ThyssenKrupp in Alabama and Prof. Kerber's Carriers, both pose worrying questions.
The CNBC Squawk Box morning TV programme this week sent a reporter across America on a feature dubbed 'Opportunity USA'. Yesterday morning they were in Alabama and did a feature on the new ThyssenKrupp $5 Billion investment in Calvert, read here or view the actual report from that link.
Given the history of ThyssenKrupp, read here, and that Company's known use of slave labour during the second world war (a quote from the linked report "Krupp Industries employed workers conscripted by the Nazi regime from across Europe. These workers were initially paid, but as Nazi fortunes declined they were kept as slave workers. They were abused, beaten, and starved by the thousands, as detailed in the book The Arms of Krupp"), is it not quite extraordinary that the parent group is sufficiently insensitive to its own fairly recent past to have named this subsidiary 'ThyssenKrupp Steel USA' especially when reflecting on the huge investment involved? What is the mindset, I wonder, of those who could make such a decision?
Another question it is pertinent to pose as Europes' leaders today meet in Brussels to consider further subsuming all their economies into that of Germany, what exactly does Germany intend for this drastically restructured EU?
Professor Markus Kerber, mentioned before on this blog, is a remarkable German defender of the German Constitution, which itself was put in place, originally to forestall any repeat of Nazism, by constitutional experts from the allied nations after the defeat of Nazism in World War Two. Yet even Professor Kerber seems to suggest a potentially eventual imperial role for the EU, as may be seen at 11 minutes 35 seconds in to Part 2 of a France 24 TV debate, linked here.
Two examples, which tend to indicate to this observer, that in the ThyssenKrupp case there is no longer the intense desire in modern Germany to put the stain of the past to rest once and for all, and in the second that some in Europe are unable to bury ambitions for imperialism, the projection of force beyond the borders of a peaceful trading group of countries supposedly being unthinkable, yet for what else do navies exist? I quote Professor Kerber from the video:
Europe cannot afford to have a European aircraft carrier. France has one, France won't purchase a second - France isn't able - Europe as a whole is not able to have one or two aircraft carriers, we don't have a European fleet, a navy an embryo of a european navy, at the same time shipyards go bust..."
Major steps are being considered in Europe, supposedly only to dampen minor bush fires, in small countries, all of which have been easily foreseeable for years. Many signs are in the wind, our leaders will ignore them to the great peril of all!
Given the history of ThyssenKrupp, read here, and that Company's known use of slave labour during the second world war (a quote from the linked report "Krupp Industries employed workers conscripted by the Nazi regime from across Europe. These workers were initially paid, but as Nazi fortunes declined they were kept as slave workers. They were abused, beaten, and starved by the thousands, as detailed in the book The Arms of Krupp"), is it not quite extraordinary that the parent group is sufficiently insensitive to its own fairly recent past to have named this subsidiary 'ThyssenKrupp Steel USA' especially when reflecting on the huge investment involved? What is the mindset, I wonder, of those who could make such a decision?
Another question it is pertinent to pose as Europes' leaders today meet in Brussels to consider further subsuming all their economies into that of Germany, what exactly does Germany intend for this drastically restructured EU?
Professor Markus Kerber, mentioned before on this blog, is a remarkable German defender of the German Constitution, which itself was put in place, originally to forestall any repeat of Nazism, by constitutional experts from the allied nations after the defeat of Nazism in World War Two. Yet even Professor Kerber seems to suggest a potentially eventual imperial role for the EU, as may be seen at 11 minutes 35 seconds in to Part 2 of a France 24 TV debate, linked here.
Two examples, which tend to indicate to this observer, that in the ThyssenKrupp case there is no longer the intense desire in modern Germany to put the stain of the past to rest once and for all, and in the second that some in Europe are unable to bury ambitions for imperialism, the projection of force beyond the borders of a peaceful trading group of countries supposedly being unthinkable, yet for what else do navies exist? I quote Professor Kerber from the video:
Europe cannot afford to have a European aircraft carrier. France has one, France won't purchase a second - France isn't able - Europe as a whole is not able to have one or two aircraft carriers, we don't have a European fleet, a navy an embryo of a european navy, at the same time shipyards go bust..."
Major steps are being considered in Europe, supposedly only to dampen minor bush fires, in small countries, all of which have been easily foreseeable for years. Many signs are in the wind, our leaders will ignore them to the great peril of all!
Labels: EU economic governance, Professor Markus Kerber, ThyssenKrupp
posted by Martin at 3:54 PM
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