Confirmation that it wasn't a shallow Rhine and emissions regulations. Something big is going on in Europe, Germany first. And if the German economy stumbles, particularly its industrial and manufacturing sector, we can reasonably infer its cause - the entire global economy is suffering.
As is standard practice, when weak data began showing up last year, it was attributed to anything, everything else. Europe was downright booming, they said, so there was no possible way for a macro negative scenario. If something had hit Germany, surely it was a transitory distortion traced to the lack