July 8, 2012
LEFT IS RIGHT:
The Man Who Rescued the German Economy (Raymond Zhong, 7/08/12, Wall Street Journal)
'Reform yourselves, and ye will grow out of your debt." So goes Germany's unwritten mantra for the European crisis. Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging Greece, Spain, Italy and the rest to shape up their economies and pay down their obligations--and withholding German money until they do.The Berlin road to economic righteousness is no mere sermonizing. Germany itself has gone down it and grown stronger. Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democrat, was German chancellor from 1998 to 2005, and during his second term his government lowered taxes, revamped unemployment benefits and streamlined labor laws. Mr. Schröder's shakedown of the welfare state--dubbed Agenda 2010 when it was launched in 2003--has been credited with insulating Germany against the debt mess that would later befall Southern Europe. [...]Circumstance forced economic reform onto Gerhard Schröder's agenda as chancellor. When he took office in 1998, Germany's unemployment rate was 11% and economic growth was close to nil.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 8, 2012 9:08 AM
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