And that idea was not exactly mine, I was quoting publications about Asian business getting used to avoiding the American markets with its tariffs and the rest of troubles. But how about that glorious Old World, as Europe was calling itself against historical facts and reason? How about the world without West Europe? Such was my question when I began to dig into a weird story about the Bloomberg agency trying to tell us that Russian economy is in ruins. And that’s when lots of other Russians began to take a fresh interest in the state of European economies.
Bloomberg is American, to be precise, but its writers tend to be firmly on the side of the US Democrats and their European brothers and sisters. And, hence, a series of Bloomberg analytical columns got themselves engaged in stupid propaganda about Russian economy crumbling down.
It’s all about the war, of course. The first Bloomberg funeral of Russian economy took place in August, when the US made a first attempt to end the war in Europe, to utter dismay of European leaders. The next stream of the same propaganda coincided with the current round of negotiations, taking place in the US and Moscow. The country's economic engine is showing fractures, says the recent Bloomberg report, so pressure on Moscow may work.
Propaganda is about cherry-picking facts, selecting only the ones that are convenient to the writer. And then some people fail to display caution and ignore even the facts themselves. That’s how the President of France Emmanuel Macron has engaged in hyper-Bloomberg-style propaganda. He said that Russia is spending a third of its budget on waging war, while not building new hospitals, schools and roads, and that there is no social policy in that nation.
What?? The year end is, naturally, the time for figures and estimates. That’s how I’ve learned, today, that the prices for sparkling wines to be obligatory consumed on December 31 went 10 per cent up this year. About the same happened to the prices of several New Year traditional salads to accompany that wine. But then, the prices somehow never go down anywhere. And, yes, the new tax on purchasing new cars is being hated by everyone, and also the theater tickets prices crawl up and up.
But the roads, and hospitals, and schools? Why, there are two new district clinics opened in walking distances from my home, and I’ve recently used one of them for minor repairs of my physique, and did it for free. Also, don’t even mention the roads to me, since that formerly peaceful highway leading to my country house is now being clogged by monster trucks busy in yet another new highway project, one of dozens engulfing all of Russia. We, in fact, are suffering from a veritable infrastructure revolution, that includes new speedways and railways and airports. Roar and dust are everywhere.
Then there is that story about city lights. Moscow is already ablaze as usual, provincial towns I visit in the country are alight, too. When you travel along the mentioned country road, you may switch on the radio and hear about the start of our hyperactive Moscow Mayor’s yet another program of planting ten thousand new big trees in the city. While the low trees or bushes in the same city fall under another program.
And that’s how I encountered another piece of news, this time about Germany. Cities of Shtutgart, and Heildelberg, and Dresden will not illuminate even the main streets for the coming New Year, for lack of money. It’s like Indian cities being unable to fund lights for Deeepavali. Europe engulfed in darkness: who would want to go there?
Next day the news came about yet another layoffs in the famous and respected German car factories, and some analysts mentioned the possibility of complete ruination of the whole auto industry. Which means that my current German car will have to be replaced by something possibly Chinese in the future.
Mind you, we are not talking here about the overall picture of European economy, as in a Bloomberg feature. We only are picking small, but alarming-looking cherries. But then, since we mentioned the President of France who became the laughingstock of Russia, we cannot ignore the fact that his nation is still unable to pass a budget, since it is causing a crisis, with yet another general strike beginning on December 2. The simple fact is, the French Government has cut medical allocations by 6.7 billion euros, while raising war spending by 7.1 billion, and that’s what has caused the political crisis, among other similar things.
To repeat, it all comes down to war economy and war effort. A military economy is never nice to people. But, so far, Russia has managed to raise production of tanks by 220 per cent since 2022, while mobile artillery went up by 150 per cent, and drones flew up by 435 per cent. That’s an unofficial estimate of the European Bruegel analytical center. A huge overdrive in infrastructure spending (the mentioned roads and the rest), restrained by reasonable, if not draconian banking policy, has managed to keep the Russian economy in a reasonably good shape and slow down inflation. But what happens to Europe?
To quote the recent YouTube post of a European maverick and Donald Trump’s ally, that’s Victor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, Europe’s leaders are mortally afraid of publicly admitting their failure in Ukraine, since that very fact will cause an earthquake with fundamental changes in European politics.
You cannot fail to admit that failure has only grown bigger this week, and everyone can see it. So, we all are facing the need to make an honest prediction of Europe’s future. We cannot afford to use methods employed by Bloomberg, on the contrary, we may want to err on the optimistic side, remembering that European civilization has that habit of falling down, and then picking itself up.
The political earthquake means, of course, the exit of all these leaders that invested European money in Ukraine, so as to make it attack Russia and wage war against all logic. Resignation of these folks, however, will hardly mean getting back hundreds of billions spent on that adventure.
Then, Europe will have to do something about the crowds of migrants, murdering societies and bringing in political chaos.
Also, it is likely that it will be Europe that will have to spend money and effort on keeping afloat the remains of Ukraine, though Moscow has seen some European feelers about dumping that load on Russia.
And, if and when we discount all these coming troubles, the basic question remains: what may be the role of Europe in the world of tomorrow? Will it become a technological and production colony of USA, or will try to get itself some autonomy?
One may predict a real flood of publications on that subject, engulfing us in the coming years.