Germany closing factories at home, opening them in China
Germany closing factories at home, opening them in China
Germany's domestic energy policies and economic environment are driving its biggest industrial players away from home and toward more favorable conditions
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22969795
It's not "Germany". It's german factory owners, who are chasing profits. That is a big difference and we should use the correct language here.
Germany’s reliance on renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, combined with the phasing out of nuclear power, has increased the country’s reliance on imports and caused severe price volatility, ultimately putting pressure on both industry and taxpayers
This is false on multiple accounts, our massive reliance on Russian gas, Russias war in Ukraine and the subsequent boycott of their gas increased energy prices, not our renewables. They were the biggest factor that helped in these times because guess what, they are an independent source of energy, unlike imported gas.
Also the nuclear phaseout also wasn’t a factor, as a conservative politician recently got corrected on a very similar topic. In fact, Germany sold more energy to France (massively dependent on nuclear) in 2022 than it bought.
And wtf saying that phasing out nuclear puts pressure on taxpayers, nuclear is cheap in France exclusively because it gets heavily subsidized by French taxpayers, if wind or solar got similar subsidies energy consumption would probably be paid instead of cost something.
Maybe we shouldn't trust any media owned, operated, or financed by wealthy sociopaths?
Sondhi Limthongkul[a] (born 7 November 1947) is a Thai media proprietor, conspiracy theorist, pro-Beijing anti-democracy reactionary activist, demagogue, and leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD).
The owners devoted his life to overthrowing democracy and returning to Monarch-ruled authoritarian dictatorship.
This guy appears to be the founder not the owner:
Asia Times Online was created early in 1999, at atimes.com, describing itself as a successor in "publication policy and editorial outlook" to the print newspaper Asia Times, owned by Sondhi Limthongkul, a Thai media mogul and leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy, who later sold his business. -- source, emphasis mine
Media Bias Fact Check lists them as "mostly factual".
None of which makes the paragraph cited by thread op any more correct, obviously. (Fwiw: coal power is cheap in China because it is heavily subsidized & there's no CO2 trading scheme, afaik. Overall, German companies opening factories in China because they're cheap tracks, however.)
🤔
- Sell factory linked to forced labor
- Invest elsewhere
In other news, it is said that companies around the world are starting to cut prices and costs and scale back activity in China.
The interesting bit is that the Asian Times doesn't mention too many specific new German companies which allegedly have been investing in China recently. It just says things like German energy costs are higher.
[Edit for clarity.]
Was just seeing the same. The Asia Times is likely referring to the explosion of dropshippers in Germany, where everyone and their mother has a storefront to ship trash from China to the EU.
Surely moving all the worlds factories into one country isn't a smart idea.
What I find more difficult to fit in my head in all of this is that it was Germany one of the first supporters of re-industrializing Europe, to off-set the huge dependency on foreign production.
And now this?
Well that's not very nice of them!