So there are three logical questions to ask at this point:
1. How secure is the natural gas, oil and electrical power situation in Germany?
A year ago....the answer would be 'great'. Today? Crappy.
We've even reached the point where they asked if the nuke plants (mandated to shut down by the end of the year can continue on). No....they have enough 'rods' to run for about one quarter of 2023.
The coal plants which were supposed to shut-down within 8 years? There's talk now that this entire plan may be modified. I should add that the government signed a deal to pay the three regions affected....somewhere in the range of 30-billion Euro to shut-down and clean the plants.....plus retrain the coal industry employees.
On heating this next winter? There's talk of some government 'order' where you set your home thermostat to 18C in the day-time and 16C at night. No one can explain on how this would work, or if people would comply.
The alternate path for natural gas....shipping it in from Qatar? No one feels sure about this, and I would suggest that the winter of next year would likely be the point where that delivery would start.
Fracking? At least one political party has asked if they could open the programs for this.....knowing there is enough natural gas in Germany to provide our own needs.
2. Will the war escalate, and drag NATO completely in?
The general consensus of Germans is that Putin can't be that 'stupid'. However, if you asked about the war-question....where 10 years ago, it would have been a 1-percent chance.....today, I'd suggest about 20-percent of Germans think the war will escalate.
3. For all the debt and cost of the war and Covid.....isn't there a tax crisis coming in the next year or two?
Most economic analysts sit there and grin....knowing it's a 99-percent chance that taxes will be openly discussed by the spring of 2024 (if not sooner).
You can stall things for a while while in this deep recession, but by early 2023....there has to be some honest discussion about the amount of debt existing.
Will the tax crisis simply lead back around to a new recession? Well....some suggest that, but you can't be that sure.
All of this....if you haven't figured this out.....leads to a higher cost of living, and that's the chief threat of the next ten years in Germany.
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