As expected, Christine Lagarde’s first german speech was a diplomatic masterpiece. Gently wrapped in the cotton wool of another Schauble laudatio was a firm dialectical message: to adhere to the rules sometimes means to change them.
But in her first German newspaper interview with DIE ZEIT she may already have delivered ammunition to BILD : Germany is just another country ? Excuse me, that sounds like a serious misapprehension. After all, we are the export world champion paymasters!
Not that she was ever going to be offered a Prussian helmet. Given she is French, that would have been bit tasteless anyway.
Does the latest warning delivery of weaponry from Bulgaria make an impression in the Prussian Weidmann World of BILD ? Unlikely. This is just more Keynesian debt-making advice from Lagarde’s own old suspect IMF.
As The Economist has been telling us, the struggle with “Stupid German Money” will be her toughest assignment yet. Rightly worried about being shot down as a dove before she even spreads her wings she therefore let it be known that she aims to be neither dove nor hawk.
It remains to be seen if a diplomatically oracular Moneta can sell E.Q.-type ambiguity to the black zero hawks of the Sparkassen republic?
As a glimmering beacon of hope Berlin has helpfully sent a fresh Schnabel to the Frankfurt Nest. Maybe this professor can lighten the chronic creditors’ burden of the Schuldgeldpeople?
Don’t hold your breath though.
PS Not that there are no dissenting voices. Harald Schumann has been trying for years to talk some money sense into his Mitbürger and has just written an(other) article on why the governement needs to get over the “Schuldenbremse”, invest and enlighten the electorate about money realities. Have a look at the Schumann video channel or click here for a page on economic dissidents in Germany : “Schwarz Null Widerstand”
