is Germany about to redefine 7% unemployment as "The new normal" full employment?

It's apparently the "new normal" full employment of highly productive workers.

Are the points presented in the FT article relevant, or of no great interest?

disposable income up 3.4%

Mind you, if the German administration as a whole were willing to accept a sizeable dose of wage inflation, wouldn't that be pushback against the deflationary years and a means of rebalancing the relative situation of eurozone countries?

Language and culture are fast losing their strength as barriers, especially as the target population are young and well-educated.

Is this/will this become a significant factor in re-balancing the Eurozone's internal economic tensions? The backwater-ization of the regions providing the emigrants is a danger.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

As much as I hate the present monetary policy, I must agree that well-trained people unemployment in Spain comes from a lack of desire to move around and take a job in antoher country.

Spain talks endlessly about reforms and reforms .. most fo them are crazy leading Spain to more years of distresss. And of the reforms which are really needed (mainly 3), one will be done more or less properly (privatize cajas and use the government money to give credit), another one in the complete opposite direction of what is required (labor law and pension reform) and the other one is just not talked about (force people to learn english or german or french and move around!!!!.. and then we will pay you heavily if you come back).

xzy stuff.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

it really is hiding in plain sight, once someone's intelligent explanation has removed the blinkers.

now this message needs to drown the vitriolic 'lazy southerners' BS that has been used to stir up the xenophobia and other social divisions!

those irresponsible pseudopundits should all be forced to go work in 40C august greek or sicilian mid-afternoon, and then apologise...

are there any studies about the human brain working 'better*' in cooler weather, i wonder.

* value of better as 'better at rational long distance cognitive skills'

and then all these cool headed nordics all want to go retire in the carefree, inefficient, slipshod, messy and colourful, sensually rich southern parts, and then bitch about how badly run they are...

which is true, especially seen from their point of view!

but you can suck on a warm juicy peach hours rom plucking while queueing for your umpteenth fruit-less altercation with some bureaucorporate placeholder, who got his gig because his uncle got it for him through giving some pol/big fish a discount on something.

whine through your wine, basically.

a friend got back from germany today after a 4 day visit, and in 3 hours on a monday morning sorted new passport, insurance plan, and some other issue that would have taken weeks if not months to botch up here in bel paese.

3 hours!

blame it on the heat i guess, i don't know what else explains it, other that the pretty much the only thing anyone might want to do in germany is work their ass off to get the money to gtfo asap.

somewhere where the sight of chimneys don't give you the shivers, and the sky turns blue every so often, just for a tantalising, torturing reminder of what you're giving up to become a more productive euro-ratracer.

whoop de doo. more chemicals and autobahn juggernauts all around.

 

It's a fine line between homage, parody, and consumer opportunism. Jess Walter

at the same time that Germany will have a "double" gymnasium class entering the workforce/university tract as they're eliminating the 13th year of gymnasium and therefore graduating both 12th and 13th graders this year only.

I thought educational policy was determined at the state level in Germany? Is this one state or several that are doing this?

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.

Wolfgang Münchau on inflation

In his FT column, Wolfgang Münchau asks the question whether German is overheating, and its implications on ECB policy, and eurozone stability. He says the monoculture of Germany's economy, combined with low unemployment at the start of the economic cycle have already led to severe labour shortages, putting pressure on wages. He expects big wage rise this year, which will start to affects average labour costs next year. Combined with rising energy prices, a significant build-up of inflationary pressures is likely. The ECB will probably decide to increase interest rates relatively soon. Delaying the rate increase would trigger corrective action later, with interest rates rising to the high single digits, and jeopardise the recovery of the banking sectors in Spain, and even Germany. His conclusion that an inflation target of less than 2 per cent is too tough for a monetary union like the eurozone.

They are talking about inflation again. Yesterday Germany published some preliminary data for January inflation, showing a relatively moderate rise of 2%, but the rise of inflation in Belgium to 3.2% is quite spooky. Core eurozone inflation remains subdued, but is edging up above its long-run average. Two ECB board members, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi and Manuel  Gonzales Paramo went out yesterday to warn about the second round effects of commodity price hikes. Bini-Smaghi said a permanent and repeated rise in import prices would affect domestic inflation. The ECB is very obviously embarking on a verbal campaign to warn financial markets and wagesetters  that it will not tolerate a rise in inflation. Euro zone interest rate futures fell  yesterday, according to Reuters, and the yield on two-year German debt hit a 15-month high at 1.387%.