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Germans told to stop whining, wear 2 sweaters and have candles and flashlights ready in case of blackouts this winter

October 12, 2022

Germans told to stop whining, wear 2 sweaters and have candles and flashlights ready in case of blackouts this winter

Wolfgang Schaeuble attends the first of a two-day federal party congress of the German Christian Democrats (CDU) on September 09, 2022.
Wolfgang Schäuble, former president of the German parliament, told Bild-TV that people should wear two sweaters this winter amid the energy crisis. 
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
  • German politician Wolfgang Schäuble said on Bild-TV people should stop whining in the energy crisis.
  • He told Germans to wear two sweaters in cold temperatures and have candles ready for blackouts.
  • Germany and the rest of Europe face high energy bills as Russia chokes gas supply to the continent.

Germans should stop whining and be prepared with sweaters and candles this winter in case of blackouts amid the energy crisis, according to politician Wolfgang Schäuble.

In an interview on Tuesday with Bild-TV, the former finance minister and president of the German government said Germans should “just put on a sweater, or maybe a second sweater” in the event of a freezing-cold winter.

“You don’t have to whine about it, you have to recognize that a lot of things can’t be taken for granted,” he told the news channel.

European leaders have raised concerns about the possibility of power cuts this winter because of the squeeze in energy supplies. “That’s why you should always have a few candles, matches and a flashlight at home,” Schäuble told Bild-TV.

The 80-year-old also warned Germans not to assume the government could solve financial problems such as soaring inflation and energy costs.

“If we suggest to people that everything is unlimited, we are overexploiting. Then people get the impression that the state can do everything – that is not sustainable,” Schäuble told Bild-TV.

Russia continues to hold back natural gas supplies to Europe after the West imposed sanctions on Moscow for invading Ukraine. As a result of the shortages, energy prices have sky-rocketed, leaving some people struggling to afford food and other basic items.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Schäuble Warns of Coming Economic Crisis

October 12, 2017

Schäuble Warns of Coming Economic Crisis 

In his farewell interview for the Financial Times, Federal Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble warned of a new global financial crisis predicated upon the Quantity of Money theory that the central banks had pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system that is creating a risk of “new bubbles”.  Indeed, many just do not comprehend what is going on and are blaming the new highs in share markets on concerns about the increased risks from the accumulation of more and more liquidity and the growth of public and private debt.

The IMF CEO Christine Lagarde has also gone on record warning of a new debt crisis. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has also joined the crowd who see the Quantitative Easing as increasing the risk of asset bubbles. Schäuble has made it clear that he sees the risk is greater in the Eurozone because of the excessive amount of bad loans held by banks.

This is the view that has driven Schäuble calling for the continuation of austerity policy in southern Europe. Schäuble is to be elected president of the new Bundestag at the end of October. The problem with austerity is that this has been directed at the people – not government. The QE policies have brought in government debt, so the added liquidity has FAILED to stimulate the economy and capital has been driven into assets by negative interest rates. Austerity will only further punish the private sector while the public sector continues to spend and then raises taxes maintaining deflation and the negative interest rates rob people of any income from their savings.

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Schäuble: Another Financial Crisis Is Coming Due To Spiraling Global Debt, “New Bubbles”

October 8, 2017

Schäuble: Another Financial Crisis Is Coming Due To Spiraling Global Debt, “New Bubbles”

Following the disappointing for Angela Merkel and her CDU German election results, which propelled the populist AfD into Germany’s political establishment with 92 members of parliament, the first casualty was Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, who in a few days will relinquish his long-held post and move on to the ceremonial role of Bundestag president. As part of his farewell tour, Schäuble – like so many other former members of the establishment- took a parting shot at the system he helped create and warned that “spiraling levels of global debt and liquidity”, as well as “new bubbles” present a major risk to the world economy.

Speaking to the FT, the Europhile beloved in Germany for successfully steering one of the world’s largest economies for the past eight years, and who nearly led to Grexit in the summer of 2005, said there was a danger of “new bubbles” forming due to the trillions of dollars that central banks have pumped into markets. Confirming another fear widely propagated by the Putin propaganda alternative media, Schäuble also warned of risks to stability in the eurozone, particularly those posed by bank balance sheets burdened by the post-crisis legacy of non-performing loans, something we have warned about since 2012, and an issue which remains largely unresolved.

A strong advocate of fiscal rectitude and debt reduction, Mr Schäuble dominated Europe’s policy response to the eurozone debt crisis and has been vilified in countries such as Greece as an architect of austerity. But he will mainly be remembered as the most ardently pro-European politician in German chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet, skilled at selling the benefits of the euro and of deeper European integration to an often sceptical German public.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Governments to Control Large Cash Transactions

August 17, 2017

Governments to Control Large Cash Transactions

I have been pointing out the crisis we face moving forward. The gist of this is the total fiscal mismanagement of government for which we, the people, are always blamed. This hunt for taxes has led down the path of arguments for eliminating currency. While people think Bitcoin is an answer, they do not understand government’s hunt for taxes no less the lack of a true rule of law. The government need only pass a law that anyone who fails to report what they have in Bitcoin is criminal and they get to confiscate all your assets.

Switzerland has its “wealth tax” which they argue is nothing just 0.02%. However, it requires you to report all assets worldwide. They then know precisely what you have and it is merely one vote away at anytime to raise the tax or impose criminal penalties for failure to report everything. Yet, once Switzerland has that info, under G20 they must share it with all other governments.

We have stood by and watched India cancel all high denomination notes. Try walking around with €500 notes in Europe and they look at you funny or won’t accept them. ATM machines have been reduced in Europe to taking a maximum of €200 in cash at best. This is all th hunt for taxes because government cannot function ethically no less morally.

Now the German Federal Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, is proposing to control all large cash transactions claiming this will prevent black money transactions and money laundering. Of course, they see these two issues not as typical crime like drugs, but tax avoidance.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Germany’s Finance Minister Blames ECB For German Trade Surplus; Why the Eurozone Will Destruct

September 10, 2016

Germany’s Finance Minister Blames ECB For German Trade Surplus; Why the Eurozone Will Destruct

Fireworks are going off in Germany again in yet another battle between Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s finance minister, and the ECB.

Schaueble dismissed a suggestion this week by ECB head Mario Draghi that Germany should use fiscal room for manoeuvre to decrease its export surplus.

schaueble

Reuters reports Germany’s Schaeuble blames ECB for German Export Surplus.

Germany has no plans to reduce its export surplus, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Friday, as the European Central Bank (ECB) has not changed its monetary policy which has led to a weaker euro which in turn boosts German exports.

“Even before the European Central Bank decided its policies of unusual monetary policy, which also led to the euro exchange rate falling significantly, I said that we will increase German export surplus,” Schaueble told reporters.

“If the surplus in the euro zone as a whole rises by a total of 3.6 percent, one should not be surprised that the German export surplus has also risen, if not by 3.6 percent but by 2 percent,” he said before meeting other European finance ministers.

When asked whether he had any plans to decrease Germany’s export surplus, Schaeuble said: “I haven’t heard that the ECB is changing its monetary policy.”

The Munich-based Ifo economic institute has said Germany’s current account surplus would probably hit a new record of 278 billion euros ($313.28 billion) this year, overtaking that of China again to become the world’s largest.

Resounding No

I take that as a resounding “no” to Draghi’s proposal that Germany should reduce its export surplus.

Target2

No discussion of eurozone problems would be complete without a discussion of Target2, an abomination created by the eurozone founders and one of the fundamental flaws of the euro.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Catastrophic Mismanagement of the Economy & The Coming Meltdown

April 12, 2016

The Catastrophic Mismanagement of the Economy & The Coming Meltdown 

Draghi Schauble

Cover-Pension CrisisWe are finishing up the “Pension Crisis – The Next Nightmare,” which is a special report outlining the next global meltdown. Germany’s Federal Finance Minister Schaeuble is now openly blaming Mario Draghi for the electoral success of the AFD in Germany, which is the Alternative for Germany (In German: Alternative für Deutschland, AfD). The AFD is a right-wing populist party that is also the Eurosceptic political party in Germany. The AFD has risen from 0% to nearly 40% in about 2 years.

Additionally, Schaeuble seems to be rumbling that the ECB is creating a huge problem with negative interest rates. If the ECB does not change its monetary policy radically and soon, Germany will be engulfed in its own major pension crisis. Central banks may be forced to raise rates to try to bail out pension funds. This has nothing to do with the economic trends.

The pension crisis is becoming a real nightmare for federal and state budgets and now depend on exceptionally low interest rates while pension funds are going bankrupt. Raising rates to help the pension funds will wipe out government budgets. This entire idea of Keynesian economics, which says that government is capable of managing the economy by raising and lowering interest rates, is a complete disaster. These people are incapable of forecasting the economy, as former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers openly admitted to Bloomberg TV. Those who think they are endowed with magical powers to manipulate society have created a complete mess and they are too brain-dead to realize the consequences. Our computer is extremely bearish on government. The turning point (2015.75) was the PEAK IN GOVERNMENT. Ever since that turning point, we have begun the downhill move that is destined to collapse into January 2020 (2020.05).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Schauble Throws Up All Over Mario Draghi: “The ECB Is Causing Extraordinary Problems”

April 12, 2016

Schauble Throws Up All Over Mario Draghi: “The ECB Is Causing Extraordinary Problems”

Following this weekend’s snafu in which Spiegel said that Germany is considering suing the ECB if it launched QE, Mario Draghi reportedly made attempts to “mollify” Germany with promises that this won’t happen (it will) and that it was willing to meet – literally – with the German finance minister to appease any concerns he may have. Moments ago, Reuters reports that the meeting appears to have gone… badly.
  • SCHAEUBLE SAYS ECB CAUSING ‘EXTRAORDINARY PROBLEMS’: REUTERS

Oops.He added that he doesn’t see the ECB seriously discussing helicopter money (it is) adding that ECB policy does not help trust in Europe integration, and conluded with the following condemnation of everything that has been tried, and failed, so far:

  • SCHAEUBLE: FISCAL, MONETARY POLICY LARGELY EXHAUSTED GLOBALLY

Meanwhile, the IMF says that only more monetary and fiscal policy can save the world from fiscal stagnation.

While it is unclear what happens next, it is very much clear that never during the New Normal has there been so much confusion on how to proceed and what the next steps should be.

Panama Papers – Who Instigated the Leak? USA or Russia?

April 10, 2016

Panama Papers – Who Instigated the Leak? USA or Russia? 

Mossack Fonseca logo

The US think tank Brookings Institution is claiming that Russia had released the Panama Papers in order to destabilize the West. Wikileaks claimed the exact opposite that the publications have been launched by the United States. Our sources put the blame on neither. Indeed, it is starting to emerge that attempts to leak information to Germany before were ignored by the government. Several times a whistleblower attempted to provide information to the Minister of Finance. The whistleblower wanted to expose questionable dealings of the Bundesdruckerei which is a state owned company with one of the longest histories in the business, dating as far back as the 18th century. The German government took over Bundesdruckerei as a wholly state-owned company. In recent years, however, the company has been transformed into a leading international Full ID | Management supplier.

SchäubleSPIEGEL is now reporting that the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and his Secretary of StateWerner Gatzer have refused contact with a whistleblower for years. The Ministry of Finance assumed Bundesdruckerei had used this company to do business in Venezuela.

It appears that the whistleblower is German. This appears to be really an internal breach rather than a state orchestrated event. There appears to be no real motive to expose the Panama Papers for this has been following the same path as to why Hitler did not invade Switzerland; he too needed access to secret measures. Switzerland’s secrecy began when Hitler made it illegal to have an account outside of Germany. He could have invaded Switzerland for defeating his laws, but he did not. There are some lines you do not cross. and this is one of them.

Consequently, the leak does appear to be internal for personal political reasons rather than instigated by USA or Russia.

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