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August 23, 2021 - 3:20pm
Things are getting weird in Germany’s general election campaign. In fact, the latest campaign tweet from the CDU — the party of Angela Merkel and her designated successor Armin Laschet — is downright creepy.
Against the background of the German flag it features a leather cap perched on top of a big black zero. The slogan reads Wir stehen zu unserem Fetisch — “we stand by our fetish”.
Ja, wir gestehen, wir haben einen kleinen Fetisch: Solide Finanzen ohne neue Schulden! Das ist praktizierte Generationengerechtigkeit! Und es ist die beste Voraussetzung für Investitionen in die Zukunft. Uns geht es um beides. Und unser Haushalt zeigt: Es geht beides! pic.twitter.com/abIMN64eMO
— CDU Deutschlands (@CDU) November 27, 2019
What on Earth is going on? Why are the Christian Democrats featuring bondage gear on their campaign materials? And what does the zero symbolise?
Let’s start with the number — the schwarze Null or “black zero” refers to the German habit of balancing the budget for year after year. Critics, both at home and abroad, have condemned this stubborn policy as a “fetish” because Germany could easily afford to run a modest deficit — thus provide much needed demand in the European economy.
We shouldn’t forget that Germany is only able to run balanced budgets because of it success in getting other countries to pay for its stuff. Thus the Americans pay for Germany’s defence. The Mediterraneans help subsidise German exports through the distorted exchange rate locked in by the single currency. And the other countries of Northern Europe pay for an EU budget that builds Germany’s export infrastructure to its economic backyard in central and Eastern Europe.
It’s a scam, but because it can be dressed up in the clothes of fiscal responsibility, Merkel got away with it.
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SubscribeFrau Merkel will be known as the worst chancellor since the little guy with the stupid moustache. At least from the outside world point of view. The persistence on the stupid zero-nuclear power option has given birth to the Baltic Sea pipeline. A great way to screw Ukraine and Poland. But the infantilized germans love their mummy! Be it the monetary policy or the migration fiasco Germans act like they don’t give a damn for the rest of us.
No one generally in reality wants to do (that) much at their own expense or ‘others’. Germany is no exception. One very recent example – how quickly the calls for vaccinating our teenagers have superseded that of giving away our excess vaccines for vulnerable people in the developing world. (I don’t want to get into here the issue of the effectiveness or not of these policies – it is the intention that counts).
Merkel is accountable to the German electorate, they can adopt any policy they wish. I agree getting rid of nuclear power is bonkers, that will be to the huge cost primarily of Germans. The EU complicates things greatly of course. The fact that Southern European nations naively joined a badly designed currency union is undoubtedly a very poor deal for them, but they chose to go along with it. Britain, very fortunately did not, and I can think of no one seriously arguing here for joining the Euro.
The problem is this article is utterly wrong. Germany exports more than it takes in because of how successful its industry is. In a count of world class medium/small businesses (the ones which lead the world in their specialty) Germany owns over 100 wile the other top nations (other than USA) have 30 at best, down to zero.
German banking is unique in how it has small banks in every district, ones which specialize in loans to industry – ones which know their clients, so loan to each need as they know the CEOs and the business themselves, they work to get money to production increases.
Western Banks loan to consumer debt – and to massive corporate needs. A small machine shop has to really work to get a loan for some new milling machines.
In the rest of the world Banking is super banks, megaliths, and they want mega loans to mega corporations – and do nothing to loan to industrial small scale productivity.
German business always stay cutting edge because they get loans to take advantage of every innovation, better equipment, plant, and so on. They are totally geared in every way to produce the best, and most cost effective.
This is an excellent post and absolutely true. I enjoyed watching GRAND DESIGN about homebuilding/renovation in the UK. In a few episodes, the building materials needed to be manufactured in Germany–far offsite–and then fitted together at the building site in the UK. In every case the materials fit together with Teutonic precision.
Al Murray has commented on Germany’s unfair success as well. To paraphrase, it’s because Germany makes great stuff that the world wants to buy!
Excellent posting, completely agree.
Germany also has a superb industrial training and apprenticeship infrastructure, in which the private sector is required annually to offer a set quota of training places in industry and commerce to each year’s crop of school-leavers.
Corporate Germany may be highly efficient, but it is also aware of its social responsibility, unlike its British counterpart.
And private and public investment in R&D is also far higher, as is productivity.
Germany just does many of the things we should be doing very well.
Hardly their fault.
Although I agree that their vast and much criticised trade surplus is harming the EU’s weaker economies.
As is the Euro, undervalued for Germany, greatly over valued for southern European countries.
So what, they’re not forced to be members.
T hey could leave.
One other aspect of German local banks which know the local industry personally is they can make Cheap and quick loans as they know the risk personally – so do not have to give the high interest a bank which does not know the industry would have to to cover risk of default.
All industry functions on debt to capitalize production increase – to have a whole financial sector set up to do that efficiently for small and mid sized companies is a HUGE boost to German production, and no other country has that.
Exactly. The SMB sector in Germany lies at the heart of the country’s industrial and commercial prowess – and they account for some 50% of new patents filed each year, for example.
Worth noting also that local banks also have seats on the boards of many companies,which tends to militate against the short-termism plagueing British industry.
This is a blatant attempt to woo back the conservatives in the CSU-CDU union who have been alienated by the appointment of Armin Laschet, i.e. Merkel’s preferred candidate (the “Man Merkel”). True German conservatives have been put off by several years of leftwards drift under Merkel and favoured Friedrich Merz or Markus Söder as successor (possibly more the former, as Söder’s opportunism is also a turn off).
This awful poster and its lame attempt at humour is saying “don’t worry, if you vote for us, then we’ll go back to our conservative principles! No really – we will!”
Not convincing.
I’ve been surpised by the completely unexpected rise in the fortunes of the SPD’s chancellor candidate Scholz.
Clearly blandness is not an obstacle to electoral success, after all.
I’m missing something here as Germany runs an unhelpful current account surplus (7% in 2020) so what are they balancing exactly?
The government budget is what’s balanced. The current account is in huge permanent surplus because the euro is undervalaued vis-a-vis the German economy while being overvalued vis-a-vis the economies of several other members of the eurozone, like Italy and Greece, which are therefore stuck in permanent depression. The euro is economically and politically ruinous because instead of drawing Europe’s economies together it’s pushing them apart.
I have little insight into EU politics but the question that comes to my mind is whether, if Germany forces the EU back to ‘fiscal discipline’, there will be sufficient resentment to drive any of the poorer countries out of the union similar to Brexit? I bet China would happily grease the wheels of that breakup.
I think you are conflating two things here: membership of the EU and membership of the Eurozone. The imposition of fiscal discipline would only really apply to the Eurozone, of which the UK was never a part, so Brexit is a bit of a dodgy comparison to draw here.
If Germany were to get really tough on fiscal discipline within the Eurozone (or put pressure on the Commission to put the boot in), you would probably see the Italians getting shirty fairly quickly and chuntering about leaving the euro. Although with Draghi in charge, that probably won’t happen as he is Brussels-approved.
But the reality is this: neither Greece nor the Italians will ever leave the euro of their own accord as it would just involve too much pain. Germany will complain about the spendthrift Southerners a bit but the Eurozone breaking down would land them in endless amounts of hot water aswell.
In other words: everyone will carry on with the passive-aggressive grumbling to keep their respective voters happy, but nothing will change and the euro will just bumble along as imperfectly as it ever did.
German’s rationale for seeking minimal inflation is far from unreasonable. it’s not as if German is a failed economy. The problem is not Germany.
The problem is the club med state’s preference for membership and indeed their perverse insistence on EU membership. It’s all their of own faults and blaming Germany and Germans won’t help them. At a minimum they need to leave the but like the Greeks they will p***y out.