That means pomade-like. As in: all hair products, no killer instinct. “Pomadig means passionless, combined with a shot of arrogance,” it added. “It’s a combination with which you can lose a match against these wild, fighting, rocketing Irish.”
Sometimes defeat is unnecessary. Other times it’s completely unnecessary.
German reaction to defeat: ‘Das dumme Ding von Dublin’
But… How is it that its critics blame Germany for the high unemployment, declining living standards, and riots to their South?
If this were a football game, the referee should call unnecessary roughness for piling on Germany. The American Left led by Paul Krugman (The Harm Germany Does and Those Depressing Germans) excoriates Germany for forcing austerity on the rest of Europe. The U.S. Treasury – and others – (no newcomer to spending) demands that miserly Germany spend more to pull the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) out of their economic doldrums…
I interpret the liberals’ German bashing as having an entirely different motivation – their inherent dislike of economic success… In the liberal mind set, success must be equally shared. If one person, company, or country is better off, it must be at the expense of those who are less well off. We need to even things out in their zero-sum world.
PS: And I’m going to go even further out on the limb tonight defending Germany by predicting that they will finally – after 19 encounters? – beat Italy.
“About two weeks ago, Germany’s finance minister described U.S. economic policy as “clueless.” We don’t want to sound childish…
But after yet another bailout for an insolvent European country – about $137 billion for Ireland – we are inclined to ask: If the United States is clueless, what does that make Germany? The de facto leader of the crisis-ridden, 16-nation eurozone, Berlin has not performed its role brilliantly over the past year.”
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Fehlalarm des Tages (false alarm of the day): A suitcase at the Düsseldorf Main Station.
At least when it comes to Germany’s interest in benefitting from currency troubles, I mean. Hey Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy… Stay hard-up or shut-up.
”The key principle of German economic policy was to persuade the French and Italians to lower the value of the D-mark so as to make Germany more competitive.”
“The Berlin government’s intransigence over the debt issue, while politically understandable from a German point of view, seemingly pays little heed to the realities of the euro economy, which are heavily tilted towards Germany.”
“In pre-EMU days, if the German economy were growing at an estimated 3.7% as it is this year, the German currency and interest rates would both come under upward pressure – damping exporters’ performance and the growth outlook. Now, however, with all EMU economies shackled together, and devaluation an impossibility for the peripheral countries, the hard-up states have nowhere to hide. Germany continues to profit from excellent export performance — and it can self-righteously point the finger of blame for the euro area’s woes at those debt-ridden peripheral states.”
Observing Hermann 