‘We’re Doing All Right, Thanks, How About You?’ Taunt Insufferable Germans

Who'd have thought there was any future in making things people want to buy?

Germany took unwarranted delight in telling its foundering neighbours how well its economy was doing today, rubbing the rest of Europe’s noses in the highest quarterly growth it has seen since reunification.

“Just look at that beauty – 2.2% growth!” beamed a fat German bastard from Destatis, the Bundestag’s national statistics office. “Read it and weep. How are you all managing? Oh well, never mind, eh? I’m sure things will pick up some day.”

With most other European nations struggling to get anywhere near 1% - and Greece’s economy, if that’s the word, shrinking by 1.5% - the Germans were congratulated through gritted teeth by their counterparts.

“It was all down to exports, actually,” smiled Germany’s economy minister, Rainer Bruederle. “It’s a good job somebody is still making stuff, isn’t it? How’s it coming with that rising service-sector model your economists all had the hots for a few years ago, when everyone was confidently predicting the inevitable decline of manufacturing? Really? That’s too bad.”