ASKED THE LORD ABOVE FOR MERCY, "SAVE ME IF YOU PLEASE"

Germany at the crossroads: With unemployment at record levels, the welfare state in a crisis and its once legendary standard of living declining, can Germany return to its prosperous days? (Leon Mangasarian, Expatica)

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's labour reforms and apparent plans to bring forward tax cuts will not provide any fast relief for Germany's economy--currently the weakest in the eurozone, analysts say.

With zero growth projected for this year, Norbert Walter, chief economist of Deutsche Bank, warns that despite the moves there will no recovery in Germany before 2005.

"There are unfortunately factors leading us to believe the worst is still ahead of us," said Walter in an interview this week with the Evangelische Tageblatt aus Bayern newspaper.

What basis is there for believing that a nation with a declining population of young tax-paying workers and a growing welfare burden can turn its economy around, especially several years down the road when the problems will only have grown worse? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 5, 2003 6:44 PM