Salient to Investors:
Fareed Zakaria said:
Unlike in the rest of Europe or much of the world, the overall picture in Germany is quite rosy with unemployment is at a two-decade low, the DAX at record highs, economic sentiment at a 3-year high, and growth returning.
Merkel has taken important steps to help Europe’s struggling economies her imposed excessive and counterproductive austerity on much of Europe is not how Germany reformed its own economy a decade ago when taxes were cut, restrictions were placed on unemployment benefits and companies were given more freedom to hire and fire workers, but not coupled with massive cuts in government spending.
By 2050, the UN says the percentage of Germans over 65 will increase by half to nearly one-third of the population, increasing pensions and welfare spending dramatically, amid soaring health care costs, and reduce productivity.
Germany’s population is expected to shrink by 10 million people by 2050 while France’s will increase by nearly the same amount. France will likely become a bigger economy than Germany within a single generation.
Germany has low fertility rates and very low rates of immigration.
Watch the video at http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/category/gps-episodes/ or read the full transcript
at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1309/22/fzgps.01.html