Hartz IV for Everyone

BERLIN/BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON (Own report) – New records in German foreign trade are provoking massive international criticism of Berlin’s concentration on exports. According to reports, the German economy has achieved a foreign trade surplus of 20.4 billion Euros in September – a new record. It is estimated that for 2013, German companies’ exports will exceed by around 200 billion Euros the amount imported. That is the world’s highest national import-export gap. Protests are growing because many of the customer countries for German products thereby are driven into debt, as was the case in the crisis countries of the southern Euro zone. Other than the EU Commission threatening Berlin with an official reprimand, the US Secretary of Finances is accusing the German government of threatening the stability of the global economy. The IMF is also emphatically insisting that Germany rein in its export offensive. It is based on the low-wage policy, initiated by the SPD-Green government coalition – and continued by the CDU-SPD grand coalition – which provides a decisive competitive advantage to German industry. During those administrations, Germany was the sole EU nation with decreasing real wages.