Deutschlands Wirtschafts Fata Morgana

DIE Exportnation. Deutsche Waren gefragt in der ganzen Welt. Die deutsche Wirtschaftslokomotive. Ein Jobwunder jagt das nächste. Deutsche im Kaufrausch.

Project Syndicate hat einen netten Dämpfer:

Germany’s Economic Mirage

Der Artikel fängt schon gut an:

LONDON – For 60 years, successive German governments sought a more European Germany. But now, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s administration wants to reshape Europe’s economies in Germany’s image. This is politically unwise and economically dangerous. Far from being Europe’s most successful economy – as German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and others boast – Germany’s economy is dysfunctional.

Klar ist die deutsche Wirtschaft in Europa führend, aber Exportsubvention durch Sklavenhalterlöhne? Dazu eine katastrophale Demografie; die Banken völlig unterkapitalisiert.

To be sure, Germany has its strengths: world-renowned companies, low unemployment, and an excellent credit rating. But it also has stagnant wages, busted banks, inadequate investment, weak productivity gains, dismal demographics, and anemic output growth. Its “beggar-thy-neighbor” economic model – suppressing wages to subsidize exports – should not serve as an example for the rest of the eurozone to follow.

Das Exportsurplus gleichzeitig Kapitalexport bedeutet, also fehlende Investitionen im eigenen Land, wird jeden Tag deutlicher. Zuletzt mit dem Bekenntnis, die Bundeswehr sei eigentlich total gehbehindert und die Luftwaffe ein Dodo. Strassen, Schulen, Schienen, Brücken in schlechtem Zustand.

Written off as the “sick man of Europe” when the euro was launched in 1999, Germany responded not by boosting dynamism, but by cutting costs. Investment has fallen from 22.3% of GDP in 2000 to 17% in 2013. Infrastructure, such as highways, bridges, and even the Kiel Canal, is crumbling after years of neglect. The education system is creaking: the number of new apprentices is at a post-reunification low, the country has fewer young graduates (29%) than Greece (34%), and its best universities barely scrape into the global top 50.

Von den so sagenhaften Kaufräuschen berichten eigentlich nur Medien, die an Mutti's Rock Jackenzipfel hängen. Das aber immer wieder, bis dann raus kommt, das eigentlich nur Billiges gekauft wird. Das Gastgewerbe darbt seit Jahren.

Hobbled by underinvestment, Germany’s arthritic economy struggles to adapt. Despite former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s labor-market reforms, it is harder to lay off a permanent employee in Germany than anywhere else in the OECD. Germany languishes in 111th place globally for ease of starting a business, according to the World Bank’s Doing Business rankings. Its largest firms are old and entrenched; it has produced no equivalent of Google or Facebook; and the service sector is particularly hidebound. The government has introduced fewer pro-growth reforms over the past seven years than any other advanced economy, according to the OECD. Average annual productivity growth over the past decade, at a mere 0.9%, has been slower even than Portugal’s.

Deutsche shoppen deshalb wie im Delirium, weil sie weniger verdienen als 1999. Deutsche Firmen investieren nicht im Inland, sondern im Ausland:

The brunt of the stagnation has been borne by German workers. Though their productivity has risen by 17.8% over the past 15 years, they now earn less in real terms than in 1999, when a tripartite agreement among the government, companies, and unions effectively capped wages. Business owners might cheer, but suppressing wages harms the economy’s longer-term prospects by discouraging workers from upgrading skills, and companies from investing in higher-value production. 

Wenn man so erfolgreich ist als Nation und als Arbeiter fleissig seinen Anteil dazu beigetragen hat, dann ist verständlich, das solche Kritik bei Deutschen gar nicht gut ankommt, aber nun einmal Econ 101 ist:

External surpluses are in fact symptomatic of an ailing economy. Stagnant wages boost corporate surpluses, while subdued spending, a stifled service sector, and stunted start-ups suppress domestic investment, with the resulting surplus savings often squandered overseas.

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