But you really should read Michael Lewis' latest entry. It's one of the best things you'll read on the German economy and almost certainly the only article you'll find describing the country's financial system through scatological metaphors (no, really).
As usual, the real insight here appears to be that all financial crises resist simple attributions of good or bad behavior. Somebody has to be acting poorly on all sides for such bad outcomes to occur.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this is very good at all on the German economy. The only good bit is on the Landesbanken and their investments. The rest is based on cliches taken to the extreme.
ReplyDeleteRemember, those "honest" Germans allowed tax deductions for bribes to foreign nationals until quite recently - cue Siemens. Germany has about average rates for corruption and tax evasion in the OECD - it's not Greece or Italy, but it isn't Sweden or Finland either...
The "anal" thing is just silly - you can match that one for one with US-English (shithead, full of shit, scared shitless, you're the shit, get your shit together, crap/shit your pants, shit hits the fan and I haven't even started with ass yet...)
Germans actually don't work more than other Europeans - they have among the lowest annual hours worked and their retirement age is somewhere in the middle.