Michael Lewis Uncovers Germany's Dirty Fetish And Secret Motives In The Euro Crisis.

According to Lewis, ..”

“…how did people who seem so intelligent and successful and honest and well organized as the Germans allow themselves to be drawn into such a mess (the Greek Financial collapse)? In their financial affairs they’d ticked all the little boxes to ensure that the contents of the bigger box were not rotten, and yet ignored the overpowering stench wafting from the big box. Nölling felt the problem had its roots in the German national character. “We entered Maastricht because they had these rules, ” he says as we move off to his kitchen and plates heaped with the white asparagus Germans take such pride in growing. “We were talked into this under false pretenses. Germans are by and large gullible people. They trust and believe. They like to trust. They like to believe...”

“I f the deputy finance minister has a sign on his wall reminding him to see the point of view of others, here is perhaps why. Others do not behave as Germans do: others lie. In this financial world of deceit, Germans are natives on a protected island who have not been inoculated against the virus carried by visitors. The same instincts that allowed them to trust the Wall Street bond salesmen also allowed them to trust the French when they promised there would be no bailouts, and the Greeks when they swore that their budget was balanced. That is one theory. Another is that they trusted so easily because they didn’t care enough about the cost of being wrong, as it came with certain benefits. For the Germans the euro isn’t just a currency. It’s a device for flushing the past—another Holocaust Memorial. The German public-opinion polls are now running against the Greeks, but deeper forces run in their favor.

“In any case, if you are obsessed with cleanliness and order yet harbor a secret fascination with filth and chaos, you are bound to get into some kind of trouble. There is no such thing as clean without dirt. There is no such thing as purity without impurity. The interest in one implies an interest in the other….”

Read more at http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/09/europe-201109