Note: both German and Japanese industrial models are entirely based on the existence of trade surpluses with the rest of the world - they depend on our consumption to drive their own prosperity. A German preaching the moral deficit of overconsumption to the American is a bit like a drug dealer preaching to the addict about the moral efficacy of just saying no. Martin Wolf has been on fire about this for awhile - sorry Fuchs, but German sanctimony on this point is a bit rich.
Surplus countries insist on continuing just as before. But they refuse to accept that their reliance on export surpluses must rebound upon themselves, once their customers go broke. Indeed, that is just what is happening. Meanwhile, countries that ran huge external deficits in the past can cut the massive fiscal deficits that result from post-bubble deleveraging by their private sectors only via a big surge in their net exports. If surplus countries fail to offset that shift, through expansion in aggregate demand, the world is inevitably caught in a “beggar-my-neighbour” battle: everybody seeks desperately to foist excess supplies on to their trading partners. That was a big part of the catastrophe of the 1930s, too.
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