First, in the case of Merkel....you aren’t dealing with the typical average political hack. She’s a scientist by trade, and she calculates the dynamics to a position, and changes as information or evidence presents itself.
Look over nuke power in Germany. The commercial companies felt a decade that they had the upper hand and full-support of Merkel. After the Japan episode...Merkel gracefully changed the whole dynamic and nuke power is coming to an end within the next decade. There’s absolute shock at the skillful handling by the gov’t over the issue.
Go look over financial matters in Germany. You won’t find them in any disorder.
Go look at incompetent ministers within the cabinet. Any hint of a problem...you go. You need to keep your act clean or face termination. Trust is an absolute must within the Merkel government.
Greece has played out a marginal game of poker and never had anything to negotiate with or get a better deal with. Merkel knew that. Greece wasted a fair amount of the last six years.....thinking they could pretend to do the cuts and pretend to renovate the pension program. Well...Greece wasted six whole years. Merkel knows this.
The curious thing is that Merkel isn’t a big speech-maker...nor does she hog TV time or do weekly interviews. What she says in an entire week in terms of being important...could fit on a 3x5 card. If you ask her a big question over some issue....there isn’t some 888-word answer...it’ll be six lines max.
The Germans bet big on solar. Epic fail.
She’s still Obama’s bitch.