Outside the Beltway

Treating the Merest Whiff as a Catastrophe

· Friday, February 13, 2009 · 3 comments

If you’re wondering why the merest whiff of protectionism on the part of the United States threw the European representatives to the Davos conference into a tizzy, look no farther than the Eurozone’s shrinking GDP:

Eurozone growth contracted at its fastest ever rate at the end of last year, with an unexpectedly-bad German performance deepening the recession more than had been feared.

Gross domestic product in the 16-country region slumped by 1.5 per cent in the final quarter of last year — the same pace of contraction as in the UK but faster than the 1 per cent fall reported in the US.

[…]

Economic gloom is spread across the region but Germany has been especially badly hit by the collapse in global demand. Europe’s largest economy contracted by a much larger-than-expected 2.1 per cent in the fourth quarter, the sharpest fall since the country was reunified in 1990.

Megan McArdle observes:

The other problem Europe has is that their major economies, especially Germany’s, have historically been heavily dependent on exports. The biggest source of robust domestic demand growth has been the United States consumer, and that turned out to be illusory. Unfortunately, Europe’s relatively paltry stimulus efforts seem to indicate that they still, somehow, believe that the United States consumer can pull them out of it, which is insane considering how overleveraged we are. Unless they can overcome the need for our consumer spending, they’ll continue to suffer longer and har[d]er than we do.

As I’ve noted before just as diversifying your investment portfolio provides such security as can be found in an uncertain climate, diversifying the economy insures a country against economic shocks. We need to increase the importance of exports to our economy; the Germans and the Chinese need to consume more.

I do wonder why, if we’re so darned important to the rest of the world, they don’t treat us any nicer?

FILED UNDER: Europe, Uncategorized, , , , , , ,
Dave Schuler
About Dave Schuler
Over the years Dave Schuler has worked as a martial arts instructor, a handyman, a musician, a cook, and a translator. He's owned his own company for the last thirty years and has a post-graduate degree in his field. He comes from a family of politicians, teachers, and vaudeville entertainers. All-in-all a pretty good preparation for blogging. He has contributed to OTB since November 2006 but mostly writes at his own blog, The Glittering Eye, which he started in March 2004.

Comments

  1. Bithead says:
    Friday, 13 February 2009 at 13:26

    There’s a realtionship there, too, that I’ve not quite put my finger on yet… One of the things we’ve both noted over the last few years, Dave, is the tendency for panic mode to set in at the slightest devience from established dogma among the Europians and among our own left here in the states.

    I wonder if these two can be connected to a common attitude among them, that everything needs be treated as a crisis.

  2. RW Rogers says:
    Friday, 13 February 2009 at 13:29

    I do wonder why, if we’re so darned important to the rest of the world, they don’t treat us any nicer?
    Because nothing grates like gratitude, Dave.

  3. mannning says:
    Friday, 13 February 2009 at 15:42

    Because we still speak English and not German?

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