Friday, August 13, 2010

Finland & Slovakia Too Small To Be Superman?

The German economy expanded by a much higher than expected 2.2% (9% at an annual rate)in the second quarter compared to the first quarter and by 3.7% compared to Q2 2009.

Also, previous growth numbers were upwardly revised by a cumulative 0.8%.

Commenting on this in the Bloomberg News story about it, Carsten Bszeki at ING Group likened the German economy to super man:

"Superman is wearing black, red and gold this year, Germany’s national colors. But at some stage he’ll become Clark Kent again. The economy can’t keep growing at this rate."

While I thought this was a mostly good analogy to illustrate that the German numbers are impressive, at least by European standards, and that growth will soon slow, it seems unfair to Finland and Slovakia to describe the German economy the "Superman" of Europe. Finland after all saw GDP rise by 4.8% compared to the previous year, while Slovakia had a growth rate of 4.6%. But perhaps Finland and Slovakia are considered too small to count.