The Failed Policies of Angela Merkel

Merkel, like a lot of politicians, went for what sounded good. Even if it didn't sound good to everyone. How Angela Merkel's Green Agenda Caused the Economic Collapse of Germany | FrontpageMag

Remember how the world, especially the American media, fawned over former German Chancellor Angela Merkel?

The adoration was so over the top that in 2015 Time magazine named Merkel its "Person of the Year." It described her as the "Chancellor of the Free World."

Time owes whatever readers it has left a solemn apology. Today, Germans are suffering the bitter fruits of nearly every major economic and geopolitical decision Merkel made as chancellor.

From her deciding to become dependent on Putin's Russia for natural gas, to believing the hype around solar and wind and shutting down coal and nuclear, everything she did turned out wrong.

But it was her determination go Green that killed German industry. Or is killing it. Germans will have to choose between heating their homes, and powering their factories. And if Putin has his way, they won't be able to do either.

Then there is the German refusal to spend 2% of their GDP on their military, in accordance with their NATO commitments. Would a strong Germany have stopped Putin from invading Ukraine? It might have made him think twice.

Both of those issues were brought up by President Trump, and the Germans laughed.

In 2018, Germany didn't have enough guns to outfit their military so some were making do with broomsticks painted black. (That sounds like a joke.)

And also in 2018, Germany had problems supporting a mechanized military.

A few of things that are wrong:

• Helicopter pilot training has been outsourced to a private company – most of the Bundeswehr helicopters are out of commission.
• Only 95 of 244 Leopard 2 tanks are in service.
• Only 29 of 93 commissioned fighter jets are combat-ready. (Only 66 are operational)
• In recent NATO war games they were forced to disguise broomsticks as machine guns to hide the fact that they don’t have enough equipment.

Things haven’t been getting better the past 4 years.

But back to the article linked at the top.

Even as an environmentalist, Europe's savior was a flop. Merkel hogtied German industries to expensive and unreliable "renewable" energy by spurning natural gas and closing nuclear plants. The experiment failed miserably, and now Germany is vastly increasing the share of its power that comes from burning coal. That's no strategy to stop climate change.

Merkel did what sounded good to the Left. Laugh at Trump being top of that list. Shut down nuclear power. (Nuclear - despite being carbon-free - is bad.) Bet on solar and wind, despite it being clear they don't work at scale.

There is more, click thru. (Hat tip to Flopping Aces.)