Posted on 04/01/2022 3:24:52 AM PDT by GonzoII
Germany is experiencing the highest level of inflation since the country was reunified in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall and economic growth projections have been cut in half amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
On Thursday, Germany’s federal statistics agency Destatis revealed that inflation has risen by 7.3 per cent over this time last year, up from 5.1 per cent in February.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
“ Russia is able to turn them into Argentina”
That is the same kind of fantasy that led Putin to invade the Ukraine. That he can beat up someone, but not really thinking that they will fight back, or that the police will get involved, or their family or friends.
Putin’s vicious criminal behavior is what started this. It can’t be condoned or rewarded. So decent countries and decent people are forced to oppose him. It is very like Putin to keep ramping up, expecting everyone else to back down. Now he is doing it with very big, and very capable countries, who cannot accept what he is doing.
It looks like things will just continue to escalate, until Putin is dead.
You are talking from the position of faux moral superiority. We aren’t talking about escalation, but about modest response to an all=out economic war.
On a side note, I don’t remember similar sanctions put on the US over the Second Iraq War. Do you regret it?
Totally superficial and incorrect analysis. Obama / “The West” / NWO were in fact highly ineffective in managing the currents in Ukraine. About like me trying to affect a major Ohio River flood by sticking my hand in it. Which currents were NOT pro-Russia. Among the people they were anti-corruption and increasingly leaning pro-EU (mainly to rid the worst of the corruption.) Plus, Ukrainians, esp. the under 40 crowd, could easily see their EU neighbors were doing better than Ukraine, despite Ukraine’s enormous resources. Yanukovych was corrupt as hell. Even his own Party eventually helped throw him out.
(May Biden and Pooty suffer the same fate.)
Oh, yeah, like that’s gonna convince the Chinese to do more business with Russia.
China is not covered by a ruble rule.
His party didn't 'turn against him'. Those that didn't manage to flee were under the thumb of the coup regime and didn't want their legs broken.
The pro-EU Maidan protestors were the pretext for the coup. Right Sector & Svoboda - who actually carried out the coup - had no interest in joining the EU. The Ukraine they prefer to live in could never pass the anti-corruption requirements. Now - after eight years - the Ukraine is no closer to joining the EU than landing on the moon.
Once the coup went in: Obama's WhiteHouse made sure that US Aid money - laundered through Kolomoisky's Privatbank - was used to fund the proxy war in Donbass. This isn't your hand in a stream Brother - but men, missiles, tanks and artillery.
Remember that the Svoboda party had only about 8% of the seats in the Rada, but mysteriously held a whopping third of the coup government’s 18-member cabinet.
This included the posts of Deputy President, Minister of Defence and Prosecutor-General. That's the state monopoly of force right there. With enough billions in redirected Aid - and later, direct 'lethal Aid' - the Donbass war that they began could theoretically have gone on for ever.
“We aren’t talking about escalation”
We were talking about your proposal that Putin cancel existing gas contracts, and charge 10 times the price for future supplies - designed to provoke an economic, and perhaps humanitarian crisis in Germany.
Yeah, that is escalating.
And yeah, it would provoke a damaging response on Russia.
You're right. It's time for the world to 'get real'...
How do you describe current European actions towards Russia? They explicitly claim that they want to cause a humanitarian catastrophe to force a regime change. They pushed too far already, what else they can do to escalate?:) No gas, no fertilizer and no food is a perfect response.
Even in 10 years LNG will not be remotely competitive with piped gas, so Russia can afford to wait for Germany to simmer down and work out where it's best interests lie - and all the time, remain a valued customer.
And if Germany stays crazy and hubristic - Russia always retains the ability to switch the gas off.
(Note: I do not contest Russia’s moral right to impose gas sanctions - I just think that Putin will retain that power and try to re-align Germany)
I don’t see anything wrong in killing the German industry. They brought it on themselves.
Read and learn:
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/basf-ceo-warns-germany-total-collapse-if-russian-gas-supply-cut
What you are proposing is national suicide—for Germany.
Shooting yourself in the knee to protest the high school bully is just dumb.
Nobody wants to be the crash test dummy.
I think re-aligning is useless at this point, unless with new Germany. The Euros stupidly declared war on Russia from the position of weakness. Why shouldn’t the Russians use it? The Germans got used to living a good life. 30% unemployment +stagflation is a good fix for temper problems.
Italian debts are already wiping out Germany. All that money the industrious Germans have saved up in Target2, and it's ... wastepaper. The ECB and the Euro may not last the year.
A New Germany is not such a remote possibility.
A Russia that patiently bears with Germany through the Euro crash may be rewarded.
The longer the easier their are to adapt and Scholz is going to blame everything on Putin. Swift Weimar-style wipe-out is better to me. They need to put those green clowns on pitchforks.
Oh, the German Greens are toast.
Greta will be so cross :0)
It seems to me Europe and perhaps Germany most of all will take a pretty good (bad) short term economic hit from all this, but, it will push many things, esp. energy supply, in a direction that is healthier for the Euros (and the US) in the medium term.
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