The Great Debate UK
Don’t scapegoat the Germans for crisis
– Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –
A revisionist theory on the causes of the global financial crisis blames surplus countries like China, Japan and Germany as much as highly-leveraged, deregulated finance in the United States and Britain.
Making Germany a scapegoat may be tempting, especially in Britain, where memories of sterling’s humiliating exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 still rankle, but it is unfair and dishonest.
The revisionists contend that the meltdown was due not just to the Americans and British who borrowed, traded and lived beyond their means but also to the Chinese, Japanese and Germans who sold them the goods and lent them the money.
Germany’s political and economic phoney war
– Paul Taylor is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own –
Germany is becalmed by a political and economic phoney war five months before this year’s most important European general election. But a lack of real economic debate now risks prolonging the political stalemate and delaying much needed reforms.
