Posted on 11/28/2012 3:31:16 PM PST by bruinbirdman
The US Treasury has issued a damning criticism of Germany’s chronic trade surplus in its annual report on worldwide exchange rate abuse, although it stopped short of labelling the country a currency manipulator.
Treasury officials told Congress that internal balances within the eurozone are disrupting the global trade structure, with almost nothing being done by north Europeans states to curb their huge surpluses.
The report said Germany’s current account surplus is running at 6.3pc of GDP, and Holland is even worse at 9.5pc. Yet the countries still cleave to fiscal austerity policies that constrict internal demand.
The EU’s new tool for cracking down on intra-EMU imbalances is "asymmetric" and does not give "sufficient attention to countries with large and sustained external surpluses like Germany".
While the eurozone as a whole is roughly in trade balance, the EMU regime of austerity in the South without offsetting stimulus in the North is creating a contractinary bias, holding back global recovery.
The US Treasury said eurozone surplus states have "available room" for fiscal stimulus but refuse to act, despite repeated pledges by EU leaders that more must be done to foster growth. "They have not yet made any concrete proposals capable of yielding meaningful near-term results."
Germany's permanent surplus is in stark contrast to the shift under way in Asia. China has "partially succeeded in shifting away from a reliance on exports for growth", and has slashed its surplus to 2.6pc from 10.1pc in 2007.
While the yuan remains "significantly overvalued", China’s has stopped building reserves to hold down it currency and has seen a 40pc appreciation against the dollar since 2005 in real terms. Double-digit wage growth is closing thecurrency gap by oither means.
A chart published in the report shows that Germany has overtaken China to become
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
A currency manipulator, like asking to visit and inventory your own gold held in a Federal Reserve bank, ya mean? Like that kind of manipulator?
The Treasury, the Mini-Me to the Federal Reserve, calling someone, anyone a manipulator?
That’s rich, funny. ( not )
The Treasury, the Mini-Me to the Federal Reserve, calling someone, anyone a manipulator?
That’s rich, funny. ( not )
Eat more olives Johann!
Who are they kidding??
Our government and Federal Reserve are the only villains and the zombie sheeple
Germany has maintained a trade surplus for decades because its monetary policy has held inflation to a much lower level than virtually everyone else. Japan enjoyed the same situation till recently when it caved and started printing Yen till Hell won't have them. Ditto China.
It's kind of funny.
The complaining country never comes right out and asks for currency debasement [which inflation is] but insists that the offending country "develop its domestic market" which is a real hoot because inflating the currency and encouraging a trade deficit causes just the opposite -- consumers buy more from abroad where it's cheaper.
sounds like the German Bankers haven’t attended the “right schools”....you know ..the same ones as the New York and London bankers...who know exactly what they’re doing...
I wonder if we can implement the same here. What are these policies?
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