As German Confidence Drops, Bailouts Less Likely
Germany is the “banker to Europe” because of the size of its economy, the ongoing improvement of its GDP and the prosperity of its citizens and businesses. Confidence among voters about their well-being is critical to the support they give…
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German business confidence has turned downward recently, and that by itself could take that nation out of its critical role as primary savior of the eurozone. According to Bloomberg, “The Ifo institute in Munich said its business climate index, based on a survey of 7,000 executives, dropped for a third straight month to 107.5 from 108.7 in August. That’s the lowest since June 2010.”
IMF and ECB officials are already concerned that eroding support for Merkel’s policies could make her retreat from a tentative commitment of German funds to a larger and permanent bailout facility for Europe’s troubled countries. There is pressure from around the world for the eurozone to put its financial house in order. So far, there has been no specific answer to those calls. Germany could pull itself out of its role at the center of new contributions to bailouts. The drop in business confidence makes that more likely.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.