The most damaging commentary on chancellor Merkel's time in office came not from her straight-talking, if gaffe-prone, challenger Peer Steinbruck, but from the influential German Institute of Economic Research (DIW), which has published a critique of Germany's care-worn infrastructure. Casual visitors to the country will hardly notice it, but the DIW concludes that Germany has been spending three percentage points less than the depreciation value of its public infrastructure every year since 1999. The cumulative effect of this is that a record number of autobahn bridges have been closed for essential repairs and it is estimated that some 14 per cent of the country's 39,000 bridges are thought to be unsafe.
Some of this might be typical of the angsty public discourse that so often characterises academic debate in the country. For example, at the same time as the DIW sounded its dire warnings, other data shows that Germany's consumers have never had it quite so good - GfK figures show consumer morale at its highest level in 18 months, for instance. Still, Germany's situation seems to be a perfect illustration of what eminent economist JK Galbraith described as "private affluence and public squalor".
