Observing German(s)…

Meanwhile, Chancellor Merkel is once again annoying everyone around her by spreading her upbeat, optimistic, light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel view on the German economy to anybody who will listen and most who won’t.

“Maybe the Hanover Fair is a little signal that we’ve hit the trough.”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar doch.

Up until recently unsure as to whether they even had expectations or not, German investor “expectations are now getting ahead of themselves,” said one Lloyds Banking Group expert. But the key word in this sentence is “banking”, people. We all trust what bankers have to tell us these days, right?

At least we used to be able to trust what the Germans had to say, it was always negative. Now we can’t even rely on that anymore.

“Germany’s benchmark DAX share index has gained 8 percent this month, paring its decline this year to 17 percent.”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Not only do the long-term job prospects for some 7000 German employees look rosier because of this, Ford is also going to be building one of these new fangled environmentally friendly green “öko” motors in the process here, too. Time for concerned German citizens to organize and agitate and hit the streets again, I’d say.

„In Köln soll ein neuer Ökomotor, in Saarlouis die nächste Focus-Generation produziert warden.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar doch.

Buffett believes, among other things, that the upwards trend will come soon enough, that the United States has mastered bigger economic problems than this in the past, that the American economic system is an extremely resilient one and that America’s best days still lie ahead of us, as in US. Like I said, they were dumbfounded.

„Der Multimilliardär gilt als reichster Mann der Welt. Er gehörte zu den gelegentlichen Beratern von Barack Obama und wurde zwischenzeitlich sogar als möglicher Finanzminister gehandelt.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

They plan to build another 40 comfortable restaurants to keep up with all that need for comfort food, the reasoning being that people will be watching what they spend even more so than usual in 2009 and a billig will ich (cheapness is what I want) place like theirs is exactly what they want. That sounds reasonable to me.

But Damn. That means another 40 more thorns in Germany’s politically correct side. How does McDonald’s motto go again?

„McDonald´s bietet 40 Produkte unter zwei Euro an.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Warum nicht?

Why, that’s enough energy to keep 5.5 million American homes (that haven’t been sold yet) up-and-running for a whole year, or Las Vegas going for probably over half an hour. Not that Las Vegas is actually going anywhere or anything.

And of course the competition never sleeps elsewhere, either. And to make matters worse, or better, depending upon how you look at them, the dollar is going tango uniform again, this time after the Fed recently slashed it’s key interest-rate target to zero, or pretty damned close. For ultra-mega-export countries like Germany, their stronger currency in relation to the dollar makes their exports less competitive.

And then there was Germany’s tough year in that big league bad and ungrateful international political world out there, too. But at least they got Obama, right? Let’s see how long that romance lasts.

“No, we can’t.”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Check these out:

What do you call a Lehman banker? Waiter!

What’s the capital of Iceland? I don’t know. About five euros?

What’s the difference between a banker and a pizza? A pizza can feed a family.

Or there’s this cartoon showing this kid telling his father about how he wants to become a banker and the father starts chewing him out about how he should be getting a proper education instead.

Or this one: German families seem to finally be returning to their Christian roots, this comic said on TV the other night. Ever more of them are celebrating Christmas in a manger (place rim shot here).

And then there’s Chancellor Merkel herself. She said recently “We believe that, if it is enough for America to create a big program when the new president takes office, then it will also be right for Germany to create a new package.” Man oh man. Did she ever have them on the floor with that one.

And PS already: Merry Christmas or something (the same procedure as last year?).

Today’s post is brought to you by Blogger News Network.

„Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel erhielt dagegen keine Einladung zu dem Treffen, an dem auch führende Wirtschaftsvertreter teilnehmen.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.