Merkel's bailouts...

Two headlines caught my eye today in one German newspaper: "Hopefully, they know what they are doing" and "The Germans are becoming fewer and fewer."  I think I mentioned about a month ago that because Germans don't have much more than one child a couple, their share of Germany is in decline.  I don't think I ever posted a reflection on American immigration by way of Germany's issues, but I've found being here helpful in conceptualizing similar issues in America.

The main talk of the town, of course, is the German Chancellor's (Angela Merkel) attempt to hold the Euro and EU together by forgiving a substantial portion of Greece's debt.  Greece is hopeless financially, but the sense of the EU's leadership is that it will be less catastrophic on Europe's banks to write off some of their debt than it would be to let Greece fail.  In return, economic problem states in the EU like Greece will have to become more capitalistic.

I was reminded of the GM, Chrysler bail-outs in America--of course much less problematic.  They've paid their money back.  The US taxpayer lost nothing in the end.  In return, 1000s of people kept their jobs, countless companies (even beyond GM and Chrysler) stayed in business, and the US economy was spared the domino failure effect their failure would have caused. It seems to me like it was a good thing.

We'll see what happens here, where there will be no pay back, and there is always the fear that no amount of money could save the situation.