Once upon a time there lived a country that was the envy of the world. It was among the world’s pre-eminent producers of manufactured goods. From chemicals and pharmaceuticals to precision engineering and the brewing of beer, it was second to none. Its people’s work skills, industriousness and discipline became the national hallmark of civilisational success. The country gained fame and fortune in bringing the luxuries of fine automobiles to the world’s rich and aspiring middle classes.
Alas, a blight visited that once great country not more than a score of years ago, though its destructive seed had been planted earlier. It was not some external force or act of God. Rather it was a sickness of the mind, a debilitating disease of the soul, that vexed that country’s ruling class. In restless search for virtue, the country’s rulers paid obeisance to the Goddess Gaia and promised the nation’s blood and treasure to satiate her inviolable sovereignty over her earthly domains.
This, then, is a tale of woe and misery. This Christmas shall not have been one of unalloyed merry times and good cheer. And while beer will have been drunk and dinners eaten in many a hearth and eating place, the lifeblood of that nation shall be constricted and its breathing blocked by a cursed phlegm as normal life resumes in the New Year.
Within the fateful score of years of becoming afflicted by the primordial cult of Gaia, the world’s envy has now become a sad basket case. Its economy has been tarnished as “the sick man of Europe”.
The beginning of the end of the German miracle
While the travails of Germany along with the economic stagnation of Europe as a whole have been apparent for some years now, the spate of dire headlines have gathered pace in recent weeks as the coalition government collapsed.
“Behind Germany’s Political Turmoil, a Stagnating Economy” — New York Times (December 17th)
“Germany Is Unraveling Just When Europe Needs It Most” – Bloomberg (December 15th)
“Europe’s Economic Apocalypse Is Now” – Politico (December 19th):
If Europe – and its economic powerhouse Germany – remains on its current trajectory, its future, Politico says, “will also be Italian: that of a decaying, if beautiful, debt-ridden, open-air museum for American and Chinese tourists”.
The economic rot induced by the adoption of Energiewende policies for the “energy transition” in 2010 resulted ultimately in the recession of the German economy in the last two years. Among the manifestations of this rot are the growth of corporate bankruptcies in double digits, soaring layoffs as the Federal Employment Agency said that the unemployment figure could exceed the three million mark for the first time in 10 years at the beginning of 2025, and the crown jewel of German industry, its automative sector, announcing massive job cuts.
According to a recent poll, 40% of industrial companies are currently considering reducing their production in Germany or relocating it abroad due to the energy situation; among industrial companies with more than 500 employees, more than half are now considering this. High labour costs, caused by the myriad regulations of a hyperactive administrative state, and among the world’s highest energy prices brought about by its Energiewende folly, have led to the nation’s de-industrialisation.
Germany’s governing coalition collapsed after Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner, plunging Europe’s largest economy into political chaos. This occurred barely hours after Donald Trump’s U.S. election victory triggered existential questions about the future of the Continent’s economy and its energy security. Mr. Trump – a climate sceptic who has promised to bring the U.S. out of the UN’s Paris Agreement and its financial commitments for large scale transfers of funds to developing countries – will pull the rug out from under the EU’s famed if quixotic climate leadership.
Europe’s economic implosion is self-induced. Its ruling elites over-tax and over-regulate the private sector and obsess with promoting unreliable renewable energy to replace fossil and nuclear fuels in its crusade to ‘save the planet’ from an alleged impending climate apocalypse. Its attempt to blame Russia’s President Putin for high energy prices is hollow and self-serving.
Perhaps most revealing of Europe’s regulatory hubris is the Qatari Energy Minister’s recent statement that “I am not bluffing”. He warned that Qatar, one of the world’s largest natural gas suppliers, would cease gas exports to the EU if the bloc’s countries imposed penalties under recently adopted legislation on “sustainability due diligence”. For Europe to tell the world that it would punish foreign countries that did not buy into their “sustainability” beliefs might seem to most non-European observers as the height of arrogance. But such is the delusionary might of the Gaia cult.
The EU’s “Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive”, which entered into force in July, allows for fines of up to 5% of a company’s annual global revenue “if the management fails to address adverse human rights or environmental impacts”. Bumptious Brussels bureaucrats seem to believe that their ideas of “sustainability” command universal acceptance. This, in a world where China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and other populous developing countries, accounting for most of the world’s population, are busy expanding their capacity to mine coal and other fossil fuels so as to afford their citizens access to affordable and reliable energy.
Back to barbarism
“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”
So said Adam Smith, the great sage of political economy, over 250 years ago. Germany has shown that the converse may also be true. To go from opulence to poverty and potential barbarism is but a short road, assured by the burden of high taxes in service of an alleged climate crisis, and an intolerable administration of “climate justice” that demands suffocating regulations on the private sector.
Dr. Tilak K. Doshi is an economist, a former contributor to Forbes and a member of the C02 Coalition. This article was first published HERE
This, then, is a tale of woe and misery. This Christmas shall not have been one of unalloyed merry times and good cheer. And while beer will have been drunk and dinners eaten in many a hearth and eating place, the lifeblood of that nation shall be constricted and its breathing blocked by a cursed phlegm as normal life resumes in the New Year.
Within the fateful score of years of becoming afflicted by the primordial cult of Gaia, the world’s envy has now become a sad basket case. Its economy has been tarnished as “the sick man of Europe”.
The beginning of the end of the German miracle
While the travails of Germany along with the economic stagnation of Europe as a whole have been apparent for some years now, the spate of dire headlines have gathered pace in recent weeks as the coalition government collapsed.
“Behind Germany’s Political Turmoil, a Stagnating Economy” — New York Times (December 17th)
“Germany Is Unraveling Just When Europe Needs It Most” – Bloomberg (December 15th)
“Europe’s Economic Apocalypse Is Now” – Politico (December 19th):
If Europe – and its economic powerhouse Germany – remains on its current trajectory, its future, Politico says, “will also be Italian: that of a decaying, if beautiful, debt-ridden, open-air museum for American and Chinese tourists”.
The economic rot induced by the adoption of Energiewende policies for the “energy transition” in 2010 resulted ultimately in the recession of the German economy in the last two years. Among the manifestations of this rot are the growth of corporate bankruptcies in double digits, soaring layoffs as the Federal Employment Agency said that the unemployment figure could exceed the three million mark for the first time in 10 years at the beginning of 2025, and the crown jewel of German industry, its automative sector, announcing massive job cuts.
According to a recent poll, 40% of industrial companies are currently considering reducing their production in Germany or relocating it abroad due to the energy situation; among industrial companies with more than 500 employees, more than half are now considering this. High labour costs, caused by the myriad regulations of a hyperactive administrative state, and among the world’s highest energy prices brought about by its Energiewende folly, have led to the nation’s de-industrialisation.
Germany’s governing coalition collapsed after Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner, plunging Europe’s largest economy into political chaos. This occurred barely hours after Donald Trump’s U.S. election victory triggered existential questions about the future of the Continent’s economy and its energy security. Mr. Trump – a climate sceptic who has promised to bring the U.S. out of the UN’s Paris Agreement and its financial commitments for large scale transfers of funds to developing countries – will pull the rug out from under the EU’s famed if quixotic climate leadership.
Europe’s economic implosion is self-induced. Its ruling elites over-tax and over-regulate the private sector and obsess with promoting unreliable renewable energy to replace fossil and nuclear fuels in its crusade to ‘save the planet’ from an alleged impending climate apocalypse. Its attempt to blame Russia’s President Putin for high energy prices is hollow and self-serving.
Perhaps most revealing of Europe’s regulatory hubris is the Qatari Energy Minister’s recent statement that “I am not bluffing”. He warned that Qatar, one of the world’s largest natural gas suppliers, would cease gas exports to the EU if the bloc’s countries imposed penalties under recently adopted legislation on “sustainability due diligence”. For Europe to tell the world that it would punish foreign countries that did not buy into their “sustainability” beliefs might seem to most non-European observers as the height of arrogance. But such is the delusionary might of the Gaia cult.
The EU’s “Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive”, which entered into force in July, allows for fines of up to 5% of a company’s annual global revenue “if the management fails to address adverse human rights or environmental impacts”. Bumptious Brussels bureaucrats seem to believe that their ideas of “sustainability” command universal acceptance. This, in a world where China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and other populous developing countries, accounting for most of the world’s population, are busy expanding their capacity to mine coal and other fossil fuels so as to afford their citizens access to affordable and reliable energy.
Back to barbarism
“Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”
So said Adam Smith, the great sage of political economy, over 250 years ago. Germany has shown that the converse may also be true. To go from opulence to poverty and potential barbarism is but a short road, assured by the burden of high taxes in service of an alleged climate crisis, and an intolerable administration of “climate justice” that demands suffocating regulations on the private sector.
Dr. Tilak K. Doshi is an economist, a former contributor to Forbes and a member of the C02 Coalition. This article was first published HERE
12 comments:
Same path for France unless drastic action is taken.
This excellent piece should be mandatory reading throughout every university, secondary education and published for the widest audience possible. This is tale of gross mismanagement would never see the light of day in our corrupt MSM. Our politicians and energy executives are pursuing Germany’s self inflictive folly to the letter. Governments come and go but the policies remain in place. Net-Zero is the disease that destroyed Germany’s industrial might. New Zealand is embracing the same madness by spending billions to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
With her quietly destructive behaviour I have long wondered if Merkel is the most successful Russian mole in history.
Mutatis mutandis, much the same may be said of New Zealand.
Apart from extending their famiies and their religion, what are the myriad non European immigrants doing with employment now scarce?
Could Auckland University replace their compulsory Maori paper with this one ?
Like most climate change deniers, Doshi flails about endlessly trying to prove human activity is not to blame for the increasing CO2 levels driving that change. Curious that he seems to think that China, Indonesia and Vietnam's understandable desire to use cheap energy to lift the living standards of their people somehow requires the biggest polluters to rein in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately the EU reognises that if we don't all act together we will sink together and all the gas in Qatar won't save us.
NZ should be a parliamentary leader and instigate an early 2025 debate on Net Zero and the fiscal effect . Define Net Zero . Argue the pros and cons intelligently and set policy for a public direction.
NZ cannot afford the policy of fiscal strangulation of the nation by climate alarmists and aligned media .
Well, while born in Hamburg, West Germany, as I recall she was raised in Brandenburg, East Germany (the GDR) and hence behind the Iron Curtain as was. She attended University in Leipzig but after reunification, she was the leader of the German conservative party, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) which is supposedly right of centre. I always found it hard to figure her out as In 1968, Merkel joined the Free German Youth (FDJ), the official communist youth movement sponsored by the ruling Marxist–Leninist Socialist Unity Party of Germany. Having lived in West Berlin in the 1970/80's prior to her incumbency in German politics I only saw her from my UK perspective and the EU goings on. However, in my time in Berlin there were many 'moles' and that must have ensued through the years.
What a wonderful suggestion! Replace the brainwashing with a dose of truth.
Good suggestion Basil regarding an open debate. This won’t happen because whilst the truth doesn’t mind being questioned, a lie hates being challenged.
Anon@11.02 is typical of their ilk. As soon as anyone challenges their beliefs on CO2's impact on climate, they're immediately labelled a "climate change denier". Anyone with a modicum of intellect will full well appreciate that the climate has always changed. The only one who "flails about" is them in their pathetic desperation and ignorance to make baseless, disparaging and quite senseless remarks.
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