What About Germany? (Krugman blog)

[dtotire]

What About Germany?

\Paul Krugman - New York Times Blog
August 24, 2010, 4:56 pm

Many people are now holding Germany up as proof that austerity is good.

There are a number of reasons that’s foolish, among them the fact that Germany’s austerity policies have not yet begun — up to this point they’ve actually been quite Keynesian.

But it’s also worth having some perspective on actual German performance to date.

Everything you’ve been hearing is about that uptick at the end. But I’m not willing to declare an economy that has yet to recover to the pre-crisis level of GDP an economic miracle.

Basically, here’s the German story: it’s an economy that didn’t have a housing bubble, so it wasn’t caught up directly in the bust. But it’s very export-oriented, with a focus on durable manufactured goods. Demand for these goods plunged in the early stages of the crisis — so that Germany, remarkably, had a bigger GDP decline than the bubble economies — but has bounced back since summer 2009. This has pulled Germany back up; exports to China have done especially well.

If there’s a slam-dunk argument for austerity in there, it’s remarkably well hidden.


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/what-about-germany/

[RainDog]

1. Germany is a huge exporter of windmill technology

Canada has a prototype for an electric hemp fiber car

...and the U.S. spends it time worrying that the rich might have to pay taxes.

We see the value of a social safety net, universal health care and progressive taxation and policy-thinking in those nations.

here?

We have legislators proposing housing the homeless in jails to teach them personal hygiene.

America, the stupid.

[Loudmxr]

2. Let me do my dance, do my dance, do my dance now.

Almost twenty years ago, OK nineteen, I said, as the Berlin Wall fell "Give the new Germany twenty years and they will be an unstoppable economic powerhouse."

Now you must remember East Germany was in not that good a shape. There was still wreckage around from WWII. It was really kinda cool. But for a country to absorb that type of crippled brother was a daunting task.

You are now seeing what I said would happen beginning. Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE GERMANS!

They really are a bright hard working people. They like rules and follow them. They plan ahead and drink lots of beer. They rock and roll. Ich liebe Deutschland.

But California Uber Alles!! :toast: :yourock: