Germany is a great example of a lot of things we see in the problems of many economies in the world today, to include our own. A centrally controlled economy with your “best intentions” in mind does show good results for a little while. Right up to the point where the central banks transition to a outward focus on world growth versus a domestic growth.
On Sunday Germany votes in an election from which Chancellor Merkel’s CDU party is universally expected to remain the largest but which none of the underlying problems which affect Germany have been addressed.
One of the problems involved in discussing Germany is that the image of the country as a runaway economic success story is so powerful that it makes objective analysis of its problems difficult.
The reality is that Germany is indeed a very rich and economically successful country. However there are growing problems that put its long term prospects in doubt, and these are being ignored rather than addressed.
Briefly, the German system as it evolved after the Second World War involved a political and financial system heavily geared towards high business investment.Read more here.