I’ve been in Germany visiting Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Nuremberg and Frankfurt am Main, and from every outward sign, things look great. Cranes are at work building new buildings; late model cars swoop along the autobahns, the restaurants and the shops are full, and tourists swarm in and around the famous sights.
But when you talk to them, you hear a new note of worry in Germany. As a journalist told me yesterday, he worries whether the money in his pocket will be worth anything a year from now. Others worry about Germany’s increasingly negative image among recession-hit southern and eastern Europeans. Americans will understand this feeling well: you pay and pay to help others, only to have them turn on you in hatred and wrath, accusing you of horrible hidden motives and denouncing your selfishness.
Indeed.