Crisis

Yglesias: Germany Doesn’t Need Europe

But Europe sure needs Germany.

Germany keeps catching all the flak from international pundits for its feet-dragging ways when it comes to bailing out the euro. But Slate economics blogger Matt Yglesias reminds us a strong euro is much less important to Germany than the rest of the continent. Sure they depend on neighbors to buy their exports, but they could just keep all the nice stuff they make. "It's not that Germans are somehow under a moral obligation to raise their living standards as a favor to their trade partners. It's just that it's a bit absurd for reduced German lending to Spain to cause Germany's output of goods and services to decline. Everyone will be happier in the end if Germans use more of their income to buy things and less of it to make bad loans."