Real German debt may be 7 trillion Euros not 2 trillion: Professor

Commodity Online ^ | September 23, 2011

[Weslo]

Contrary to the reported public debt of 2 Trillion Euros, the true German debt may well total 7 Trillion Euros as per calculations by Bernd Raffelhueschen, an economics professor at Freiburg University.

[JerseyHighlander]

“unexpected” unfunded liabilities are very very sneaky. You never know where they’ll show up next.

[JerseyHighlander]

Here is a bit longer response, the professor has been writing papers on the unfunded liabilities of the German governments for at least 17 years.

He has been seen as a curmudgeon but thankfully has had a larger audience inside Germany than his research collaborators have had, ( in the US, Canada, Chile, Austria and other locales), though his collaborator in Chile is partially responsible for the privatization drive of the Chilean equivalent of US Social Security.

For a super wonkish view check Google Scholar search results:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&safe=off&client=opera&hs=bxE&rls=en&channel=suggest&q=Bernd+Raffelhueschen+unfunded+debt&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=3969l7305l0l7523l14l11l0l0l0l0l241l1375l3.5.2l10l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1916&bih=922&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws