<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>Barrera</author><text>&amp;gt; Russian gas accounted for 55% of Germany&amp;#x27;s gas imports in 2021 and 40% of its gas imports in the first quarter of 2022, Reuters reported. The country has pledged to end the use of Russian gas by 2024, the Habeck said in a March 25 press release.&lt;p&gt;Some in this thread have asked how Germany could be so foolish to tie its economic destiny to such a problematic country as Russia.&lt;p&gt;The answer seems to be &amp;quot;one step at a time.&amp;quot; And Germany is not unique.&lt;p&gt;Take the United States, for example, and its near total dependency on Chinese manufacturing for, well, just about everything. The US offshored manufacturing capacity hand-over-fist. In exchange the US got cheap goods (and low inflation), and continued supremacy of the dollar in world trade and as a reserve asset.&lt;p&gt;Both of those benefits are looking shakier by the week. Inflation is ripping higher, and the sanctions on Russia have prompted what some observers are calling Bretton Woods III, or a brand new economic order that minimizes the position of the US dollar.&lt;p&gt;But the worst part of all is the enormous leverage China has over the US. The US can protest human rights violations or even an attack on Taiwan, but any serious action taken against China will visit upon the US the same fate as Germany now faces. The brave threats can not be made good on because of an economic hole dug over the course of a generation or two.&lt;p&gt;The irony is that if you wind the clock back 25 years or so, this situation is the same in direction (although possibly not in magnitude) as policy makers wanted. Free trade was supposed to make conflicts more difficult because of mutual dependency. And it has worked. Just look at the disconnect between the saber-rattling German&amp;#x2F;US rhetoric and the tepid German&amp;#x2F;US actions.</text><parent_chain></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-seize-control-russia-natural-natural-gas-giant-gazprom-energy-2022-4</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>lobochrome</author><text>They sold the company to new owners on Friday who then tried to liquidate it. Gazprom Germania is the counterpart to Gas dealers and utilities. It then has an intra-company agreement with Gazprom Russia.&lt;p&gt;If they had liquidated, those contracts would have been gone and the Gas dealers &amp;amp; utilities would have had to renegotiate new contracts with Gazprom Russia. This would have allowed them to require payments in Rubles instead of Euros.</text><parent_chain></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Germany has seized control of Gazprom Germania</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-seize-control-russia-natural-natural-gas-giant-gazprom-energy-2022-4</url></story>