The Problem with German banks

Pity the Germans. They did everything right vis a vis finance and things went wrong. They did not go into consumer debt like the Americans, they did not have a real estate boom and bust like the Americans, unlike the Americans, their savings rate was high…but the problem is that, as a result, German banks piled money and did not know what to do with it. So they lent it to Americans. So eager in fact were they to lend money to US institutions that, even when Lehman was under, they sent Lehman 300 million euros. And the paradox is that if Paulson can´t get a package through to save US banks, I can´t imagine he will get a package to save German banks. So German banks will have to be helped by the German taxpayer who….did everything right. This, btw, is a prelude to what could happen in a much bigger scale to the Chinese, who are now the biggest creditors of the US government. If Americans don´t learn to live within their means, the next ones to be stuck with huge amount of worthless paper will be the hard working Chinese. But then, who said life was fair?

• financial crisis
• global economy
• USA