Have the Germans Figured it out? (Naked Capitalism and Testosterone Pit)

SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 2012

Wolf Richter: “German Success Recipe” or Blip?

By Wolf Richter, San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Cross posted from Testosterone Pit.

Despite the Eurozone debt crisis, the German economy has been on a roll, with unemployment at a 20-year low. Exports surpassed €1 trillion for the first time ever. The Federation of Wholesale and Foreign Trade even issued a card to commemorate the moment. For the year, exports rose 12%. In 2012—based on demand from Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe—exports are expected to grow 6% to €1.139 trillion—when GDP is only €2.37 trillion ($3.1 trillion)!

But during the financial crisis, export orders fell off a cliff, causing GDP to plunge 2.1% in the fourth quarter of 2008 and a horrid 3.8% in the first quarter of 2009. Annualized, those two quarters printed a double-digit decline in GDP. The worst two quarters in the history of the Federal Republic. The German economy lives and dies by its exports.

But the recovery was steep and enormous. So it’s perhaps just natural that gloating would infect the German media when, from their perch of success, they look at the economic mayhem in other parts of Europe. Even the Handelsblatt falls prey to it from time to time. I bookmarked its October 17 article, The German Success Recipe Is Called Industriousness and Boredom, because it was just too much. Now the first shadows have appeared, and the “German success recipe,” despite its strengths, might turn out to be a blip.

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