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.
如果一種批評讓人感到可能是公正的，它就會造成刺痛。這或許可以解釋，當上上周美國財政部批評德國引以為豪的巨額貿易順差時，德國政府為何感到怒不可遏了。但令人稱道的是，美國財政部說出了德國的合作伙伴不敢說的話：“在歐元區金融危機期間，德國一直保持了巨額的經常賬戶盈余。”這“阻礙了其他歐元區國家的再平衡努力”，并導致“歐元區乃至整個世界經濟出現通縮傾向”。國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)表達了類似的擔憂。