Home > Uncategorized > Thought for the day: the real German trauma?

Thought for the day: the real German trauma?

June 26, 2012 Leave a comment Go to comments

Just a thought. Maybe nonsense, maybe not. People often talk about the German ‘hyperinflation’ trauma. But I just read the interview with Wolfgang Schauble. I’ve been thinking about the German point of view on the Euro. And I’ve been reading a bit about and by Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, the intruiging guy who ended the German inflation of the twenties and reflated the German economy in the thirties (for some years actively working together with the NAZI’s, occupying the three (!) economic top posts in the state/government as well as clearly underestimating youknowwho and enabling rearmament, though there was an increasing rift between him and the NAZI’s from about 1935 on).

The real trauma might not be inflation. After all, the Germans were perfectly able to handle and stop it. That’s not the stuff historical traumas are made of. The real trauma, the real hidden, unconscious, poisonous, nevernevernever again thing might still be the unilaterally imposed WWI reparations which could not be paid. No more unilaterally imposed unpayable megabills (for Germany). Never again. Even if that means a break up of the Euro. Or a federal European state. That’s at least something you can handle. But no more debt bondage (for Germany). Never again.

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  1. sanderfredman0909
    June 26, 2012 at 9:24 am | #1
    Reply | Quote

    Keynes wrote against reparations for that reason in his 1920 “Economic Consequences of the Peace” but was the minority view in part due to Bert Ohlin and Jacque Rueff. Now in this theatre, Germany is being asked to play the Bettelheim. The syndrome associated with the good doctor is in short, taking on the characteristics of one’s master. In the camps: Jews beating up other Jews. (After Bruno died, he was discredited. Too convenient perhaps. But Exodus 2:13-14 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”
    The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” while myth, is more enduring if not endearing.

    Germany is being asked to beat up on Greece by the international banking world. Ninety years ago, Germany wasn’t asked but ordered to beat itself to pay that which could not be paid.

  2. Lex
    June 26, 2012 at 9:22 pm | #2
    Reply | Quote

    I guess it’s more straightforward, like in why should I retire at 67 and the frenchies at 60? And why should we send these guys some money?
    Hollande made a disastrous mistake by pronouncing retirement aged will be lowered to 60 again. Germany is waiting for an answer as to how France will solve this problem.
    Hollande made it quite clear, he was not going to argue with his fellow countrymen about this & that, but passed the problem on to Europe.

    • merijnknibbe
      June 26, 2012 at 9:52 pm | #3
      Reply | Quote

      Dear Lex, French women get on average 2,08 children. German women 1,41. (CIA world Factbook). That does make a difference.

      • Lex
        June 27, 2012 at 9:48 pm | #4
        Quote

        Dear Merijn, you’re very right by saying France will pay their early retirement themselves. I hope they will and can.

    • sanderfredman0909
      June 26, 2012 at 10:29 pm | #5
      Reply | Quote

      If someone tells me that they can no longer work and need to do x, I might ask is x smoking pot, building an energy plant, hospital, or whore house.

    • Ignacio
      June 28, 2012 at 2:15 pm | #6
      Reply | Quote

      So, the question rised here is that the euro would require fiscal union, and the fiscal union would be strong only if there is fiscal harmonisation. Don’t worry Lex, the euro is poised to disappear as we know it. By the way, would you prefer to retire at 60?

      • Lex
        June 28, 2012 at 4:03 pm | #7
        Quote

        I wouldn’t mind at all! My father retired at 58 and he is still having a happy life.
        BTW, I wouldn’t mind any solidarity payments, but solidarity cannot be a one way street

  3. sanderfredman0909
    June 26, 2012 at 10:41 pm | #8
    Reply | Quote

    Women have kids. Surprise. Here’s the deal. I had a discussion at a graduation party with an engineer last week. He brought up that Shactley did a study that showed the super intelligent people have .001 kids and the super stupid (I’m exaggerating a little) have a zillion kids. Old news but in an older 1970s book called the Jewish Mystique which posits that the reason yids are smarter is because their best and brightest became rabbis and had lots of kids per Genesis “be fruitful and multiply” whereas western roman catholicism got their best into the nunnery and priesthood. Outside of Boccaccio’s de Cameron and other great works, nuns and priests did not produce the super duper size super intelligence race. So if there’s a problem with France having 2x kids and Germany x, then stop subsidizing. Or give them your culture of zpg, if you think that is best. I think there might be more integration.

  4. Helge Nome
    June 26, 2012 at 11:22 pm | #9
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    I have read Hjalmar Schacht’s memoirs and think that merinjnknil (is that your name?) has a point. From a broader perspective, there are a thousand underlying hatreds in Europe, a combination of which could easily upset the EU applecart.

    • sanderfredman0909
      June 27, 2012 at 9:35 am | #10
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      My name is Sander Fredman. My methodology or weltenshaung is in part based on my limited understanding of what Friedrich Schiller tried to do in his historical writings, e.g. his work on the United Netherlands. If history is to just replay past grudges, fratricides, usw then we lose. If it’s to pass on painful experiences sans the pain and more the learn, we have a shot, or our kids do. (Some free time has opened up the opportunity to look at a very fascinating Shakespearean.)

  5. robert r locke
    July 15, 2012 at 10:48 am | #11
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    I think all you economists have to go back to school and learn about the glories of Western Civilization. None of it appears in this blog, as the principal reason for uniting and protecting a marvolous heritage. The center of this civilization is not in London, which gave us trade, commerce, and finance. Its on the continent that gave us the gothic, renaissance, baroque, neo-classicism, arts-nouveau, etc. Get out of the counting room and into the beautiful, that which makes life worth living.

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