Germany, France, Britain, Ireland and ‘Club Med’

Abstract

As Figure 10.1 brings to the reader’s attention, after falling off a cliff in late 2008 in the wake of the dip in the severe economic crisis, in the second quarter of 2009 Germany’s export- and investment-driven economy started to expand again. Part of the reason was that the global manufacturing cycle turned around, but the bigger reason was that workers and companies were ready to capture the rebound without destabilizing claims.