When I first came here an elderly lady, my next-door neighbor, gave me a book styled,Inn herrlich strömender, grünblauer Fluß which describes the trade running near my house through Bavaria and on to the black sea dating to the middle ages. Interestingly, the crews on the barges that handled the horses and the towing were required by law to get many liters of beer a day.
Rivers today are not of much relative economic importance but they historically account for the fact that most of the village churches in my area have Bell shaped steeples. And they account for the fact that Hitler, the son of a minor custom official, was born on a little town along the river where a custom station was established, as described in the book above.
As to declining populations, I entertain a very minority view, at least in the longer-term, I believe that those countries, especially Japan, which refrains from importing uneducated and dependent workers to compensate for an aging population will prosper because they turn to robots. I think Germany's problem will be the demographic wave which now appears to be inexorable that show a Muslim takeover in my children's lifetime. If that occurs, Germany will have more on his plate than its energy policy.
Perhaps the irony is that a Muslim population will bring Germany to its senses-at least about its obsessive environmentalism. Electric bills here are the highest in Europe after they shut down domestic atomic energy sources of electricity. We still get much energy from atomic energy, but that comes from France where the prevailing winds will no doubt bring us the results of any catastrophe.
Germany has always looked to the Eastern states as substitute colonies that Germany could not acquire because it came into the nationstate business under Bismarck too late for colonies of consequence so it turned to the east for markets and exploits the European Union in that fashion even today. Incidentally, German GDP consists of more than 40 % exports!
Thus, when my neighbor speaks of needing Russia more than America, he is thinking traditionally about markets for Germany's exports. Better he should look into those churches under those bell steeples for relief from the demographic wave about to crest over Germany.
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