Schäuble's economics lecturing for Donald Trump.

Schäuble shares his wisdom in economics

Mr. 'No, Greece, austerity it is' Wolfgang Schäuble was on a German Magical Economics Road Show in Washington last week. Wolfi had felt the urge, an urge that only a true scientist can understand, to lecture the Americans about German scientific Economics.

The reason being that it had reached his tender ears, the US of A, and in particular its inexperienced new president, had some misunderstandings about the wisdom of having an impressive export surplus, as a matter of fact, the highest in the world.

He could have explained it convincingly in just one sentence:

German products are just so irresistibly, awesomely, freakishly good that people can't stop buying them. Thank you. 

However, since he had made this long trip to the country of the illiterates in economics, he might as well dive a little deeper into the subject and in the course enlighten them with his teutonic wisdom.

True, he could understand certain reservations about the trajectory of the surplus curve and just so that the Americans can sleep a little more relaxed, he would like to point to a couple of facts that are already more or less in the workings to smoothening out some misalignments, if there really are any.

Such as:

The more retirees, the smaller the account surplus

In the opinion of the government experts, the reason for the comparatively high savings that are generated abroad is the provision of retirement provisions . "Differing estimates are based on a demographic-related share of the current account surplus of between one and three percentage points," the paper says. The consoling perspective: the more Germans are retiring and their savings are dissolved, the more the German surplus of current account surpluses will also decline. (Google translate)

Sounds good, right? Until you look at these graphs. (H/T Querschuesse)

Net assets of private households in the EU

Here is the percentage of low wage workers of the total work force. Pew, ze Germans again leading.

Percentage of low wage workers in the EU

And boy, can these Germans splurge once they need to be helped getting on a bus

Amount of pension and distribution in Germany

Ok, but how about this?

In addition, the government had pushed up public investment in the federal budget by almost 45 per cent and initiated measures to increase private investment. "The overall economic investment rate should continue to rise slightly from 20 to 20.2 percent in relation to GDP in the current year."

In case a rise of 0.2 percent might not convince the Americans, perhaps this graph could alleviate their doubts?

German government net investments

There is reason to believe this might have been the reaction in America once Wolfi had left the country.