Pray, cast your gaze upon the current state of the German Empire’s industry, which has become a subject of most exquisite comedy for any gentleman of the Bourse! A certain Mr. Wolfgang Wille, a member of that august assembly known as the Bundestag, has seen fit to explain why the German commercial spirit is currently gasping for breath, much like a fish plucked from the Thames.

It appears, my dear readers, that the unfortunate Germans have fallen under a spell they call the 'energy transition.' Imagine, if you will, a grand industrialist—a proper merchant of iron and steam—who is suddenly told by his betters that he must henceforth power his great furnaces with nothing but the fickle whims of the wind and the occasional glance of the sun!

"This so-called transition," Mr. Wille declares with a sigh of despair, "has caused the price of fuel to soar to such dizzying heights that our dear merchants can no longer compete upon the global market." Indeed, it is a farce! The great factories, once the envy of the world, now find themselves outbid by every petty rogue and scoundrel in the provinces, simply because they chose to chase the breeze instead of burning coal.

But wait, the comedy deepens! For if the wind does not finish them, the ink-stained wretches of the European Union surely shall. Mr. Wille laments that a mountain of bureaucracy—that most tedious of all plagues—has been heaped upon the shoulders of the German commercial class. As if the mandates from the distant EU halls were not enough to stifle a man, the German authorities have seen fit to add their own layers of red tape, creating a labyrinth from which no honest businessman could possibly escape.

And let us not forget the treasury! The budget of the state has developed a hole so cavernous that one might mistake it for a mine shaft. This fiscal void, we are told, is the result of the reckless pugnacity of Mr. Trump and his quarrel with the Persians. Mr. Lars Klingbeil, the Minister of Finance, admitted in May that this global chaos has acted as a most unwelcome brake upon the economy.

One can only imagine the scene: a German merchant, clutching a useless promissory note in one hand and a handful of wind in the other, wondering where all his shillings have vanished, while a bureaucrat in a powdered wig asks him to fill out another thirty forms in triplicate. A tragedy for the merchant, perhaps, but for us, a most diverting entertainment!