what are you talking about?

its the greatest germany of all time, where blue chip companies are shutting down production and firing people

well known companies that survived two world wars bankrupt in half an election cycle

you dont like that? then you are a nazi





what i will never understand is why the mob is so obsessed with people they dont like

IF tucker does a putin interview and you dont like it, just dont follow tucker and ignore it?

of course we know why they dont want to see this happen

1) I’m sure this is the case, but so are the economies of G7 countries which suddenly ramped up their spendings to 2% of GDP as per NATO guidelines and are in the middle of a massive rearm having jettisoned their old toys into the Ukranian grinder. Still the data speaks for itself, despite unprecedented sanctions, completely devastated supply chains, extra costs on avoiding sanctions and what not - the economy still managed to grow. You have to admit that literally nobody expected this. Even Russians themselves.

2) Gas prices spike in August 2022 was caused by a German moronic bureaucrat going on the market and hoovering all spot cargoes driving the prices upwards to unforeseen heights and nearly bankrupting half of German economy. This really tells you of the quality of people that are currently governing the biggest European economy. I have seen this unfold in front of my own screens and talked extensively with senior leadership at a lot of gas traders who had not many positive words of encouragement for German decision to pump gas prices to these levels. Don’t get me wrong, they all made a killing in the process, but they all knew whom they are trading against, and who’s paying for this policy mistake ultimately. Energy prices have come down somewhat indeed, but are still structurally twice or three times higher than 2021 levels and as long term run contracts off, this will flow through to the rest of the economy.

It makes no sense for Russia not to trade with Germany and for Germany not to trade with Russia. This mutual relationship goes back decades. It’s very narrowsighted to jettison in your biggest and most efficient commodity supplier to be a protectorate of the United States. After all even at the height of the Cold War in the 1970s the likes of Mabanaft and Marquard & Bahls imported Soviet oil and products into West Germany and made a killing in the process.

Russia and Germany did have a trade dispute in 2021 when a manufacturer of a gas compressor turbine refused to service it - citing sanctions - so Russians called the bluff saying it’s dangerous to operate a high pressure pipeline with faulty equipment and closed the tap. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Don’t forget the whole NS2 commissioning debacle how people were trying to derail it for years citing the most ridiculous reasons, yet had no problems pushing through LNG terminals permissioning bypassing due process and bulldozing over environmentalist protests. What happened to that Toni Lux lady from Ende Gelände. Is she alright?

3) I have been hearing stories how Chinese economy is collapsing (and how American economy is collapsing to be fair) since I was born. I’m sure these are all real concerns which need to be addressed, however we are discussing pure numbers here. Every single G7 economy has its own set of slowly burning fuses which could potentially ignite the powder keg, however you have to admit that growing 5% a year in an economy the size of China is impressive at the very least.

This post was edited by Malopox on Feb 5 2024 08:53am

Like I said: Germany committed a dozen different, horrible policy mistakes over the past 2-3 decades which are now coming home to roost. One of them was the German economy getting too complacent, relying on cheap energy and cheap labor instead of innovating and improving actual productivity. Another one was getting too dependent on one particular supplier, Russia. A third one was shutting down all nuclear power plants while simultaneously trying to phase out oil and coal. A fourth one was underinvesting in the energy grid.

Simply put: the German economic boom of the 2010s was a house of cards, built on an undervalued currency, artificially dampened wages, central bank money printing, cannibalizing the labor force of Eastern Europe, underinvesting into its own infrastructure, underpreparing for an aging society and being a geopolitical free rider.

Germany has been one of the biggest losers of the past 2-3 years, but it's not exclusively due to the Ukraine war. Also, objectively, there was no way Germany could have remained hooked on Russian gas to the pre-war extent, even if its political leadership had wanted to. The Russians had made a concerted, decades-long effort to hook Europe on their gas precisely because they wanted to weaponize this dependency. Do you guys think it's a coincidence that the invasion of Ukraine began weeks after Nordstream 2 was completed?

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 6 2024 06:28am

lets add for the people here, that after some investigation since the invasion it was discovered how russia literally funded anti nuclear and anti fracking protests to make sure germany wouldnt use its own energy potential

they bought an entire network of politicians and tried to hide the cashflow behind foundations in the north east of germany

but the main culprit is still angela merkel, without the anti nuclear madness this shit isnt happening

btw, i am glad people finally realise what a ridiculous system germany's economy is since the introduction of the euro

G7 countries are ramping up their military spending, yes, but 1) many still don't reach the 2% goal, and 2) those 2% pale in comparison to the share of GDP that Russia is spending on its military budget.


They didn't expect energy prices to soar to quite these heights, nor did they anticipate the Europeans to unnecessarily compound the panic on the markets with their aggressive sanctions and phasing out of Russian supplies. The pivot of Saudi Arabia/OPEC toward lower production/higher target prices as well as the Biden admin's commitment to the climage agenda also played into their hands.


In case you don't know: I am from Germany, so trust me, I know very well how utterly incompetent, moronic and ideologically deluded our elites are, particularly our politicians and media.


It depends on the reference point. Energy prices were still artificially low in early 2021, when Germany (and most of Europe) was still stuck in varying degrees of covid lockdowns. Gas prices in particular began soaring since the summer of 2021 as Russia deliberately throttled supplies and forced Germany to go into the 2021/22 winter with relatively low filling levels in its gas storage. (This point also indirectly proves that Russia had been preparing for the Ukraine war for months and that failed negotiations in late 2021 were not the actual reason why they pulled the trigger.) In any case, gas prices in Germany more than doubled over the course of 2021.


I've said this many times already: there is no way that Germany and Russia stop doing trade indefinitely. Once this war is over, trade will gradually resume. Not to the previous levels though; I don't see Germany ever trapping itself in a dangerous dependence on Russia again.


The US obviously had a geostrategic interest in stopping NS2. Some of the reasons they brought up against it were indeed bullshit, and I discarded them. Nonetheless, the argument that NS2 would create a dangerous degree of dependence on one single supplier, and a politically unreliable one at that, proved right in the end.




China was stuck in the covid era longer than most other countries, they had hardline lockdowns until November 2022 (sic) while most Western countries had moved on from the pandemic since the summer of 2021. Them growing by 5% in 2023 is not as impressive as it seems at first glance since the 2022 baseline was low.

Likewise, the hundreds of billions of debt that Evergrande is sitting on are not an imagination; there are hard facts underpinning the notion that China sits on a real estate bubble.

Dude...

Trade is what made nations / entire civilizations thrive all throughout history and trade still forms the foundation of our modern society. Without trade everything slows down and comes to a halt which is what happened in Germany because brain dead politicians risked everything by waging a full blown economic war against Russia which is the largest country on Earth and they called it a gas station to convince themselves that this was going to be easy.

Germany did nothing wrong seeking trade with Russia and natural gas delivered via pipeline is as we al know the cheapest / most efficient option available therefor Germany's manufacturing industry profited enormously. BTW Russia didn't plan to get Germany hooked on their natural gas, it was Gerhard Schroder who put in a whole lot of effort which resulted in NS1 and later the NS2 projects if I remember correctly.

To thank Schroder for all his efforts the same brain dead politicians I mentioned above accused him to be complicit in crimes against humanity after Russia invaded Ukraine because he'd worked together with Russian energy companies like Gazprom. I mean WTF

Russian military budget for 2023 was 5trln roubles while Russian GDP for 2023 was 530trln roubles give or take. That makes it less than 1% in times of a military conflict. You could argue that parts of Russian military budget is hidden and it’s unclear what the actual spending is, but even if we outright double official numbers we arrive at 2%~ which is NATO standard.

Re Russian gas points - I do not see it this way. Russian Gazprom delivered ALL contracted volumes in 2021 and was under no obligation to deliver more than what was promised. It’s free market economy. No contract breached.

If Germany wanted more gas - they could sign up for more guaranteed take-or-pay volumes like they did now with Americans and Qatar. If you don’t sign up for guaranteed amounts you can’t complain people don’t sell you at your first whim. This is how free markets work. I can’t be mad at a supermarket they are out of my favorite chocolate milk brand if I didn’t buy some in advance as supermarket is under no obligation to stock this chocolate milk for me. If my life depends on that chocolate milk - I’ll damn make sure it’s always in stock on my first whim.

Re China - again we are discussing pure numbers here - your argument about pent-up corona spendings actually means more sales now for goods being exported to China. Germany cannot complain that “sluggish Chinese demand caused our GDP to drop” when China is growing 5% in the same year as Germany is stagnating. Numbers just don’t support this.

Yes there is some issue with real estate, youth unemployment - you name it, but there is always SOME issue with China yet they somehow persevered over decades. So what’s so different now? This time it is truly different says American/British MSM?

TIL: government spending doesn't boost GDP.

Dude, it was Russia which started throttling gas supplies since 2021, it was Russia which voluntarily shut down NS1 in the summer of 2022 while Germany (and other European countries) were still willing trade this particular commodity with them. If trade is so mutually beneficial and should be continued even in times of war or political tensions (like you suggest Germany should have done), then why did Russia hurt itself by voluntarily shutting down the gas trade?



Schröder was best buddies with Putin since they first met, he signed the NS1 contract shortly before leaving office in 2005, then became a board member of Russian gas companies mere months later and spent the next 15 years working as a lobbyist for Gazprom et al in Brussels. So he was a great friend of Putin all the way, did Putin's bidding after leaving office, his policy decisions while in office were also in Putin's interest, yet we're supposed to believe that these policy decisions were all the result of a totally neutral, sober, non-compromised thought process? Come on, man! Schröder a corrupt figure, I mean, at one point, he even called Putin a "flawless/immaculate democrat". He's disgraced for good reason.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 6 2024 09:10am

I think the factor needs to be far higher than double, but we're entering the realm of pure speculation here.


Russia had always been willing to sell more gas than the contractually guaranteed minimum in the past, but in 2021, they suddenly refused. Which led to Germany entering the winter in which Russia would invade Ukraine with dangerously low filling levels in its gas storages. You're intentionally naive if you seriously believe that this was a coincidence.

Russia at the time wanted us to sign very long-running contracts with a very high volume of gas that we'd be contractually obliged to take. If we had agreed to such a contract, it would have been even more costly to phase out Russian gas after the invasion. Germany would have had to either pay billions upon billions for gas deliveries which it doesn't take, or pay billions upon billions for breach of contract in international courts of arbitration, or completely stand against its allies by continuing trade with Russia as if nothing happened. We would have been even more trapped, which is exactly what Russia was going for with these contracts.



It does when normal Chinese growth rates were in the 7-8% range. Also note that Chinese imports fell more sharply than their exports, so their imports grew by less than 5%.



Over previous decades, Chinese growth was driven by favorable demographics, a huge labor force and undercutting their international competitors, thus attracting an ever-increasing share of global industrial production. Now, they're entering the period when they're running out of demographic steam and their wages have gotten kiiiinda high so that production is increasingly going to India or other South East Asian countries. Furthermore, as an export nation, they are hit particularly hard by the general slowdown of the global economy and the end of low interest rates.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 6 2024 09:12am