Rising Hegemon
Those expectations went out the window early Friday, however, after national data showed Germany, Europe's largest economy, blew away already-strong expectations for growth. Germany posted a quarterly GDP expansion of 2.2% versus a forecast for 1.4% growth.
Germany's growth was fueled in large part by strong gains in industrial production as the export dynamo benefitted from a sharp resurgence in international trade amid strong demand from emerging markets. Read about Germany's second-quarter performance.
France, which grew at a 0.6% rate, also exceeded expectations.
Meanwhile, in those places like Greece and Ireland which went the austerity route Republicans seem to love so very, very much. Not so much:
Greece's economy shrank a bigger than expected 1.5% in the second quarter, flash estimates from the statistics service (ELSTAT) showed on Thursday, and analysts predicted more pain to come as austerity measures bite.
11 comments:
I'm sure the CATO Institute has a perfectly reasonable explanation. How did Somalia's economy do? Hmmmm? Why don't liberals like to talk about the libertarian paradise of Somalia? Because they've experienced 0% growth for the last four years, that's why. When the whole world was melting down, Somalia was in the sweet spot. Hi mortality, no government and easy access to guns keeps the worker pool fresh.
Part of the reason for Greece's contraction is that the government is finally trying to break the shadow-cycle of corruption, padded employment rosters and bribery that account for as much as half the economy.
Don't ask me how I know this. Living there for four years helps. I don't know if they'll be able to do it because these behaviors are so entrenched.
t. hartmann has been pointing to germany for the last month or so. germany as part of their stimulus agreed to subsidize part of employees' pay. government paid businesses to maintain their work force in order to avoid employees being laid off.
thus consumer demand was sustained and made possible by keeping intact wages for workers.
neat. better than shoveling money down a rabbit hole for mega banks and seeing nothing in return for it.
how weird is it to see a government giving tax breaks and subsidies to keep jobs at home instead of tax breaks for shipping them abroad? germany is like looking at a parallel universe compared to the norm here.
instead of telling this side of the story (that germany supported their workers), cons are trying to spin this recovery by pointing to germany holding back on further additional stimulus spending. that's not the whole story.
oh, another thing that fueled growth is germany's committment to solar energy. they gave tax breaks to put solar panels on people's homes. that helped keep up demand to support manufacturing growth. commitment to solar grew domestic jobs. as a matter of fact, US solar suppliers have to turn to germany (and/or china) in order to get parts. cspan's solar energy expert touched on this earlier this morning.
another stat pointed out by the guy who wrote were you born on the wrong continent? is that pinko, commie, socialist europe develops more entrepreneurs than this capitalist pig of a country. you can probably guess why. people are free to strike out on their own and develop their own shops when they're not held back by the worry and expense of providing for their own healthcare. you have a better chance of becoming your own boss in europe versus the US. imagine that. this little factoid deserves to get much more play.
i bet Germany is highly regulated as well.
but facts will not matter, full steam ahead on the tx cut train heqaded for the cliff.
Saw a right winger claim that Merkel eschewed Obama's "spend spend spend" policy in favor of one similar to what the Tea Party espouses.
Of course, his supporting link didn't work. Allegedly it was the Wall Street Journal.
socialist europe develops more entrepreneurs than this capitalist pig of a country. you can probably guess why. people are free to strike out on their own and develop their own shops when they're not held back by the worry and expense of providing for their own healthcare
Howard Dean said the same thing in 2004. Of course, that made too much sense, so he needed to be smeared by 'reputable' journalists.
Howard Dean went "yearrgh" and therefore is a Silly Person whereas people like Alan Greenspan were very very Serious.
Howard Dean went "yearrgh" and therefore is a Silly Person whereas people like Alan Greenspan were very very Serious.
And let us not forget that at times Michael Moore has carried too much weight, therby exposing the vast liberal fascist agenda.
On a side note, I just saw a campaign commercial where Tea Bagger Mother Grizzly Sharon Angle talks about locking a lock box when it comes to social security. Weirdly familiar.
Sharon Angle and the LAWK BAWX???
Are you kidding me? This deserves to be mocked on the Daily Show, then repeated throughout the entire blogosphere.
Fucking conservatives, man. They have NO integrity. Assdouches.
From Krugman's column today trashing the Fed: Has Mr. Bernanke been intellectually assimilated by the Fed Borg?
Krugman is the absolute best. I bet Bernanke doesn't even know who the Borg are.
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