Rebalancing the Economy: Germany

This short video describes Germany's reliance on exports to get out of economic slumps, and how their policies will need to change in the future. It gives a good summary of some aspects of the German economic system we discussed in class, such as the impact of Eastern Germany reuniting with the West and the change of currency to the Euro in 1999. An interesting point to note is that although Germany ran a surplus since the early 2000s, their overall investment took a deep dip downward- this is opposite of typical economic assumptions. One very important and relative quote in the clip refers to barriers to entrepreneurship and services which is leading to more investment going abroad, as foreign economies are more efficient. Germany needs to direct their consumption inward in order to maintain the health of their economy, and allow domestic firms to fund research and development and increase efficiency.