this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
91 points (72.0% liked)

World News

38979 readers
2562 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

For most of this century, Germany racked up one economic success after another, dominating global markets for high-end products like luxury cars and industrial machinery, selling so much to the rest of the world that half the economy ran on exports.

Jobs were plentiful, the government’s financial coffers grew as other European countries drowned in debt, and books were written about what other countries could learn from Germany.

No longer. Now, Germany is the world’s worst-performing major developed economy, with both the International Monetary Fund and European Union expecting it to shrink this year.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Don't worry about BASF they've been preparing for the end of fossil fuels for decades and have a gazillion replacement recipes in place that they were already using depending on the oil price: If necessary they can produce all their precursors and therefore everything from e.g. starch, they're also one of the primary investors in hydrogen infrastructure.

OTOH they're nowhere close to being the poster-child of green chemicals, that honour goes to Werner & Mertz (and a couple of even smaller companies noone has ever heard of, e.g. folks working on lignin-based plastics).

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And they didn't use those recipes before, no doubt because the profit margins with those are lower.

It doesn't take much of a loss in profitability for a company as large as BASF to pull down Germany's GDP if only a little bit (and when the difference between GDP growth being reported as "strong" or "weak" is all of +/-1%, every little bit counts).

And then on top of that there's other companies directly or indirectly dependent on cheap hydrocarbons, as well as the whole situation of the high dependency of German Households on gas for heating.

I for one think that over the long run getting rid of its hydrocarbon addiction will be good for Germany, but before the country gets there the cold-turkey period will naturally impact its GDP growth.