> 1. Is the trade surplus mainly affected by private enterprise? If that's the case, what control does the German government have over it if the businessmen run

> 1. Is the trade surplus mainly affected by private enterprise? If that's the case, what control does the German government have over it if the businessmen running the companies would rather save than spend? (Interest rates are already incredibly low.) Germanys government could keep maintaining infrastructure, stop depressing wages (indirectly of course), increase ressources put into education (education % of GDP is less than 2/3 of % of the US GDP), among others. That would increase domestic growth, thus lead to a relative decrease of the relevancy of exports. The main problem in the Euro zone is not the exporting of Germany, its that imports are so low. > 2. I'm personally conservative with money, and never like to get into debt, so from a this naive point of view, I would be very happy to know my country has a large buffer to weather out any oncoming storms. Assuming that Germany's position (saving) is bad for the world economy, but good for Germany, what would make the Germans change their behaviour? Your position seems perfectly reasonable, but surly you also invest/save for you retirement? Thats what Germany currently isn't doing: The hidden debt Germany is currently building up is e.g. neglect of infrastructure and future lack of specalist employees. That cannot be seen in the books, on the contrary less investment in infrastructure means less monetary debt, so on the surface everything seems fine right now.