How is the USA involved in this?
There was a massive draught which killed the nuclear plants in France, causing them to buy power from Germany at extremely high prices and then at the same time, much less natural gas was being delivered from Russia, and the Russian war on Ukraine caused inflation. And all of that after two years of pandemic now means that many low income families can’t afford the rising energy prices.
Obviously, there’s many more factors involved, but I don’t see the USA in this.
US pushed Europe into an an economic war with Russia which led to incredible energy prices seen in Europe today. This is what’s taking German economy which is largely based in manufacturing right now.
I am not aware of them pushing us towards anything.
Then you haven’t been paying attention. US instigated the sanctions and the whole economic war. Europe was initially reluctant, but went along in the end.
You mean after Russia attacked Ukraine? Again, I certainly do not feel like we needed instigation from the US for that.
Please explain to me the logic of EU sabotaging its own economy in response to the war in Ukraine. The sanctions have had pretty much no effect on Russia. In Particular, Russia is making record profit from energy sales right now.
The only country that benefits from Eurozone collapsing economically is the US. Much of European industry is already moving to US, there’s a capital flight from Europe to US, and Europe is now dependent on expensive LNG coming from US. The only thing this fiasco achieved was to turn Europe into a vassal state of the US.
So, you believe we’re not stupid enough to crash our economy on our own, but are stupid enough to let the US convince us?
I believe that without pressure from US, Europe would’ve made better choices.
Although EU is so deep in US ass that it’s performing haruspice on US entrails to guess the wishes of its master even without direct orders, but not even such toadies would betray their countries like this without some strong pressure.
@Ephera @yogthos it doesn’t really matter if that’s what representative democracies “wanted” sanctions are immoral not for the least but because it adversely effects nearly everyone save perhaps the politicians themselves. Particularly harmful to the working class no matter which nation they reside in on each side.
Well, personally I’d rather throw the world economy under a bus than sit back and relax as some psychopath has millions of innocent people slaughtered.
This may not be rational by some definition, this may not be behaviour even I would expect from a nation. But I don’t need to fucking be told that the schoolyard bully peer-pressured us into doing this when I’m allowed to vote and would have preferred even stronger sanctions.
France officially declared that nuclear plants have been stopped for maintenance, not for lack of water in the rivers (I will check this). Regarding the US , remember that immediately after the invasion, they offered zelensky protection suggesting him to fly away from the war zone to refuge himself in the US. This is what news said here at least.
That Zelensky news story is how I heard it here, too, but I don’t see how that should have convinced us other than maybe showing that other wealthy nations are offering help, so we should be helping, too.
In regards to France, the way I heard it, is that they had to shut down some reactors for maintenance, but then also had to have the remaining reactors operate at low capacity, since they would have otherwise overheated the little water that was still running through the rivers.
I don’t know what would be an authorative news source on this, mine is this German article: https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Krisenstab-eingesetzt-Atomdesaster-in-Frankreich-nimmt-seinen-Lauf-7205304.html
That is one of the most renown tech news agencies in Germany, so I’m willing to believe it.
@yogthos Voting is just another form of aggression placing your will upon others. If you want to volunteer yourself to fight that is between you and your God, but placing your preferences in a way that put others lives and livelihoods at risk, particularly at greater risk than your own, can never be just.