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this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2025
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Lol of course you think it's Russian infiltration that's preventing you from taking advantage of solar and wind & not the US, which just got you utterly dependent on its natural gas shipments by increasing the cost of the Russian oil Europe still buys through secondary countries (oil is incredibly easy to launder as it is just grades of hydrocarbons lmfao)
Maybe you should consider what political forces in Europe are aligned against the chief producer of solar and wind technology (China) and whether they were createf by the Russian infiltration your ruling class orders you to attribute all of your problems to (you dutifully comply)
Yeah, lol of course I think that. I watched as Russia tried to pressure Germany with fossil gas, first by running Gazprom Germania's gas storage low in the winter of 2021/2022, then by progressively cutting off gas flow in the Nord Stream pipelines over the first half of 2022. These pipelines being blown up finally put a hard stop on these tactics, thankfully.
And yeah, lol of course I think that, knowing that various high-ranking CDU/SPD politicians like Kretschmer spend a lot of time trying to popularize the idea of a reopening of Nord Stream while they provably get a lot of mail from Gazprom somehow; knowing that SPD politician Ralf Stegner met ominous Russian fossil executives; knowing that Afd provably gets money from Russia and various Afd politicians give interviews to Russian propaganda outlets; knowing that Afd and Bsw somehow use the same regional bank whose director is known for his friendliness to the Russian regime.
And no, Germany is not mortally dependent on US LNG. LNG as a whole is just the last 10% or so of fossil gas imports in Germany. If our absurdist new government wasn't quite as irrationally focused on increasing our dependence on fossil gas, we could easily wean ourselves off that in the near future; we already reduced fossil gas usage by 20% in the past three years. The countries we're now actually dependent on in terms of gas imports are Norway and the Netherlands.
None of that is to say that there's no influence from US private actors. KKR (an investor in Germany's largest right-wing publishing house) and Black Rock (former employer of the new chancellor) certainly are major factors. There are also internal strictly domestic factors, such as BASF and Bayer who really like fossil stuff too. In other words, there certainly are colluding fossip interests here; but that doesn't let Russia off the hook.
You have failed at every level of basic research here lmao Russia was German's largest provider of all kinds of fossil fuel sources, and what country do you guess is the second largest? Trying to downplay the US as being "only the largest provider of energy" when the prior one had been bringing in three times as much. I mean let's just not talk about prices at all right? Once we get into prices this is going to be a very bad look for you.
It would quite literally be in Russia's best interest to have bilateral economic agreements with Germany increasing industrial capacity, geographically these neighboring regions have immense possibilities in rail transit networks for tourism and trade, and this whole division between them suits only Wall St, Brussels, London etc, it's not in the national interest of Germany at all but the ruling class interest. So I hope that pretending evil spies and not the entire political and business leadership of Germany sold out the green revolution helps you sleep at night. Don't forget to keep the heat down this winter could be even pricier. That's not the issue - not being able to make cars and solar panels competitively is the issue
I don't know what you're trying to tell me in the first paragraph, sorry. Sure, fossil energy prices went up since Russia started a war. They did go down again too, though, but perhaps not to 2019 levels.
And sure, there are things that may be in Russia's best interest. But are we really hoping that the weirdo who is in charge there will pursue them? Especially now, post-Covid isolation which apparently increased his imperial ambition. And no, I don't want to be in a Russian-dominated economic zone between "Lisbon and Vladivostok"; that sounds like societal regression.
Look if you're going to write fanfiction about Russia in every single reply it's just reinforcing stereotypes about the surly German mindset. Stop trying to make me interested in your elections, they don't fundamentally change the financial relationship between the US and Germany. That is the crux of the original point about the US anointing itself Germany's top energy provider by eliminating Russia. The people you are talking about cutting the US off would never do it, it's like talking about Europe rearming and becoming responsible for its military instead of the US, it's a media debacle without any substance. Adding this whole lesser evil angle where Putin is personally replacing your toilet paper with 2 ply doesn't add the ππ’ππππ that is intended when we're missing the core relationship between the US and Europe since WWII when it took over the colonial empires and established the modern international debt system.
Notice how you count the percentage of natural gas which the US provides, but not the half of Germany's natural gas that it was getting from Russia. Russia doesn't have any hand in you destroying your entire industrial capacity because the US told you to. Yes, in this situation losing even 6% of your energy will be crushing because you haven't yet diversified your energy sources by lowering costs significantly (again industry, which is dependent on labor and energy prices). Cutting out nuclear has made this all even more devastating
Destroying "your[sic] entire industrial capacity" is complete bogus, and you know that. The German economy has been in a recession for the most part, i.e. production was stable, rather than shrinking, that's only changed lately. And there are multiple reasons for that recession too; being overly dependent on Russian fossil gas is one of those. Another is producing outdated overpriced crap like fossil-powered luxury cars and then hoping people in other countries are stupid enough to import those glossy turds.
But of course Russia has a massive hand in the recession. Before Nord Stream was blown up, Gazprom already progressively reduced deliveries. Gazprom even already reduced supply before the war began, to be able to later pressure Germany into supporting its Russia's war.
And then, about those 6%: We just need to install heat pumps to massively cut primary energy usage. Over 50% of German gas usage is just heating. Those 50+% can be cut down easily with heat pumps.
How solipsistic bro
The entire basis of the reduction of German energy use has been the export of manufacturing, you can't then sanction the main manufacturer of green tech and have your revolution, I mean every aspect of this is failing in front of our eyes lol playing this blame game won't help you
So, another fake quote and a snarky comment. That's not much of an argument, or is it? What are you trying to say?
So Russia is the biggest producer of clean tech? I did not know that. /s
No not Russia, do you even know any other countries? It's China. If you can't even read + only understand the most rigid statements, I'm not going to bother.
Germany cannot do any of the things you are proposing because it is not even politicians who make these decisions, it is investors, who will put their money wherever it is most profitable. Fundamentally this is different from a nation which has capital controls, industrial planning, and is not reliant on energy & manufacturing inputs from lower-income countries. This is why we are seeing industry in the highly financialized core countries decline: it's more profitable for investors, who are increasing labor costs by charging workers in these countries as much as possible for housing, goods, and essential services. To talk of a concerted effort to make more solar panels or missiles domestically under this political system is just entertainment. A haphazard thought experiment
And in practice, does the EU sanction China to any relevant degree right now? Afaik, there are some tame EV sanctions, and some provisions against too much low-value shit originally destined for the US being rerouted to the EU. Not much else.
Cool cool cool. However, if German politicians actually want something, they can be remarkably effective at pushing things through. That a large number of them are apparently easily corruptible does not mean that incumbent industries deciding industrial policy is some kind of axiom here. Incidentally, and I knowβyou don't like elections, while our former minister for economy from the Greens was way too centrist and clearly also did listen to lobby bullshit, since we have a gonservative minister for economy, policy has actually changed quite a bit. Or, like, right at this moment, there are completely pointless, cruel, and illegal border checks that also massively hurt industry through traffic jams at German bordersβand yet, this practice is continuing.
All you're doing then is spreading is apathyβand that tactic is remarkably in line with propaganda from the country you're defending all the time.
No I'm not spreading apathy and I support the communist party of Russia as well as the economic development of Asia. Please stop doing the fucking Adam Curtis monologue about how Putin is psychically poisoning society it's so overdone and irrelevant. Your country has a problem with Russia because it has nationalized its oil supply and other resources, and is contributing to a trade and monetary system that is increasingly independent of the dollar. If Russia stayed in full post-USSR collapse Yeltsin policy mode and refused to develop at all there would be no issue and Germany would take the cheap energy, but that's just not really possible since the country is one of the few geographically capable of autarky.
This isn't a pissing match between countries this is about neocolonialism and Germany's leadership is fighting for its place within that system rather than integrating based on geography and resources. Stop repeating the same old con to me. Russia isn't a great power or Sauron to real development economists. It's just got the kind of backbone Europe and the US have repeatedly bombed out of Middle East and African nations, and just failed to bomb out of Iran. Germany cannot have that backbone until you give up being one of porky's favorite little slaves.
Hope this helps
So, first, it's at least a little interesting that you say nothing about EU sanctions against China in your response. That's the one concrete point from my reply which you could have responded to.
Funky. Otoh, you were basically saying that German politics is completely determined by corporates. That exact idea is spreading distrust in democratic processes and that is what I mean when talk about spreading apathy.
I have no clue who Adam Curtis is. I am sure you know who that is. Rather consistently though in this thread, you seem to suggest things about me and put words in my mouth. Do you consider that good discussion style somehow?
What makes you think that?
West Germany has had a relationship with Russia and its variously nationalized or semi-nationalized oil and gas infrastructure since the early 80s. And Germany has just progressively bought more of the stuff produced there.
One of Germany's chancellors even went straight from calling Putin a "flawless democrat" to lobbying for Gazprom. The German political system could never get its hands on enough Russian gasβeven after Russia attacked a country that neighbors the EU in 2014. German politicians watched people in Poland freak out about Russia's imperial potential for close to a decade and didn't think anything of it. Germany literally allowed Gazprom to buy its national gas storage. That last bit is actually completely insane, even if the buyer of said storage hadn't been an autocratic nation.
Russia only became an issue to Germany, when it launched a full-scale attack on said country neighboring the EU.
I believe it is a war.
Russia is not a colony, and it never was. Post-1990, Russia was largely just left to its own devices which you can certainly criticize as being unfair but I honestly don't know what you get out of throwing the term colonialism around in this context.
Honestly, this is such a warped view of reality. Germany is quite sure where it stands overall, as a defining part of the EU, amidst Western nations. To me, it seems post-1990 Russia never was so sure of its identity. Now the official goal appears to be filling that void with imperialist ambition. Russia being geographically large and geographically "close" to Germany does not really figure into the equation of political/economic/mental closeness though.
We're talking about the industrial capacity required for a green revolution, though! Aside from energy prices, that requires maintaining a stable talent pool of engineers, many different kinds of skilled workers! Just massacring the whole gas car industry isn't even a good idea for that sake. We're working from completely different premises. You're just fitting anything to this Russia bad narrative you possibly can and you have zero interest in the structure of the neocolonial financial system that keeps the German ruling class in sync with the US in the first place. I should come back with a more serious post that lays out the parameters of this whole discussion instead of having you recite every conspiracy theory you can concoct, this is probably the fifth essay I've given an IOU for so at this point though so no promises.
You can't decry a recession caused by evil Russian spies and then turn around and say the things which are contributing to that recession are good. Using your measure of recession is fraudulent anyways since western economists count everything from rent increases to stocks to legal fees to German hookers as GDP and it isn't a realistic figure for industry or the livelihoods of actual workers
Germany is fucking up on that front. But, fwiw, I never said, industries should be "massacred" β though granted, at this point, they are massacring themselves. Those German car sales in China are not coming back. And the anti-EV propaganda has worked wonders on the German public.
But to a large degree that's a result of Germany putting cart before horse: The industrial incumbents run industrial policy. And the incumbents want their existing business model to be stable until the next quarter. They also have a distinct lack of interest in science or innovation.
We had German car execs deciding that subsidies should go into diesel cars, and federal research budgets should be spent on hydrogen cars without first researching whether hydrogen cars make any sense.
We had coal people lobby to keep the already-trundling German coal industry alive, at the expense of the less well-connected solar industry that employed 5x as many people as coal.
Incidentally, Japan went the same route. Some dude at Toyota apparently decided that Japan should ignore its leadership in Li-ion laptop batteries because surely hydrogen made from imported Australian coal is the future of transportation !!
China went the opposite route: They listened to scientists, they prioritized energy autarky and increasing the size of the middle class. And then the state set industrial policy based on that.
Japan essentially committed economic suicide so that its ruling class could continue to benefit from financialization. Lot of theorists predicted that European and Japanese industry would cause issues for the US because they misunderstood how the sovereignty of bourgeois democracies is tied to neocolonial relationships now. Instead it's China upending the whole system. The infrastructure and social services they provide, the well-structured overall and increasingly industrialized agriculture, the energy autarky you mentioned, this all keeps the costs of its industry highly competitive, but it's the land reform, management of capital, industry competition, and sustainment of the talent pool through employment, education, and childcare that makes all this possible. Best I can say about Germany is there is a better effort to sustain the talent pool with education and childcare. The rest of the stuff is mandatory and business + political leaders can't take any deep lessons because admitting that rent seeking is fundamentally fucking up everything is impossible because rent seeking is the whole point of the system they uphold. This problem is as deep as the philosophy, history, economics, poli sci departments in all of these countries, you can't just push back against economic dogma designed to enable capitalists with wicked policy logic these people are all evil lawyers abiding by the rules, which simply describe what rich people want to do.
That's really my whole point, I'm not just starting a pissing match here, although it can be funny. Without understanding where the US first world allied countries fit into global trade, capital & debt flows, we're just comparing different policies as if we can just select them in a video game research tree arbitrarily.
I'm sorry but you can't go behead all of the oligarchs in Russia until you take care of your own. They're just distracting you. "You can't have any pudding if you don't eat your meat."
"Watched" as in you greedily slopped up everything coming out of the German press about this and repeat it as gospel. You're truly warped if you've convinced yourself that blowing up the pipeline was in German's national interest. Are you one of Bareback's goblins or something?