Germans Encouraged to Lighten Up by People Unfamiliar with Germans

Continuing economic stagnation, impending double-dip recession, movement toward retrenchment by public and private sectors alike threatening to send the world tumbling head-long into an even deeper hole – yes, the economic news continues to be a gloomy labyrinth of hopelessness and dread.  But what could be the root cause?  Who might be responsible for the ongoing malaise?  Hmmmm, hopelessness and dread, gloom…oh right, Germany, duh.

But this time around Germany has managed to weaponize frugality itself, with economic observers citing the German habit of saving rather than spending as a factor hindering the nascent global recovery.

Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy, is a country “traumatized with respect to inflation and public debt” according to Frank Englmann, head of the department of business, economy and social science at the University of Stuttgart.  As a result, Germans tend to be stingy misers, presumable hoarding their pink and orange Euros under the rock-hard mattresses in their spartan but sturdily constructed half-timbered houses.  But now that the macroeconomic situation calls for spending, critics are calling on Germans to “loosen their wallets and live a little.”  Specific suggestions for actions to be taken by Germans include:

Go on a cruise. In the, uh, Baltic…to Estonia.

Eat schnitzel instead of wurst – you deserve it!

Be less efficient.

Better yet, Germans can simply take some tips from their American and British counterparts, where more people own their own homes, buy on credit and invest in the stock market.  “Germans need to relax and treat themselves.  Go heli-skiing, whatever,” said one New Yorker waiting to interview for a second job at Tim Horton to cover debt service payments.  “You only live once!”

The criticism has raised the ire of many Germans.  “Live a little?  How insulting,” a Frankfurter commented.  “Don’t people realize that our underlying operating system is not yet sophisticated enough to fully simulate what you humans call life?  Luckily we still lack the algorithms to reliable identify mockery, otherwise there’d be a real fiasco.”  He then “did the robot” over to a nearby smelting plant for a traditional German breakfast of molten tungsten and mercury vapors.

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