Free Republic

A day after a US Treasury Department report bluntly denounced Germany’s economic model, accusing it of hampering the eurozone recovery and hurting global growth, Germany called the conclusions “incomprehensible” and challenged the US to “analyze its own economic situation.” The Treasury’s semiannual currency report criticized Germany’s over-reliance on exports, a high current-account surplus and weak domestic demand. These factors “have hampered re-balancing at a time when many other euro-area countries have been under severe pressure,” the report concluded, citing budget tightening in the euro periphery. “The net result has been a deflationary bias for the euro area, as well as...