abonnement bol.com Unibet Coolblue
pi_205770427
De deïndustrialisatie van de EU is al lang begonnen. De elektriciteits- en gasprijzen stijgen tot onmetelijke hoogten, en bijna elke dag sluit een fabriek in de EU haar deuren of legt zij haar productie stil. Angst voor energietekorten doet de ronde. De EU is aan het de-industrialiseren, schrijft Thomas Oysmüller.

Ook al is er in feite (nog) geen tekort aan gas en olie, de energiecrisis is zeer acuut. Steeds minder bedrijven kunnen zich de torenhoge prijzen veroorloven, en voor veel fabrieken is de productie niet langer rendabel. Elke dag sluiten fabrieken in de EU hun deuren of verlagen zij hun productie.

De industrie sluiten

Donderdag schreef Javier Blas, columnist bij Bloomberg: “Terwijl veel EU- en Britse regeringsfunctionarissen op vakantie zijn, wordt de energie-intensieve industrie in de regio voor onze ogen stilgelegd. Er gaat geen dag voorbij zonder dat een nieuwe metaalsmelterij, een glasbedrijf, een kunstmestfabrikant of een chemisch bedrijf productieverminderingen of sluitingen aankondigt.”

Dit is niet verwonderlijk, vervolgt Blas. In juni had hij al geschreven: “De Europese productiesector bezwijkt onder het gewicht van de aanhoudend hoge elektriciteits- en aardgasprijzen. Met weinig uitzicht op verlichting, dreigt een nieuwe golf van bezuinigingen en sluitingen.”

Een grafiek laat bijvoorbeeld zien hoeveel kunstmestfabrikanten en chemische fabrieken in Europa hun productie reeds hebben verminderd:



Een ander voorbeeld uit een andere bedrijfstak: de Duitse aluminiumproducent Speira Gmbh kondigde deze week aan dat hij overweegt de produktie in zijn fabriek in Noordrijn-Westfalen tot de helft van zijn totale capaciteit terug te brengen. In september zal een besluit worden genomen. Het heeft zijn productie echter al teruggebracht van 160.000 ton aluminium tot 140.000 ton. De opgegeven reden: De huidige marktprijzen voor energie zijn hoger dan de termijnprijzen op de London Metal Exchange.

Een dreigende catastrofe

Onder het commentaar op Twitter van Blas schreef een anonieme gebruiker: “Het verbijstert me dat niemand echt de realiteit aanvaardt waarmee ze deze winter worden geconfronteerd.”

Dit is niet helemaal waar. Telkens weer zijn er berichten die dicht bij de werkelijkheid liggen. In het tijdschrift Energy Intelligence van vorige week stond: “Bereid je voor op een winter uit de hel.” Er stond:

“De dreigende ramp begon meer dan een jaar geleden toen Rusland stopte met het vullen van aardgasopslagplaatsen in de regio. Maar aardgas is deze winter misschien wel het minste van Europa’s energieproblemen. Door de aanhoudende droogte zijn rivieren opgedroogd en is de scheepvaart belemmerd. In Frankrijk werden kerncentrales stilgelegd om corrosieproblemen te verhelpen. Frankrijk, dat normaal elektriciteit uitvoert, moet nu elektriciteit invoeren (uit Duitsland, nota). Noorwegen, ook een exporteur van elektriciteit, heeft aangekondigd dat het de uitvoer in de komende maanden zal beperken wegens het lage waterpeil in zijn dammen. Tegelijkertijd is Duitsland nog steeds van plan drie kerncentrales aan het eind van het jaar te sluiten”.

De gasprijs bereikte vrijdag voor het eerst de grens van 3.500 US dollar per 1.000 kubieke meter. Pas op maandag werd voor het eerst de grens van 2.750 US dollar overschreden. Dus het gaat nog steeds steil bergopwaarts.

Angst voor elektriciteit

Zelfs ex-bondskanselier Christian Kern – eigenlijk niet iemand die over inflatie zou moeten klagen, aangezien hij geen bezwaar had tegen het Coronabeleid of het sanctiebeleid – schreef vrijdag: “De groothandelsprijzen voor elektriciteit voor 2023 zijn zojuist gestegen tot ¤800/MWh. Dat is 1.400% meer dan aan het begin van de zomer. Het systeem wordt in ons gezicht opgeblazen.”




Elektriciteit is niet alleen nodig voor huishoudens, maar voor alle bedrijven en sectoren van de economie. Wat het betekent, wat de oud-bondskanselier hier twittert, laat zich waarschijnlijk alleen maar raden. Voor West-Europa, dat al tientallen jaren zwemt in overvloed – in wezen gebouwd op goedkoop Russisch gas (dat is een harde pil om te slikken) – is het misschien niet echt denkbaar.

Maar het probleem gaat blijkbaar verder dan de prijsexplosie. Javier Blas, alweer de “Bloomberg”-columnist, schreef vrijdag in zijn column over een gesprek binnen de Britse elektriciteitsindustrie:

“Maar de conferentie in de sector suggereert dat het probleem breder is dan alleen stijgende kosten. Steeds vaker worden de woorden “noodsituatie” en “tekorten” gebruikt, waarbij de deelnemers zich concentreren op de vraag wanneer, in plaats van of, er een crisis zal ontstaan. Stelt u zich eens voor dat u gesprekken afluistert tussen leidinggevenden van Wall Street en de Federal Reserve toen de wereldwijde financiële crisis zich in 2008 ontvouwde.

Hier volgt een vraag uit de vergadering van vorige week: “Speelt u mogelijke opties uit voor het geval de grensoverschrijdende handel deze winter instort onder druk van het aanbod? En een ander: “Kunnen we een vergadering houden om noodmaatregelen door te spreken? Een andere deelnemer zei dat de prognose voor het evenwicht tussen vraag en aanbod van elektriciteit liet zien “hoe slecht de winter zou kunnen worden voor iedereen die kan rekenen”.

Bedelende Europeanen?

De voormalige minister van Buitenlandse Zaken van Oostenrijk, Karin Kneissl, had donderdag een Russische cartoon getweet die grote opschudding veroorzaakte. Gebaseerd op Vladimir Serovs schilderij “Boerengezanten bij Lenin” uit de jaren vijftig, toont de bewerkte afbeelding nu Poetin met de boeren. De boeren vertegenwoordigen nu een haveloze en verarmde EU-delegatie die Poetin om gas vraagt.

De foto, die momenteel in Rusland de ronde doet, spreekt van de datum “februari 2023”. Kneissl heeft dat niet gezegd. Ze schreef: “En op een dag zal de tijd komen voor diplomatie, voor echte gesprekken.” Dit werd gevolgd door de gebruikelijke hoon en bedreigingen waaraan Kneissl al jaren gewend is, terwijl zij door Aziatische kranten wordt ondervraagd vanwege haar deskundigheid in de energiesector. Zij schetst een somber beeld voor Europa.

Alleen de tijd zal leren of de karikatuur waar blijkt te zijn of slechts “Russische propaganda”, zoals politieke commentatoren donderdag bijna unaniem verklaarden. Maar mogelijk eerder dan sommigen denken.

Afgezien van de diplomatie gebeurde deze week op het (economisch) slagveld het volgende:

De VS kondigde nog eens drie miljard dollar aan voor Oekraïne. Hiermee kan Kiev “luchtverdedigingssystemen, artilleriesystemen en munitie, onbemande luchtverdedigingssystemen en radars aanschaffen om zich op lange termijn te kunnen verdedigen“, zei Biden op woensdag. Duitsland kondigde 500 miljoen aan extra militaire steun aan. Dit zal worden gebruikt om luchtverdedigingssystemen aan Oekraïne te leveren. Annalena Baerbock, de Duitse minister van Buitenlandse Zaken van de Groenen, zei dat er geen alternatief was voor wapenleveranties.

Macron keerde ondertussen, net als veel andere politici, terug van zijn luxe vakantie en vertelde de Fransen op woensdag dat “het einde van de overvloed” was aangebroken. Dit is de prijs voor het “verdedigen van de vrijheid”.

https://dissident.one/202(...)is-al-lang-begonnen/

Is dit het begin van het einde of een tijdelijke dip?
#GoBankrupt4Ukraine
pi_205770433
Het begin van een tijdelijke dip.
Wel een diepe, en een langdurige.
Het gaat allemaal nog vèèl erger worden..
  zondag 28 augustus 2022 @ 06:00:39 #3
451005 Grems
Clown World
pi_205770469
Slechts één van de geplande stappen om de mensheid definitief te knechten, gaat uiteraard bij mensen die onvoorbereid zijn wel flink pijn doen - zoals gewenst door onze regenten. Men beschrijft immers in "The First Global Revolution" al de omstandigheden die nodig zijn om "wereldsolidariteit" af te dwingen.

"Only if all inhabitants of the planet realize that they are facing immediate and common dangers can a universal political will be generated for common action to achieve humanity’s survival. This is why we call for the creation of world solidarity."

!!HET KLIMAAT!! is hiervoor uitgekozen omdat geen enkele andere """dreiging""" alomvattend genoeg is.

De doelstellingen zijn ( minimaal ) vele tientallen jaren geleden reeds geformuleerd, al het andere is slechts toneel om de gewenste oplossingen door te kunnen voeren. 2023 zal het jaar worden van de gevreesde cYbErAaNvAl, snel eet uw insecten, laat u steriliseren, neem uw intrek in NEOM en laat u zich toch voortvarend implanteren door Elon - alleen zo bent u beschermd tegen de 1001 RAMPEN van de NOS.
  zondag 28 augustus 2022 @ 09:35:13 #4
233102 cherrycoke
Burdened with glorious purpose
pi_205770964
We blijven ook maar reduceren en bezuinigen, je kan beter investeren in een grote kerncentrale die tegelijkertijd ook nog eens schoonwater kan maken heb je twee vliegen in een klap, we blijven maar rondtollen en steeds idioter wordende ideeën brengen
"Been A Long Journey For You, Hasn't It? Lot Of Running, Lot Of Pain. And You, You're A Flea On The Back Of A Dragon In For One Hell Of A Ride, But You Did Manage To Hang On. I Guess That Counts For Something."
pi_205771290
quote:
14s.gif Op zondag 28 augustus 2022 09:35 schreef cherrycoke het volgende:
We blijven ook maar reduceren en bezuinigen, je kan beter investeren in een grote kerncentrale die tegelijkertijd ook nog eens schoonwater kan maken heb je twee vliegen in een klap, we blijven maar rondtollen en steeds idioter wordende ideeën brengen
Ze willen de 'problemen' niet oplossen, eerder erger maken.
#GoBankrupt4Ukraine
  zondag 28 augustus 2022 @ 12:09:38 #6
175455 Summers
President-Elect FREEDOM
pi_205772070
quote:
Macron keerde ondertussen, net als veel andere politici, terug van zijn luxe vakantie en vertelde de Fransen op woensdag dat “het einde van de overvloed” was aangebroken. Dit is de prijs voor het “verdedigen van de vrijheid”.
Ik ben zo moe van die valse mooie woorden , zeg wat ze willen horen en ze gaan wel mee tot we ze de genadeklap kunnen geven .
THE GREAT AWAKENING ! CHANGING OF THE GUARD GLOBALLY . MSM IS FAKE NEWS
pi_205772390
Mooi, kunnen die accijnzen en heffingen op brandstoffen en energie voor burgers eindelijk afgeschaft worden. Die reductie in industrieel verbruik is in 1 klap net zoveel als 10 jaar lang consumenten minder laten gebruiken.
.
pi_205773644
quote:
1s.gif Op zondag 28 augustus 2022 12:43 schreef Fer het volgende:
Mooi, kunnen die accijnzen en heffingen op brandstoffen en energie voor burgers eindelijk afgeschaft worden. Die reductie in industrieel verbruik is in 1 klap net zoveel als 10 jaar lang consumenten minder laten gebruiken.
Als de deindustrialisatie voorbij is rij je niet meer in een auto maar op de fiets.
#GoBankrupt4Ukraine
pi_205773795
quote:
0s.gif Op zondag 28 augustus 2022 14:11 schreef QAnonn het volgende:

[..]
Als de deindustrialisatie voorbij is rij je niet meer in een auto maar op de fiets.
Ga toch weg. Alsof onze economie gebaseerd is op ijzer en glas smelten
.
pi_205773942
quote:
1s.gif Op zondag 28 augustus 2022 14:21 schreef Fer het volgende:

[..]
Ga toch weg. Alsof onze economie gebaseerd is op ijzer en glas smelten
Als de energieprijzen zo hoog blijven blijft er weinig geld meer over om uit te geven. En Europa is te koppig om weer met Rusland te gaan praten dus grote kans dat die prijzen zo hoog blijven, zo niet hoger gaan.

[ Bericht 5% gewijzigd door QAnonn op 28-08-2022 14:39:00 ]
#GoBankrupt4Ukraine
  Moderator dinsdag 30 augustus 2022 @ 12:52:06 #12
454430 crew  SuperHartje
Muziek is een taal...
pi_205792068
Hoe gaat het met de boor in Groningen?
A child is born with no state of mind.
pi_205798302

"they seem to make things worst on purpose" is the key sentence here.
#GoBankrupt4Ukraine
pi_205798319
Europe’s Energy Crisis Is Tipping Legions of Small Businesses Over the Edge. After reeling from one crisis to another, Europe’s heavily indebted and deeply debilitated small businesses — the backbone of the economy — face the ultimate threat from energy shortages and soaring prices.

With the specter of stagflation looming large over Europe and the price of energy rising at a blistering pace, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of small businesses face the grim prospect of closure this winter. In the UK, much of the news cycle in recent weeks has been dominated by the plight of struggling families grappling with surging energy bills. But many businesses are, if anything, in an even worse pickle, since they don’t have price caps on the energy they pay. Some business owners are facing an increase in bills of more than 350%.

Unsurprisingly, energy-intensive businesses, including bars, restaurants, hotels, hairdressers, small manufacturing and construction firms, are absorbing the worst of the pain. Fish and chip shops could even be facing “extinction”, warned a recent article in the BBC, as a trifecta of forces — surging energy prices, shortages (and hence rising prices) of other basic inputs (potatoes, some fish, sunflower oil), and falling demand among cash-strapped customers — take their toll.

The Final Straw?

Across Europe small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), particularly in sectors like travel and tourism, culture and hospitality, have borne much of the brunt of the economic fallout of the pandemic. The stimulus packages — including furlough programs, debt moratoriums and low-interest emergency loans — helped to tide over many (but not all) of the worst-hit businesses but that support has ended. Meanwhile many of the economic problems spawned by the pandemic, including supply chain bottlenecks and labor shortages, continue to linger. Energy shortages and surging prices are likely to be the final straw.

In the UK, some energy providers are even refusing to supply small businesses out of fear they could go bust. Some are demanding £10,000 upfront, according to The Guardian:

In the latest sign of the deepening energy crisis, business owners said they were struggling to find a supplier in the run-up to the busy October period for renewing gas and electricity contracts, leaving them facing “extortionate” bills or demands for a deposit.

Suppliers named as having refused service, or asked for a downpayment, include SSE, Scottish Power, E.On Next, Drax and Ecotricity.

Business owners called for urgent action from the government, warning that sectors such as hospitality, which is already struggling with inflation and the lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, are at particular risk.

Teresa Hodgson, landlord of the Green Man pub in Denham, near Uxbridge, was initially told by her supplier SSE that it could not give her a quote for energy because prices were increasing so fast. “When I did pin them down, they said before we can go any further, we want a £10,000 deposit,” Hodgson said.

“When I asked why, because they’ve never had an issue with me, they said: ‘We don’t think a lot of pubs are going to make it this year and we need security.’ There were other suppliers who just wouldn’t entertain it at all because it’s hospitality,” she added.

Many small in-person businesses only managed to weather the lockdowns of 2020-21 by taking on huge amounts of debt, which they now have to pay off. The only way the debt gets cancelled is if the business in question goes into insolvency. According to research published by the Bank of England in November last year, 33% of small businesses have a level of debt more than 10 times their cash in the bank, versus 14% before the pandemic. Many of those businesses had never borrowed before and some would probably not have met pre-pandemic lending criteria.

In total, £73.8 billion has been lent under the UK’s coronavirus emergency lending programs — the equivalent of 3.5% of GDP. Almost two thirds of that money — £47 billion — went to 1.26 million small businesses — in a country of roughly 5 million businesses. Through the Bounce Back Loan program SMEs were able to borrow up to 25% of their revenues to a maximum of £50,000. The loans, interest-free for 12 months, are administrated by private-sector banks, but are 100% backed by the government.

Suffice to say, the government does not expect to recoup much of the money. In 2021, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial strategy estimated that 37% of Bounce Back Loans, worth around £17.5 billion, may not be repaid, mainly because the businesses concerned would not survive over the longer term. Other estimates are even higher. The department has already written off £4.3 billion of Covid loans due to fraud. Since banks were not liable for unpaid debts from the BBL scheme, they were happy to release the funds with little in the way of background checks, thus creating a goldmine for enterprising criminals.

But that write-off is likely to be eclipsed by around £20 billion in expected loan defaults as businesses fail to repay their debts, Duncan Swift, a restructuring and insolvency partner with Azets, told City AM in February. That was just before Russia’s occupation of Ukraine and the EU and UK’s subsequent decision to unleash arguably the most self-destructive sanctions of modern history. Since then inflation in the UK has surged to 10.1%, its highest reading in 40 years. For many small businesses, passing on rising input costs to customers is not an option. That is particularly true in the case of soaring energy prices, which threaten to be the final straw for many struggling companies.

Deja Vu in Southern Europe?

In the meantime, the European Union is no doubt growing increasingly concerned (or at least one would hope so) at the risk of rising default rates in the two systemically important economies of Southern Europe, Italy and Spain.

A sense of deja vu should be setting in by now as the yields on Italian 10-year bonds hover around eight-year highs of 4%. According to the Financial Times, “hedge funds have lined up the biggest bet against Italian government bonds since the global financial crisis on rising concerns over political turmoil in Rome and the country’s dependence on Russian gas imports.” On Friday, the European Commission quickly and quietly gave its blessing to Italy’s latest plan to shift certain state-guaranteed loans from banks to a new platform managed by state-owned bad loan specialist AMCO, ruling the move free of any state aid.

“This scheme will enable Italy to maximise the recovery of loans while reducing the impact of the existing state guarantees on the national budget and the effects on the borrowers with good prospects of viability”, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. The Commission also pointed out that, under the scheme, Rome will be remunerated in line with market conditions, meaning it will be paid a tiny fraction of the loans’ original value.

This is probably just the beginning of what is likely to be a long, painful process, given that Italy underwrote ¤277 billion in COVID-related corporate debt during the pandemic, significantly more than many other European countries. Some of the 2.7 million small and mid-sized (SME) Italian businesses that took on state-guaranteed debt are now on the sharp end of skyrocketing electricity and gas prices, which is impairing their ability to honour the debts. According to Rai News, small firms in the tourism and services sectors face an additional ¤8 billion in costs over the next 12 months as a result of the energy crisis.

“Without support, the system of small businesses will be crushed by these cost increases,” said Patrizia De Luise, president of the retail association Confesercenti. “The government in office should act using all the powers at its disposal.”

But Italy, like the UK, currently has a caretaker government in office. What’s more, the root cause of the problem is in Brussels, not Rome. As Yves pointed out in her article yesterday, the EU’s wholehearted support of a sanctions regime against Russia is not only backfiring spectacularly; the damage it is causing to the West, most of all Europe, is accelerating rapidly. While in the UK new regulations could possibly be introduced to ease the price pressures (see “We Could Massively Reduce the Price of Energy in the UK – By Changing the Way We Regulate Energy Prices“), in the EU any significant regulatory changes would almost certainly have to come from Brussels.

Italy’s Debt Disappearance Act

The good news is that Italy’s non-performing loans (NPL) ratio is currently at its lowest level since the Global Financial Crisis. The bad news is that this is largely thanks to the mass-securitization of Italian banks’ huge trove of toxic loans. Over the past five or so years, Italian banks, with help from Wall Street’s finest, have been slicing, dicing, and repackaging non-performing financial assets, such as loans, residential or commercial mortgages, or other sometimes uncollateralized Italian “sofferenze” (bad debt) into asset-backed instruments which can then be sold to yield-starved gullible investors all over the world.

As part of a deal reached with the European Union in January, 2016, Italian banks were given permission to bundle bad loans into securities and buy state guarantees for the least risky portions, provided those notes have an investment-grade credit rating. So the taxpayer would not only be on the hook for a portion of the NPLs underlying these securities, but also for the fees and profits generated along the way to securitize them. As I noted in a 2017 piece for WOLF STREET, this was far riskier than the subprime mortgage-backed securities in the US that played a major role in the global financial crisis:

The FT describes the idea of securitizing NPLs as “subprime derivatives on steroids,” but only in relation to China’s plans to do exactly the same thing with its own non-performing loans, which according to official figures recently surpassed the $200 billion mark. The FT has been a lot less critical of the same plans being hatched in Italy. Some economists are even calling for a Europe-wide securitization of toxic debt.

So, while this scheme has allowed many of Italy’s largest banks to shift most of their toxic assets off their balance sheets, thereby reducing the immediate threat of a banking crisis, it has put Italy’s already over-indebted government, with a public debt-to-GDP ratio of 150%, on the hook for a large chunk of these securities should they suddenly begin to collapse in value. It will also be interesting to see what happens with these “subprime derivatives on steroids” as interest rates climb and growing numbers of heavily indebted Italian businesses and households stop paying their debts all over again, this time due to soaring energy costs.

Il Sole reported just today (August 30) that Rome is currently working on a bank rescue fund for Italy’s smallest lenders. The scheme will apparently be financed by Italy’s largest lenders, which are not exactly in the rudest health themselves. Banco BPM and Intesa respectively place second and eighth in a list compiled by Bloomberg of the large European banks with the highest NPL ratios. Spain’s four largest lenders (BBVA, Caixabank, Santander and Sabadell) are all in the top ten. As the Spanish financial daily Cinco Dias reported in mid-August, business loan delinquencies in Spain reached ¤349 billion in the first quarter of this year, up 42% on the same period of 2021.

“Debts owed by companies continue their upward trend at a worrying rate,” the newspaper warned. As with their Italian peers, most (but not all) of the business loans issued by Spanish banks during the pandemic was guaranteed by the State.

Backbone of German Economy Beginning to Buckle?

There are few places in Europe, if any, where small and medium-sized businesses are not reeling from the multiple economic shocks of the past two and a half years. The backbone of Germany’s export-driven economy, the so-called “Mittelstand”, is also showing signs of strain. Consisting almost exclusively of “classic” SME-type firms (with revenues below 50 million EUR), the Mittelstand accounts for a staggering 99% of German firms. The “upper”-sized Mittelstand firms (with revenues between ¤50 million and ¤1 billion) are the most export-oriented group of firms in Germany’s business landscape, contributing significantly to Germany’s sustained export success.

But many of them are in big trouble as the scarcity (and high prices) of energy, other commodities and components they depend upon makes it harder and harder to manufacture the goods they produce at a competitive price. And if the Mittelstand is in big trouble, so too is Germany. According to an article in Der Spiegel, 42% of 853 companies recently surveyed by the Federal Association of Medium-Sized Businesses (BVMW) said the explosion in energy prices pose a threat to their survival. Almost three quarters of the companies said they were suffering as a result of the current energy prices.

As economic conditions in Germany deteriorate, public support for Olaf Scholz’s government is collapsing. News magazine Focus ran a headline yesterday referring to Scholz as the “weakest chancellor of all time”:

According to a new Insa survey, 62 percent of Germans are dissatisfied with Scholz’s work, more than ever before. Only 25 percent rate the chancellor positively. In a comparable survey at the beginning of March, 46 percent of those questioned were still satisfied with Scholz’s work, only 39 percent stated that they were dissatisfied with it. The chancellor’s fall in reputation is taking place quickly and violently.

If the Germans could vote again today – Scholz would no longer be chancellor. In a direct election, Olaf Scholz would finish a pitiful 18 percent behind Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and now also behind opposition leader Friedrich Merz (CDU).

For many of Germany’s small businesses, the damage may unfortunately already have been done. The same goes for legions of small businesses across the continent. If they fall, the effect on the economy is likely to be significant. After all, small and micro businesses make up the vast majority of businesses worldwide, representing around 90% of businesses and around half of employment globally. A mass extinction event could also trigger another crisis for Europe’s ever-fragile and fragmented banking system.

Just as importantly, as I note in my book Scanned, “small businesses are the cornerstone of local communities, providing basic products and services, creating jobs, allowing local economies to flourish, and providing spaces and places for people to meet and engage with each other.” A world without them will be a much poorer world indeed. It will also be a world even more dominated and controlled by global corporations.


https://www.nakedcapitali(...)s-across-europe.html
#GoBankrupt4Ukraine
pi_205823075
twitter
#GoBankrupt4Ukraine
  vrijdag 2 september 2022 @ 18:33:42 #16
451005 Grems
Clown World
pi_205823113
Blijft wel amusant dat je blijkbaar nog steeds middenstand hebt die niet snappen dat ze doelbewust kapot gemaakt worden.
pi_205825742
Als Gekke Eend het zegt zal het wel waar zijn.
pi_205831159
twitter
#GoBankrupt4Ukraine
pi_206117689
twitter

twitter
#GoBankrupt4Ukraine
pi_206118457
quote:
0s.gif Op dinsdag 27 september 2022 12:54 schreef QAnonn het volgende:
[ twitter ]
[ twitter ]
Gaat lekker in de EU. ^O^
pi_206118474
quote:
0s.gif Op zondag 28 augustus 2022 12:09 schreef Summers het volgende:

[..]
Ik ben zo moe van die valse mooie woorden , zeg wat ze willen horen en ze gaan wel mee tot we ze de genadeklap kunnen geven .
Maar Macron zal die prijs niet betalen hoor.
Daar vliegen de gebakken kippen nog steeds z'n mond in en dat ouwe wijf van hem stopt er nog wat druifjes bij. :Y
pi_209901353
PRESS PLAY TO LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE

The deindustrialization of Germany:
If Europe’s economic motor stalls, the Continent’s already polarized political landscape will shudder

BERLIN — Germany’s biggest companies are ditching the fatherland.

Chemical giant BASF has been a pillar of German business for more than 150 years, underpinning the country’s industrial rise with a steady stream of innovation that helped make “Made in Germany” the envy of the world.

But its latest moonshot — a $10 billion investment in a state-of-the-art complex the company claims will be the gold standard for sustainable production — isn’t going up in Germany. Instead, it’s being erected 9,000 kilometers away in China.

Even as it chases the future in Asia, BASF, founded on the banks of the Rhine in 1865 as the Badische Anilin- & Sodafabrik, is scaling back in Germany. In February, the company announced the shutdown of a fertilizer plant in its hometown of Ludwigshafen and other facilities, which led to about 2,600 job cuts.

“We are increasingly worried about our home market,” BASF Chief Executive Martin Brudermüller told shareholders in April, noting that the company lost ¤130 million in Germany last year. “Profitability is no longer anywhere near where it should be.”

Such malaise now pervades the whole of the German economy, which slipped into a recession in the first quarter amid a flurry of surveys showing that both companies and consumers are deeply skeptical about the future.

That concern is well founded. Nearly 20 years ago, Germany overcame its reputation as the “sick man of Europe” with a package of ambitious labor market reforms that unshackled its industrial potential and ushered in a sustained period of prosperity, driven in particular by strong demand for its machinery and cars from China. While Germany frustrated many partners by exporting vastly more than it was buying, its economy flourished.

The boom times, however, came with a cost: The economic strength lulled its leaders into a false sense of security. Their failure to pursue further reforms is now coming back to bite.

Suddenly, a perfect storm is brewing over the former European powerhouse, signaling that its current recession isn’t just “technical,” as policymakers pray, but rather a harbinger of a fundamental reversal in economic fortunes that threatens to send tremors across Europe, injecting even more upheaval into the Continent’s already polarized political landscape.

Confronted by a toxic cocktail of high energy costs, worker shortages and reams of red tape, many of Germany’s biggest companies — from giants like Volkswagen and Siemens to a host of lesser-known, smaller ones — are experiencing a rude awakening and scrambling for greener pastures in North America and Asia.

Absent an unexpected turnaround, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Germany is headed for a much deeper economic decline.

The reports from the front lines are only getting worse. Unemployment rose year-on-year by about 200,000 in June, a month when companies normally add jobs. Though the overall unemployment rate remains low at 5.7 percent and the number of job vacancies high at nearly 800,000, German officials are bracing for more bad news.

“We’re beginning to feel the difficult economic conditions in the labor market,” German labor office head Andrea Nahles said. “Unemployment is rising and employment growth is losing momentum.”

New orders at the country’s engineering companies, long a bellwether for the health of Germany Inc., have been dropping like a stone, falling 10 percent in May alone, the eighth consecutive decline. Similar weakness is apparent across the German economy, from construction to chemicals.

Foreign interest in Germany as a place to invest is also receding. The number of new foreign investments in Germany fell in 2022 for the fifth year in a row, hitting the lowest point since 2013.

“One sometimes hears about ‘creeping deindustrialization — well, it’s not just creeping anymore,” said Hans-Jürgen Völz, chief economist at BVMW, an association that lobbies for Germany’s Mittelstand, the thousands of small- and medium-sized firms that form the backbone of the country’s economy.

When Germany sneezes …
To understand the long-term effects of deindustrialization, one needn’t look further than America’s Rust Belt or the U.K.’s Midlands, once thriving industrial corridors that fell victim to policy missteps and global competitive pressures and never fully recovered.

Only with Germany, the consequences would play out on a continental scale.

The country’s reliance on industry makes it particularly vulnerable. With the exception of software maker SAP, Germany’s tech sector is essentially non-existent. In the financial world, its biggest players are best known for making bad bets (Deutsche Bank) and scandal (Wirecard). Manufacturing accounts for about 27 percent of its economy, compared with 18 percent in the U.S.

A related problem is that Germany’s most important industrial segments — from chemicals to autos to machinery — are rooted in 19th-century technologies. While the country has thrived for decades by optimizing those wares, many of them are either becoming obsolete (the internal combustion engine) or simply too expensive to produce in Germany.

https://www.politico.eu/a(...)lization-of-germany/
Plaats hier uw advertentie
abonnement bol.com Unibet Coolblue
Forum Opties
Forumhop:
Hop naar:
(afkorting, bv 'KLB')