Her stupid decision to open Germany’s borders she shares with Biden. In her decision to shut down the cleanest and most reliable source of electricity (nuclear) she stands alone. She has devastated her country.
She doesn't stand entirely alone concerning nuclear. It's been nearly impossible to build a new nuclear plant in the USA for decades. The greenies, clueless as usual, were sure that solar and wind were greener than nuclear. We've lost two decades worth of nuclear production to people who have exactly NO qualifications to decide such things.
The cognitive dissonance is a wonder to behold. To be fanatically concerned that over a hundred years a hundred workers and townsfolk might die from nuclear plant meltdowns (no matter the deaths of folks mining lithium and forging the city-blocks of concrete needed to plant windfarms into the earth (they're like icebergs)) and yet .. and yet: would not a BILLION deaths a century be worth the benefit of literally (according to these very same experts and activists) saving the untold TRILLIONS of lifeforms that within DECADES will go up in an EARTH ball of fire due to those selfish humans who took too long to swap out their incandescent lightbulbs.
"hundred years a hundred workers and townsfolk might die from nuclear plant meltdowns (no matter the deaths of folks mining lithium and forging the city-blocks of concrete needed to plant windfarms into the earth (they're like icebergs)) and yet .. and yet: would not a BILLION deaths a century be worth the benefit of literally (according to these very same experts and activists) saving the untold TRILLIONS of lifeforms that within DECADES will go up in an EARTH ball of fire"
Forget climate change in the utilitarian calculations. 20 thousand ish people are estimated to have died every year between 1999-2020 just from air pollution from coal plants. Clearly would have been a good exchange just based on those considerations.
Yes her decision was bad. But the blame belongs solely to the German populace. I am German and since Chernobyl the majority German collective has been pathologically anti nuclear. Then Fukushima happened and no politician would have survived carrying on with nuclear. So yes Germans made some really stupid decisions during the last two decades and the blame lies with the electorate.
Is this more evidence that Germans would rather be exactly wrong than approximately right? Germany seems to be sticking with the wrong strategies but executing them quite well.
Any informed environmentalist familiar with the significant dangers associated with a country not being energy independent today will call for nuclear energy development or now redevelopment. Even in the United States, a country with vast energy resources, the cry for nuclear power is heard, because it has become increasingly apparent that there is no chance of reducing the carbon footprint unless the nuclear power option is pursued with ever increasing speed. To leave a country like Germany without recourse to various and reliable energy sources borders on being criminal and ultimately leading to its demise in a serious downward spiral. China is exploiting all its resources and those of any country willing to provide the fuel. Their transcendent status in the world now reveals whose policies have proven more effective. Western civilization has been declining for some time in no small way aided and abetted by those who apparently don't understand or care about sustaining the foundations of societies, especially energy sources.
"In the future, perhaps during one of her Baltic walks, Angela Merkel might reflect that calling her memoir Freedom, as Ukraine fights for just that against a Russia she did so much to enable, didn’t exude good taste. But let us be fair. The 700 pages after the title are worse. In a book of tireless self-pity, people are always underestimating the author. You are meant to conclude that she proved them wrong. You come away asking if they had half a point."
Inaction and indecision are the rotten fruits of boring, unimaginative spells of governance which nations unglamorously slip into in the name of *normalcy*, *peaceful relations*, and as a result of (the understandable) *human distaste for change*.
Leaders must be bold in their governing in order to make sweeping positive changes. Not just in their promises, like Scholz, but in their actions... which is unfortunately one of the reasons many provocative and action-taking far-right politicians have been embraced this decade. Seems like Merkel, and other leaders who operate with similar politics and approach, had hoped for things to blow over so they wouldn't have to make any tough decisions.
A thought provoking read Yascha. Looking beyond the disastrous austerity currently being inflicted on New Zealand, a strategic question begs an answer. Has New Zealand backed the right horses? I would argue they might not have. For example, like Germany, New Zealand is reliant on China for most of its growth. And growth cannot be infinite in a finite world. It’s just maths. New Zealand has also made significant bets on sunset industries like red meat and dairy. These industries are problematic in environmental, externality, and future-proofing terms. Plus, commodity trading is problematic by default. To that end, these industries are reliant on the rest of the world to maintain the integrity of the free trade system it relies on to import and export. That is a risk. How is it mitigated? Looking forward 20 years, how will New Zealand maintain or improve its standard of living and societal prosperity? Or has New Zealand entered a spiral of permanent linear decline? If not, why not? I’m struggling to see how New Zealand can prosper whilst maintaining the status quo? Does the country need a hard reset? If the answer is yes, how does that happen? A Labour coalition led by Hipkins is unlikely to be a ‘hard reset’ party. Meanwhile, domestic squabbling over hospitals, ferries, toll-roads, potholes, crime, and almost everything else, continues unabated. Outside of Godzone, the rest of the world is changing…rapidly.
Thought bubble extract here: “Germany’s crisis goes deeper than that. In the memorable formulation of Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Germany has long “outsourced its security to the United States, its energy needs to Russia and its export-led growth to China.” Merkel doubled down on all three of these bets. Since she left office, all three have gone belly up.
At dizzying speed, Germany has gone from economic powerhouse to the new “sick man of Europe.” Manufacturing in the country is down significantly. Its vaunted car industry has been particularly hard hit. Volkswagen, for example, recently announced that it would shutter some of its German factories for the first time in the company’s history. It is no exaggeration to say that Germany now faces its deepest crisis since the end of World War II.”
Everyone overthinks everything .. it's not that hard. New Zealand, for example, needs to simply ban purchases directly from TEMU, only via the New Zealand TEMU Department, which will in turn sell it at twice the price it pays to TEMU .. it will still be cheap and NZ will become rich enough to supply every citizen with their own milk cow, and more.
Interesting you bring up NZ. Germany apparently has a hardwired mentality of ‘we are a manufacturing exporting country’ leading them to turn a blind eye to the geopolitical risks of energy dependence on Russia. And making it difficult to adapt.
NZ has a hardwired mentality of ‘we are primary produce export nation’ and clings to this in the face of economic dependence on china and environmental problems.
Quite right Steve. There will still be dairy and red meat products, but the real deal red meat will be artisan, not commodity, which in the future is likely to be precision fermented, especially dairy. Look up RethinkX or google precision fermentation. Yes, scaling has been very challenging. Getting the taste right has been a challenge too and round one wasn’t successful. Let’s face it, Impossible Burgers were not as good as the real thing. Round two is now underway. Traditional farming is not gone tomorrow, but over a generation, climate response, technology, and consumer preferences will shift. Consumer behaviour will change. For example, here in New Zealand (a traditional lamb eating country) lamb consumption has gone from 25 kilograms per person per annum to 3.8 kilograms person per annum and it is still declining. Beef remains static. Pork and chicken demand has risen sharply. Once precision fermentation takes on the food ingredients business on price, commodity red meat and dairy are likely to enjoy a sunset. Of course, the experts could all be wrong and the status quo could just stay the same forever.
Stasis ( not the former East German political police) comes to mind. The society has become incapable of solving its own problems. Reminds me a lot of Japan over the last decades.
muslim hordes is what broke the camels back. I know that some Liberal is going to say that is a racist analogy, sadly ,I am past the I Don't Care stage.
When you see the cumulative effect on the German Nation, with regards to social services, law enforcement, the prison system, the courts, education, the unwillingness to assimilate is part of the war or attack on the German psyche.
What is happening in Germany, has been happening, is being replicated throughout Western democracies.
The fault lies not only with Germany, but the entire EU, and the entire UN.
What about the companies, corporations, business organizations, trade unions and leaders of these groups? Yes, government leaders are more to blame but non-government leaders are just doing what they are told?
I wonder if we’ll ever find out who was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. That certainly did a lot of damage to their economy. It was a terrible thing to do to Germany, to Europe and to Russia.
Most likely, the Americans were behind it. After all, if there are a couple of countries, in Europe, that Americans hate with all their hearts and souls, they are Germany and Russia.
Agree with Bob, Americans don’t think often of Germany but certainly don’t hate or despise it. They likely think of Mercedes and BMW with fondness. But allowing Russia to fund their war machine with energy sales to Europe could not continue. So hats off to whoever pulled it off.
It's amusing to see a Progressivist like Mounk slowly coming to terms with reality, but unwilling to give up his Globalist bleeding-heart illusions. The "refugees" are economic migrants who do not have any love for Euorpean culture or Globalist ideals. They would gladly return to their countries if they could make the same money there. Many are Islamic Supremacists, and many come from cultures where violence is a legitimate day-to-day strategy and women who do not cover themselves with a veil/burkha are sluts.The problem is that "many" immigrants commit crimes, not ""some", and many don't integrate because they don't want to be part of a shallow, consumer society that hates itself and its history.
There is not sharp distinction in most cases regarding refugees and (economic) migrants. Most people migrating from poor to richer countries are both at the same time
Do you think that you are good at promoting culture and a rational understanding of social reality ? You think that you have good values by writing comments here?
As a left leaning German I have a very hard time deciding who to vote for in the upcoming election. You outlined the shortcomings of Scholz and his SPD quite well. The green party is better in terms of its foreign policy but they're quite woke and I fear that might cause some trouble especially in case of a coalition with the conservatives. Maybe I just have to bite the bullet and vote conservative.
For what it's worth: Friedrich Merz (the conservative candidate and all but certainly Germany's next chancellor) is quite different from Merkel and Scholz in terms of his temperament. He certainly isn't boring.
As my wifes family in Germany and Austria are trending to do, as our entire family is, or will be doing very shortly here in Canada. It will be overwhelmingly a vote for the conservatives. As every country in Europe is slowly trending to do.
There is nothing like a critic who views with hindsight as inevitable what at the time of things happening was merely one of a great number of possible outcomes. Germany got lazy and supercilious and arrogant in the good years when we attributed our good luck to some hitherto hidden national genius. Since that wasn‘t true it is also not true that our current overload of challenges is due to any collective mistakes, much less the mistakes of only one person, however easy it may be to use her as a screen for one’s own projections. We‘re out of shape and still strangely unwilling to alter our diet or go to the gym. But don‘t worry: If it does not kill us, it will make us come out stronger.
What many observers do not understand is how totally German industry dominates the government. And the problem with business is that it has a time horizon of, at most, three years. German companies first made a lot of money with the Energiewende. They then realized that it wasn’t working and used their influence within the EU to thwart other countries’ energy policies, especially France, to prevent their industries from having an comparative advantage. Standort Deutschland is more important to them than the EU and its citizens, including Germans. This is a story of greed, arrogance and short-sightedness. German companies did it before 1914, they did it before 1940 and they just did it again.
Her stupid decision to open Germany’s borders she shares with Biden. In her decision to shut down the cleanest and most reliable source of electricity (nuclear) she stands alone. She has devastated her country.
She doesn't stand entirely alone concerning nuclear. It's been nearly impossible to build a new nuclear plant in the USA for decades. The greenies, clueless as usual, were sure that solar and wind were greener than nuclear. We've lost two decades worth of nuclear production to people who have exactly NO qualifications to decide such things.
The cognitive dissonance is a wonder to behold. To be fanatically concerned that over a hundred years a hundred workers and townsfolk might die from nuclear plant meltdowns (no matter the deaths of folks mining lithium and forging the city-blocks of concrete needed to plant windfarms into the earth (they're like icebergs)) and yet .. and yet: would not a BILLION deaths a century be worth the benefit of literally (according to these very same experts and activists) saving the untold TRILLIONS of lifeforms that within DECADES will go up in an EARTH ball of fire due to those selfish humans who took too long to swap out their incandescent lightbulbs.
"hundred years a hundred workers and townsfolk might die from nuclear plant meltdowns (no matter the deaths of folks mining lithium and forging the city-blocks of concrete needed to plant windfarms into the earth (they're like icebergs)) and yet .. and yet: would not a BILLION deaths a century be worth the benefit of literally (according to these very same experts and activists) saving the untold TRILLIONS of lifeforms that within DECADES will go up in an EARTH ball of fire"
Forget climate change in the utilitarian calculations. 20 thousand ish people are estimated to have died every year between 1999-2020 just from air pollution from coal plants. Clearly would have been a good exchange just based on those considerations.
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/deaths-associated-pollution-coal-power-plants#:~:text=The%20team%20estimated%20that%20between,from%20the%20coal%20power%20plants.
Yes her decision was bad. But the blame belongs solely to the German populace. I am German and since Chernobyl the majority German collective has been pathologically anti nuclear. Then Fukushima happened and no politician would have survived carrying on with nuclear. So yes Germans made some really stupid decisions during the last two decades and the blame lies with the electorate.
Is this more evidence that Germans would rather be exactly wrong than approximately right? Germany seems to be sticking with the wrong strategies but executing them quite well.
Hilarious, but sadly true, comment.
Germany’s genius is disaster. Nobody is as good at disaster as the Germans.
Any informed environmentalist familiar with the significant dangers associated with a country not being energy independent today will call for nuclear energy development or now redevelopment. Even in the United States, a country with vast energy resources, the cry for nuclear power is heard, because it has become increasingly apparent that there is no chance of reducing the carbon footprint unless the nuclear power option is pursued with ever increasing speed. To leave a country like Germany without recourse to various and reliable energy sources borders on being criminal and ultimately leading to its demise in a serious downward spiral. China is exploiting all its resources and those of any country willing to provide the fuel. Their transcendent status in the world now reveals whose policies have proven more effective. Western civilization has been declining for some time in no small way aided and abetted by those who apparently don't understand or care about sustaining the foundations of societies, especially energy sources.
I found this review of her memoirs in the FT to be particularly good, and by good I mean scathing.
https://archive.md/xfeIZ
It starts
"In the future, perhaps during one of her Baltic walks, Angela Merkel might reflect that calling her memoir Freedom, as Ukraine fights for just that against a Russia she did so much to enable, didn’t exude good taste. But let us be fair. The 700 pages after the title are worse. In a book of tireless self-pity, people are always underestimating the author. You are meant to conclude that she proved them wrong. You come away asking if they had half a point."
And gets better from there
excellent prose. the review, I mean
They could start by re-starting their nuclear and reversing their ideological and irrational approach to energy generation
Inaction and indecision are the rotten fruits of boring, unimaginative spells of governance which nations unglamorously slip into in the name of *normalcy*, *peaceful relations*, and as a result of (the understandable) *human distaste for change*.
Leaders must be bold in their governing in order to make sweeping positive changes. Not just in their promises, like Scholz, but in their actions... which is unfortunately one of the reasons many provocative and action-taking far-right politicians have been embraced this decade. Seems like Merkel, and other leaders who operate with similar politics and approach, had hoped for things to blow over so they wouldn't have to make any tough decisions.
A thought provoking read Yascha. Looking beyond the disastrous austerity currently being inflicted on New Zealand, a strategic question begs an answer. Has New Zealand backed the right horses? I would argue they might not have. For example, like Germany, New Zealand is reliant on China for most of its growth. And growth cannot be infinite in a finite world. It’s just maths. New Zealand has also made significant bets on sunset industries like red meat and dairy. These industries are problematic in environmental, externality, and future-proofing terms. Plus, commodity trading is problematic by default. To that end, these industries are reliant on the rest of the world to maintain the integrity of the free trade system it relies on to import and export. That is a risk. How is it mitigated? Looking forward 20 years, how will New Zealand maintain or improve its standard of living and societal prosperity? Or has New Zealand entered a spiral of permanent linear decline? If not, why not? I’m struggling to see how New Zealand can prosper whilst maintaining the status quo? Does the country need a hard reset? If the answer is yes, how does that happen? A Labour coalition led by Hipkins is unlikely to be a ‘hard reset’ party. Meanwhile, domestic squabbling over hospitals, ferries, toll-roads, potholes, crime, and almost everything else, continues unabated. Outside of Godzone, the rest of the world is changing…rapidly.
Thought bubble extract here: “Germany’s crisis goes deeper than that. In the memorable formulation of Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Germany has long “outsourced its security to the United States, its energy needs to Russia and its export-led growth to China.” Merkel doubled down on all three of these bets. Since she left office, all three have gone belly up.
At dizzying speed, Germany has gone from economic powerhouse to the new “sick man of Europe.” Manufacturing in the country is down significantly. Its vaunted car industry has been particularly hard hit. Volkswagen, for example, recently announced that it would shutter some of its German factories for the first time in the company’s history. It is no exaggeration to say that Germany now faces its deepest crisis since the end of World War II.”
Everyone overthinks everything .. it's not that hard. New Zealand, for example, needs to simply ban purchases directly from TEMU, only via the New Zealand TEMU Department, which will in turn sell it at twice the price it pays to TEMU .. it will still be cheap and NZ will become rich enough to supply every citizen with their own milk cow, and more.
Yeah-nah, Bob, not sure that will do the trick mate.
Interesting you bring up NZ. Germany apparently has a hardwired mentality of ‘we are a manufacturing exporting country’ leading them to turn a blind eye to the geopolitical risks of energy dependence on Russia. And making it difficult to adapt.
NZ has a hardwired mentality of ‘we are primary produce export nation’ and clings to this in the face of economic dependence on china and environmental problems.
Dairy and red meat sunset industries? Hardly.
Quite right Steve. There will still be dairy and red meat products, but the real deal red meat will be artisan, not commodity, which in the future is likely to be precision fermented, especially dairy. Look up RethinkX or google precision fermentation. Yes, scaling has been very challenging. Getting the taste right has been a challenge too and round one wasn’t successful. Let’s face it, Impossible Burgers were not as good as the real thing. Round two is now underway. Traditional farming is not gone tomorrow, but over a generation, climate response, technology, and consumer preferences will shift. Consumer behaviour will change. For example, here in New Zealand (a traditional lamb eating country) lamb consumption has gone from 25 kilograms per person per annum to 3.8 kilograms person per annum and it is still declining. Beef remains static. Pork and chicken demand has risen sharply. Once precision fermentation takes on the food ingredients business on price, commodity red meat and dairy are likely to enjoy a sunset. Of course, the experts could all be wrong and the status quo could just stay the same forever.
Stasis ( not the former East German political police) comes to mind. The society has become incapable of solving its own problems. Reminds me a lot of Japan over the last decades.
Opening the floodgates to the
muslim hordes is what broke the camels back. I know that some Liberal is going to say that is a racist analogy, sadly ,I am past the I Don't Care stage.
When you see the cumulative effect on the German Nation, with regards to social services, law enforcement, the prison system, the courts, education, the unwillingness to assimilate is part of the war or attack on the German psyche.
What is happening in Germany, has been happening, is being replicated throughout Western democracies.
The fault lies not only with Germany, but the entire EU, and the entire UN.
I think it is better to have more Muslims than bigots and racists as you
Yes Vladan
Its just a weird coincidence that in every country that Muslims immigrate to, there is nothing but discord and trouble.
Of Course why and how would I dare utter such a racist statement.
When ever muslims are murdered by sick individuals, New Zealand, Canada, there is an outpouring of grief and compassion and outrage.
Twelve hundred Israelis get massacred and they are on a tour de force in the streets celebrating rape and murder which was filmed by the perpetrators.
You immigrate to a country and then Demand your laws be adopted. Become the large criminal organizations in every country they come to.
And i could go on and on , and no i Am not going to waste my time with statistics, because you already know that i Am right.
So save your accusations for you and friends like yourself. If you haven't noticed, a lot more people are starting to care a lot less.
Oh no, you are using the long wolf argument. Muslims have been killed by organised white nationalists and racists.
So you mean that somebody has bad values and behaviours because of a single religious identity?
How about your read research or get more educated?
You mean that there are countries without problems or?
Your buddy in Magdeburg today?
You are misusing an act of terror in order to justify your racism, hate and bigotry
"And yet, Merkel’s refugee policy has, with the benefit of hindsight, come to seem neither particularly sensible nor particularly humane."
Nope. You don't need to have any hindsight. It didn't take a genius to realize it was an idiotic plan at the time.
What about the companies, corporations, business organizations, trade unions and leaders of these groups? Yes, government leaders are more to blame but non-government leaders are just doing what they are told?
Yes, the failure of imagination sadly goes far wider than the intellectual class.
Yikes! A stinging rebuke I’d never thought I’d read from you.
I wonder if we’ll ever find out who was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. That certainly did a lot of damage to their economy. It was a terrible thing to do to Germany, to Europe and to Russia.
“We will bring an end to it. I promise you.”
Joe Biden. Feb 7, 2022
Most likely, the Americans were behind it. After all, if there are a couple of countries, in Europe, that Americans hate with all their hearts and souls, they are Germany and Russia.
My goodness, Americans don’t hate Germany. Where do you people come up with this stuff?
Germans make up the largest ethnic group in the states, even ahead of the Irish.
Cincinnati Ohio has the second largest Oktoberfest in the world. Midwestern cities strive to be more German than others.
Agree with Bob, Americans don’t think often of Germany but certainly don’t hate or despise it. They likely think of Mercedes and BMW with fondness. But allowing Russia to fund their war machine with energy sales to Europe could not continue. So hats off to whoever pulled it off.
I don't think Americans think or feel much at all towards Germany and Russia .. unless someone else forces them to.
That said .. maybe we did, maybe we didn't. I'm not tellin'.
I thought they found it was Ukrainians already, engaging in a geopolitically logical bit of sabotage as their country was in a war?
Since when was Russia in Europe?
Since forever.
It's amusing to see a Progressivist like Mounk slowly coming to terms with reality, but unwilling to give up his Globalist bleeding-heart illusions. The "refugees" are economic migrants who do not have any love for Euorpean culture or Globalist ideals. They would gladly return to their countries if they could make the same money there. Many are Islamic Supremacists, and many come from cultures where violence is a legitimate day-to-day strategy and women who do not cover themselves with a veil/burkha are sluts.The problem is that "many" immigrants commit crimes, not ""some", and many don't integrate because they don't want to be part of a shallow, consumer society that hates itself and its history.
Do you have any statistics?
There is not sharp distinction in most cases regarding refugees and (economic) migrants. Most people migrating from poor to richer countries are both at the same time
Do you think that you are good at promoting culture and a rational understanding of social reality ? You think that you have good values by writing comments here?
With people like you, globalism and freedom do not need any enemies
As a left leaning German I have a very hard time deciding who to vote for in the upcoming election. You outlined the shortcomings of Scholz and his SPD quite well. The green party is better in terms of its foreign policy but they're quite woke and I fear that might cause some trouble especially in case of a coalition with the conservatives. Maybe I just have to bite the bullet and vote conservative.
For what it's worth: Friedrich Merz (the conservative candidate and all but certainly Germany's next chancellor) is quite different from Merkel and Scholz in terms of his temperament. He certainly isn't boring.
As my wifes family in Germany and Austria are trending to do, as our entire family is, or will be doing very shortly here in Canada. It will be overwhelmingly a vote for the conservatives. As every country in Europe is slowly trending to do.
There is nothing like a critic who views with hindsight as inevitable what at the time of things happening was merely one of a great number of possible outcomes. Germany got lazy and supercilious and arrogant in the good years when we attributed our good luck to some hitherto hidden national genius. Since that wasn‘t true it is also not true that our current overload of challenges is due to any collective mistakes, much less the mistakes of only one person, however easy it may be to use her as a screen for one’s own projections. We‘re out of shape and still strangely unwilling to alter our diet or go to the gym. But don‘t worry: If it does not kill us, it will make us come out stronger.
What many observers do not understand is how totally German industry dominates the government. And the problem with business is that it has a time horizon of, at most, three years. German companies first made a lot of money with the Energiewende. They then realized that it wasn’t working and used their influence within the EU to thwart other countries’ energy policies, especially France, to prevent their industries from having an comparative advantage. Standort Deutschland is more important to them than the EU and its citizens, including Germans. This is a story of greed, arrogance and short-sightedness. German companies did it before 1914, they did it before 1940 and they just did it again.