So, Merz is likely Germany’s next Chancellor. He’s said one good thing:
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.
“After Donald Trump‘s statements, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”
Excellent. The first step in recovery from being a slave, or vassal, is admitting the problem and deciding to stand up.
Problem is Merz is rabidly anti-Russia, pro-Israel and stupid. If Germany wants to re-arm, it has to stop its de-industrialization, and that means it needs cheap energy, which right now can only be supplied by Russia. Then it needs to massively invest in tech and science, because it’s far behind China, the US, Japan and South Korea. Its industry is almost all legacy 20th century industry.
If Europe’s going to re-arm, where it getting the weapons from? The US? China? Russia? It has to have its own arms industry.
Germany’s been doing a pretty good job of moving to electrification, but during the transition it’s going to need cheap oil and gas. It also needs to invest in new forms of nuclear power which are safer and cheaper to provide electrical backbone (and to catch up in tech.)
All of this is going to take a lot of money and forcing Germany companies to stay in Germany and invest in research and new products. That means raising taxes on the rich and corporations, and re-jiggering the tax code to force reinvestment of profits into research and new production.
Merz isn’t the sort of guy who’s going to want to put top marginal tax rates back up to 80 or 90%, end stock options, smash CEO and exec pay, and so on.
Still, at least Merz has got it thru his thick head that America is Europe’s overlord and something should be done about that.
But actually stopping Germany’s decline requires making Russia a trade partner, not an enemy. Same for almost all of Europe. Until Europeans get over their paranoid delusions about Russia, they’re going to continue their decline. Same with China. If they insist on being hostile to both Russia and China, even as the South doesn’t want to do business with them, there is no path to save the “garden.”
bruce wilder
He has some “guts” or he has watched a key focus group as part of the recent electoral campaign. I am betting the latter. Former Blackrock executives use their gut to judge the zeitgeist’s implications for financial returns. And electoral returns, of course.
Ordinary people have, in their prejudiced, intuitive way, become both leading indicators and lagging responders. Elites are responding, but without any real clear understanding of the world changing beneath their feet. The elites think they can keep it all going as it has been. And, that they themselves have no responsibility for understanding design and consequences.
Eclair
” Its (Germany) industry is almost all legacy 20th century industry.”
Sounds like Britain in the late 1950’s – early ’60’s. They made great cars: Rolls, Bentley, MG. Top notch bicycle: Raleigh. Raincoats: (Burberry.) And marmalade.
Within a decade, Japan, then South Korea, was eating their (plowman’s) lunch.
Mark Level
What bruce brings up is highly relevant. I too had heard of Merz’s pimping for Blackrock, went and looked at his Wikipedia page, linked here– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Merz
In “Private Sector Career (2009-18) you can see all the Globalist scum he works for. Does he care a great deal about Germany? Count me as dubious, Ernst & Young etc. are also big clients. He will do as he is told, if Germany is going to continue to be de-industrialized (I’m assuming Baerbock and those “Green” clowns are out? But that may change nothing) he will throw a friendly salute and click his heels and obey.
He sounds like Trump without the charisma or (occasional) smarts. I am changing my German last name in the next couple of months. That is a sick society that I want no association with. (Also if I move to Mexico my current last name is unpronounceable, on a level that many Czech names, say, would be here).
Germany was never de-Nazified and probably never will be. (Certainly not during my lifetime.) I think Freud’s theories about the “Anal retentive” psychological type occurred to him as a resident of the German speaking Welt. The only good thing I can say about Germany is that it doesn’t have Nuclear Weapons (which Baerbock and that fake “Green” crew were demanding.)
Will any European states wise up and leave their voluntary slavery? I think the Irish, Spanish, possibly the Italians have publics who may push for that. Also, since “everyone loves a winner”, I expect the tacitly-allied neighbor states with Russia list will grow from the current one, which includes Belarus, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia etc.
Could the EU drop from the current 27 states to 22 or fewer? It’s not impossible. But it will still be hugely authoritarian, bureaucratic and failed. It will be a small and toxic Garden, while the former “Jungle” in Asia, Africa, China, Russia, hopefully Latin America (apart from Argentina) will be on a material and cultural climb to a brighter future.