Re: Snake Oil @ The Indomitable Gall
Germany rode out the big recession pretty damned well compared to the rest of the continent, so I don't know why we're all still modelling the French approach rather than the German one.
Germany rode out the great recession so well because (as a result of the Euro project's flaws), they joined the Euro with an undervalued entry currency. That kept their manufacturing exports relatively cheap and highly competitive. The corollary of the deutschmark being undervalued was that in Southern Europe (and to an extent France) they joined with over valued currencies (largely for vanity reasons), and that made their exports uncompetitive, and is a major contributor to their moribund economies and appalling youth unemployment rates. And the catastrophe in Southern Europe helped avoid the Euro skyrocketing on FX markets, and that locked in the German export advantage when dealing with non Euro markets.
This had precisely diddly squat to do with the layout of their rail networks, and everything to do with the fact that nobody in their right mind would pay the (UK) £25k starting list price for a weird and frangible Citroen C5 when that's the same starting list price for a BMW 3 series.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
