Stratfor on Germany, for mmerlinn!

[DoChenRollingBearing]

Here's one for you mmerlinn, kind of parallels what you have written a time or two:

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/stat...readmore&elq=41379670f5624d89a6ef6f07f4718b5c

 

[swissaustrian]

The analysis is good overall. However, the author doesn't understand how Germany takes advantage of the current situation. They're effectively killing their export markets in the longer run, but right now they're profiting immensely from the common currency which is totally undervalued from a German perspective. German manufacturers are hypercompetitive due to that. Companies from (nearly all) other Euro countries have a massive competitive disadvantage.
Another thing the author fails to aknowledge are the roots of the EU. The big industrialists of the Nazi era (especially the main figures of the IG Farben cartell) had already designed the blueprint for the EU as another mechanism for German dominance and facist model of control without democratic "interference". Consequently, some of them were main figures in the founding of the EU. To think that the EU somehow limited German powers is illusional imho.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ort-shows-Nazis-planned-Fourth-Reich--EU.html

Here's an article which is mainly focused on the role of the IG Farben and the pharmaceutical and chemical industry:
http://www.eu-facts.org/en/background/dark_roots_europe_lecture.html

 

[DCFusor]

It was a useful illusion to get the French to go along, you must admit...

Thinking you can legislate or treaty-control some things that you can't really is key to quite a few failures. You're not going to take away the Germans working harder and saving more by some treaty, and simple economics always wins eventually.

 

[mmerlinn]

In some ways it does. One thing I noticed that was missing is that how, for whatever reason, when Germany and Russia "get in bed together" that sooner or later it results in a very hot war.

Everything I read points to the EU being a product of the German elites of WWII vintage. As SA points out, the firms of the Nazi era still exist (VW, Messershmidt, Siemens, Bayer, Thiessen, etc, though some under different names) and are top heavy with Nazi industrialists and their descendants.

Also, as SA points out, the EU has not reigned in German ambitions. The EU has been the vehicle for expanding German ambitions at the expense of the rest of the EU countries.

As stated before, watch both Edmund Stoiber and Freiherr Karl-Theodor von- und zu-Guttenberg. Both were mentored by Franz Joseph Strauss who was one of the politicians who helped design the current German EU strategy.

Also, if I remember correctly, when Margaret Thatcher was in Denver in the 90's she said something to the effect that Germany was not anchored to the EU, but that the EU was anchored to Germany. She also stated that because the German character was accustomed to dominate that Germany would dictate to the EU and not vice versa. What we are witnessing in Europe today bears out that observation.