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The German alchemical growth miracle
by Thanos Kalamidas
2010-08-18 08:45:45 |
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Reading the achievement of the German economy to how a growth of 2.2 percent in the middle of the economic crisis filled everybody with hope and the European administrations with a thrill. Personally I missed the thrill and I went straight away to the chill.
I have to admit that reading the articles and especially compared with the rest of the European economies I sensed the euphoria that hit the European governments. I mean the French economy grew only for 0.6%, the Italian 0.4% and the Spanish 0.4 – I didn’t even checked how the Greek economy did but I suppose this barrel has a lot of way till the bottom – and the UK 1.1%. “Excellent” I thought and then naïve as I am I checked how much unemployment had dropped. There was a tiny small rise! “Hmmm”, I thought, then there are less homeless , checked again but again especially in Berlin there was a small tiny rise and then there was a blog with a very long reference to the homeless in Germany and how they were unaccountable and out of the system.
I returned to the articles and I noticed how much they emphasized that the rise was due to exports and the demand of the quality German products especially in America. “Ha,” I thought, “everything gone to hospitals and schools.” Checked again and after a small research I found that the German chancellor had announced lately further cuts into the social security system and education budgets. This was the part where the chill became much worst.
Back to the financial pages where I actually saw somebody celebrating the German growth, the shareholders, and the stock market. So let me see if I understood well, the German growth meant more money in the pockets of Mr. Porsche, Mr. Mercedes, and Mr. Siemens. It meant more money in the pockets of the bankers all around the world and it meant more money in the pockets of the stock market gabblers. But it meant absolutely nothing to the ones who actually need the growth, it meant absolutely nothing to the ones who are called to do something to help the growth and it meant absolutely nothing to the ones who literally paid for the industrialists and the bankers to rise from the crisis.
I have the feeling that Germany’s growth is going to be the nemesis of all those myths they are feeding us the last few months. And this is not a European story is a global story with the Americans keep feeding the poker players of the stock markets. But let’s stick with Europe. The last few months all the governments and administrations including all the officials of the EU try to tell us that it is very important to do cuts and help the industrialists and the bankers to survive the crisis. They literally cut budgets of hospitals and schools to fund the private banks and help the exports of the car industry. What a lot of bullshit they are feeding us. And it makes you wander if these people have forgotten who and why they are there. But then again just check around the European leadership, all the prime ministers. All the presidents and all the officials. How many of them have really worked? Do they know what growth really means? Or is just numbers in a piece of paper and nice promotion in the televisions screens.
And yes once more, why the media play their game? Why should I care for the waist growth of Mr. Porsche, Mr. Mercedes, and Mr. Siemens and not care for the limitation of the poverty? This kind of growth doesn’t decrease the cost of life for the average European is just raises a very small minority’s access to more Champaign.
When the troubles started two years ago in the Greek streets, when the people said enough is enough a lot including me we wrote that there is a limit to what people can cope with and unfortunately the money establishment with the cooperation from most of the European administrations provocatively challenges peoples’ patience. With alchemies you fix the numbers but you don’t give food and a roof to the once who need it and the number of the unemployed keeps rising and the number of the homeless keeps rising and the number of the once in the limits of poverty keeps rising and there is no alchemy to hide reality.
Ovi+finance Ovi+politics Ovi+Europe Thanos_Kalamidas Germany Europe Ovi EU |
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