The Duran Podcast
Germany trapped in long term economic decline
All right, Alexander, let's talk about the German economy, and if we are going to talk about the German economy, we have to talk about the general economic situation in the European Union because Germany is the economic engine of the European Union as Germany goes. So does the European Union, and right now the German economy is going down. It is going down very quickly, and that's not good news for Germany, not good news for all the Schultz, and not good news for the European Union. What is going on in Germany? That is exactly what's happening. Now, of course, bear in mind, I was in Germany a few weeks ago, and you know, it was noticeable that people were feeling the economic malaise. It was something that people were bringing up. They were bringing up the fact that there had been this enormous inflation directly after the events in Ukraine, and you know, the stopping of the Russian gas. People were not making the connection by the way of the stopping of the Russian gas, and they weren't yet doing so, but they were experiencing economic decline, the economic decline of Germany, and it was striking how confidence seems to be ebbing even amongst the German people, which has always historically, by the way, been very high. I mean, the Germans have always, people in Germany have always tended to think that, you know, their economy is doing really well. Germany knows how to do things, that there are, you know, others should copy what Germany does because the Germans do it well and better than others. You've got a lot less of that this time. But anyway, suffice to say, over the last couple of weeks, I noticed a whole crop of articles starting to appear in the Financial Times, in various other journals, telling us actually, you know, that Germany is, you know, it's not really doing so badly, it's regaining its competitiveness, its competitiveness level is back to what it was in 2018, that things are starting to look up. And then, of course, the PMI data and the economic figures came out, and they showed PMI collapsing, I mean, it's in the low 40s, for industry, industrial production continuing to fall. Inflation, interestingly, rising again, and it's not actually so surprising because the steady, stable supply of cheap energy from Russia has stopped. The government still has a green coalition, part of the Greens are still in the government, they still have ideas about how energy should be managed in Germany, you know, they've closed down all the nuclear power stations, for example. So, energy prices are rising in Germany, energy costs are rising, inflation is rising, and it turns out the Germany is again falling back into recession. So, the entire story of the Scholz government from the very first day of its creation has been of economic failure and of economic decline. And there's been, by the way, an absolutely excoriating article, not article, sorry, speech about Scholz by none other than Viktor Orban, who has been talking about the Chancellor of Germany, who, as he was careful to say, is not a fool, invariably ends up doing those things which the US tells him to do. And the result is a disaster for Germany, a steady accelerating process of deindustrialization and economic decline in Germany. And of course, this is now translating into the overall problems of the Eurozone. So again, there was a lot, huge attempt, to try to talk up the overall figures for the Eurozone. I think it's managed, was it 0.8% growth in the first half of this year? I mean, dismal growth by any merger. But the reality is, to the extent that there's been any growth, it has come from the Mediterranean countries, especially Spain for some reason, that the growth figures have been a bit better there. I don't, by the way, believe that there's any long-term reality to this either. The Eurozone call, which is Germany and the countries around it, the German bloc, if you like, is doing badly. It continues to sag. And there's no prospect of this changing. And no real way, I think, that it can change, suffice to say, that the major suggestion made by people outside Germany is that Germany abolish its break on deficit financing, starts to do what the US Britain, France, Italy, or the other countries do, which is borrow and use all that borrowing to reflate its economy in that kind of way. The experience has been, if you do that, it works for a while. It may give you five or ten years of growth, but ultimately it catches up with you in the end. And we see that growth in the very heavily indebted countries now is not very good, and productivity growth in those countries is very poor. Though it must be said, productivity growth in Germany also at the moment is going backwards. So I don't really see a long-term way out of this. So what does Germany do? Well, they've cut off their only way out of this issue, cheap Russian gas, cheap Russian oil. And actually, EU is even going harder on Hungary and Slovakia. They're not even allowing Slovakia now to transit oil by Ukraine. And Ukraine blocked the old transit, but everyone now knows that it was actually the EU that is behind this blocking of the oil to hungry Slovakia. So I mean, they're going in the exact opposite direction, instead of trying to at least open up some channels of diplomacy and discussion and business with Russia in order to try and prevent further the industrialization and recession, they're going harder against the trade with Russia. So what? There's no way out of this, but the oil transit story to Hungary and Slovakia is directly connected to what we've just been talking about and the problems in Germany, because of course you're absolutely correct. The Hungarian foreign ministry has said that the decision to stop the oil flows from Russia via Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia was not made in Kiev. It was made in Brussels. I mean, the Hungarians have actually said that. And notice that no one is denying it. I mean, the EU themselves are not denying it. And of course, the people who make the decisions in Brussels never make them without first consulting with Berlin. So Berlin is continuing these policies of cutting off Russian oil and gas when it can to Europe. Even if it does so at the price of in effect sanctioning other EU countries, because in effect what's just happened is that Hungary and Slovakia have just been sanctioned by the EU. The EU has sanctioned two of its own member states, because this is what this amounts to. But what the EU centre, which of course includes Berlin, in fact Berlin is at its core, is persisting in doing, is that it's cutting Germany, which is ultimately Germany that we're talking about. If oil doesn't flow into Hungary and oil doesn't flow into Slovakia, then realistically it can't go to Germany either. It's cutting off Germany from its economic interland, which ultimately was Russia. So inevitably, so long as this policy is persisted in, Germany and the EU will continue to go into decline. Now, there doesn't seem to be any ability or understanding or willingness in Berlin to change this policy. I get the sense of the entire political class is united around it. The opponents of this policy are located either on the left, within the Sada Vaganex group or on the right, within the IFD, but are the best possible electoral arithmetic. Neither of these parties, either separately or in combination, could ever form the majority in the German parliament. The most likely new governing party in Germany after the elections, which I'll do to take place next year, is the CDU. The CDU will return to power, led by Friedrich Metz, and they're not going to change the policy in any way. I mean, I see no sign of any willingness on that part to change the policy at all. So Germany is now trapped in long-term decline. It's a long-term decline from a very, very high level, but it's going to accelerate because what's also become clear, and it's something that we have been talking about many, many times in many, many programs that we've been doing on the Duran. Cheap Russian gas was not only essential in keeping the German economy functioning and competitive, but that it also concealed many of the problems that have been accumulating in Germany over a very, very long time, instead of the German leadership using the fact that they had cheap energy to provide them space, political space, to carry out major reconstruction and reforms within Germany, to address the many problems that existed in Germany. They were content to let things continue as they were, and the result is that Germany today is exposed as having many systemic problems in its economy, which is political class, so no understanding of all willingness to fix. You're getting more and more reports, by the way, and again, people who are in the Midelstand, these family-run businesses that have been the core of the German economy, more and more of them apparently are closing down or going bankrupt. Again, a shattering thing to happen in a place like Germany. The pressures are intensifying all the time. Yeah, but that's been the plan. All along. Okay, so the EU consults with Germany when they make their decisions with regards to now cutting off Hungary's Slovakia from cheap, reliable Russian oil, that they got an exemption for it to begin with. The EU promised an exemption, gave them an exemption, so the EU is going back on its work, going back on its deal. Well, it's a surprise there. Yeah, siding with a country that's not in the EU against two member states. What a surprise there as well. But Germany has to consult with the United States. I mean, that's the chain of command, right? So the EU is going to consult with Germany before making any decisions with Hungary's Lakia, but Germany is also going to get the orders from the United States. I mean, this is deliberate. The plan all along was to take apart Germany, or at least to definitely sever Germany's connection to Russia and Germany's economic prosperity. That's done. That's over with now. I imagine Germany is just going to be an economy that's driven by weapons production. I think that's going to probably be the main driver of the economy going forward, I don't know, and other services that they're going to be be doing. The rest of the European Union, tourism. I mean, tourism is stuff like that. I can't think of anything else. There's chip manufacturing, some production in Italy. Maloney's trying to do something with China, but I imagine that eventually she's going to get blocked by the United States as well. I don't think that her trip to China is going to make any difference. The US will tell her to knock it off, and she will, because she'll do whatever her masters tell her to do. Keep Germany down. I mean, this has been the NATO motto. Keep Russia out, keep Germany down, and effectively, the United States takes over. The globalists in the United States, they're going to be running Europe. I don't think this is good for the United States, to be honest, because you don't want to have to take care of a broken bankrupt, a Europe, or a fund, a broken bankrupt Europe, but that's what the American people are effectively getting, a broken bankrupt Europe that they're going to be taken care of. I imagine the European Union, they're thinking, the weaker the member states are, the better for us. We can concentrate more power to the center. I guess that's the EU's thinking on all of this when they're looking at Germany and France and the core members at the centigrade. Well, this is exactly right. There's a lot of points here. Let's start with the last one about the EU center, the EU center. Ever since the EU center started to becoming particularly strong, ever since the euro, for example, was established, but even going a little before then, what you've seen is a steady decline in economic growth in Europe. I mean, it's often difficult to remember, but, you know, Italy, despite its many problems and its historically high inflation. Nonetheless, had very, very high growth rates in the 50s, 60s, even the 70s. Briefly, in the 80s, it's the past Britain in GDP. I mean, the so-called so-called Passor, which has made a huge impact as a remember at the time. And then, of course, what happened is the euro was established, the EU center got stronger, the member states got weaker, and as the member states got weaker, so did the economists. And of course, the fact that these countries don't have their own currencies means that there is no market mechanism for self-correction. So, you know, Italy runs lots of debts. It has problems with budget and other deficits. Normally, if it was running its own currency, that would make the Italian lira decline, that would boost competitiveness for Italy, that would benefit Italian industry and Italy's important export economy, and things would ultimately write themselves. That was how it used to work. It can't do that anymore. And of course, the longer that this process continues, the greater the structural problems. I mean, if you ended the euro now and it reintroduced currencies, there would be a period, I don't think a very long period, but there would be a significant period, a year or so, a profound economic chaos and extreme recessions before things began to readjust themselves. So, the EU center has become stronger and stronger, even and because the member states have been becoming weaker and weaker. And of course, the weaker the member states become, the more the stronger the EU center becomes relative to them. And you could see how it is behaving now. I mean, you know, as you correctly said, it gave the Hungary and Slovakia the exemption. The exemption was never worth the paper. It was written on. I think all of them, frankly, was wrong to agree to, you know, all those sanctions, because he should have known that if he did agree to those sanctions in return for these exemptions, the fact is that the exemption would not be on it. And that's exactly what we see. We've seen how the European Union simply goes round in exemption by getting the Ukrainians to block the oil flows. And this is the pattern. And of course, Germany itself, which for a certain period of time, appeared to be the beneficiary of this because it was the core state at the very center and, you know, the other parts of Europe with the periphery. It's now also experiencing the same problems as all the other EU states are. It's also finding that the growing power of the center, the center's ability to impose policies on the member states, like confrontation with Russia and all the rest, are starting to impact directly upon its economic interests. But it's the center now is so strong that it's very, very difficult even for Germany, even if it had the will to do so to break away. And psychologically, for Germany to do that is even more difficult still. And of course, the center, as you absolutely rightly say, is keen on aligning itself with the United States. But there is something else to understand about the policies of the EU center. And here we have, if you like, a commonality of interest between the Brussels bureaucracy and Washington, because you're absolutely correct in what you said. It is not in the interests of the United States to have a broken bankrupt Europe. I mean, a weak Europe objectively is overall is a drag on American power. This is something that American leaders in the 1940s and 1950s understood very, very well, which is why they work very, very hard after the Second World War to reconstruct Europe, you know, martial aid and all of that. Now, of course, they're doing the reverse. And the reason they're doing that reverse is because both Brussels and Washington at some point came to understand that German prosperity and German strength were only really possible as a result of this connection with Russia. And Russia being the adversary, Moscow being the one major capital on the Western Eurasian landmass that is no longer, you know, subject to the control, either of the EU center or of Washington. That was absolute anatom. So, sever that link, break it completely, even at the price of sacrificing Germany's economic future. And because if you don't do that, then the power of the center over Germany and the other EU states cannot be as strong as it has basically now become. The EU center today is stronger than it has ever been at any point since the European community, the European economic community, was founded by the Treaty of Rome in 1960. It has been getting stronger and stronger all the time. And the policies it is pursuing of confrontation with Russia are making it stronger still. Of course, stronger, the center is stronger. Europe, the continent, the people who live there, the nation states, they're getting weaker. What does that benefit the EU then? I mean, that's the ultimate problem with the European Union. That the member states are much weaker, much worse off. And five years ago, there's no comparison. You go to Europe, you walk around the streets of what I know, Greece, Cyprus. I mean, five years ago, much better than today. It's obvious. It's glaringly obvious. But what is Europe, the European Union gained by all of this? I mean, eventually, it's a table that's losing its legs. It is a table that's losing its legs. It's stronger, but it's going to collapse. What better are you with the weak member states? If you're the European Commission, if you work in the European Commission, then you have the enormous psychological satisfaction of being at the center of power over the whole of the European Union, which is not to be discounted. The exercise of power is tremendously tempting. The ability to make and break nations, to make and break governments, to impose policies on them. Governments, especially entities, when they're like the entities of the European Union are, I mean, they don't give up power easily. And their instinct anyway always is to acquire more and more of it. So if you're thinking about things in terms of power, then, of course, for the people who work in Brussels, this is good. The fact that people in Germany and Italy and France and Greece and Spain are poorer than they were, well, this isn't something that worries them so much. Now it's the first thing. The other is, and this is an important thing to always remember, is that these people who make these decisions are not individually affected by them. Material, they're doing very well. They're paid enormous salaries. They have enormous benefits. They can look forward to further promotion within the system, which has infinite ability to provide patronage and promotion. They don't think of themselves. They don't see themselves as leaders of a declining empire. They are on the contrary, cocooned away in this bubble where they feel themselves getting stronger and both here and where they're all, you know, spending their time telling each other how clever and great they are. And from that point of view, they're doing very well. And, of course, they go to Washington where they're taken very seriously, or as you left on the lion meets all the great people in Washington, all of that. And they can still, because the European Europe is still, you know, an important part of the world. They're still able to travel around the world, imagining to themselves that the European Union is taken seriously places like, you know, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore or Brasilia or wherever. And, you know, they come in, you know, with large, you know, trains on to Raj and all of the rest. And, you know, they still have the sense that, you know, they're walking on clouds and, you know, acting like gods. So, for that point of view, this isn't bad. Until the people get more and more. Well, until the until the until the whole thing. Yeah, I think they realize one thing that the European Union is said to realize is one thing that they have a long way to go before the people actually really get upset. I think we're way, way far, far off from, from that. Well, indeed, they know it. They know it exactly. And they can do it and they can play this game and they will, and they will do it. And of course, you know, there are also some people who are very fanatical and very fervid people from the Baltic states, for example, who are obsessed with one particular issue, a mono, mono issue in effect, which is to conflict with Russia. That's the only thing that they're concerned about. And from them, from their point of view, the EU serves its purpose if it fulfills it. So that, that means that the EU has its loyal spear leaders there. Notice how many EU officials now come from the Baltic states, disproportionate number given the small populations of these places. It's not only the Baltic states just to finish off the video. There are a lot of people, everyday citizens that are very propagandized by the European Union. For many people, all they know is the European Union. I've met people in Cyprus who have told me directly, if the European Union wants to come into my bank and take my money again, so be it. I have no problem with it as long as I can be called European. There are people with that line of thinking. As long as you can call me European, I have no problem with the EU taking whatever they need to take from me even if it's my personal opinion. This is the level of propaganda that a lot of people have been subjected to over the past two decades. Yes, because they've managed the incredible and trick of conflating the European Union with Europe. Europe, the civilization, the continent, with all its history and all its culture, and somehow they managed to persuade people that the European Union is somehow its political embodiment. Whereas in fact, it's the parasite that's killing the host. All right, we will leave it there. The Duran.locals.com. We are on rumble odyssey, but you should tell the grand rock fan and twitter X and go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch like this new t-shirt that I'm wearing today or some limited edition merch like the t-shirt that Alexander is wearing today. 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