The economic collapse of the Netherlands is coming, bringing more totalitarianism

Pieter Omtzigt’s New Social Contract (NSC) has suspended talks to form a new government. This is because new recent documents, which surfaced during the negotiations, showed that the Netherlands is in a much worse economic position than Omtzigt had previously assumed. In 2023, the seventeenth report of the Study Group on the available budget became public. It stated that the budget deficit would rise to 4 percent in 2028 and that 17 billion euros per year would have to be redirected – all under the assumption that interest rates would not rise and that inflation would fall to 2 percent.

The Netherlands in relation to the German economy

The signs that the Netherlands is on the brink of economic collapse are unmistakable. For this we start in Germany. We know the saying: when Germany sneezes, the Netherlands catches cold. In 2021, Germany accounted for 23 percent of Dutch exports, followed by Belgium with 11 percent. A recent article by NOS is relatively optimistic about the economic link between the Netherlands and Germany, but it substantiates this in part by attributing an important role to the port of Rotterdam – I'll come back to this in a moment.

Nord Stream 1 was the largest pipeline transporting natural gas from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea. By 2021, Russia transported 40 percent of the EU’s total energy consumption through this pipeline. On Sept. 26, however, the pipeline – along with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline still under construction – was destroyed under mysterious circumstances. On Feb. 7, 2022, Joe Biden had already warned that he would end this project if Russia launched an invasion.

Many named the US as the main culprit, although this suspicion was simultaneously kept out of the mainstream media. Especially so by the masochistic Germans, who themselves are suffering the brunt of the destruction. The suspicion is plausible in light of what George Friedman – STRATFOR’s geostrategist – argued some time ago. He said that U.S. geopolitical interests are put to the test as soon as German capital and technology converge with Russian raw materials. Friedman even argued that this would mean the U.S. would lose its global hegemony.

The loss of Nord Stream has extreme consequences for the German economy, and therefore for the Netherlands. While it is possible to source energy from other countries and from other suppliers, a pipeline can only be used between two powers. By contrast, deliveries by ship, for example, can also have a different destination if the international market changes. According to Peter Zeihan – political scientist and also previously working for STRATFOR – energy prices in Germany have now increased sevenfold.

That change in the energy market is likely, in light of related developments. Zeihan foresees the end of German industrial production – and those who do not export cannot import either. Repairing the damage caused by permafrost after the closure of gas wells in Russia when the Soviet Union fell took Western engineers 30 years. The underground water became ice and this damaged the pipelines. This underscores the complexity and time-consuming nature of such repairs. Another conundrum is that German precision manufacturing relies heavily on imported petrochemicals. These are kept for processing into production goods, leading to a fragile and expensive supply chain.

Put more simply, the loss of trade relations with Russia also makes it harder to get the raw materials needed to make complex plastics. Complex plastics, in turn, are needed to make machines used to manufacture other machines. Other industrial materials are also becoming hard to come by: titanium, aluminium, platinum, palladium, rhodium and neon.

The continued ageing of the German population makes it difficult to offer them the prospect of new economic growth. This leads Germans to be pessimistic about their economic future and to try to save more. As a result, the economy is shrinking even faster. Despite this frugality, Germany’s service sector faces a solid shortage of workers. This cannot simply be filled with immigrants, many of whom are not culturally compatible. We will come back to this. In any case, raising wages does not help as long as living costs rise even harder – again, see the precarious energy situation.

The port of Rotterdam

A great virtue of the Dutch economy is that the Germans need us to get to the sea. If German manufacturing collapses, the Netherlands will become less relevant as a link between the German economy and the rest of the world. This brings us to the Port of Rotterdam, which provides the Netherlands with employment of over 500,000 jobs and added value of over €60 billion, a significant portion of the gross domestic product. You probably know the snowball effect: someone who works for the port spends that money at a local pub or barber shop. So we can say that the Port of Rotterdam’s impact on the Dutch economy is huge.

The dark clouds on the horizon became painfully obvious when I was welcomed to the Port of Rotterdam on October 4, 2023 as part of the IPO congress, that is, the congress for Interprovincial Consultation. We were given a tour by Mark Dijk, the director of the civil part of the port, a former VVD European Parliament candidate. Back then, he campaigned for the transport sector; now he is a spokesman for climate ideology. Jeanette Baljeu assisted him, also a VVD member and member of the South Holland Provincial Executive.

During the tour, the duo sounded disappointed that less and less is produced in the Netherlands, while consumption is not decreasing. Shipbuilding, for example, no longer takes place in the Netherlands. We are dependent on foreign industry. Consumers want to keep importing, but our country does not produce enough to export in return.

As the canal boat steamed further up the river, they became more deeply entangled in their own narrative. The housing challenge means building closer and closer to the river: one consequence is the noise pollution from some heavy boat engines, amounting to legal problems. But denser construction was definitely unrelated to immigration – or so they literally said as we sailed past a cruise ship full of Ukrainian asylum seekers...

Mark Dijk argued that fossil fuel is more effective in terms of calorific energy value than ‘renewable’ technologies such as wind turbines, which take up much more of already scarce space per unit of energy. At the same time, nuclear power is a no-go because the runoff from heated water would cause problems in terms of biodiversity. Nevertheless, he called the energy transition necessary and unavoidable, stating that the dangers of a disrupted climate and deviation from EU standards would be much greater. He aims for 55 percent less CO2 in 2030, and CO2 neutrality in 2050.

Little attention was paid to what this implies for Dutch competitiveness. After all, much more than the Groningen gas, which is also shut off, the port of Rotterdam is the economic lifeline of the Netherlands. In all answers, climate ideology was consistently elevated above practical concerns. The duo even admitted that not only is the lack of space disastrous, but that the techniques needed to reduce CO2 are not feasible. After all, this would increase nitrogen deposition, and that is legally prohibited.

In conclusion, this tour revealed that a one-sided vision of sustainability and climate is beyond criticism. We must muster the courage to convey hard and painful messages, the IPO conference kept repeating, which must be carried and supported by inviting, utopian visions of the future,

Dijk also had no appetite for confronting the government in The Hague with the observation that what is being imposed on him is simply unworkable. For that, first, he himself believes too fervently in the climate-narrative, and second, he fears the reaction of the European Commission. Perhaps he feels like a wartime mayor: “If I don’t do it, I’ll lose my job and someone else will come and try to do it anyway although it is impossible. So I might as well try to do it even though I know it is impossible.” Either way, the impact of this zero emissions policy on Dutch competitiveness will be catastrophic.

Ageing

Now we come to ageing. On Jan. 1, 2023, the Netherlands had 3,601,167 residents aged 65 or older. That is 20.2 percent of the population. The aging of the Netherlands has increased: in 1990, 12.8 percent of residents were 65-plus. There are now 2,728,550 people aged 65 to 80, and 872,617 over 80.

Under the Rutte cabinets, the Netherlands has seen a transition from national care to local care. In many cases this amounts to informal care. While relying on informal care reduces care costs, this labour is taken away from the rest of the economy. If you care for your parents or grandparents at home, you cannot work during that same time. Informal care also reinforces de-growth: it takes energy you cannot invest in raising a child.

Immigration

The Central Bureau of Statistics estimates that the Dutch population grew by 140,000 by 2023, to 17.9 million people. A total of 336,900 people came to the Netherlands in 2023, though 192,500 also left. Here we arrive at the discussion of what exactly constitutes a Dutchman. It may well be different in reality, because one Mohammed who has little in common with Dutch values and norms is eagerly counted as a ‘Dutchman’ in the ‘official’ statistics. Here we are talking about formal definitions versus the street scene and whether the Netherlands is still the Netherlands in our daily experience – does it still feel like the Netherlands? This question is increasingly pressing now that Mohammed has been the most common boy’s name in our major cities for a decade.

Clearly, immigration also creates all sorts of economic disadvantages. It has just been mentioned that people accustomed to a strongly different language and culture can hardly fit into the service sector. Then there are the conflicts it brings – see, for example, this large-scale brawl at a cultural festival for immigrants from Eritrea. There is an impact on the average level of education. Also, the influx of a large number of people puts a strain on health care – especially if they come from a war zone and have suffered psychological damage there. Immigrants are calling on social services to which they have not paid a cent upon arrival.

Among Somalis, half have been on welfare since 2015. Since then, we hear little about this – when mainstream media silence a topic like this, you know the situation has not improved.

A great deal of care and energy is needed to make non-Western immigrants employable in the Dutch economy, a focus that thus competes with the ageing population just described. It remains to be seen whether they will remain loyal to this system, now that our economy does not offer the enjoyment and prosperity they were led to expect in their home countries. This is especially so with every curriculum paying huge attention to institutional racism and our ‘wrong’ colonial past: it is unlikely that these newcomers will work hard to cushion the national debts incurred by a lily-white boomer generation.

So we will probably be dealing with a plague of locusts that will move on once the flesh has been eaten off the bones. The problem, however, is that the Dutch youth who will then have to take over the work will be raised by iPads and AI. They have not built the neurological structures needed for long-term concentration. In any case, the level of education took a hit during Covid. The result is a resolute decline in knowledge and assertiveness in a workforce that will have to play a more load-bearing role than ever in an ageing economy burdened by usurious prices on raw materials and energy.

Healthcare

To continue briefly on healthcare, Otto Health Care predicted a tripling of healthcare vacancies and possibly even a fivefold increase. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health is considering stricter rules for freelance work in healthcare. The problem with this is that healthcare currently runs largely on employees who are on the cusp of retirement. These workers are not eager to trade their acquired freedom and flexibility for the demoralizing healthcare bureaucracy of managers and control protocols. Besides, there are plenty of other sectors tugging at the workforce.

Policy versus ideology

Once we pack all this together, we find a lack both of skilled workers and of affordable and reliable energy – in other words, the basic requirements for prosperity and economic growth. Policymakers made wrong choices: the immigrants who were admitted were not selected carefully enough, climate policy undermined energy security. How could this happen?

These policy choices stem from religious belief. Both the refugee discourse and the climate discourse are – when looking at their economic impact – clearly irrational.

Against this background, ‘policy work’ no longer makes sense. It is useless to spend time trying to fit in laws when the overall framework of all political power is laid down by layers of government over which the people have no control. The European Central Bank, the World Health Organisation, regional cooperation councils, and so on. It is useless to try to use rational arguments to change the minds of people who have arrived at their views through religious fervour.

So to be effective, we need to abandon the level of legislation and existing rules as much as possible. To be effective, we have to fight at the level of metaphysics – speaking only from ideas. Contrast your own vision of the future with that of the elites, and present raw stories from the heart of society: pure lived reality.

Thierry Baudet has already recognized this very acutely. A presenter asked him recently: “Putin argues that escalation of the conflict in Ukraine is not in Russia’s interest. Why cannot the House of Representatives be convinced of this?” Thierry replied: “Because they are incredibly retarded.” With this, Thierry transcends the level of facts and arguments, which is refreshing and provides much needed breathing room. After all, despite years of facts, arguments and a daily noticeable impoverishment, policy makers still pursue policies that ruin us economically.

Leaving the Netherlands

Our overlords, whom we pay to look after our interests, have clearly gone into business for themselves. As it is now, we can still leave the Netherlands, but this will become more difficult in the future. Just think of the GDR and the Berlin Wall: East Germans left and the regime had to stop this exodus – hence they built the wall. North Korea did the same thing.

Until a few years ago, there was still reason to be optimistic – this is how many thought during Covid. If you touch their freedoms, people are going to resist at some point. However, people proved to be unwilling to fall outside the group and felt intimidated by the huge government machine. For example, have you asked yourself why farmers started keeping nitrogen records? Invariably, farmers are presented with a little hoop with the promise that the regulatory burden will decrease if they jump through it. But a smaller hoop is already prepared for them that restricts their freedom and economic freedom of movement even more.

What resistance can the Dutchman offer against this economic harassment? At best, stop paying taxes. Then by all means the army will come to prevent others from adopting this idea. So something like this would only work in a collective form, because an individual is immediately crushed by the institutions. Such solidarity lacks a sense of brotherhood and social cohesion, which in turn is partly the result of immigration.

With both fishermen and farmers, you see the monopolisation of the food chain. We come to the introduction of the Central Bank Digital Currency. This article is getting a little too long to elaborate on this now, but it boils down to a social credit system. In this, your monetary transactions will be stopped as soon as you say ‘wrong’ things. The Volkskrant wrote: “The House does not want it, but the European Digital Identity is coming anyway. The cabinet has agreed to it regardless and as it looks now there is no turning back: the European Digital Identity is coming and Parliament no longer has any means of approving or disapproving the end result.”

A large proportion of Dutch citizens – the emigrating lawyer Jeroen Pols estimates this at about sixty to seventy percent – will be immediately enmeshed in this system. They will not be able to escape it because they are already closely intertwined with the government through allowances, from rent to healthcare allowances. Those who want to continue getting benefits will have to accept digital identity and currency. Probably the globalists foresee Europe collapsing economically, and these control structures will serve to direct and dampen the resulting civil unrest.

Implications

If you consider everything I covered in context, the weakest will be left. The strongest – energetic people with moveable capital and talent – will leave for countries like Paraguay where, as Jeroen Pols points out, you can buy a large piece of land for next to nothing to start over. As it is, a Dutchman with an old age allowance (AOW) of 1000 euro can barely make ends meet on a small flat in a big city.  A better life is possible in South America. Good food is often more affordable there.

Also ask yourself the question: what is more encouraging? Living in a country that still has a little prosperity, but that promulgates increasingly strict controls to maintain that prosperity? Or living in a country that has already had its meltdown, and is now rebuilding with confidence in the future? Of course, there will always be people for whom the truth of this prognosis cannot penetrate their minds – for example, because they are stuck with access arrangements after a divorce, and are not allowed by the judge to move.

It is precisely creative people, the backbone of society, who will be the first to leave. Those who desire to do business, who create wealth, do not want to be burdened with the expanding regulatory pressure of a control-crazy government. This exodus creates fierce competition among the needy –competition for the scraps of a shrinking and exhausted welfare state. To meet those needs, the state will have to expropriate people ever more...

In conclusion

After our literal tour through the Port of Rotterdam, we are at the end of this ‘guided tour’ across the structural problems challenging the Dutch economy. It brings us back to the starting point: the negotiations to form a government.

Do Wilders, Yeşilgöz, Van der Plas and Omtzigt truly realize how far-reaching these challenges are? How deep and layered the problems are? The mere fact that a relatively small part of the total population, the young working population, is given a gigantic responsibility to keep things running. At the same time, this segment of the population is developmentally disadvantaged in terms of education, resilience and concentration – partly due to digitization and Covid policies – and this segment of the population is more culturally fragmented than ever. It is a serious systemic flaw that has not received enough attention.

Perhaps the political parties mentally block out this problem, because otherwise the looming abyss will totally paralyze them. It is literally too late to solve the problem: the German population cannot be rejuvenated in time, and because of the technical background of Nord Stream’s sabotage, their energy supply will remain uncertain for decades to come. It is virtually inevitable that this system failure will pull the Netherlands into an economic downward spiral.

In any case, you are now aware of what awaits the Dutch economy – forewarned is forearmed. Take it into your own future plans!

Follow Sid via Telegram – and order his new book: House of the Muse.