Germany's Unexpected Economic Crisis [video]

What else is there to expect?

Germany is traditionally a manufacturing nation. If you're a manufacturer you have to keep your manufacturing costs low. A big part of manufacturing is the cost of raw materials and the cost of energy. Natural gas is a good source of energy, natural gas is also a good source of wanted raw materials for plastics, fertilisers, etc.

To put sanctions on cheap imported natural gas is hitting your manufacturing pocket in both ways: it puts the costs of your raw materials up, and it puts the cost of your energy up.

If you increase the costs of manufacturing, you have to increase the cost of your finished goods also. Ooops! Unfortunately you now have goods which are more expensive than your competitors. And also oops, you can't sell as many which means your companies can't make a profit.

So the companies either have to close or relocate. That means you're having to de-industrialise and the country's GDP declines.

You know what that means?? Yep, an economic crisis.

QED.

The comment I saw when clicking the link said what I thought when reding the title here in HN:

> [Kommentare 1378 GoldCobra/Arima] As a German there is nothing "Unexpected" about this.