[cloudmountain]

Yesterday there was an article about the "crack" in Germany's economy as they couldn't sell their bonds.
I dunno. One doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to see the economies of countries NORTH verus SOUTH of Switzerland. Germany is "giant" in its industry but also because there are 80+ million Germans, as opposed to the SMALL numbers of Swiss, Dutch, Belgians, Scandinavians, etc. They seem to all be good workers but there just aren't as many of them as there are Germans.

One forgets that in the middle east there aren't very many Iraquis (30 million), Saudis, Yemenis, even Israelis, but there are almost 78 million Iranians. Yikes.
source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats5.htm

[LZ_Bayonet]

" Germany is "giant" in its industry but also because there are 80+ million Germans, as opposed to the SMALL numbers of Swiss, Dutch, Belgians, Scandinavians, etc. They seem to all be good workers but there just aren't as many of them as there are Germans."

Keep in mind that Germany has gained from the value of the euro being kept low (let's say Euro/USD) BECAUSE of the southern eurozone nations providing a drag. I've heard speculation (CNBC?) that if there were a DMark it would now be north of $2.15. (Of course another aspect is that the southern eurozone countries have been able to "borrow" based on the value Germain adds to the currency.)

There are a lot of complaints about China's currency manipulation but, though disguised by Eurozone membership, Germany profits from this version of currency manipulation. However, you don't see this being discussed in debates or seeing Obama complaining to Merkel about it. I would not doubt that China has pointed to Germany's advantage when they receive currency related criticism.