some, because the German mark is so strong). And - weighed down by that double burden -
end up as one of the leading exporters world-wide.
Germans themselves worry aloud that it cannot continue. The Munich Abendzeitung carried a cartoon this month summing up
the perceived state of play. A noticeboard proclaimed: "Jobs Vacant: liquidators ... bankruptcy specialists ... poverty
Such pessimism is understandable. Unemployment has reached 3.8 million, almost 10 per cent - well above Britain's 8 per cent.
More than pounds 20bn left Germany last year for investment abroad - "exporting jobs" , in the current catchphrase. For
Britainthere appears to be some comfort here - the UK is the biggest single recipient of the new investment. The electronics
group Siemens, for example, is building a new pounds 1bn microchip factory on Tyneside, which will create 1,800 jobs.
Senior figures in German industry complain that foreign companies hardly ever invest in German industrial jobs any more. True -
and an understandable reason for Germans to start panicking, as they have begun to do. More embarrassing still, Germany
thismonth announced a budget deficit of 3.6 per cent, thus breaking the 3 per cent upper limit set at Maastricht for the planned
creation of the single European currency. How are the mighty fallen. And yet...
THIS is not the first time that the end has seemed nigh. One notable feature of the German economy is that the bubble never
quite seems to burst, however often the pessimists and the statistics suggest that it is about to. Whenever there has been
aslowdown in the past 20 years, Germany's most influential magazine, Der Spiegel, has carried cover stories suggesting that
disaster looms. When in 1993 it carried the picture of the sinking ship Germania printed above, the headline asked: "What can
savethe economy?" Within a short time, however, Germania was under sail once more. Last week, Der Spiegel was aski...