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Are We Seeing a German Meltdown?

Jack Hays said:
Well now. I think this may be too dramatic by half, but half is still worrisome. I admit to an increasing sense that we're launching into uncharted waters.

The Great German Meltdown
Victor Davis Hanson, Defining Ideas

Every 20 to 50 years in Germany, things start unraveling. Germans feel aggrieved. Ideas and movements gyrate wildly between far left and far right extremes. And the Germans finally find consensus in a sense of victimhood paradoxically expressed as national chauvinism. Germany’s neighbors in 1870, 1914, 1939—and increasingly in the present—usually bear the brunt of this national meltdown.
Germany is supposed to be the economic powerhouse of Europe, its financial leader, and its trusted and responsible political center. Often it plays those roles superbly. But recently, it’s been cracking up—in a way that is hauntingly familiar to its European neighbors. On mass immigration, it is beginning to terrify the nearby nations of Eastern Europe. On Brexit, it bullies the British. On finance, it alienates the southern Europeans. On Russia, it irks the Baltic States and makes the Scandinavians uneasy by doing business with the Russian energy interests. And on all matters American, it increasingly seems incensed.
Certainly, Germany has done some unbelievably strange things in the last ten years. In a fit of fear, after the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor meltdown in 2011, and in a huff about climate change, Berlin more or less abruptly junked traditionally generated electrical power and opted for inefficient and unreliable “green” renewable wind and solar—despite the less than Mediterranean nature of its climate and warnings of the financial downside. The result is that electricity costs have climbed 50 percent in recent years and are among the most expensive in the developed world—and electricity itself is sometimes scarce. In response to shortfalls in power generation, the German energy industry for now is looking at solutions like coal-fired plants, buying nuclear-generated electricity from its neighbors, and cutting deals with Vladimir Putin for natural gas. In other words, Germany spiraled from the one extreme of green idealists to the other of dirty coal, while counting on others to export their electricity into Germany. . . .
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And they get electricity from places like France... who generate it using... nuclear reactors.

The Germans with their Green Idiocy also had tax payers subsidize farmers to build Bio Gas stations. They popped up everywhere... and a buddy of mine cashed in mightily on the stupidty with engineering work/development/consulting.

Problem with these stations, as he told me, is one requires 160 (400) to 380 (950) Hectares (acres) of corn/maize per year... and then asked... where is this going to come from?

Drive though Germany, and especially the north, and it’s basically a monostand of corn. The south isn’t quite as bad... they need wheat for Weissenbier...LOL.

Corn used to be grown every four years in a crop rotation. Now it’s every year, and the nitrates they pound in the ground from manure and urine (Gülle) as one can imagine, is doing wonders for the ground water.

So, with a shortage of biomass for their stations, it seems they may have to do what the Brits do... import wood chips en masse from Canada!!! Now that’s really green energy... LOL.
 
Jack Hays said:
Ah. OK. The point was about Germany's isolation and neighbors' fears. The money quote is: When the man proposed as Italy’s new finance minister declares that “Germany has not changed its vision of its role in Europe since the end of Nazism,” it is time to wake up.
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I wonder how much influence came from Germans to have the will of the people in the last election nullified.
 
zimmer said:
German EU Boss Says ?Markets Will Teach Italians? How to Vote
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[FONT=&quot]"I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me." --Giuseppe Garibaldi

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]"To this wonderful page in our country's history another more glorious still will be added, and the slave shall show at last to his free brothers a sharpened sword forged from the links of his fetters." --Giuseppe Garibaldi[/FONT]
 
polgara said:
Greetings, Jack. :2wave:

Ironically, I read a while back that Soros stated that Germany will start having problems in the third quarter of this year! Interesting comment coming from him.... :shock:
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The idiotic energy policy is increasingly a problem, the massive expense of immigration, the massive security problems that their "You all come" policy causes, the increasingly lack of credibility of the politicians, the fact that Europe is still unraveling and is in fact picking up speed, the French going back to thinking that they get to be equal partners even though they are flat broke....the problems are accumulating.

Who would have figured the Italians to go full Trump!
 
Jack Hays said:
Europe’s Vanishing Calm
Victor Davis Hanson, National Review
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Greetings, Jack. :2wave:

Another excellent link! :thumbs: Interesting comment that Germany at least seems to be more in favor of the "disliked" Trump way of doing things now as opposed to continuing to go along with the "beloved" Obama way they have been following for some time, which might just translate into telling the rest of the EU that "times are changing, so get used to it," so we shall see. :mrgreen:

Off topic, but are you still volunteering your time once a week?
 
polgara said:
Greetings, Jack. :2wave:

Another excellent link! :thumbs: Interesting comment that Germany at least seems to be more in favor of the "disliked" Trump way of doing things now as opposed to continuing to go along with the "beloved" Obama way they have been following for some time, which might just translate into telling the rest of the EU that "times are changing, so get used to it," so we shall see. :mrgreen:

Off topic, but are you still volunteering your time once a week?
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Greetings, Polgara.:2wave:

Sometimes a useful foil is more help than an ineffective friend.
Yes, I now have a regular volunteer shift at Historic Jamestown: 9:00AM - 1:00PM Thursday.:cool:
 
That doesn't mean there are no consequences for you [emoji50]

Lol. Weve I just think it good habit in forums. More people would read, think and discuss. But I'll go discuss elsewhere.
 
The End of German Politics As We Know It
Alexander Neubacher, Der Spiegel

The End of the Old Order
Sunday night marked the end of politics in Germany as it has been known for decades. That's not something that needs to be overly dramatized: In the Netherlands, there are more than a dozen parties in parliament and governance in the country is just fine. But there's always a risk in trading a proven system for a new order, the advantages of which aren't currently clear.


It is rather ironic that the party which wanted most to hold onto the old party order ended up destroying it. Unlike Merkel, the CSU has been unwilling to yield the right-wing of the political spectrum to another party. And there's nothing wrong with that impulse, at least in principle. But putting it into practice would have required extensive political skill of the kind the CSU leadership is unfortunately lacking.
Now, the entire country must bear the consequences.

 
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