'reduced unemployment' is hardly suffering. The opposite was true: we had, and still have, a lot of people without employment perspective. The main goal of the policies was to drive unemployment down - especially in the new states.
> Many of the countries that have got the Euro got in by falsifying statistics
A few. Not 'many'.
You seem to go for the easy explanation. In the EU and the Eurozone countries are still responsible for their politics. Even their economic politics.
It's also not Germany which lend especially much money to our southern partners in the EU. Check out France, US, Britain, ... The speculators were most from areas and industries which were not especially 'German'. German banks were dumb enough to follow the lead of the investment banks and speculators.
Each country has to:
* reduce debt
* keep an educated work force
* invest money wisely
* prevent bubbles
That Spain had a housing bubble is not Germany's fault. That Greece has incompetent economics and finance is also not Germany's fault. Our fault was to sell them submarines. But I bet the Nato partners were more than happy that Greece wanted them. That Ireland's economy collapsed was also not our fault.
If you are not aware the is a global economy competition. Germany wanted to keep Europe able to compete. Many others made themselves a nice time - brought their money to offshore tax havens, to Switzerland, speculated in London, speculated in the housing boom.
Its not really our fault that we have no housing bubble, our investment banks were stupid enough, but the damage could be contained, we reduced our budget deficit, ...
Instead of blaming Germany, you should look at the incompetent politicians of those countries who are not able to collect taxes, not able to control bubbles, not able to invest in the 'real' economy instead of virtual ones, who are not able to balance their budgets.
Germany made enough mistakes on their own. For example we sold infrastructure to foreign investors. We were told that this was so much better. Huge mistake.
It's a lot harder to prevent bubbles when you don't control your own interest rates. The ECB kept interest rates low to reduce German unemployment, at the cost of feeding housing bubbles in Spain and Ireland.
None of my arguments/observation depends on who is responsible. I don't really care who is to blame, I think the notion is fairly ridiculous given the situation.
> Many of the countries that have got the Euro got in by falsifying statistics
A few. Not 'many'.
You seem to go for the easy explanation. In the EU and the Eurozone countries are still responsible for their politics. Even their economic politics.
It's also not Germany which lend especially much money to our southern partners in the EU. Check out France, US, Britain, ... The speculators were most from areas and industries which were not especially 'German'. German banks were dumb enough to follow the lead of the investment banks and speculators.
Each country has to:
* reduce debt * keep an educated work force * invest money wisely * prevent bubbles
That Spain had a housing bubble is not Germany's fault. That Greece has incompetent economics and finance is also not Germany's fault. Our fault was to sell them submarines. But I bet the Nato partners were more than happy that Greece wanted them. That Ireland's economy collapsed was also not our fault.
If you are not aware the is a global economy competition. Germany wanted to keep Europe able to compete. Many others made themselves a nice time - brought their money to offshore tax havens, to Switzerland, speculated in London, speculated in the housing boom.
Its not really our fault that we have no housing bubble, our investment banks were stupid enough, but the damage could be contained, we reduced our budget deficit, ...
Instead of blaming Germany, you should look at the incompetent politicians of those countries who are not able to collect taxes, not able to control bubbles, not able to invest in the 'real' economy instead of virtual ones, who are not able to balance their budgets.
Germany made enough mistakes on their own. For example we sold infrastructure to foreign investors. We were told that this was so much better. Huge mistake.