European Death Spiral

Chris dissects the ongoing "European death spiral," highlighting the economic and political struggles facing Europe. He discusses skyrocketing energy costs, Germany's shrinking military capacity, misguided spending priorities, and the decline of European manufacturing competitiveness. Markowski critiques Europe's reliance on the U.S. for defense, the consequences of green energy policies, and the economic fallout of unchecked immigration. He calls for tough love and self-reliance from America's allies to address these growing challenges. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
European death Spiral. I don't know else to call it.
I smarting. I'm doing my homework and the various different
foreign papers right now. And it's interesting. It was the
Greek government, uh, their their prime minister wrote a letter

(00:36):
to the European Commission President Ursula vander lay In, another
far left winger, not the Greek prime minister, and he's saying, listen,
you guys, guys could do something about this, this high
power nonsense, the costs, natural gas prices, it completely undermines

(01:00):
Europe's competitiveness, not to mention what it's doing to households.
European wholesale electricity prices jump to their highest level in
twenty months. Energy costs have skyrocketed throughout the European Union.

(01:22):
Several countries are saying, listen, we've got to do something here.
This has to stop. I don't know, I don't know,
I don't know what's going to happen now, I really don't.
It's going to depend on various different elections that are
going to take place in Europe. Europe is in it.

(01:45):
It's been a death spiral from some time. Bill Galson
put together some statistics here that it's staggering. Nineteen eighty eight,
West Germany's armony had a half a million soldier West Germany, okay,

(02:06):
half a million soldiers. Obviously, Reunified Germany's active active duty
army is one hundred and eighty thousands. Reunified Germany. Their
army in the nineteen eighties was equipped with more than
two thousand battle ready tanks. They got a couple hundred

(02:26):
right now that are operational. A couple hundred. Yeah. Germany
they decided after the after the Cold War, hey no
big well, we'll disarmed. We can spend on social programs. Yeah,

(02:47):
we were told, we were told that they're going to
re up the ante when it comes to their military.
That that did last long. Germany right now is doing
something that we do from time to I'm here in
this country, but Germany is quite factly it's not the
United States. They're sending it out. They're giving away in
cash that's right giving away cash. They are giving all families,

(03:14):
all families in the entire country, regardless of income, a
check check more than three thousand dollars per child, payable
for offspring as old as eighteen, in some cases twenty five.
Germany is going to spend as much on that benefit

(03:36):
as they are on defense. Again, they're defending, are friending
these choices. They are, Yes, we got to keep our
country together. Oh, I got to keep it. No, no, no, no,
no no. You're buying votes. You're buying votes because you

(03:58):
have political upstarts that are saying enough is enough again,
a couple hundred tanks ready to go, That's okay. Never Oh,
the United States is gonna take care of that, right
Why again? I like Europe too. I like Europe too.

(04:26):
And you know, I said, I'm sorry, okay, I know this.
This makes a lot a lot of people uncomfortable, you know,
on the cocktail party, Charney sipping circuit, embassy circuit out there,
we are being taken advantage of anyway, France and Germany

(04:52):
right now, very weak governments that are in place again,
the German the center left Social Democratic Party, they're expected
to lose the election again. You want to talk about
their you know, their manufacturing, their automobile industry, crown jewel. Right. Yeah.

(05:15):
In twenty eleven, Europe produced twenty six percent of all
cars globally, twenty six percent, way ahead of Germany, way
ahead of China and the United States. China leads with
thirty three percent. Europe has fallen to nineteen percent. We're
about the same over that period of time. They pushed EV's,

(05:38):
they pushed EV's and yeah, you know, look at this
registrations of new electric cars plumbing twenty seven point five
percent in Germany, Petrol dominates the again the let me
put it to you this way. The Economics Minister Formany

(06:00):
is a guy by the name of Robert Havoc. Robert
Habek is a member of the Green Party. Now any
Green Party, I don't care where it is with the Europe,
whether it be here in the United States, is far left.
It's communist fascist, whatever it may be. And like I
explained here on the program, there's no difference between communism,
really not much of it to be communism fascism, said,

(06:23):
I compare them, it's like it's like two rival gangs,
the Bloods and the Crips. Same thing. Anyway. Yeah. Uh again,
the European Union assume they could remain economically competitive while
government spending and regulatory burdens increased. They assumed that relations

(06:43):
with Russia would remain manageable and the flow of cheap
Russian energy would continue.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
They assume, Oh, yeah, we're gonna lell these people, all
these immigrants from the Middle East and Sub Saharan Africa
North that all these no, come on in. It's like
the Delta house. Yeah, come on in. Everything's gonna be fine. No,

(07:09):
it's not fine. And they also assume that United States
picking up the check. They're gonna continue to defend us.
Not so much anymore. I agree with Trump one hundred

(07:29):
and going after our allies. You know what, there's something
we can to people do understand, this person's my friend,
someone's true somebody you're truly friends, which we truly ally someone.
You're gonna be honest with them, and sometimes tough love
is necessary. You cut off, you cut off enough. Well,

(07:57):
some many people have experienced this. At some point in
time in life. You're you're out, you're out at some
social function, whatever it may be. You're at a bar
and one of your friends, true friends maybe had too much.
What do you do You encourage them to drink more
and get out of control or make it worse, or
do you say, you know, listen, you know you pull

(08:18):
them aside. This hurt, This no good, This has to stop.
That's what true friend does. They're honest, and you know
we can allies. You can't. No, no, no, no, no,
no no no no. If they're truly our allies, get
a truly tell them that they're gonna have to start
doing things differently. And yeah, I don't give them from
tariff's in Europe. I don't care. You're gonna start, you

(08:40):
gonna put tariffs, don't. We're gonna te if you stuff too.
At some point in time, you guys gotta grow up
for crying out loud post World War Two? How a
long time ago, it's twenty twenty five. At some point
in time, you have to grow up. Watchdog on Wall

(09:02):
Street dot com