Posted on 09/01/2022 12:12:16 PM PDT by bitt
Professor Damien Ernst of the University of Liege in Belgium is making startling predictions about the economic future of Europe, if something is not done to lower energy prices. In an interview with French news site Atlantico on Monday, Ernst predicted that if energy prices are not contained, Europe is going to see mass impoverishment, and he noted there is no indication the energy situation is going to improve anytime soon.
In the interview he predicted that, “the perfect storm” that has formed in energy markets will have a massive impact on household and businesses, and that as time goes on it will be inevitable that EU households will begin to fall behind on their energy bills.
In Belgium, Ernst predicted that households will, on average, end up paying €10,000 ($10,000) per year for power and heating. Already, in Ireland, there are accounts emerging on social media of small businesses with bi-monthly power bills as high as €9,836 ($9,800), before the onset of winter, which is expected to produce a surge in prices for energy.
Ernst went on to say the energy crisis that is fast approaching in the EU will dwarf the 2008 financial crisis and the oil crises of the 1970’s. He added, “This will have economic consequences, especially for purchasing power, and lead to financial constraints.” He went on to warn that, “it will be impossible to control inflation,” with the jumps in energy prices which appear now to be unavoidable.
In addition, as inflation takes off, it will begin to curtail sales and crush the economy itself, leading to unemployment, even before central banks attempt to constrain the inflation with massive interest rate hikes and tightening of the money supplies, which itself will further cut sales and produce unemployment.
The energy market was already tight at the beginning of the year, as economies reopened after the pandemic and the new energy demand ramped up into markets which had not yet increased output to meet it. Then the market was shocked as Russia began its special military operation in Ukraine. Western sanctions followed, which removed Russian crude from Western markets, and that led to disputes over payment mechanisms for natural gas supplies from Russia, which further restricted Russian natural gas flows. Then technical issues with pipeline supplies saw the Nord Stream pipeline flows cut to 20% of normal capacity on the heels of everything else.
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The people will revolt.
Damien Ernst is correct.
You can NOT run a modern society on solar panels and wind mills. The European’s are going to discover this first hand.
The problem is the politicians will just try to blame it all on Putin. Just like Joe did.
Fixed headline.
Time to invest in thermal underwear and wool socks. If you haven’t already!
the people will warm themselves by the bonfire
Well maybe that’s the silver lining to this situation - reality is about to slap the green out of the Europeans. Maybe by next year they will be restarting their nuke plants and setting Greta adrift on an eco-friendly raft into the North Atlantic...
Not really sure it took somebody with a college degree to see that one coming......hell I graduated high school with a C average and I coulda predicted it a year ago.
Not laughing at bad orange man now are they.
Very little sympathy from me.
The EU and UK believed a boycott would work to keep Russia in check, yet, they didn’t check Russia with Crimea. In fact, they ran ahead, making sure to kill off domestic energy sources, while not arming up.
What changed with more of Ukraine being invaded? Was some okay for Russia? to take?
It’s funny they also stomped all over Trump and laughed at him for suggesting reliance on Russia was not wise.
The EU and Ukraine and Russia can all go to heck, for all I care. The EU wouldn’t even meet NATO minimum contract standards of defense, save for Poland, as I recall.
Russia, can you take Germany next?
Drop the green energy nonsense and end the sanction war with Russia. Problem solved. If not, the leaders of countries responsible should end up like Muammar Gaddafi.
Cutting energy use with higher prices is the PLAN of the WEF and greenies.
Welcome to The Great Reset.
Who could see that coming?
You haven't backward. It was us and European countries that fomented a revolution in Ukraine that set off an eight-year civil war. Did you really think those of Russian ethnicity in eastern Ukraine were going to tolerate being persecuted by Ukrainian nationalists and neo-Nazis? Did you think Russia was going to sit back and let radicals that took over expel them from a naval base in Crimea they had possessed since 1783?
Russia did everything it could to avoid the present. It came to us with their security concerns in December. All they wanted was a guarantee of Ukrainian neutrality/that it wouldn't join NATO and Minsk Agreement, which Ukraine signed off on, to be implemented. It would have given state-like autonomy to Donetsk and Lugansk but kept both in Ukraine. There is absolutely nothing unreasonable about those requests.
The Biden regime and NATO did everything it could to assure this war happened. It instructed Ukraine to go on the offensive in Donbass and try to exterminate the ethnic Russian population. Kamala Harris teased NATO membership for Ukraine.
This claim of Russian aggression is nonsense. It was our aggression toward Russia under Obama and Biden with full support of the neocons that is the root cause of the war.
And, what has it accomplished? It is unnecessarily made Russia our enemy and pushed it into an alliance with China.
But they HAVE been addressed - the German foreign minister said just today — nothing changes and German voters will have to sacrifice to continue the war in Ukraine.
“This claim of Russian aggression is nonsense.”
So there are no Russian troops in Ukraine?
L
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