Some of it will happen. Just remember all those tax cut promises are a pack of bold lies. Users. It will all sound perfectly true. Complete lies. Why? Just to use people regardless of crushing them. Sociopathic stuff.
Samuelson proved Friedman a complete idiot at every turn on every topic. The complete idiots stuck together…tax cuts…you will never get.
What she says…as it applies to supply side econ.
Certainly truth in all of that. The Euro is not done. It will get more dominant. The central Europeans will print responsibly but with no real advancement in production. This will favor the reserve status of the currency.
The EU does not have the same constitutional framework as the US. That framework has equally bad outcomes. Just in different ways do we make a mess. Our system is too rigid.
Europe is losing and will continue to lose competitiveness and jobs if it doesn’t tackle its high energy costs compared to other regions, Morten Wierod, chief executive of Switzerland-based engineering giant ABB, told Bloomberg.
“The cost for energy intense industries like chemical, steel production, cement is a challenge, and investments will go elsewhere than Europe if this continues,” Wierod told Bloomberg in an interview published on Tuesday.
This predicament would hinder job creation in Europe, which, the executive said, “is a clear concern.” Bureaucracy is also weighing on the industry and job creation, Wierod said.
DB2
It’s not JUST the high energy costs that is the problem. I think most of Europe is fooling itself if it thinks that’s the case. It’s the LOW ENERGY among the people that I would argue is the bigger problem. People have become complacent and want a too comfortable life (French rioting for early 60s retirement, for example), and many with strong ambition will do their best to leave the country and practice their skills elsewhere. For example people in tech with a strong desire to succeed (i.e. “earn a lot of money”) will almost surely leave because they can stay and earn 50,000 or 100,000 euro, or they can leave and potentially earn $200,000 or $300,000 in the US high tech centers of excellence (SF, NY, etc). The same goes for a person who excelled at their business studies and wants to make some real money, they can work for one of the few large banks and earn 100k euro and after 5 or 10 years maybe 200k euro, or they can make their way to Asia or the USA and join a hedge fund (or a PE fund or a VC fund, etc) and start at $100k+bonus and if they are good at it, in 5-10 years they could easily exceed $500k. Never mind actually trying to start a new venture, in [western] Europe it is nearly impossible with myriad regulations that slow you down dramatically, those types almost immediately move away to being their startup.
Got it in one MarkR. I ran a business in the UK for 35 years and know how difficult it was due to endless red tape and bureaucracy.
When someone suggested a four day work week to solve the unemployment problem an Aussie asked, "How do you get Brits to work the extra day?
The Captain
And it appears Germany political leaders are clueless to mending the problems.
https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/germany-heads-toward-early-elections-after-scholz-loses-confidence-vote-093b3196?mod=hp_lead_pos5
Opinion polls show the center-right Christian Democratic Union, led by veteran conservative politician and businessman Friedrich Merz, as the likely winner of the ballot on Feb. 23. Yet the party is unlikely to command a big enough majority to govern alone or with the FDP, the other center-right party in Parliament, and will likely need to form an alliance with one or several center-left parties, forcing it to dilute its pro-business and law-and-order agenda.
“Mr. Chancellor…you had your chance. You didn’t use that chance,” Merz said in Monday’s parliamentary debate. “And it applies today, as it does on Feb. 23, 2025: You, Mr. Scholz, don’t deserve the trust!”
Merz and Scholz have different solutions in mind. The current chancellor has called for bailouts and subsidies to save jobs and prop up struggling carmakers, while Merz has floated a menu of supply-side measures such as lower taxes, less bureaucracy and steps that would make it
When do they arrive at the “solution” of “getting rid of the ‘others’, to save jobs for Germans”, like Shiny-land has?
Steve
More on the differing approaches to solve Germany economic problems.
Merz — who leads the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and is in pole position to become the country’s next chancellor — proposes to significantly lower income taxes, as well as cutting the corporate tax rate to a maximum of 25 percent. He also wants to cut social benefits that he argues discourage people from working, and to cut regulations.
These changes, he says, would foster the private investment that would help stimulate the economy.
The fiscally conservative Free Democratic Party (FDP), has a similar policy prescription, proposing cutting taxes for most earners as well as for companies. It also wants to put an end to subsidies for renewable energies, while reviving the country’s nuclear power plants.
How will the bolded portion fly with the electorate?
I always though closing Germany nuclear plants in favor of dirty coal was nuts.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-12/germany-losing-time-to-replace-coal-as-berlin-scraps-gas-plan
Germany Losing Time to Replace Coal as Berlin Scraps Gas Plan
One year ago, Germany took its last three nuclear power stations offline. When it comes to energy, few events have baffled outsiders more.
This decision can only be understood in the context of post-war socio-political developments in Germany, where anti-nuclearism predated the public climate discourse.
From a 1971 West German bestseller evocatively titled Peaceably into Catastrophe: A Documentation of Nuclear Power Plants, to huge protests of hundreds of thousands – including the largest-ever demonstration seen in the West German capital Bonn – the anti-nuclear movement attracted national attention and widespread sympathy. It became a major political force well before even the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.
Its motivations included: a distrust of technocracy; ecological, environmental and safety fears; suspicions that nuclear energy could engender nuclear proliferation; and general opposition to concentrated power (especially after its extreme consolidation under the N[the N word]i dictatorship).
This support for renewables was less about CO₂ and more aimed at resetting power relations (through decentralised, bottom-up generation rather than top-down production and distribution), protecting local ecosystems, and promoting peace in the context of the cold war.
I dunno but think a nation’s power grid [distributing & generation] is more efficient if centralized.
In any case, the German aversion to nuclear energy generation remains VERY strong. I admit that I do not understand it.
2011 Fukushima disaster, after which mass protests of 250,000 and a shock state election loss to the Greens
National polls underscore the Teutonic aversion to nuclear. Even in 2022, at the height of the recent energy crisis, a survey found that 52% opposed constructing new reactors, though 78% supported a temporary extension of existing plants until summer 2023.
Back in 2023 he said this