selling it “Around Sanctions.” I would not put it past the EUGENICS plan, to reduce the world’s Population (Malthusian).
Losing access? Didn’t Putin just a week ago say that half of Nordstream 2 could be turned on by the Germans?
So how is the investigation in Nordstream going; Wasn’t the Kremlin that turned off the gas — it was the Germans themselves, the Poles, the Ukies. And for good measure the Americans decided to sink their ally by cutting Nordstream.
The failure to prevent the Pukerainian war was the legacy of NATO’s waning regimes full of self-serving pigs from several of the major member countries. You have to hope that Trump was kept in the dark about what the CIA and SIS were up to, because otherwise it was on his watch as well.
Condy Rice was pretty clear about the US aim to keep Europe economically dependant on it, and to refuse to allow Russian influence.
“Not only is Germany way behind on basic infrastructure, it lost its export prowess as well. When export dependent countries implode, they are in a world of hurt.”
Germany isn’t the only country making mistakes. Basic infrastructure in the US sucks in many major ways. As for US exports… remind me again what industrial products US exports? Can’t remember right now. With only 18% manufacturing, can’t be that many.
the biggest laugh in the article>> “many of them are either becoming obsolete (the internal combustion engine) or simply too expensive to produce in Germany.”
ICE……obsolete my AssZ!
Atlas Shrugged?
Allies didn’t destroy Germany after WWI or WWII. The USSR was unable to destroy Germany during the Cold War. Instead, the Germans decided to commit national suicide all by themselves. When do their surrounding “allies” (Poland, France, Austria, etc.) start trying to slice off parts of Germany? Peacefully, of course.
Unfortunately they have problems of their own and with parts of Germany their problems would be much bigger.
After WW II Germany was destroyed very deeply. Then free market was established and in a few years it was rebuild. Now eco-socialists destroy it again. And I fear that the following brain-washed generation is not able to rebuild it again.
Allies?
You mean Soviet Union.
It was Stalin that prevented the Morgenthaler plan (deindustrialize Germany) to be executed.
It was Stalin that insisted on the Nuremberg trials.
Very interesting article, that names the problems, which are even bigger than told. Infrastructure is a main problem: Roads and autobahns are often damaged, 1000s of bridges are damaged, at the same time the railway system is also in a bad condition. Also the health system. The level of education is declining dramatically too. It is true, that Germany has deficits on some economic and technical sectors. But it also was leading on other sectors. Germay isn
t good in producing microchips, but some smaller machinery companies are leading in develloping and producing constructions for producing microships. The problem is first the government, who is seriously engaged in stopping the industry and, second, some "woke" chiefs of big enterprises. Are they mad or are they malicious? I dont know. But one thing is shure: EU is only existing as long as Germany pays for it.Why is your font changing all the time? Are you cutting and pasting?
I don`t know, I am not cutting and pasting. I sometimes have to repair my text, because english is not my natve language.
Well fix it because a changing font is a sign of copy and paste.
Thank you for your allousion.
a GREEN victory ?! Nope ; a US victory rather !
BAS’F is being erected 9,000 kilometers away in China.
stupid is what stupid does
you’d think that they’d consider using massive CHIPS subsidies to setup shop in FASCIST merika
but hey – we’re done in western civilizations – just haven’t gotten final bill
and it’ll take you to your knees
Germany can adapt, and will. But the adaptation will be difficult. The mistake was becoming so dependent on a single, fragile, source of supply. Trump pointed this to them well before the Ukraine crisis, and they laughed at him.
‘a f*cking single, fragile source of fckn supply ? Are you fckn deluded ??? !! The MOST RELIABLE and fckn CHEAP supply for decades since WW2 you will mean ??
Why are you so angry? You sound like you had put your life savings in Gazprom and didn’t sell in time.
I am angry indeed because a vast mayority of my ‘fellow’ men are obviously fckn clueless,brainwashed IDIOTS !
All energy intense business must relocate out of Europe That includes coffee shops.
Back to the Middle Ages.
Radicalization of the west will unfold in the next decade. The young will rebel and the generation that created this mess will fade into oblivion.
So Germany is expanding electricity from natgas.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s natural gas imports hit a new low, because of more generation of hydro electricity. In both 2015 and 2021 Brazil required large natgas imports as severe droughts cut hydro generation in those two years.
This highlights the need for multiple sources of electricity generation in any country.
Poland defense minister Kosiniak Kamysz : “one for all all for one”. Trump in SC election campaign undermined NATO. Politics isn’t an excuse to play with NATO security. Duda, Poland ex pm : Trump, if elected, will defend us and NATO, but he insulted us. Such a statement isn’t serving Poland’s economic and securities interests.
Trump is just saying get your asses in gear when it comes to defense.
Yeah I’m sure Trump has very thoughtfully pondered the complex European security concerns looking for key areas of mutual cooperation between the US and the EU… and isn’t just riffing and spouting his shockingly ignorant worldview based on his delusions of crude power politics. Don’t give him credit for having a brain when he clearly has nothing but bleach solution between the ears!
First principles. If you want a good defense you need to put the money in. Without that all your efforts to coordinate the complex security needs of Europe will come to naught because the resources will not be there. It doesn’t take a genius to see that.
‘complex security concerns’ – there is no European ‘security’ to speak of when they’re being swarmed by millions of third world poor who will sire multiple generations of welfare leeches, criminals and civilization wreckers.
Agree. Germany invests in new modern defensive systems that have been proven in battlefields, recently. Demand is high. They did it because the free world has been exposed to threats and shocks. Trump’s spanking in SC was a repeat of what he said to either one of the European leaders or to Ursula Von Der Woke, years ago, when he was the president.
If you think that’s something,the Poles were driven out of McKinley Park, Brighton Park, Archer Avenue and Midway Chicago neighborhoods in the last generation.
I think Mish was one of them.
F*CK Poland , it should NEVER ve been part of the fckn EU circus in the first place !!
I am impressed by your subtle mastery of the English language. Did you attend Oxford by chance?
I do admit being quite unhinged, today even more than usual ! Some stupid * called me today asking if Russia is really going to attack Belgium.. Probably got the ‘wisdom’ from some article written by a politically bribed idiot in one of our Nato sponsored outlets ….Jeez, you can t believe it unless you hear and see the ongoing madness contributing to the demonisation, dehumanisation even, of a nation that NEVER caused us any harm and has absolutely no intention to do so…
It’s also never a bad time to repeat this timeless gem –
“To be an enemy of the United States can be dangerous. To be its friend is fatal.”
— Henry Kissinger
How do you say “cherry pick” in your language?
Germany is spending $16 billion Euro on new natural gas generation to add 10GW of capacity. I expect this to be the first of many new natgas additions. Because without nuclear, they will need more natgas and coal generation.
There are seven LGN terminals in operation now, all built and put in operation in less than two years. Five more are in construction and will be online soon. When you can cut through the red tape and the bullshit legal bottlenecks, you can get stuff done in a time one could not imagine before.
Yep.
Countries can do amazing things in order to keep the lights on. They will burn natgas, coal, and dung if necessary.
The world will be using more fossil fuels every year for the next decade; or two. Because our energy needs keep increasing faster than we can build renewables or nuclear.
But we have cut back on oil and gas capex for a decade now as a result of the “energy transition”. Even though we are beginning to increase capex a bit now, supplies could become very tight over the next few years.
Most of this terminals are old ships, chartered from some third-world-places. Not enough, to complicated and much to expensive.
The ships aren’t brand new but they work well and the terminals are brand new so Germany doesn’t need Russia anymore for gas.
The ships are the terminals. The gas has to be reload from the oversea-tankers to smaller ships and from there to the so called terminals. And the pipelines from the “terminals” to the German gas-net are much to small. Absurd.
Not absurd at all. Simply the fastest way to get results. Germany will continue to do what is necessary to keep the lights on.
These are temporary, short term solutions, which Germany hopes will last long enough as they build out more renewables.
I suspect that they are already beginning to realize that it will take far too long to build out renewables and that more permanent LNG terminals may be necessary along with more pipeline infrastructure.
The fact that they are beginning to add more natgas generation capacity is an early indication of that realization.
There is an easy solution: Opening the remaining of the pipelines under the sea and let it guarded by the German and the Russian Navy.
Not going to happen. Get used to it.
Why not?
The land installations are what connects the ships to the pipeline network and they are working so well that Russian gas has been completely replaced by gas from other countries. You may not like it but you can’t deny that that has happened.
Germany simply needs less gas because the industry reduced consumption. Consumption is reduced because production is reduced. Stopping production is the advice that the minister for economy and climate, Robert Habeck, gave to the german companies. And they realized this advice. And now we live from love and hope.
‘ from other countries’ , yet more than 50% from Russia … earth’s resources are limited pops, Biden even curtailed LNG exports , so keep on dreaming ….Btw, someone of your relatives got raped by a Russian by any chance ?, Just asking ….
where does the gas come from ? Out of the blue, like your US Dollars and our fckn Euros ?! Belgium imported record amounts of RUSSIAN LNG, just like Spain and France….
Yes. Russian LNG is a whopping 14% of Europe’s imports and is set to decline further as new sanctions come in this year.
The “Morganthau Plan” being implemented 80 years later than originally intended.
How come you have a photo? Can I get one?
Other Losses
link to m.youtube.com
So Grandpa Ike The Golfer was involved in this and the Bonus March atrocities.
link to ka-news.de
Take also notice of the indigenous jerks.
As I understand it, you blow up the cooling towers of the nuclear plant, and the pre-programed indigenous jerks throw a suicide party.
The first point is right. Second not, it happens every year in southern Germany and is called Fastnacht. But it illustrates the mental condition of my countrymen.
There are only 2 words
Ropes. Scaffolds.
NetZero == Genocide
NetZero == Suicide
NetZero=my bank account when I was a student.
there is still a pipeline available on the seabed that the CIA didnt blow up. Why doesn’t Germany accept Putin’s invitation to take some gas from where it is available? The problem is therefore elsewhere, its in the captured German political class that doesnt have the interests of its nation in focus.
Moreover, talk about being slow on the uptake, it has taken Germans 2 years to protest the green agenda and German Industry it seems , is unable to persuade the voters their pay checks come from the industries the greens have destroyed.
But perhaps Germany’s demise is the best remedy for the centralised juggernaut in Bruxelles, a credit card with no cash in it.
Even after The Wall came down, the U.S. bases in Germany were handy when Poppy and Dumbya were bombing Iraq.
You still don’t understand. It’s over. No one trusts Putin nor the Russians so your pipeline will rust at the bottom of the sea. Germany and Europe have found other energy sources and don’t need, don’t want Russian energy. It’s over.
I understand perfectly my friend. The pipelines were open to supply Europe until they were blown up, and for that matter had been open to supply Europe with cheap energy since I was a much younger man. And there were no problems from any of our manufacturers. The history of nordstream 2, which came out of the need to supply Germany directly, without having to deal with the theft of energy conducted by some of Germany’s neighbours, if you dig into the details, you will discover that NS2 was a project that the US had been against from the start. They were able to manipulate its delay through Bruxelles, by various means such as “the third energy” option and other assorted roadblocks. We can debate if this was a sneaky bid for the Europeans to gradually comandeer the management of Russia’s energy sources, or if this was plain monopolisation of European energy by America. No matter which….the point is that Russians were not going to be allowed to run their own pipeline directly with their german partners. The plot worked with the aid of Norway, which is now the joint king of energy in Europe
All that said, you are right about it being over….over for Germany! The energy they used has gone East, As a result China is crushing Germany; it does not need much more of Germany’s industrial machinery (see China’s exports of machinery to the ME and other BRICS partners). Have you been on a Chinese train lately? and on a European one? nuff said!
Until the present cabinet is fired by the electorate Germany will continue to sink, in the process weakening Europe further. .In the meantime Germany will use coal,(I cant wait to read the proaganda on how this will somehow become green energy for a few years), and pay triple for LNG energy. You can call this NS2 gig America’s method of competing in a free market if you want, but its not looked at that way from where I’m standing.
As Mish has described very accurately, Germany will forfeit its place in Europe. This is not about what Germany wants. It is what its cabinet wants.. Its cabinet wants deinductrialisation. The public, as you can see from the mounting protests, and in spite of being late to react, is only now beginning to express discontent. The protests are symbolic of the rift between European government/US foreign policy, and our public.
Very true. But a main problem: The big media, above all the public TV is on side of the woke government, there is no fox-news here.
The gas didn’t go east at all. It’s going nowhere. There is one pipeline to China from the gas fields in eastern Siberia but that pipeline was already there. There are plans to build a pipeline from western Siberia to China but they are just plans and nothing, exactly nothing has been done. Russia wants China to pay for it and China said no so it is going nowhere. All the pipeline infrastructure in Russia that used to serve Europe is now just sitting there unused and will never be used. They are dead assets.
You still have hopes but they are misplaced. Europe and Germany swung rapidly to remove Russia from their energy mix. Russia threw away the biggest and best customer it ever had or will have. It’s over.
Russia is in the LNG-Buisness too.
Pops from France knows perfectly well….being a contrarian though is jolly great to keep the conversation going ….he s quite good at it, I must admit…
Look at the numbers and weep.
IN your deluded wet(you wish) dreams that must be !!
You dream ended when you couldn’t take Kyiv. You are now running on fantasy.
from the down thumbs on your piece, nobody seems to agree with you. But feel free to dream on with your theories.
Reports of the demise of the German growth model have always proven premature. The German economy has reinvented itself every 20 years or so after large shocks (oil shocks in the 1970s; unification in the 1990s; and now the Russian energy shock). And Germany has its fiscal house in order: the 2024 fiscal deficit is projected at 1 3/4 percent of GDP; gross debt is 65 percent of GDP (both IMF projections). Compare that with the US, where growth is running on the artificial sugar-high of a Greek-style fiscal policy: a 2024 fiscal deficit of 7 1/2 percent of GDP; and gross debt is 127 percent of GDP (also IMF). If I would have to bet which of the two countries is going to do better over the next ten years (economically), I would bet on Germany.
The problem is that to reinvent itself it needs to draw upon it’s surpluses. But those surpluses are the debts of the rest of the EU countries (Spain, Italy, Greece etc). None of them is in a position to pay back Germany what’s owed.
So things may get very ugly in the EU.
It is a single economy with a single currency like the US. Texas is not worried if Missouri can pay Texas. As Mish said, people and companies trade and not countries. People love to bitch about the EU but few want to leave or give up the Euro. The UK did it because they had a better alternative by being part of the wide English-speaking world. The other countries in Europe do not have that luxury and they know it.
As far as I know, there is a fiscal transfer between your states every year. Between the Euro-states there is no such mechanisme, we have the TARGET-system, which means, that the debts between, for example, the Italian central bank and the German central bank are never equalized, they are growing and growing. There are other fatal mechanismes like the OMT-program. The Euro started with the “No-Bailout-Principle”, thats history now.
No bailout rule but there were bailouts. How did that happen?
The bailout rules were fake to talk the Germans into the Euro.
Not really. Germany’s net external assets by country look well diversified. The bigger problem is that Germany’s reinventions always use the tradeable sector as the main growth engine. And that means more trade surpluses and higher net external assets, which has its downside risks.
I live in Germany and I bet against it. The public debts are rising dramatically, to hide this fact our minister of finance invented a new word: Sondervermögen = separate estate, which now means debts.
Problem: This debs are not used for repairing the infrastructure, they are gifted for nonsense or given to foreign people.
The Autobahnstaus in Germany are a pain; and the trains are more punctual in Italy than Germany these days. But Germany’s public debt measured any way is now the lowest among the G7, and it doesn’t take that much money to modernize infrastructure
Just for the strange “Energiewende” about one trillion is needed….
Greta, Lurch & Gore should blame Mustache Man for climate change. After all, he invented the autobahn, the Volkswagen and grape Fanta.
Grape Fanta is German? I thought it was French.
Germany recycled its old stuff in Ukraine. It didn’t work. Trump is threatening : if u will not increase your investment in NATO the US will not protect u. He will encourage
Putin to attack u. Germany : “one for all, all for one”. Poland Latvia and Estonia are worried bc they have a target on their back. Putin denies it.
2008 was, realistically, the blowoff top for German industry. The nominally higher readings to 2017 was just inflation.
Competitively exposed industry is a (duh!) competitive field. Noone can compete, when simultaneously faced with being robbed hand over fist in order to feed ever growing armies of completely unproductive, deadweight leeches in ever growing splendor. That the theft is perpetrated by debasement rather than direct taxation, nor that the negative value add leeches benefiting from it are branded “investors” rather than “the poor,” makes not one iota of difference whatsoever: Scarce resources are; by way of debasement; transferred: From those who produce, to deadweight leeches producing nothing, yet being handed ever more loot in the form of “asset appreciation.” Leaving, duh! less resources for the productive. You can’t do that for long, before the productive are starved sufficiently to be unable to compete with freer, better governed countries like China.
The Anglo countries have already long since been left nothing but pointless, free falling, dead end wastelands by the exact same process. Germany was just later to the table. But zero; or even negative; percent “interest” will kill even the strongest and most resilient in short time.
If they hurry up and leave the Euro; Germany can still recover. While Gold may be a bit much to expect from the dumbest and most thoroughly misinformed and indoctrinated generations in history: Even the old West Mark would put them back well ahead of the rest of the pack. Doubly so in our current basketcasetopia. But of course: When you transfer all wealth to the rankest of retards; all of whom owe all they’ve got to nothing but central bank wealth transfers; you also transfer near all power and influence to those utterly useless second rate nothings as well. So I’m not holding my breath…
When China built a number of apartment blocks as investment that could house the whole population twice over and then let them rot, I wonder about their business acumen.
They haven’t yet mastered economics, as communists nor as capitalists.
Since having second homes makes one worse off and all…..
Especially compared to being homeless………
Even the most rudimentary comprehension of “capitalism” in an uncertain world, presupposes understanding that after-the-fact-determined “over”-production, is a necessity: It is not efficient to harvest exactly the number of grain bushels required to feed the exact demand which materializes 8 months,or whatever, later. Instead, you produce a heaping too much.Then throw away that which don’t get bought. Doing so is efficient. Not wasteful. Only children, and naive budding five year planning “greenies”, fail to recognize this.
Furthermore; as opposed to grains: Houses don’t rot nearly as fast. Having a second home is an economic good. Now ain’t that a surprise? And it’s not limited to being a good, for those who have them, or are interested in keeping two. Even for those who are not, their very existence put downward pressure on the cost, and hence upward pressure on the quality, of the one they do buy. The very existence of abundance, reduces scarcity. And scarcity reduction, is just another word for wealth creation.
One would have to be;seriously; clinically retarded, to not recognize that having two homes available per household, is not an improvement on having less than one.
And then, there’s the implications as pertains to higher order goods; not just the end user homes: The very fact that so much of a valuable good can be built so quickly, says a lot about the quality and quantity of available productive capital in general. Building housing by the millions, requires lots and lots of higher order capital: Infrastructure, transportation, machinery, tools, materials, skilled labor and the ability to coordinate it all. Much of which are not useful solely for building homes, but can instead also be used to build ships, roadways, offices, factories, military goods etc.
Compare that to the current West, where changing out a pink granite kitchen counter for a grey, almost inevitably Chinese sourced, Ceasar stone one; is all that is accomplished in what’s then passed off as a $million “remodeling” of some invariably aging and fallong apart shack. All while more and more people have zero homes. Now ain’t that great “business acumen”, compared to the two that that those poor Chinamen have….
This is hardly just a German problem, but making century old products just a bit better is over. If you shoot yourself in the foot multiple times, it’s even harder.
China has achieved industrial parity without destroying her society with diversity.
China is the world’s sole manufacturing superpower: A line sketch of the rise:
link to cepr.org
Manufacturing is leaving dying China. They are too expensive and quickly aging. Their demographic cliff is coming. Zeihan has spoken of this at length, as he did about predicting the demise of German manufacturing.
“By halting deliveries of natural gas to Germany, the Kremlin effectively removed the linchpin of the country’s business model.”
What the MSM lacks in accuracy, it more than makes up in persistence.
Persistent inaccuracies.
We’ll be back in the Stone Age in no time.
Greens are losing out slowly but surely. Germany had a very good run in the low tariff world as long as China was a big buyer. Now they are a competitor so the outsized industrial plant has to be either downsized to a level of their available market or converted to other uses which by the way we now see. European gas prices have come back down to the 2010-2019 average. As the old high-priced gas contracts run out the new cost for gas will help German industry but it will now bring back the Chinese market. Germany has reinvented itself before and will do so again but its trade surplus, which was an economic aberration, will fall. Since economic reporters are manic-depressives, the news is either fantastically good or incredibly bad. The reality is that the no longer competitive parts will be cut back but the profitable ones will stay and even expand.
Your are Spot On Mish and the first thing that the Germans People need to do is vote out the Bloody Idiots later this year . . . and stop listening to Brussels and the WEF. Everything else is secondary at this stage . . . This is not going to end well . . .
The Germans are a proud people and will only take so much B.S.
“One reason is Germany is still reliant on copper lines. While most of the rest of the world turned to fiber, Germany made little investment in its own infrastructure.”
I just read that AT&T wants to get out of its land line carrier obligation in most of California, citing expense of maintaining copper wires and its move into fiber. At this time, AT&T fiber isn’t available in my area.
Never count the Germans out. Review their history.
Now they count themselfs out. The greens will do, what two world-wars could not do.
The Germans will increase production of frigates, tanks, missiles, guns…to protect Europe from invasion.
Germany and UE are currently organizing the invasion of Europe.
The are already in Europe. They are Europe.
Everybody who wants to invade Europe must be very dumb. There is nothing worthful.
German greens appear to be aiming for a new agrarian society, which will definitely solve any unemployemnt problems as people will have to work 12 hour days 7 days a week to keep food on the table
Will their Muslim immigrant work too? Or will the state continue to support them? Mission impossible.
In 2020, in the Covid-time, the usual saison-harvesters from eastern Europe where not allowed to come in. The minister Julia Klöckner said, that the so called “refugees” could harvest the asparagus. They couldn
t, they wouldnt and finally the rumainian workers had to come.It
s much more worse, they stop the farmers too, thats why they are protesting now.This is good because they can be held up as an example. Not that tards will listen but it cant hurt. It seems a lot of other countries fall of the cliff first with idiotic plans. Kinda like the moron at the WEF complaining the US govt has to listen to its people too much.
They’ll be held up as an example of what happens with too slow of a transition to the Green Economy.
The cry will be to “re-double our efforts!”/s. Thus, bigger/more subsidies allowing power to concentrate…
Progressive ideology is a disease that kills its host. Germany is just older, fatter, and sicker than most of the others so more susceptible to economic covid.
“Progressive ideology is a disease that kills its host.”
It is. But importantly: ALL of Progressive ideology: Central banks; antitrust “laws”; income taxes; women’s suffrage… Heck, even standing armies and professionalized police forces: Absolutely every single piece of legislation adopted since the birth of the Progressive Movement, around 1885. The only possible exception; maybe; being some laws around nukes, as those were arguably genuine game changers.
The real problem being specifically that every illiterate yahoo and his uncle insisting that “progressives are bad”, “but thiiis part, and that law, yadda, yadda is, like, diiiiferent!” They’re not: The Progressive Movement, ALL of it, down to toe tiniest subatom; is ALL nothing but a, as you said, “disease that kills its host.”
Americans are way fatter and sicker than Germans. Just look at the diverging life expectancies in the two countries.