{"id":2260,"date":"2010-10-28T07:54:58","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T12:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/?p=2260"},"modified":"2010-10-29T17:40:07","modified_gmt":"2010-10-29T22:40:07","slug":"update-from-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/2010\/10\/28\/der-spiegel\/update-from-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Update from Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is it about Germans?\u00a0 Somehow I get the feeling that many of them would still complain if they were hung with a new rope.\u00a0 The German economy is booming.\u00a0 Unemployment has never been lower since 1992.\u00a0 There are currently over 400,000 unfilled job openings<\/a> in the country, and a shortage of workers, not jobs.\u00a0 According to recent projections, the number of unemployed will drop from just under 3 million <\/a>now to about 2 million <\/a>in 2012.\u00a0 The economy is currently expanding at a robust 3.4% per year, and Germany leads western industrialized countries in the speed of its recovery from the recession.\u00a0 In spite of it all, the country isn\u2019t exactly \u201cdizzy with success<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 It seems that the Germans, or at least the German media, can see a dark cloud behind every silver lining.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The news magazine Focus, for example, agonizes about the \u201cDangerous Attraction of Prosperity<\/a>,\u201d in an article warning about increased government debt, in spite of tax receipts in excess of the rosiest projections, and a deficit in the noise compared to that of the United States.\u00a0 \u00a0In another article entitled \u201cFive Risks to Prosperity<\/a>,\u201d we learn that, \u201cA cloud of uncertainty is hanging over the good prognoses.\u00a0 Experts don\u2019t trust the good signals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Der Spiegel, too, focuses on the negative.\u00a0 In an article entitled, \u201cCapitol City of the Unemployed<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0 it describes the situation in the city of Demmin, passing on the lugubrious news that \u201cNowhere is unemployment so high as in the district in the northwest of the republic\u2026\u00a0 Those who can leave for the West, and those who stay experience the daily deterioration.\u201d\u00a0 The \u201cpulse\u201d of the city is \u201cbeating ever more slowly.\u201d\u00a0 Another Spiegel article<\/a> highlights the visit of none other than our own Paul Krugman<\/a>.\u00a0 Under the headline \u201cCrisis Oracle Krugman Fulminates against the Germans,\u201d the Nobel laureate is quoted warning the Germans that \u201cthe crisis isn\u2019t close to over.\u201d\u00a0 He condemns all the talk about a recovery, suggests that demand for German exports will soon collapse, and internal consumption is too low, and hints darkly about renewed pressure on the Euro.<\/p>\n

Not to be outdone, the magazine Stern begins an article about the unexpectedly robust German economic expansion reflected in the latest figures with the counterintuitive headline, \u201cThe Recovery Weakens<\/a>,\u201d because projected growth in 2011 is somewhat less.\u00a0 \u00a0In a word, to say that the Germans aren\u2019t cocky about their recovery is an understatement.<\/p>\n

Former Chancellor Gerhard Schr\u00f6der:\u00a0 It\u2019s all about me<\/strong><\/p>\n

In spite of all that, former Chancellor Gerhard Schr\u00f6der knows a good thing when he sees it.\u00a0 In keeping with the old saying, \u201cSuccess has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan,\u201c he is claiming that he should be credited<\/a> with the current recovery, because \u201cit\u2019s a result of his policies.\u201c\u00a0 In an interview for a local newspaper, he suggests that, \u201c(Chancellor) Angela Merkel should be thankful to him for his reforms.\u201c\u00a0 No doubt tears of gratitude are falling down her cheeks.\u00a0 One can understand his glee, given the less happy fate of George W. Bush, who continues in the role of scapegoat of choice<\/a> for all the failings of the Obama administration.<\/p>\n

\u00a0German Greenpeace:\u00a0 Fighting Global Warming with Coal<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, even as German coal-fired power plants<\/a> belch millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, and more are planned in the immediate future, German activists posing as “environmentalists” have occupied the roof of the headquarters of the center-right Christian Democrat party in what Der Spiegel calls a “spectacular action<\/a>” to protest the party\u2019s support for nuclear power.\u00a0 Never mind that coal represents a significantly greater radioactive hazard<\/a> than nuclear power, without even taking into account the tens of thousands that die each year from breathing the particulates from coal-fired plants, or the fact that such plants contribute mightily to global warming, which these same “environmentalists” have claimed is the number one threat facing the planet.\u00a0 So powerful is the craving of these activists to strike pious poses as noble saviors of humanity that they\u2019re incapable of even making the connection.\u00a0 In their fevered imaginations, the nuclear plants they propose to shut down will all be replaced by non-polluting (and non-existent) “green” energy sources.\u00a0 It\u2019s very simple, really.\u00a0 There are still coal plants in Germany, and there will continue to be coal plants in Germany into the indefinite future.\u00a0 Each nuclear plant that is built or remains in operation can replace the need for a coal plant of comparable size.\u00a0 Therefore, what the German “environmentalists” are really doing by opposing nuclear is promoting the continued burning of coal.\u00a0 As usual,\u00a0 the pose is everything and the reality is nothing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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What is it about Germans?\u00a0 Somehow I get the feeling that many of them would still complain if they were hung with a new rope.\u00a0 The German economy is booming.\u00a0 Unemployment has never been lower since 1992.\u00a0 There are currently over 400,000 unfilled job openings in the country, and a shortage of workers, not jobs.\u00a0 … Continue reading “Update from Germany”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15,35,37,43,96,20,52,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-der-spiegel","category-economics","category-energy","category-environment","category-europe","category-germany","category-global-warming","category-nuclear-energy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwEq0-As","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2260"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2268,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2260\/revisions\/2268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}