Quote

Germany is the new pig. Germany depends on exports and its markets are drying up. When the Germans start getting 10% unemployment, 15% unemployment, which is the real variable, how are they going to handle it?

George Friedman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

George Friedman
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: February 1
Businessperson
Geopolitician
Political Scientist
Writer
Buda Pest
Markets
Germany
Drying
Handle
Exports
Depends
Variable
Start
Variables
Getting
Germans
Real
Pigs
Going
Unemployment

More quotes by George Friedman

Image
One of the great famines in human history took place during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. [At the same time] Western journalists were reporting how marvelously Chinese society was working. We know so little [about what happens in China].
George Friedman
Image
Assad's mother was a terror. He was terrified of her and she kept saying to him, you're not like your father. That's interesting, but it's useless information. It doesn't tell me anything about how the first and second armored brigades are going to operate.
George Friedman
Image
In a way, we can have a much easier discussion about the future of technology than we can about why a young man kills another man in a war.
George Friedman
Image
We cannot anticipate the moral circumstances under which we will live. And therefore [I refuse] to say that I will not live in a moral circumstance that requires violence.
George Friedman
Image
It has always struck me as the world's great fortune that the two great superpowers were the United States and the Soviet Union, who managed the Cold War with meticulous care in retrospect. Imagine the European diplomats of 1914 or 1938 armed with nuclear weapons. It is easy to believe they would not have been as cautious.
George Friedman
Image
Europeans have always thought of U.S. presidents as either naive, as they did with Jimmy Carter, or as cowboys, as they did with Lyndon Johnson, and held them in contempt in either case.
George Friedman
Image
I'm not a journalist. So I didn't down and let Assad charm me. I didn't walk away and say my god he's got an Apple computer and he really likes Beyonce so he must be a liberal.
George Friedman
Image
One definition of the wicked is that they will resort to whatever means are necessary to achieve their ends. Therefore, if those who oppose wickedness don't learn the art of war, they will be helpless.
George Friedman
Image
The British bombed German cities [during World War II] to keep the workers awake at night. So instead of dropping one bomb, we sent a thousand planes and, yes, we took out the factory sometimes, but we also took out the city. It reached the point where we wanted more efficient ways to destroy a city. The result was nuclear weapons.
George Friedman
Image
What is American strategy first of all? So American strategy is to command the seas, right? The foundation of our power is sea control. Nobody can invade us, but we can invade them.
George Friedman
Image
The most horrible sort of war is civil war.
George Friedman
Image
The warrior must continue to make decisions in the face of extreme circumstances. He cannot afford to get angry or frightened.
George Friedman
Image
There has never been a century that has not had a systemic war - a systemic war, meaning when the entire system convulses. From the Seven Years' War in Europe to the Napoleonic Wars of the 19th century to the World Wars, every century has one.
George Friedman
Image
When I went to war, I did not go making geopolitical calculations. I went to war with a lust.
George Friedman
Image
The important thing in war is that there is an element of rage, but you must remain very distant from it.
George Friedman
Image
What is the great fear of the United States? That an Eastern power will build a navy to challenge us. How do you keep them from doing that? Keep them at each other's throats so they don't have any money to do this. This is why we fought the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War.
George Friedman
Image
Italy is the fourth-largest economy in Europe and the eighth-largest economy in the world, and its banking system is collapsing. And Germany is desperate. It must maintain its standard of living. It can only do that with exports and Deutsche Bank is very exposed to Italian debt. But so is the rest of Europe.
George Friedman
Image
The man who hates war more than he hates the Nazis is a wicked man.
George Friedman
Image
Strategy is something that emerges from reality, while tactics might be chosen.
George Friedman
Image
The tragedy of the human condition is that the thing that makes us most human - community - originates in the inhumanity of war.
George Friedman