German economic advisers slash 2022 growth forecast to 1.8%

BERLIN (AP) — The German government’s panel of independent economic advisers on Wednesday slashed its 2022 growth forecast for Europe’s biggest economy in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concern over energy supplies and prices.

The group forecast that Germany’s gross domestic product will expand by only 1.8% this year, compared with the 4.6% it predicted in November. It said the economy won’t return to its pre-pandemic level until the third quarter.

Last year, the country’s GDP grew by 2.9%; in the final quarter of 2021, it shrank by 0.3% compared with the previous three-month period.

“The high dependence on Russian energy supplies entails a considerable risk of lower economic output and even a recession with significantly higher inflation rates,” the panel said.

The economists said in a statement that “Germany should immediately do everything possible to take precautions against a suspension of Russian energy supplies and quickly end its dependence on Russian energy sources.”

Shortly before the economists released their forecast, Germany triggered an early warning level for natural gas supplies amid concerns that Russia could cut off deliveries unless it is paid in rubles.

I thought the Germans were smarter than this.

The same US government whose cut-and-run tactics in Afghanistan resulted in thousands of Europeans being left behind has demonstrated that in matters pertaining to anything more than ice cream flavors, it is completely incompetent.

What anyone's plan was in the event that their largest provider of natural gas would demand payment on its terms is anyone's guess, but the US had already demonstrated sufficient incompetence for the Germans to realize that we had no ideas of any consequence to offer them.

(They needed a Plan B months ago.)

The fallout of repercussions from the sanctions against Russia specifically as they affect the 2022 election is not that clear and easy to predict.

First, typically voters do not vote on foreign policy but on their pocketbook. Today, we have both rolled into one and the question is will the voters parse the cause of their financial distress or will they simply do what they traditionally do, blame the president in office at the moment the pain occurs?

The legacy media is grinding away at the proposition that the war in Ukraine is Trump's fault, that the price of gasoline and the rising inflation all occurred because of the war or because of Trump. For good measure, they tell us that Biden is managing the war well and keeping us from being incinerated in nuclear war.

Simply because the facts are to the contrary does not mean that the message will not sell, or sell well enough, for the Democrats to survive. Remember, the media was able to spike the Hunter Biden laptop story and win the election. So facts on the ground do not necessarily matter because of the power of the Democrat controlled media.

I think of my granddaughters, college graduates all, who have been exposed to the theories of the Frankfurt school in University and who listen to NPR. If they watch the news on network channels, it is NBC or ABC. Most of that class of people simply were unaware of the Hunter Biden laptop at the time of the election or were uninformed as to its significance.

I don't have much confidence in a Republican message driven by the likes of Mitch McConnell although Kevin McCarthy, by comparison, is doing a better job. Our best advocate is the dollar amount posted at the gas pump. Housewives can be very aggressive when they can't feed their kids. Housewives and commuters at the gas pump are not all that likely to weigh the underlying causes of their pain, they will vote their pocket books as usual. My suspicion is that voters overall will revert to form and blame the president at the time.

“President Trump told them plainly to their face, five years ago, that this was going to happen. The little einsteins laughed at him.”

YEP, they did, literally, laugh at him. The video clips are there. And if they had LISTENED to him, they’d have our LNG by now...instead, they’ll have to wait until 2026 for our next big terminal to start operations - and then only if Brandon allows us to continue gas production.

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