US to Bully Germany on Trade Surplus at the G-20

[cowcommander]

The US thinks it knows who is to blame for its struggling economy: Germany and other countries with a trade surplus. Washington wants to see new rules that would punish such imbalances, but Germany says it shouldn't be blamed for having more competitive companies than the US.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,727970,00.html

It's a long article, but the gist of it is we broke the reserve currency system, and now we're blaming others for it. :(

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Viel Glück

[Hardrada]

5. Ja!! LOL!

[grantcart]

2. or you could have said 'US is fighting for US jobs by getting Germany to join in the recovery"

But that would make the administration look good and you wouldn't want that.

[earthside]

3. What recovery? n/t

[TheWatcher]

4. You can't reason with the Propagandaholics.

If anything GERMANY is having a Recovery, and is doing quite well economically.

And like any psychotic, sociopathic Bully, we just can't have that.

"You're Doing Well, and we're not. If you know what's good for you, you'll suck like we do, or we'll beat the shit out of you and take your lunch money (Surplus)."

[earthside]

6. Oh. Their recovery.

Exactly.

Instead of going back to pre-Reagan economic policy, these days the U.S. would rather employ gimmicks like currency manipulation to goose our economy.

[TheWatcher]

8. Which, for 95% of us, is going to fail miserably.

The American Public needs to face reality.

We do not matter.

We are Cattle to these people.

We are a Crop.

To be harvested.

We are worth nothing more.

The disaster that is QE 2 will take some time to reveal itself, but the country is in for a RUDE awakening.

Come to think of it, though, most of them will not wake up anyway.

They will just look to the corrupt Criminals, um, I mean "leadership" to "save them" with their "Solutions"

Said Criminals and their bought-and-paid-for Joker-Faced Mouthpieces will wave their arms over their heads in a hallelujah chorus of "No One Could Have Foreseen...."

Rinse and Repeat.

There Is Nothing New Under The Sun.

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. Well as long as we don't make the Administration look bad...it's all good.

:silly:

[grantcart]

12. Propagandholics? Really is that your effort at being clever?

Rather than trying to exchange insults why not learn a few facts.


It has long been noted that Germany is using a mercantile strategy to prop its economy as a high export and no import economy. While that might be acceptable for a third world country trying to get into the game it is an unacceptable path for a major developed country. It will lead to trade wars as it has in the past.



http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128700429


Germany's economy is rebounding from the global downturn much faster than many analysts expected. Growth rates are beating predictions, export orders are up and the jobless rate is down.

But some economists warn that Germany's reliance on exports and recent government austerity measures risk undermining the recovery of Europe's largest economy.

. . .

An Export Country

But a few shrapnel scars and a recently added memorial in the town center commemorating the 20,000 wartime slave laborers used here are the only reminders of the German auto industry's dark past.
Germany has been a huge drag on the eurozone economy because its growth has been dependent almost exclusively on exports.

- Simon Tilford, economist

Now a leading global corporation with 10 different brands and factories around the world, Volkswagen is looking forward — especially in Asia.

Willy Dorr is with IG Metall, the leading trade union for Germany's VW workers.
"Germany will always be mainly an export country and it must stay an export country. For the auto industry, the biggest growth areas will be in China and India, as well as Russia and South America," Dorr says, speaking in German.







Your the progandholic just accepting any anti Obama rhetoric without having any comprehension of the basic facts.


Obama is going to fight for jobs. Germany has to face a decision. They can either start increasing their imports or start facing trade sanctions. Large developed countries cannot use their advantages to maintain an export only economy robbing other countries of the opportunity to sell exports to them.

[TheWatcher]

15. Blah, Blah, Blah

So Fucking What?

Considering what we are doing to completely destabilize the rest of the world through QE2, while trying to "prop up" the delusion of our Fake Recovery, and keep The Wall Street Ponzi Machine going full steam, Germany's "crimes" against the world are a bit small at this point.

We are the LAST country that should be bullying ANYONE about ANYTHING.

Endless wars, PonziEconomics, Letting War Criminals run wild, No Rule Of Law, no accountability, burgeoning Police State, etc, etc, etc, and you want to sit here and tell GERMANY to shape up and fly right.

And try and use "you're" in proper grammatical context before getting all puffy-chested and acting like you know something about the world with your little blue links.

Now, you got in your little useless, irrelevant dig, so you go worship the Fake Recovery, and slurp from your Propaganda Juice Box.

There's a good little robot.

*Click*

And the Robot's done.

Have fun talking to yourself.

Look on the bright side, at least someone will care what you have to say

:eyes:

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Tilford is pointing out an imbalance in the eurozone

The sentences before your bolded quote, and the next sentences after are 'More than 60 percent of Germany's exports are to other eurozone countries. Tilford says Germany cannot use exports to lift the eurozone out of its crisis. ...(bolded quote) ... "Now that has led to the emergence of an enormous trade surplus in Germany with the rest of the eurozone. Now, that's not a model that everyone can follow simultaneously. That's a mathematical impossibility. One country's surplus is another country's deficit"'.

So why you think there can be sanctions on a country inside the free-est trade zone in the world for having successful industry that sells to other countries that have no barriers whatsoever to sell back, I don't know. It's not as if the German government has the option of pushing its currency value higher relative to the rest of the eurozone. Nor can a country pursue a mercantilist policy inside the eurozone. Your criticism just makes no economic sense.

And one economist's worries in July aren't a proven case. The OECD has just published its opinion on the world economy recovery:

The world's leading economies are set to diverge as they recover from the global economic crisis, with the United States, Germany, Japan and Russia gaining pace while China, Britain, France and India slowing down, the OECD said on Monday.
...
In Europe, Germany is again seen as a growth engine. The government last month more than doubled its forecast for output this year and predicted a steady expansion in 2011.

Europe's top economy is poised to grow by 3.4 percent in 2010 before slowing next year to 1.8 percent, Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle said.

This represented a major revision from the government's previous forecasts made in April, of 1.4 percent and 1.6 percent respectively.

Bruederle said that after a strong impulse from exports, domestic demand would contribute much more to growth next year. "The recovery is standing solidly on two legs."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iQGVGbhn_rywtRVpNGaJF-wJtKhw?docId=CNG.5ce6be57831eebb858fb7a06aa87e4a2.1e1

So, again, where is this "join the recovery" nonsense coming from? They're leading the recovery in Europe.

[pampango]

17. "a high export and no import economy"? You got that half right.

"Germany imported $930 billion worth of goods in 2009 equal to about 25% of their $3.67 trillion economy. The US imported $1.6 trillion equal to about 11% of its $14.2 trillion economy. German exports in 2009 were $1.12 trillion (about 30% of their economy) while US exports were $1.06 trillion (about 7.5% of our economy)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States

Rather than being a "high export and no import economy" Germany is really a "high import and higher export" economy. Germany imports more per capita than the US and imports are a much larger part of their economy than they are in ours.

Someone needs to tell Germany to stop taking advantage of other countries. How is anyone supposed to compete with their workers who are high-wage, unionized and have great benefits in a society with progressive taxation and a great safety net.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. 'Join in the recovery'? Their highest GDP growth figures since unification

and you think they need to 'join in the recovery'?

:crazy:

Anyway, the title is that from Der Spiegel.

[TheWatcher]

10. They don't want any part of our "Recovery"

And rightly and smartly so.

Germany is doing well.

We would do well to LEARN from them, instead of trying to get them to wallow with us in our Quiet Room of Delusion, Devaluation, and Monetization.

Good on them.

[grantcart]

14. See answer in 12

Their recovery is on the backs of the consumption of other countries. They are rigging an export only economy. That has only one end - trade war.

[Catherina]

7. Bully is the right word. We've lost any sense of shame. n/t

[The Northerner]

11. +1

[GSLevel9]

13. stupidity...

"we buy lots of BMW's!!!! buy more of our San Fernando Valley produced porn DVD's!!!"