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‘We in Germany Are Suffering Considerably From the Consequences’ of…What? – HotAir

The humorless scarecrow-like Skeletor clone who LARPs as Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, is having one of those whiny, unfortunate sort of weeks that bedevil foreign leaders whose opinion of themselves doesn’t necessarily jibe with reality.





Merz, who has tried to fashion himself as the one supplicant among the European Union gaggle who has Trump’s ear and the gumption to offer unvarnished opinions, found himself on the receiving end of a Trump blast after spouting some ill-considered, off-the-cuff comments while speaking to schoolchildren during a visit. I’m sure he never thought a single word would make it outside the classroom into the hallway, less mind to Donald Trump’s ears.

The Americans “quite obviously went into this war in Iran without any strategy whatsoever,” Merz said during a discussion with students in Marsberg, in the Sauerland region. That’s why it’s all the more difficult to end the conflict now. Because the Iranians are very adept at not negotiating, the entire American nation is being humiliated. Germany is losing a great deal of money and economic power due to this ill-advised war. That evening, the Chancellor announced intensified European mediation efforts. Because the US talks were clearly not successful, the European side wanted to work towards a solution, he said on the sidelines of a CDU/CSU parliamentary group meeting in Berlin. Over the weekend, US President Trump canceled a trip by his envoys to Islamabad and called on Tehran to contact them itself if it was interested in an agreement.

Merz also, inexplicably, wanted to lift the EU sanctions on Iran. EU Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen quickly informed Merz that it was a non-starter.

Look how sincere he is as he explains the bigger picture to the little ones.

Sad to say, for Merz’s sake, it was au contraire, mon frere sliding by on his public musings. Trump heard every word.

NAPALM DON DROPS A CANNISTER





…“I am doing something with Iran, right now, that other Nations, or Presidents, should have done long ago.” 

No wonder Germany is doing so poorly, both Economically, and otherwise!

Well, that left a mark, and an awkward one. The chancellor has spent the past couple of days trying to mend fences and frantically repair his carefully handcrafted ‘Trump whisperer’ persona.

…As late as February Merz was wont to market himself as Europe’s foremost Trump whisperer. It was basically an implicit admission that although he was totally useless domestically, at least we could count on him to keep things smooth with our big American brothers. Now he’s not even good for that much.

WE’RE GOOD, WE’RE GOOD

I mean, look at that face and those hound dog eyes. Who wouldn’t feel bad for yelling at a guy like that? I mean, besides Donald Trump?

You’d have to have a heart of stone.

But Iran is becoming a really big problem for Merz, who is already his own big problem. I’ve chronicled the moribund state of affairs in the country for a couple of years now, but Merz’s short tenure has only served to make the situation more dire.

For one thing, Merz has sold a once financially stable country into economic servitude thanks to enormous EU loans owed to support an ever-expanding social welfare dependent base (read: their parasitic ‘migrant’ population) and to support the rebuilding of their defense forces.

…Especially the fiscal picture looks increasingly dark: The German government avoided taking on any debt over the many years that the economy boomed and money was effectively free. Now interest rates are very far from zero indeed and the state cannot stop borrowing. Merz’s government have finally released their Federal Financial Plan, “which reads … like a declaration of insolvency” and predicts nothing but hundreds of billions in ballooning debts through 2030 to finance the social welfare system, to repair our rotting infrastructure and to rearm the Bundeswehr. The interest payments now threaten to swallow up every last free Euro of tax revenue. Practically speaking we probably only have two or three years of breathing room until the Federal Republic – one of the highest-tax countries in all of Europe – becomes effectively paralysed in its own morass of ballooning liabilities. That’s another big reason – and perhaps the most important reason – that nobody likes Merz anymore. His failed political triangulations and his total capitulation to the SPD are killing the country and ruining our future.





 At the beginning of April, the chief of Germany’s Bundesbank (the national central bank for Germany), Joachim Nagel, could no longer hold his tongue about the state of the country’s debt spiral after years of gentle nudges and warnings about the danger of the shell games the government had been playing.

…For years—especially since the banking bailouts 15 years ago—the government has operated shadow budgets. Hoping the public won’t dig into fiscal details, these rarely illuminated debt channels are declared “special funds,” off the official books. Over 20 such hidden debt pots inflate actual state debt by at least €550 billion. Germany’s real debt likely sits near 80 percent of GDP and could exceed 85 percent by the end of this fiscal year.

The most infamous of these special funds originates from the debt crisis 15 years ago. The Financial Market Stabilization Fund (FMS) provided €400 billion in government guarantees and €80 billion in potential recapitalizations. Ultimately, €168 billion in guarantees and around €30 billion in direct transfers to financial institutions were used, while roughly €50 billion in debts from that era remain.

One of the largest black funds in federal history. Only Merz’s half-trillion-euro special fund will surpass this scale. Lesson learned: state financing has become an undeniable Ponzi scheme. Bond markets will ultimately dictate when the fiat money spree ends—they are the final arbiters of decades of political chaos.

Merz and his debt-hungry, insatiable finance minister are deliberately driving state spending to dizzying heights, yet must acknowledge that the heavily damaged German “economic tanker” can no longer move forward.

To buy time, the tragicomic duo plans to tighten middle-class taxes to the limit, holding taxpayers accountable for their fiscal free-for-all.

This is irresponsible, economically destructive policy unseen in Germany since WWII—the construction of a new socialism.

Against this backdrop, the Bundesbank president urged a return to sound budget planning. Deficits must be reduced mid-term without cutting essential infrastructure. Sadly, Nagel stopped short of endorsing free-market principles outright, missing the chance to clarify that the diversion of additional debt via special funds is systemic.

Policy cannot be fiscally restrained as long as bond markets are manipulated by monetary policy. According to the ifo Institute, 95 percent of this additional debt was added to the pre-existing debt binge and diverted. Social policy with a money printer—this is how far German fiscal policy has sunk.

Those seeking the real debt picture must dig deep—including pension obligations and current retirement promises. The scale of these liabilities defies imagination.





It’s quickly going to become even more expensive to live in Germany thanks to Merz’s new budget and the taxes coming to try to stanch a bit of the bleeding.

Well… hemorrhaging.

Defence spending is set to rise form €83 billion in 2026 to €106 billion in 2027, a rise of almost 28 per cent. Total government expenditure is planned to amount to €650 billion – meaning that in 2027 Germany will spend one sixth of its government expenditures on defence.

To make up some of the expected budget shortfall, the government coalition is introducing a number of new taxes.

In 2028, a sugar tax will be introduced, That is expected to bring in €450 million per year. Similarly, a “plastic fee” will be levied on products made from plastics.

Germany is also planning to start taxing cryptocurrencies and will raise the tobacco tax by 20 per cent.

This will be far from enough to cover the shortfall, though.

The planned budget therefore introduces a number of new tax burdens for Germans . These are expected to hit the working population and families most – potentially including an end to the joint taxation of married couples, which would greatly increase their tax burden.

Despite all these tax increases, the government also plans to greatly increase new debt to pay for the additional expenses, from €98 billion in 2026 to €153 billion in 2030 – at the same time interest payments are set to almost double in the coming years to €79 billion in 2030.

As if that picture and Germany’s already shriveling industrial base weren’t bad enough, now add the difficulties caused by the Iranian conflict and Germany’s ‘suffering considerable consequences’ from ‘the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.’

Why?

I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count, because I KNOW you’re going to pipe right up with ‘consequences of your own actions,’ right?

And you would be wrong.





‘…This has direct effects on our energy supply and massive effects on our economic performance. And therefore, I am pushing for this conflict to be resolved.’

Trump did this to them.

Going from 17 nuclear reactors in 2011 to ZERO today didn’t put them in this position.

Trump did this to them.

The same Trump who warned them off their dependence on Russian gas as they turned off their own wells and capped their pipelines.

That guy did this to them. Thoughtless Trump is causing so much pain for the unprepared, pitifully inept Germans that their chancellor wants to negotiate and coddle a terrorist regime that could murder 40,000 of its own citizens in the streets, is still hanging others, and hid the missiles that could hit Germany with a nuclear weapon while playing the victim.

Germany’s ruin is Trump’s fault.

Now, not everyone is seeing it that way, for whatever good it will do in the German system.

Merz’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU) Party is sinking like a knockwurst in a pot in the polls, and the populist Alternativ for Germany (AfD) is on a tear again. Merz’s personal ratings are flushable.

Merz has become the least liked politician in all of Germany, with toilet-tier approval ratings hovering around 15%. It’s so bad the man can hardly bear to open his social media accounts any longer. This morning he went crying to Der Spiegel that “No Chancellor before me has ever had to endure anything like this” – the “this” in question being people calling him a loser and a failure on Facebook.

…For about six months, the polls had Alternative für Deutschland and the Union parties more or less dead even with each other. Now the numbers have started to move again, quickly and dramatically. The CDU is in freefall, headed for 20% if not lower, while the AfD is climbing steadily, peeling voters away from the Union in a race for the 30% mark. Multiple surveys confirm the AfD has opened up a 4–5 point lead over the CDU and CSU, the biggest we have ever seen:

And sadly, the very nature of the German voting public may work against them saving themselves, even if the repressive machinery of the German government would allow it. It’s a good portion of how Merz got elected in the first place – he was the ‘safe’ vote. Stole just enough of the AfD’s talking points to comfort Germans who felt guilty agreeing with the populist party, and thought they would get most of what they wanted by sticking with the CDU.





Heh. Fooled them.

German statism has deeply embedded itself into the collective consciousness through the state education system, state-aligned media, and the constant barrage of green-socialist NGOs. This naive faith in the state is a deeply rooted, metapolitical anchor that cannot be easily uprooted.

In the Federal Republic, there is a real risk that society, in the coming years of crisis, will increasingly follow socialist charlatans. They present a painless therapy of simple wealth redistribution as a solution. It is as if a cancer patient, still with a chance of recovery, entrusted themselves to flower remedies, stubbornly refusing to confront the severity of the disease, its causes, and realistic treatment options.

Free media and truly independent academia are now called upon to counter this socio-political super-GAU – the return to complete socialist barbarism, which is becoming increasingly evident. Only a few media outlets, such as Tichys Einblick, are standing up against this decay.

Suffering the consequences of their actions will never be a wake-up call for people who are never forced to realize what they’ve done or confronted with what they’ve allowed to happen.

– Energy generation collapsed by 23%

– Shut down coal and nuclear power plants

– Now Germany has the highest wholesale electricity prices

Germany’s whole business model was simple: import cheap Russian energy and commodities, turn them into high-value goods and export them to the world.

Now that’s gone…

“Made in Germany” is quickly rebranding to “Made anywhere but Germany.”

Anywhere but Germany and blame anyone but themselves.


Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.

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