In the face of self-created energy shortages — goosestepping Germans are beginning to ship their manufacturing to the United States

24 September 2022

Boomeranging anti-Russia sanctions

Culturally contemptible self-destruction.

From Spiegel International:

There is hardly any doubt left that Germany is facing recession.

The first bits of bad news have begun trickling in, likely just the beginning. The toilet paper manufacturer Hakle, the shoe store chain Görtz and the auto parts supplier Dr. Schneider have all filed for insolvency.

Companies from energy-intensive sectors like the chemical, steel and paper industries have reduced production or suspended it altogether, such as the fertilizer producer SKW Piesteritz.

Is production in Germany even still worth it any longer? Or is it time to move away to a place where energy prices aren’t as high?

At 94 billion cubic meters per year, Germany is by far the largest consumer of natural gas in Europe, with a third of that going to industry.

A dangerous tendency could develop. The automobile industry in particular must invest huge sums in the coming years.

Why not use the opportunity to move production sites to places where energy is already far cheaper?

Or to places where renewable energies will soon be available in large quantities?

© 2022 Martin Hesse, Simon Hage, Simon Book, Gerald Traufetter, Michael Sauga, Benedikt Müller-Arnold und Marcel Rosenbach, Growing Energy Crisis: A Grave Threat to Industry in Germany, Spiegel International (21 September 2022)

Yes?

Sure, why not emulate the United States' self-destructive pattern in moving its entire manufacturing base to other countries?

We all can see how well that worked out for the American public.

Reinforcing the point

From TASS — reporting on a Wall Street Journal article:

Some European companies that produce steel, fertilizers and other important commodities for the global economy are moving their production sites to the United States due to high energy prices.

Thus, the US economy, writes The Wall Street Journal , has become one of the main beneficiaries of the European energy crisis.

As volatile energy prices and persistent supply chain problems threaten Europe with what some economists say could be a new era of deindustrialization, Washington has introduced a range of incentives for manufacturing and green energy.

So, at the beginning of this year, the Danish jewelry company Pandora and the German auto concern Volkswagen announced the expansion of production in the United States.

Tesla is suspending plans to manufacture batteries in Germany as it expects to receive tax breaks under an inflation reduction law signed by US President Joe Biden in August.

Of these developments

Larry Johnson wrote that:

The craven sycophancy demonstrated by Germany, France and the United Kingdom in their passionate embrace of America’s confrontation with Russia is now on life support.

Despite continued bombastic threats to keep arming Ukraine until Russia collapses, economic reality is hitting the Europeans like an icy cold shower from a fire hose.

Rapid inflation, particularly in the energy sector, is forcing factories and businesses to shutter operations.

The de-industrialization of Europe, especially Germany and the UK, has started.

German steel plants are closing, German bakeries are trying to figure out how to pay soaring utility bills while still making bread and pretzels and German toilet-paper manufacturer Hakle GmbH has applied for insolvency proceedings in self-administration.

[T]he economic situation in each of the countries is going to create enormous domestic pressure for the respective European governments, which currently are cheer-leading Ukraine and cursing Russia, to rethink their policies.

The Russia/Ukraine war already has created significant fissures among EU members, with Hungary refusing to impose further sanctions on Russia.

Cold, hungry voters will become increasingly outraged at sending millions of dollars to Ukraine while deprivation multipl[ies] from Berlin to London.

The moral? — Every bit of the West's suicidal, self-strangling . . .

. . . anti-Russia mayhem was easily foreseeable.

What does that say about the intelligence and analytical acumen of Western leaders and their easily repressed populations of passive sheep?

I suppose that we could give American neocons an award for having pulled off something convolutedly Machiavellian (in successfully stealing German manufacturing). But we Americans are also, ultimately, going to drown. Having self-extinguished every one of the mechanisms by which post-World War 2 America enforced its economic dominance over the rest of the planet.

No prize, ultimately, should go with achieving such an easily avoidable cultural suicide.

Especially so, when the whole bubbling anti-Russia mess was predicated upon indulging (and over-the-top supporting) literal Nazis in Ukraine.

Our Western demise would be darkly funny — were it not so evilly pathetic at the same time.

Little is so morally disgusting as a bunch of self-righteously suicide-inviting — constantly bleat-bloviating, holier-than-thou — pro-Nazi sheep.

PeteFree.com

In the face of self-created energy shortages — goosestepping Germans are beginning to ship their manufacturing to the United States