There are many reasons to want tax cuts. One of the reasons has special appeal because it promises a free lunch. When taxes are cut it seems clear that the government will have less income[…]
Category: economy
Brazil & the German current account
On July 8th 2014 Germany defeated Brazil in the semi-finals of the world cup that was held in Brazil at the time. The final score was a sobering 7-1. The German team showed a superior[…]
Not micro.
This post just gathers some economic equations that I need in future posts. The following equations are straight from macroeconomics 101. Nothing special at all. The one thing that is remarkable, though, is the number[…]
Box 1.1 or how government debt is not like personal debt.
If I spend more money than I earn I will go into debt. If I then want to get out of debt, I will have to reduce my spending. Simple. What is true for my[…]
Greek debt & collective guilt
Dillstraße 13, Hamburg. On Google Earth you can see that the house at this address is different from the houses next to it. Its roof is red, while all the neighboring roofs are black. The[…]
Germany’s Wolf Problem
One common theme of the last two posts (letter one and letter two) were Germany’s rather peculiar views of Europe’s economic situation. In this post I expand on the reason for this: the quality of[…]
Germany’s idiosyncratic views test cohesion of eurozone
The following is another letter to the Financial Times. This one was published May 11th, 2016. Here is the article on the FT website. It was written as a response to an op-ed by Martin[…]
We Germans are mostly unaware of how we have benefited from the crises
To provide prosperity for all (part of the manifesto) Europe needs urgently to deal with its economic problems. Currently we have a prosperous North and a struggling South. This situation suggests a path forward: the[…]