Eurozone on cusp of triple-dip recession as German exports crumble

The Telegraph ^ | 10/10/2014 | By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

[SeekAndFind]

Germany’s exports are falling at the fastest rate since the global crisis in 2009, raising fears of a triple-dip recession and a disastrous relapse for the rest of the eurozone.

The country’s five economic institutes - or "Wise Men" - slashed their growth forecast for Germany from 2pc to 1.2pc next year, warning that the latest measures unveiled by the European Central Bank will add “hardly any” extra stimulus to the real economy and may be unworkable.

Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, warned that the eurozone is at “serious risk” of falling back into recession if nothing is done, and is in danger of suffering a lost decade. “If the right policies are decided, if both surplus and deficit countries do what they have to do, it is avoidable,” she said. The wording is a clear call to Germany for an immediate shift in policy.

German exports slumped by 5.8pc in August as the crisis in Ukraine and Russia took its toll. “We’re no longer in a recovery,” said Volker Treier, head of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). He said geopolitical upsets may have pushed the economy over the edge into a “technical recession”, but added that Germany itself is also to blame for failure to break out of a slow-growth trap. “We have too little investment. That’s been the case for years,” he said.

The Wise Men said in a joint report that the German economy is now in “stagnation”, with unemployment likely to rise next year. “There are no signs of the long-awaited recovery yet. Corporate investment fell in the second quarter and there is hardly any evidence to suggest that this cautious approach to investment will change in the near future,” they said.

[Gay State Conservative]

Germany is basically the only country in Europe that makes anything worth buying.If *their* industrial production is collapsing that’s a *really* bad sign for Europe.

[Viennacon]

Let’s just hope this leads to some right wing revolutions in Europe. Time to throw the leftists out.

Then maybe we’ll have precedent for giving Obola is just desserts

[Buckeye McFrog]

So are we forcing Putin into an economic crisis or vice-versa?

[Buckeye McFrog]

Let’s just hope this leads to some right wing revolutions in Europe. Time to throw the leftists out.

It will be a bloody cataclysm. Their taker population is four times as large as ours.