L’Allemagne sur la pente descendante

Cartoon : F. Descheemaekere

Germany’s Downward Trend

[The New York Times]

THE newspaper headline said: “German Economy to Become a Midget.” Sure, and Elvis is alive and well in Berchtesgaden, learning to yodel and secretly preparing an album of Bavarian lullabies.

But the accompanying article in Die Welt was not without substance. It reported on a survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development which projects German growth falling to an average of 1.1 percent over the period from 2011 to 2060 [pdf]. That’s at the bottom of a sample pile of the world’s critical industrial and emerging economies, about half the rate of the United States’ or Britain’s expansion, behind France, Italy and even Greece, and left in the dust by India, China, Indonesia and Mexico.
Angela Merkel, who faces re-election this fall, could well shrug and say to herself, I’ll be 106 before I’m accountable in the face of that piece of computerized clairvoyance — however estimable the source.

Lire : nytimes.com