Wolfgang Munchau is director and co-founder of Eurointelligence, a service that provides daily information about the euro area, targeted at investors and policymakers. He is also the European columnist for the New Statesman and previously an associate editor and columnist for the Financial Times. Wolfgang was one of the founding members of Financial Times Deutschland, the German language business daily, where he served as deputy editor from 1999 until 2001 and as editor-in-chief from 2001 until 2003. He previously worked as a foreign correspondent in Washington DC and Brussels for the Times and in Frankfurt for the FT. Wolfgang’s latest book, Kaput, published by Swift Press, is about the rise and decline of the German economy. Wolfgang and his wife, Susanne Mundschenk, live in Oxford.
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Episode 391
Wolfgang Munchau
The End of the German Economic Miracle | Wolfgang Münchau
Wolfgang Munchau is director and co-founder of Eurointelligence, a service that provides daily information about the euro area, targeted at investors and policymakers. He is also the European columnist for the New Statesman and previously an associate editor and columnist for the Financial Times. Wolfgang was one of the founding members of Financial Times Deutschland, the German language business daily, where he served as deputy editor from 1999 until 2001 and as editor-in-chief from 2001 until 2003. He previously worked as a foreign correspondent in Washington DC and Brussels for the Times and in Frankfurt for the FT. Wolfgang’s latest book, Kaput, published by Swift Press, is about the rise and decline of the German economy. Wolfgang and his wife, Susanne Mundschenk, live in Oxford.
In Episode 391 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Wolfgang Münchau, the director and co-founder of Eurointelligence and the author of a phenomenal new book about post-WWII Germany, the rise and fall of the German economy, its industrial sector, and the end of what he dubs “The German Miracle.”
Wolfgang Münchau and Demetri spend the first hour of this episode laying the foundation to help listeners understand how Germany became the economic and financial juggernaut that we have known it to be throughout the 1990s and most of the 21st century. They discuss the two pillars of the German economy, the supercharging of its industrial growth model during the period of globalization and unipolarity, and the cultural, technological, and geopolitical sources of its economic decline.
In the second hour, Kofinas and Münchau zero in on the ten structural sources of weakness for the German economy, including the German capital model and banking system, a corporatism that misaligns incentives between the interests of politicians and those of the German economy, the fiscal doomsday machine in the form of Germany’s debt brake, a radicalizing electorate, and a political mindset among German elite that treats geopolitical risk as an economic externality to be safely discounted or ignored entirely.
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Wolfgang Munchau is director and co-founder of Eurointelligence, a service that provides daily information about the euro area, targeted at investors and policymakers. He is also the European columnist for the New Statesman and previously an associate editor and columnist for the Financial Times. Wolfgang was one of the founding members of Financial Times Deutschland, the German language business daily, where he served as deputy editor from 1999 until 2001 and as editor-in-chief from 2001 until 2003. He previously worked as a foreign correspondent in Washington DC and Brussels for the Times and in Frankfurt for the FT. Wolfgang’s latest book, Kaput, published by Swift Press, is about the rise and decline of the German economy. Wolfgang and his wife, Susanne Mundschenk, live in Oxford.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
