The criticisms that hurt are those one suspects might be fair. This might explain the outrage from Berlin last week over the criticism by the US Treasury of Germany’s huge and vaunted trade surplus. But the Treasury is to be commended for stating what Germany’s partners dare not: “Germany has maintained a large current account surplus throughout the euro area financial crisis.” This “hampered rebalancing” for other eurozone countries and created “a deflationary bias for the euro area, as well as for the world economy”. The International Monetary Fund has expressed similar worries.
如果一种批评让人感到可能是公正的，它就会造成刺痛。这或许可以解释，当上上周美国财政部批评德国引以为豪的巨额贸易顺差时，德国政府为何感到怒不可遏了。但令人称道的是，美国财政部说出了德国的合作伙伴不敢说的话：“在欧元区金融危机期间，德国一直保持了巨额的经常账户盈余。”这“阻碍了其他欧元区国家的再平衡努力”，并导致“欧元区乃至整个世界manbetx20客户端下载 出现通缩倾向”。国际货币基金组织(IMF)表达了类似的担忧。