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2020-01-15 Europe
Germany posts record-breaking budget surplus
[DW] Germany ended 2019 with a budget surplus of €13.5 billion.
Impressive. If only America’s politicians were so self controlled.
It is the third time in the last five years that Europe
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
's largest economy closed the year with a budget surplus. The 2019 surplus overtook a 2015 budget surplus of €12.1 billion.

Added to that figure is an additional €5.5 billion from a fund earmarked for refugees that went unspent, making a total surplus of €19 billion.

Larger-than-expected tax income and low interest rates were partly responsible for the surplus, the finance minister explained.

Current negative interest rates also meant that Germany paid a relatively low €12 billion in interest on its debt in 2019.

The state had also set aside a significant sum to be used in case of a hard Brexit, which was freed up after recent UK elections took that option off the table.

The largest share has been allocated to a reserve for spending related to asylum-seekers in Germany, though it could ultimately be used for other projects.

A special military defense budget will receive €500 million.
Woo hoo! Bullets and spare tires for everyone!
Posted by trailing wife 2020-01-15 01:43|| || Front Page|| [11139 views ]  Top

#1 It helps to have a $275 billion trade surplus. That's $100 billion more than China and adds up to a lot of wages to tax.
Posted by Chong Sinatra5244 2020-01-15 03:29||   2020-01-15 03:29|| Front Page Top

#2 Yes Germany is a currency manipulator. The EURO is run for Germanys benefit at the rest of the Eurozone's expense.
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2020-01-15 04:58||   2020-01-15 04:58|| Front Page Top

#3 Seems no excuse now to not properly fund NATO to 2%?
Posted by Bright Pebbles 2020-01-15 04:59||   2020-01-15 04:59|| Front Page Top

#4 The largest share has been allocated to a reserve for spending related to asylum-seekers

Wealth transfer from productive citizens to gimmiegrants...
Posted by M. Murcek 2020-01-15 06:05||   2020-01-15 06:05|| Front Page Top

#5 LOL as if Germany will ever spend on anything but themselves. They ruthlessly rip us off on trade while refusing to buy our gas to even out the exchange. Instead they buy Russian gas.

They're bursting at the seams with excess cash, and yet they still can't chip in their fair share of NATO. The unbelievable arrogance.
Posted by Herb McCoy  2020-01-15 07:34||   2020-01-15 07:34|| Front Page Top

#6 Sort of like parking the new Benz outside while using the American EBT card for some groceries.
Posted by Procopius2k 2020-01-15 08:53||   2020-01-15 08:53|| Front Page Top

#7 Good for them, I hope someone in the US notices that awesomeness of fiscal responsibility.
Posted by ruprecht 2020-01-15 09:16||   2020-01-15 09:16|| Front Page Top

#8 Storage centers, not that common over there. Hat tip to the thrifty Germans.
Posted by Besoeker 2020-01-15 09:19||   2020-01-15 09:19|| Front Page Top

#9 #5 "while refusing to buy our gas to even out the exchange. Instead they buy Russian gas."

Russian gas is cheaper. Market Economy 101, Herb.
Btw Germany will import more liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the USA. At least two new LNG terminals are to be built in northern Germany with state support.
Posted by European Conservative 2020-01-15 14:38||   2020-01-15 14:38|| Front Page Top

#10 That's what I've always thought, #2 BP, but since I haven't lived there in decades, I didn't want to make pronouncements I'm no longer in a position to be sure about.

Glad I'm not as dumb as I look. ;-)
Posted by Barbara 2020-01-15 15:48||   2020-01-15 15:48|| Front Page Top

#11 Germany isn't a "currency manipulator". The Eurozone is a single bloc. Sure the Euro is undervalued for Germany, but it is also overvalued for other countries in the bloc. If the Euro were to break up, Germany’s restored currency would appreciate, but other restored currencies would depreciate. Overall, the US would gain very little.

Any intervention in exchange markets is done by the ECB. Sure Germany has a big influence on the ECB, but it doesn’t dictate ECB exchange-rate policy. The ECB doesn't do currency manipulation based on money supply. The Federal Reserve has been supplying far more Dollars than the ECB has been over the past decade. So if you're looking for a country that has spent the last decade trying devalue, it’s the US.
Posted by European Conservative 2020-01-15 16:20||   2020-01-15 16:20|| Front Page Top

#12 It seems reasonable to me that if we elected Donald Trump to push an America First approach, we’d have to accept that other countries would — and always have, despite rhetoric to the contrary — look to their own interests first before ours. And if we owe them nothing but honesty about our needs and objectives, they owe us precisely the same.

Finally, I have the impression that the Federal Reserve was making some questionable choices in terms of buying Treasury notes and setting low interest rates during the Obama years that were not justified by the economic situation that resulted from the high deficit spending and restrictive regulations of the period. Are we in a position to point fingers?
Posted by trailing wife 2020-01-15 16:40||   2020-01-15 16:40|| Front Page Top

#13 No manipulators to see here, sir!
No one here but us pump-primers!
Posted by Helicopter Ben 2020-01-15 16:42||   2020-01-15 16:42|| Front Page Top

#14 Russian gas makes you dependent on Russia. They can and have turned off the gas in the middle of winter.

It's not like Germany can't afford it. The trade surplus with America is huge and American gas would be a welcome equalizer.

But I get it. It's a big "fuck you" to America and a further reinforcement of ripping us off on trade. All this extra cash floating around and can't even bear your fair share of NATO. I understand. The psychological name for this is "dupers delight". It's the reward you get when successfully pulling off a scam.

Americans get the message loud and clear.
Posted by Herb McCoy  2020-01-15 21:47||   2020-01-15 21:47|| Front Page Top

#15 Not so fast, 'Erb the Coy. The Germans and the Russians have a centuries-old mutual love-hate fascination that can't be reduced to (the usual) preoccupation with America.

We're not relevant here.

Each party would like the other to fit its romantic idealicized version -- the "philosophical," essentialist Slavs, the hyper-rational, efficient Teutons -- but the reality is that Germany is now a trading nation par excellence and Putin's Russia is a bandit state.

The perfect synthesis of the above is that slippery, smiling, corrupt and uber-transactional thrice-divorced former German Chancellor who sits on multiple corporate boards including an American global investment bank and a Russian crony state capitalist energy company.
Posted by Lex 2020-01-15 21:59||   2020-01-15 21:59|| Front Page Top

#16 Germany is a trading nation par excellence because America stopped them from trying to take over Europe. We provide free military protection. What do we get in return? Endless rhetoric about what vile people we are.

Let's see those German exports get around the world without the seas staying clear without US Navy protection. Free as in beer. Gratitude? LOL of course not. They very idea is ludicrous.

All anyone ever asked is that Germany stop ripping us off and contribute their fair share. Which they can't bring themselves to do, even with an overflowing treasury.

Germany is what happens when a spoiled child grows into a spoiled adult. They've had so much free shit from America that they take it for granted. Ever seen a spoiled adult when Dad reduces or eliminates the allowance? You think spoiled adults have any gratitude towards Dad for the decades of free money? No way. It's rage that they are unfairly being cut off, and spite to shit on Dad for the great injustice being done to them.

It's high time we cut Germany and the rest of Europe off and let them find their own way in the world. Let them pay for their own naval escorts for their products. Let their young men have their legs blown off in the Middle East for oil. Why should we do anything for people who refuse to bear their fair share of the burden despite having the means to easily do so?
Posted by Herb McCoy  2020-01-15 22:58||   2020-01-15 22:58|| Front Page Top

#17 USA out of NATO.
Posted by Herb McCoy  2020-01-15 23:04||   2020-01-15 23:04|| Front Page Top

#18 Germany is what happens when a spoiled child grows into a spoiled adult.

= still your child, and (still) stupid to cut him off. Blut, wasser etc
Posted by Lex 2020-01-15 23:07||   2020-01-15 23:07|| Front Page Top

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