 Talk about climate change and its victims. Well, one of those victims is the German economy. The German economy shrank in the first quarter for the first time in a long time. It's technically in a recession. You've seen this in difficulties in manufacturing, difficulties with exports, costs have gone up, inflation is hit, and a big driver of the cost increase, the inability of German manufacturers to be competitive on a global scene, is the cost of energy. And the cost of energy is a consequence of Germany's crazy climate policies, crazy attitude towards nuclear power, which doesn't really have anything to do with climate, it just has to do with environmental nonsense. It's shutting down all of its nuclear power plants now. It's moved to windmills and solar, which is not just unreliable, it is expensive, and again, it can't actually provide the energy because the sun doesn't shine much in Germany. Instead of, and of course, a reliance for a long time on Russian natural gas. Now, they've got over that by increasing LNG, but the reality is that they are moving more and more of the economy to windmills. And the consequence of that is now a recession. Now, I'm sure the other bad economic policies, the cost of labor, is really, really high in Germany. The taxes on labor, particularly at a higher end, are very, very high, which motivates people often not to take a raise because the marginal cost of taking a raise actually makes you poorer because you pay so much more taxes at the next bracket. And what's interesting is because of the hugely labor-friendly policies that the German economy has in it, even though there were some pro-business, if you will, reforms that were done in the 90s, Germany still is massively pro-labor in its reforms, the amount of vacation time, and so on. But on the other hand, it's easier in Germany to work part-time. It's easier in Germany to get a part-time job than in the United States. The United States has all these rules about who's part-time and who's a contractor and who's an employee. I mean, the United States regulates these things to death. It's actually simpler in Germany. But the reality is that workers in Germany work a lot, and I mean a lot, fewer hours per year than Americans do. I mean, the numbers are huge. Americans work 2,400 hours per year, 2,400 hours per year. And Americans will be working about that amount 24 hours. I don't know what we got for 24 hours. Sorry, not 2,400 hours a year. The Americans work about 1,800 hours a year. And how being basically at the same level, maybe it's being as high as 2,000 during some periods of time, but basically it's being the same level since 1950. So Americans have seen a slight decline in the number of hours worked maybe from 2,000 to 1,800 since 1950. Germans, on the other hand, in 1950 worked 2,400 hours. They worked significantly more than Americans. They worked on weekends. They worked nights. 1950, they were the poor. In 1950, they were coming out of World War II where their country was completely destroyed by themselves, but completely destroyed. And today, they work only 1,300 hours. So significantly less than the United States, 1,800 versus 1,300. And dramatically less, almost half of what they worked in 1950s and 60s. So labor works a lot less. The cost of hiring that labor is very high. And that is part of the problem. Germany is efficient as it is, as competitive as it is in terms of quality and accuracy and things like that. It shoots itself in the foot by making it so expensive and so difficult. So these are the kind of things that are adding up to cause the German economy real problems and a real need to restructure. So much of the German economy is the auto industry. You've got Mercedes, you've got BMW, you've got Volkswagen. Audi, I think, is owned by Volkswagen. But all of those companies, if you look into the distant future, are going to be in decline. The up-and-coming powerhouse in terms of automobile sales is China. China has seen a dramatic increase in exports of cars, of automobiles to all over the world. China dominates, or is going to dominate, electric cars. China and South Korea have a huge advantage on electric cars over Europe. Tesla is a competitor there, but really at the end of the day, it's going to be the Chinese and the Koreans. China might be cutting a deal with Tesla, given how big Tesla is in China. But it is Germany's in trouble. Europe is in trouble. But the German economy, which is the motor of Europe, is in real trouble. Thank you for listening or watching The Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbookshow.com. 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