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Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Germany won't back down on its austerity plans

Germany won't back down on its austerity plans

German is holding firm.  It is amusing to see that they are starting to speak down to Obama in the same way that he has constantly been lecturing them.  Are they behaving irrationally?   From Der Spiegel:

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble rebuffed recent criticism of Germany's handling of the euro crisis from Barack Obama, telling the US president to get his own house in order before giving advice.
"Herr Obama should above all deal with the reduction of the American deficit. That is higher than that in the euro zone," he told German public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday night. It is easy to give advice to others, he added,Obama, worried about the impact of the debt crisis on the global economy and financial markets -- and on his own prospects for re-election --has been urging Europe to step up its efforts to tackle the problem.
In the interview, Schäuble also reiterated his opposition to euro bonds, saying countries must remain individually liable for their public debt as long as they were taking sovereign decisions on how the money was being spent.
"If you spend the money from my account, you won't be frugal with the money," said the finance minister. He added that he was against devoting large sums of money -- for example from the European Central Bank -- to fight the crisis. The roots of the crisis needed to be fought credibly, he said, adding that that was succeeding in Ireland and Portugal, which have both received international bailouts. "It's not succeeding so well in Greece," he added. . . .
UPDATE: George Soros weighs in an interview with Der Spiegel:

'A Tragic, Historical Mistake by the Germans'With the EU summit set to start on Thursday, pressure is on European leaders to find a way out of the euro crisis. Investor George Soros is pessimistic that a solution will be found and says time is extremely short. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he warns that Germany could develop into a hated, imperial power.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In Germany, once the motor of European integration, people are openly discussing the possibility of leaving the euro zone. Many Germans believe that a return to the deutschmark would be cheaper than to remain stuck in a flawed currency union. Are they right?
Soros: There is no question that a breakup of the euro would be very damaging, very costly, both financially and politically. And the biggest loss would be incurred by Germany. Germans have to bear in mind that, effectively, they have suffered practically no losses so far. Transfers have all been in the form of loans, and it is only when the loans are not repaid that real losses will be incurred. 

Here is a question: why exactly would countries returning to their own currencies be so bad?  Here are the 10 EU countries who are not using the Euro.
United Kingdom Bulgaria Czech Rep. Denmark Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Sweden
Are they doing worse relative to other countries?  It is hard to see how that is the case.  Poland for example has done very well without being in the Euro and so has Germany.  The difference between countries seems to depend a lot more on whether the countries followed an austerity type policy, with those controlling government spending doing much better.

Germany's economy grew at a 2 percent rate in the

Germany's economy grew at a 2 percent rate in the

So much for Krugman's predictions about Germany and their austerity policy. From the Financial Times:
The German economy grew five times faster than expected in the first quarter of the year, jumping 0.5 per cent. . . . The year on year increase was 1.7 per cent, beating expectations of a 0.8 per cent jump, and the German statistics office said growth was supported by an increase in net trade as exports to outside the eurozone gained. But this is still more a tale of divergence than cheer as French GDP came in flat and the Netherlands GDP fell 0.2 per cent as the country remained in technical recession. And while German’s performance could be the basis for a beat (with Austria providing some more support after it found 0.2 per cent growth in the first quarter), eurozone GDP is predicted to fall 0.2 per cent with the data due later this morning. . . .
Germany's unemployment rate continues to fall

Germany's unemployment rate continues to fall

Remember Krugman's attacks on Germany over the last couple of years? Here is something from a piece that he wrote in June 2010:

And here in Germany, a few scholars see parallels to the policies of Heinrich Brüning, the chancellor from 1930 to 1932, whose devotion to financial orthodoxy ended up sealing the doom of the Weimar Republic.

But despite these warnings, the deficit hawks are prevailing in most places — and nowhere more than here, where the government has pledged 80 billion euros, almost $100 billion, in tax increases and spending cuts even though the economy continues to operate far below capacity.

What’s the economic logic behind the government’s moves? The answer, as far as I can tell, is that there isn’t any. Press German officials to explain why they need to impose austerity on a depressed economy, and you get rationales that don’t add up. Point this out, and they come up with different rationales, which also don’t add up. . . .

But German politicians seem determined to prove their strength by imposing suffering — and politicians around the world are following their lead.

How bad will it be? Will it really be 1937 all over again? I don’t know. What I do know is that economic policy around the world has taken a major wrong turn, and that the odds of a prolonged slump are rising by the day. . . .


Yet, Germany's unemployment rate keeps falling:

Spain and Italy creaked under record unemployment rates at the end of 2011, while the German jobless rate fell to historic lows — results that put the onus firmly on Germany, with Europe’s biggest economy, to take the lead in steering the euro zone back to recovery.

Joblessness in Italy rose to 8.9 percent, its highest level since current records began in 2004, the country’s statistics institute said Tuesday. Spain ended the year with unemployment at a 17-year high of 22.85 percent.

German unemployment, by contrast, fell to 6.7 percent in January, a decline of a tenth of a percentage point from December. . . .


Germany's manufacturing sector is pulling Europe's along.

Markets were buoyed by manufacturing data from Germany, the U.K. and the euro zone, released Wednesday morning. The German Purchasing Managers Index rose to 51.0 in January from 48.4 in December, slightly beating consensus expectations. The euro-zone PMI rose to 48.8 in January, which was above the earlier flash estimate of 48.7, also a little above consensus. In the U.K., PMI rose to an eight-month high of 52.1 in January, up from a revised reading of 49.7 in December. . . .

A useful comparison between the Great Depression and the current recession


The second myth here is particularly useful in that it points out the policies followed during the Great Depression made things worse. The useful comparison is between the US and other countries. That same point is relevant today as I have pointed out in several of my op-ed pieces and posts regarding Canada, Germany, and the rest of the world generally.

European Stocks crumble



What impact did the German regional election have on German stocks? The Conservative government has done a fairly good job running things. Their unemployment rate was exactly the same as ours in January 2009, but while ours is now at 9.1 percent and theirs is 7 percent. The US and Germany have both incurred a lot of debt since then, though theirs has gone up because they are trying to bail out the other spendthrift countries in Europe. My own guess is that it is the fear that the German Social Democrats will regain control that is causing stocks in Germany to fall.


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