Deutschland schmiert wirtschaftlich ab – Germany is sliding down the economic slope.
Economically, Germany can no longer keep up with the USA, Scandinavia and Western Europe.
According to a study by the “Stiftung Familienunternehmen” (Family Business Foundation), Germany is slipping dramatically in terms of competitiveness: among 21 industrialized nations, Germany now ranks only 18th!
Germany’s real estate market took a deep hit in the fourth quarter as investors shied away from deals on the back of soaring financing costs.
Total investments in the country’s commercial property sector only reached €9.9 billion ($10.6 billion) in the last three months of 2022, a decline of 50% compared with the five-year average for the period, according to a report released by BNP Paribas’ real estate unit on Monday. The development is largely due to soaring interest rates, a weakening economy and record inflation, it said.
Iranian man held in Germany over suspected chemical attack – A 32-year-old Iranian man has been arrested in Germany for allegedly plotting an “Islamist-motivated” attack.
The man had been plotting to use cyanide and ricin to commit a “serious act of violence.”
If the Germans don’t know about losing energy bets, nobody does. Old Vlad better listen up.
Putin has gambled away gas leverage, says German vice-chancellor – Robert Habeck says ‘half of our eggs were in the basket of Putin’ but Germany is now recovering capacity.
Vladimir Putin has gambled away his gas leverage over Europe, Germany’s vice-chancellor has claimed as he sounded a note of cautious optimism over his country’s energy supplies during a visit to Norway.
And defense for free (from Dire Straits, sort of).
Our German Ally: Tanking.
Putin has given any number of reasons (all of them nonsense) to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One of them was that Russia was “threatened” by NATO’s expansion. That is, to put it mildly, unconvincing. Russia’s grumbling about Ukrainian independence dates back to the Yeltsin era, long before (the special case of the vanished East Germany aside) NATO had expanded to include any countries in the former Soviet bloc.
A more convincing explanation (so far as the Kremlin’s attitude to NATO was concerned) was that Putin had seen the alliance’s weakness and concluded that it would present Moscow with no problems in the event that Russia took back control over its neighbor. An important reason why the Kremlin might have seen things that way was the position of Germany, a supposedly key member of NATO, but one that had a distinctly, uh, nuanced view of what membership of the alliance meant.
One obvious sign of that was the country’s neglect of its armed forces throughout Angela Merkel’s dismal chancellorship.
Because once things start looking better, they can only get worse.
German businesses expect only mild recession as disruptions ease – German companies expect only a mild recession next year despite headwinds from the energy crisis, raw material shortages and a tepid global economy, a survey of major associations published by Reuters on Tuesday showed.
There have been growing signs that the German economy could stave off the worst of an economic downturn triggered by a plunge in energy supply from Russia after the Ukraine invasion.
Inflation to 11.3% in November from a high of 11.6% the month prior as energy prices eased. The German government has predicted the economy will grow by 1.4% this year and next year.
And there is no movement or threat. Certainly not of any importance. Nice try, though.
Talk about your manufactured fake news. It’s just another one of those routine anti-Faschist, anti-right-wing-terror rituals all leftist media cultures have to perform from time to time. It’s performance art, in other words.
Why Germany Is Struggling to Address the Reichsbürger Threat – Right-wing terror has been generally underestimated by German authorities.
PS: It’s just like back home. The danger of right-wing terror is growing! I’ve been watching it grow here in Germany for forty years. Yawn.
Yet, oddly, officials at the German Foreign Office are apparently very upset that the Twitter accounts of journalists who openly disregarded Twitter’s personal data privacy guidelines (no doxing) were suspended. I’m sure this was some mistake and they’ll be coming out with an explanation for this puzzling contradiction soon.
Germany on Twitter suspensions: ‘We have a problem, @Twitter’ – The German Foreign Office tweeted screenshots on Friday of the accounts of journalists suspended by Twitter, warning the platform that the ministry had a problem with moves that jeapordised press freedom.
Blackout risk – Germany’s gas storage facilities are 94 percent full, but the level is steadily declining in view of the cold weather.
“Everyone is preparing for it…” He pleads for a factual discussion without scaremongering, but warns against possible acts of sabotage – and explains what emergency supplies citizens should stock up on in case of an emergency.
Our solar panals don’t seem to be working properly here in Germany at the moment. It’s all dark and cloudy or something. And white. Geez. Why is it so cold all of a sudden?
This “saving the planet” stuff can be a real ice-cold bitch.
Germany at risk of gas shortages as consumption cutting target missed – Country has scrambled to open up new sources of energy since start of Ukraine war.
Germany is saving less gas than necessary to rule out shortages this winter, the head of the German grid agency has said, as the country missed its crucial target of a 20% cut in consumption last week amid dropping temperatures.