Isn't he the one who thinks printing money is a sound economic policy? Pot calling the kettle, I suppose. Anyway, I don't think there are absolute rights and w

Isn't he the one who thinks printing money is a sound economic policy? Pot calling the kettle, I suppose. Anyway, I don't think there are absolute rights and wrongs in this game. And a game it is, the outcome of which is quite uncertain. The players (i.e. nation states and larger economic entities such as the EU) in this game sometimes act as opponents, sometimes they cooperate but unfortunately they're hardly friends with a common goal or the greater good in mind. Germany's zero-debt policy might very well prove to be the right one once the next few rounds have been played. Bernanke's criticism has some merit, though. Certainly, Germany's economic policy currently severely disadvantages other EU countries and benefits from their weakness. That definitely is a problem. However, this weakness also is largely self-imposed by corrupt politicians or generally wide-spread corruption. Greece for instance, economically shouldn't ever have been admitted to the Euro but it was nonetheless because of political reasons. This doesn't mean German politicians or Germans for that matter have any right to be condescending towards other nations as they sometimes come across recently. There's corruption and tremendously wasteful spending in Germany as well. Maybe it's just not as severe as in other countries but Germany hardly is a paragon of economic virtue itself. However, they can hardly be blamed for trying to achieve the best for their country first. Why should they draw up economic policies that benefit other countries which - without any accompanying political change on their part - would likely continue as before. Their crisis primarily isn't caused by Germany's strength but by their comparative weakness. On the same grounds Bernanke could advise the US the cut their grotesquely large military expenses and donate some of it to Greece so they can pay off their debt. Not bloody likely either, I suppose ... That said, Germany is a tremendously wealthy country that could spend a lot more on infrastructure if it wasn't for large amounts of taxpayers' money wasted on pointless stuff and corrupt structures. There have been talks about a proper tax reform for more than 30 years now and by and large nothing has happened. If there's one point of criticism that can be justly made it's that German politics is lacking a vision and is largely guided by cowardice and unwillingness to assume a leadership role. Some of its success in recent years probably was mere luck.