Tag Archives: EU

Germany’s (and Europe’s) Self-Inflicted Upcoming Energy Crunch, by Weimin Chin

If you think one government can screw things up hugely, look what happens when several act together, or when some supranational government like the EU acts. From Weimin Chin at mises.org:

At the end of September 2021, the Nord Stream 2 project was a reality after many years of uncertainty. At that time, there were only a few more regulatory hurdles remaining for Germany and Russia to seal the deal on the long-awaited and highly controversial natural gas pipeline. Achieving such a feat would have been a milestone in energy cooperation between the two countries. Sadly, the regional order has tilted hard and quick off that track, and Europe has plunged into a perilous future of uncertainty.

In the first weeks of the Russian-initiated war in Ukraine, Germany, along with the rest of Europe, found itself backed into a corner regarding its energy sourcing as Western sanctions cut off routes and links in the established regional energy and financial infrastructures. There has been no perceptible success in breaking out of this bind. Instead, Germany has watched time tick by. Russia’s Gazprom recently cut gas flow for Nord Stream 1 to 20 percent of capacity.

German nuclear power plants remain mostly idle, with three facilities providing 13 percent of the country’s electricity compared to France’s 69 percent. Coal power plants have now ramped up output, with the inevitable approach of the fall and winter seasons in the near term.

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Technocommunism Update: EU Ramps Up Great Reset Power Grab To Secure Vital Supply Chains, by 2nd Smartest Guy in the World

Free markets work; government-controlled markets don’t. The more the EU tries to control supply chains, the more they’ll be screwed up. From the 2nd Smartest Guy in the World at 2ndsmartestguyintheworld.substack.com:

As this substack has previously pointed out, PSYOP-19 coupled with PSYOP-UKRAINE-INVASION were always critical for PSYOP-SUPPLY-CHAIN-SHORTAGE and PSYOP-HYPER-INFLATION.

Now the EU, a One World Government experiment in technocommunism, is attempting to grant itself ever more draconian anti-human powers in order to “solve” the very problems that they have created on behalf of their Cult handlers.

Like all government emergency measures from The Patriot Act (the most anti-patriot unconstitutional 5th Branch of Government scams that continues to metastasize to this very day against We the People) to “pandemic” mandates, the EU has announced their Single Market Emergency Instrument (SMEI) scheme that will grant WEF-owned bureaucrats ever more powers to usher in their Great Reset.

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The Clowns of Winter Harry the UK Down, by Tom Luongo

The British have a new Prime Minister who may be an even bigger bozo than Boris Johnson. From Tom Luongo at tomluango.me:

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David Stockman on Europe’s Economic Suicide…

Some of the people running Europe make the Biden administration look like geniuses. From David Stockman at internationalman.com:

Europe’s Economic Suicide

The trio of the Sanctions War, Green Energy Crusade and the Virus Patrol is a mortal threat to capitalist prosperity. That’s already evident in the Eurozone where these policy diseases are most advanced and where the real GDP growth rate has plunged by 74% from its pre-2008 crisis rate.

That’s right. The real growth rate in the E19 countries posted at just 0.67% per annum during the 14-year span between Q1 2008 and Q1 2022, which compares to 2.29% per annum during the equivalent period between 1995 and 2008.

Eurozone Real GDP, 1995-2022

Moreover, the EU hari kari artists are just getting started. Notwithstanding the planned phase-out of Russian seaborne crude oil entirely by the end of 2022 and facing a potential total cut-off of Russian pipeline gas, these birdbrains are now planning a sixth round of sanctions on top of all the madness that has gone before.

Accordingly, Europe is heading for a rip-roaring stagflation, even as the monetary policy dial is still set on ultra-easy. That is, the ECB’s policy rate is still -0.25%, thereby creating a huge gap with the Fed’s policy rate which currently stands at +1.58% and is heading higher at a 75 basis points per meeting clip.

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Viktor Orbán, the Man Who Could Save the European Union From Itself, by Robert Bridge

Viktor Orbán is one of the few European leaders with even a modicum of common sense or competence. From Robert Bridge at strategic-culture.org:

Viktor Orbán would be the perfect candidate to lead the European Union through this moment of ideological darkness, Robert Bridge writes.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has once again deviated from the Brussels’ narrative, this time warning that the severe EU sanctions targeting Russia could produce aftereffects not unlike those of a nuclear explosion, potentially subjecting a large swath of the world’s population to food shortages and mass migration. Will Brussels heed his warnings this time?

Viktor Orbán has defied the fuzzy logic of Brussels, and once again it would appear he is correct. Perhaps this speaks less to any sort of political genius on the part of the Hungarian leader and more to the disastrous decisions coming from the EU leadership. In any case, Orbán deserves credit for being one of the last voices of reason when it comes to handling the Ukrainian crisis.

During a meeting with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic at the weekend, the Hungarian leader said that the brutal «sanctions against Russia” are “equal to an atomic bomb,” where people around the world will go hungry, thereby triggering, among other things, a wave of mass migration.

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The Blind Alleys of European Politics, by Alastair Crooke

Things are moving far too fast for hidebound EU politicians and bureaucrats to keep up. From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.org:

The crises are running, faster and faster, well beyond the abilities of EU rigid structures and mindsets to respond.

The French election result has again demonstrated the hard-edged rigidities of European society which make the prospect of strong purposeful (i.e. transformative) government, of the ilk of say a de Gaulle, almost impossible to emerge today at national level. However, when such national rigidities are taken in combination with the European supra-national, ‘once size fits none’ institutional EU incapacity to respond to the specifics of complex situations, we get ‘full on’ immobilism – the impossibility to change policy in any way meaningfully, in the majority of EU states.

Europe has chugged along for a decade with its managerial ‘Merkellism’ which can be defined as an ingrained reluctance to take hard decisions; to punt problems off by spreading ‘gravy’ liberally around; and in tilting – one way or the other – to Left or Right accordingly, as the wind blows. It has been a time of easy decisions, on top of easy decisions, and little by way of solving structural problems.

This has however, taken the EU into a blind alley – precisely when it faces war in Europe, and when the fires of grave inflation already have been lit, with flames licking skywards, exposing domestic electorates to their harsh vicissitudes.

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The Schrödinger euros, by Jorge Vilches

The EU’s leaders want to pay Russia for its exports with Euros that are deposited in European bank accounts that Russia can’t access. Yes, it really is that stupid. From Jorge Vilches at thesaker.is:

What ? Payment in Rubles ?? Unthinkable, don´t even mention the word say EU officials and authorities.

Instead, Europe has formally demanded to pay for Russian imports with Schrödinger euros as explained below.

So it´s high time for psychiatrists to step in as the livelihood of 800 million Europeans depends on whatever this incredible set of un-elected delusional EU leaders decide. Let´s get this straight folks: the EU does not want to pay in Rubles – or gold — because it is playing cutie by pretending to “pay” for Russian imports for free. Be it natural gas, or oil, or coal or whatever Russian, instead of really “paying” the EU pretends to pull a “print & deposit + freeze & hide” wise-up gimmick. To make it clear for any audience, the above would be the equivalent of you pretending to “pay” at the check-out counter of any store with a photo of a fully sealed box that you say contains “money” that you will keep hidden at your home – unopened — as long as you want. Please allow me to explain the EU trickery in layman´s terms

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Errors, Both Tactical, and of Strategic Consequence, by Alastair Crooke

What happens if the U.S. limits itself to economic war against Russia, and the Russian economy doesn’t collapse? From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.org:

The most likely outcome is Russia’s economy will not collapse (even were the EU to go the whole hog on energy and ‘everything’ else).

U.S. and European NATO hawks and liberal interventionists want above all else, to see Putin, humiliated and repudiated. Many in the West want Putin’s blood-soaked head atop a pike towering above the ‘city gate’, visible to all as a resounding warning to those who challenge their ‘rules-based international order’. Their mark is not just Pakistan or India, but China, primordially.

Yet the hawks see that they dare not – cannot – go the ‘whole hog’. Despite the belligerence and posturing, they want the kinetic aspect to the conflict confined within the borders of Ukraine: No U.S. boots on the ground (though those whose very existence cannot pass our lips are already there, and have been ‘calling the shots’).

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Yachts To Be Exempt From EU’s Carbon Pricing Plan, by Tyler Durden

This just screams, “One rule for thee, one rule for me.” From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

If there is anyone still confused why ESG, and the entire “green” movement is one giant, boiling cauldron of lies, hypocrisy and fraud, read on.

Last summer, we reported that the European Commission – that murder of career bureaucrats – has proposed exempting private jets, the one most polluting form of transportation, from the planned EU jet fuel tax. A draft indicated that the tax would be phased-in for passenger flights, including ones that carry cargo. Private jets will enjoy an exemption through classification of “business aviation” as the use of aircraft by firms for carriage of passengers or goods as an “aid to the conduct of their business”, if generally considered not for public hire. It gets better: a further exemption is given for “pleasure” flights whereby an aircraft is used for “personal or recreational” purposes not associated with a business or professional use.

This is odd because a recent report found that private-jet CO2 emissions in Europe rose by 31% between 2005 and 2019, with flights to popular destinations up markedly during summer holiday seasons. So if Europe was truly concerned about curbing CO2 emissions it would ostensibly go after some of the biggest culprits… but no.

Of course, since it is mostly billionaires and the ultra wealthy that fly private, and these same billionaires and ultra wealthy tend to be exempt from regulations (which are usually written by politicians that the ultra rich have previously bribed or bought) that apply to the rest of the peasantry, this was hardly a huge surprise.

Which is why we doubt that the latest news showing just how pervasive the “green” hypocrisy is, will also come as a surprise.

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Wither Germany? by Francis Lee

Germany is the powerhouse of the EU and could certainly go it alone if it wanted. From Francis Lee at thesaker.is:

Germany has been the keystone of the failing EU. Does it intend to remain so, or is it time to pursue its own interests?

Germany has been and still is the most important economy in Europe, the export-driven colossus and if not yet the most important imperial power; that designation belongs to France with its Force de Frappe (Nuclear Strike Force), and additionally the UK which is also a member of the nuclear club but has since left the EU remains as a loyal – and oh so loyal! – member of NATO. (1) However, Germany is without question the most dominant country in Europe and still the main creditor and funder of euro states. Looking back to the rise of (West) Germany was a key presence in the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951. These various states pooled the coal and steel resources of six European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg which became known by the acronym – BENELUX. These states would be collectively known as “the Six”. It was argued that the pooling of coal and steel resources greatly reduced the threat of war between France and (West) Germany.

It was perhaps entirely predictable that Germany with its system of Bismarckian style guided capitalism would emerge to poll position in this imperial club. At the time France had other, imperial and pressing commitments in Algeria and Indo-China, the British had commitments more or less everywhere East of Suez, and even little Belgium had problems in the Congo (Zaire). Germany had no such incumbrances on its economic development and was thus free to power ahead with its version of guided, bank-funded capitalism, and avoid the pitfalls of Anglo-American financialised capitalism. Under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Economics Minister Ludwig Erhard Germany’s rebirth was dubbed the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle). A far-reaching contract between business and labour unions allowed the rapid rebuilding of industry and strong growth, creating the foundations of an economic powerhouse.

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