german unemployment

[straffo]

Originally posted by beet1e
There's a reason for that - The Treaty of Versailles. Under the terms of that treaty, the defeated nations were made to pay punitive war reparations. The terms were so harsh that Germany was simply finished. I

Harsh ? have you read the 1870 or 1812  treaties ?

[OneWordAnswer]

Originally posted by babek-
In January 2005 Germany has changed the definition of "jobless people".

Before this day the so called "Sozialhilfeempfänger" were not counted in german statistics as jobless people.

Now both goups are mixed to one and thats the reason for the sudden increase of 1 million in the statistics.

Without this effect Germany would have the same 4 million jobless people like under the rule of chancellor Kohl.

"The jobless rolls jumped 161,000 to a total of 5.22m, or 11.7pc of the workforce. It follows a rise in French unemployment to double digit levels in January, suggesting that the eurozone as a whole is struggling to cope with the effects of the strong currency and a higher oil price.

The grim figures came as the OECD warned that France, Germany, and other European states needed urgent reform of their labour markets, and telecommunications, electricity, and transport industries to avoid falling ever further behind the United States. [/b]

[Redwing]

Wow, this was a long word.

oh well, seems the thread is over.

[Thrawn]

You fail oneword.  Using the same practice you might as well cut and paste words and put them together into a sentance, paragraph or essay.

[lazs2]

well... I for one feel betrayed the the viking contingent of economists and soothsayers didn't predict this whole economic disaster.   Seems they were too focused on another country to notice what was going on right under their noses.

lazs

[Redwing]

their phone lines or whatever they're using for their internet connections probably froze.
it was -30 C (-22 F) here last night, and I'm hundreds of miles south of them. They're probably approaching something around 0 K right now.

[beet1e]

Redwing (and others) - I found this article rather interesting. Sums it up nicely, and goes a long way to explain why many people, myself included, will be voting NO to the EU constitution - not that our votes will count for anything by the time that happens.   Norway - you are WELL out of this mess.

City Comment

It's hard to blame the European Central Bank for leaving eurozone interest rates unchanged for the 22nd month in a row. If Germany desperately needs easy money to tackle the worst slump since the 1930s, France and Spain certainly don't.

Negative real interest rates have fuelled a housing boom in both countries. Neither can use the interest rate lever to slow things down and the ECB's downward revision of growth yesterday for the eurozone only masks the pain of one-size-fits-all monetarism. While German property prices fell by 1.6pc last year, French and Spanish property were up by 16pc and 17pc respectively.

Consumer credit is on fire in the southern eurozone; liquidity is swimming around searching for a home and the money supply is rising fast. Jean-Claude Trichet, the ECB's president, may have done Germany a favour yesterday by insisting that he sees no threat from inflation but his own economists are warning that holding rates at "very low levels" poses a major medium term risk.

This decoupling of the French and German economies was not supposed to happen. The architects of the euro always assumed that the ECB could set interest rates to suit the "Franco-German core", leaving peripheral economies to manage as best they could. Now France and Germany are behaving as two separate economies, the central bank is stuck. Far from converging, the eurozone states are diverging, with simultaneous overheating and recession. Welcome to the reality of monetary union.

[Redwing]

You know, I gotta admit that I do like the european idea. Not because I'm somehow hoping for europe to become a "superpower" and some kind of political global player. Couldn't care less about that. These things don't affect me.

But I do think that the union and it's predecessors are partly to thank for one of the longest periods of peace in europe ever.
Of course, the cold war was also very much a reason for this to happen, and I also know that ex-Yugoslavia and Kosovo are in europe.
But still, I stand by my words. I'm german, so I probably do have a different perspective on all that than most other europeans. I just thought that it was a great moment to see our chancellor invited and taking part in last years D-Day celebrations and I do think that this maybe wouldn't have happened without the union and it's humble beginnings in the 1950s (ECSC and the likes).

But letting all the fuzzy feel-good stuff aside, there's of course a boatload of problems arising from a united europe. Especially economical, I'll be first to acknowledge that. I also won't argue the fact that the 2 largest european countries, france and germany, are very much trying to shape the union the way they'd like it to be. Looking at it that way I probably wouldn't be favoring the european idea that much if I were not living in either of these countries.
But I do, and I will vote yes to the constitution, because I think that the general idea of a united europe that won't be going up in flames again is definately worth pursuing. Time will tell if it'll work out.