Quote (thundercock @ 5 Apr 2022 03:33)
Well, I for one am definitely impacted. We have family friends in Eastern Ukraine. Do you know anyone who has died yet from the war?
Probably because you don't care if people you don't know die. I'm the same way for the most part because people are always dying. We have hundreds of thousands die annually in Central America from the drug war and I don't think about it that much. I honestly think I'd be singing a different tune if I didn't know people in Eastern Ukraine. Still though, if I can sacrifice by avoiding as much Chinese shit as possible, you can surely thread the needle and make some sacrifices yourself.
Like I've already said in my earlier reply to you, an energy embargo against Russia would ask a lot more than just "some sacrifices" from my country. It would trigger a massive recession, probably worse than the Great Recession, cause a lot of corporations from the chemical industry and other energy-intensive industries to relocate to other places and take hundreds of thousands of jobs with them, and drastically increase poverty due to stagflation.
You gotta keep in mind that an economically strong Germany is desperately needed in the current situation. We are expected to keep the euro afloat (the French and Italians surely aren't the ones maintaining the currency's credibility). We are expected to house and feed hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees already (chances are that this number rises into 7-figure territory before everything is said and done). We are expected to decarbonize our economy and society (which requires funding, materials and also energy). We are expected to invest heavily into our military. We are expected to fund arms and food supplies for Ukraine, and to pay for a big chunk of the rebuilding of their nation once the war is over. And all of these expenses and investments are imminent against the backdrop of covid straining both our public finances and the willingness of the people to make sacrifices as well as already very high inflation rates.
I might be rationalizing a selfish position here, but I genuinely don't think that it is in Europe's or Ukraine's interest for Germany to shoot itself in the foot with a self-imposed embargo on Russian gas. Phasing out Russian gas over the next 1-3 years is the far more sensible approach.
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 4 2022 09:02pm