Political insiders remember Tim Geithner for his role in promoting the bailout culture and crony capitalism in Washington.
Comedians remember him for the laughable hypocrisy of urging higher taxes for others while cheating on his own tax return.
But I mostly think of him as being the Forrest Gump of international economics.
This was the guy, after all, who unintentionally caused Chinese students to burst out laughing in 2009 when he claimed the Obama Administration supported a strong dollar.
And Europeans told him to get lost when he tried to lecture them on fiscal policy in 2011. But don’t think they were being rude. They already had to endure his bad advice earlier that year and back in 2010 as well.
Well, Geithner’s successor apparently is equally oblivious. He’s badgering the Germans to adopt Keynesian policies to “stimulate” growth, even though the Germans are doing better than most other European nations – in part because they are one of the few nations that have reduced the burden of government spending in recent years!
Here are some blurbs from the EU Observer on Treasury Secretary Lew’s attempt to export bad ideas.
US treasury secretary Jack Lew will repeat calls for Germany to stimulate demand in order to drag the eurozone out of recession, according to US government sources. …The US stance is likely to meet resistance from the German government, which is reluctant to increase wages and stimulate domestic spending, preferring instead to keep wages low to encourage manufacturing and exports. But Berlin is under pressure to reduce its 7 percent export surplus. In April, Lew used his first trip to Berlin as Treasury Secretary to urge counterpart Wolfgang Schaueble to put in place measures to stimulate consumer spending. For his part, Schaueble commented that neither the US or Germany should try to give “lessons” or “grades” to each other.
I’m actually in favor of giving “lessons” and “grades” to governments, but not if it’s a case of the blind leading the blind.
This is not to say that Germany has good fiscal policy. Indeed, the best that can be said about the Merkel government is that it hasn’t moved Germany much further in the wrong direction in recent years.
The Obama Administration, by contrast, is moving the United States in the wrong direction at faster pace, so the last thing the Germans need is advice from Treasury Secretary Lew or anyone else associated with the White House.
