Personally, Germany is one of my favourite countries in Europe, the beer, the ladies, the geography and people make Germany a destination of choice. However, when I point out that Germany could be equally responsible for much of the euro zones ill’s I am on guard,
The simple fact is that German banks and companies are the ones that leant the money to Greece to buy Mercedes. If every country in Europe was a frugal and managed their finances as the Germans insist, there would not be any exports for German products to create an imbalance.
Anyone who sees this as a virtue must ask themselves whether Germany’s export successes would have been possible if other countries had behaved as “virtuously” as we have. It says a lot about the level of the debate that such simple and fundamental insights are apparently difficult to get across in Berlin.
