The End of the German Economic Miracle | Wolfgang Münchau

In Episode 391 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Wolfgang Münchau, the director and co-founder of Eurointelligence and the author of a phenomenal new book about post-WWII Germany, the rise and fall of the German industrial sector, and the end of what he dubs “The German Miracle.”

Wolfgang and Demetri spend the first hour of this episode laying the foundation to help listeners understand how Germany became the economic and financial juggernaut that we have known it to be throughout the 1990s and most of the 21st century. They discuss the two pillars of the German economic miracle, the supercharging of its industrial growth model during the period of globalization and unipolarity, and the cultural, technological, and geopolitical sources of its economic decline.

In the second hour, Kofinas and Münchau zero in on the ten structural sources of German weakness, including the German capital model and banking system, a corporatism that misaligns incentives between the interests of politicians and those of the economy, the fiscal doomsday machine in the form of Germany’s debt brake, a radicalizing electorate, and a political mindset among German elite that treats geopolitical risk as an economic externality to be safely discounted or ignored entirely.

You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at https://hiddenforces.io/subscribe.

If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe.

00:00 Introduction
03:08 Historical Context of Germany's Economy
06:58 The Rise of German Entrepreneurialism
15:27 Technological Shifts and Missed Opportunities
23:00 The Dot-Com Bubble
26:15 Germany's Unique Economic System
27:03 Neo-mercantilism Explained
27:33 Germany's Export Surplus Strategy
28:45 Political Support for the German Model
31:38 Geopolitical Missteps and Energy Dependence
34:16 The Impact of the Eurozone Crisis
36:34 China's Role in Germany's Economy
41:42 Reversals in Global Trends
42:20 Challenges in Wage and Labor Dynamics
49:18 Topics for the Second Hour

If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed

Write us a review on Apple Podcasts at https://apple.co/3fLSIgR

Write us a review on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/3tv4zYr

Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/

Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io

Follow Hidden Forces on Twitter:   / hiddenforcespod  

Follow Demetri on Twitter:   / kofinas  

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas

Episode Recorded on 11/19/2024