{"id":31828,"date":"2026-06-28T12:04:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T10:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/?p=31828"},"modified":"2026-06-28T12:04:38","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T10:04:38","slug":"ordo-liberalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/invisible-debt\/ordo-liberalism","title":{"rendered":"The Debt Germany Refuses to See"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On 23 June 2026, Friedrich Merz told German industrialists that the country was losing between 300 and 500 jobs every day. A few days later, Volkswagen was considering tens of thousands of further job cuts.<\/p>\n

To read these events as mere cyclical setbacks would be to miss the essential point, because they all stem from the same intellectual error. For twenty years, Germany believed it was protecting itself by limiting debt.<\/p>\n

The harsh reality is that it did not eliminate that debt. It merely shifted it off its books<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The debt that appears on no balance sheet<\/h2>\n

That debt has accumulated in Germany\u2019s poorly maintained railways, ageing bridges, lagging digital networks, excessively expensive energy, deteriorating schools and factories insufficiently prepared for technological upheaval. It appears neither in the Maastricht statistics nor in public debt ratios.<\/p>\n

However well hidden \u2014 and, in the past, carefully concealed \u2014 Germany\u2019s debt is still being repaid through lost productivity, bankruptcies, destroyed jobs and, ultimately, national decline.<\/p>\n

A state can indeed reduce its deficit while weakening its real balance sheet, which consists of infrastructure, human capital, energy security and industrial capacity.<\/p>\n

Germany contained its financial liabilities while allowing its collective assets to deteriorate.<\/p>\n

When credibility becomes rigidity<\/h2>\n

Adopted in 2009, Germany\u2019s constitutional debt brake responded at the time to a legitimate demand for credibility. It was intended to discipline public spending, guarantee the sustainability of the public finances and signal that Germany would not finance its weaknesses through fiscal profligacy.<\/p>\n

There is no question that this discipline strengthened confidence and gave Berlin a particular authority within Europe.<\/p>\n

Yet an instrument of credibility can quickly become an instrument of blindness when it is preserved at all costs after<\/em><\/strong> the economic cycle that justified it has disappeared.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Schuldenbremse treated current expenditure and investment in the future in much the same way. It confused unproductive debt with reconstruction debt, and prudence with paralysis. Adopted to prevent the state from living beyond its means, it led Germany to live below its needs.<\/p>\n

The IW and IMK institutes estimate that nearly \u20ac600 billion in additional public investment will be required over ten years to modernise infrastructure, strengthen education and local government, and deliver decarbonisation. This is simply the price of what was not undertaken yesterday.<\/p>\n

A national policy of under-maintenance<\/h2>\n

The nationwide rail paralysis of 23 June offers a dramatic illustration. Germany, which once made punctuality a component of its economic identity, now depends on ageing communications equipment and a network plagued by delays, breakdowns and postponed maintenance.<\/p>\n

Germany has consumed the public capital accumulated by previous generations while celebrating the restraint of its accounts. In the final analysis, its fiscal discipline has effectively operated as a national policy of under-maintenance.<\/p>\n

The demographic wall<\/h2>\n

Germany\u2019s invisible debt is not made only of concrete, rails and cables. It is also demographic. The figure is striking: by 2035, one quarter of the German population will be aged 67 or over. The country will therefore have to finance higher pension, healthcare and long-term care expenditure from a narrower contribution base, precisely when it must rebuild its productive apparatus.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Germany, the investments of the future are already competing with the social commitments of the past.<\/p>\n

That is the true intergenerational debt: fewer workers will have to repair the infrastructure, finance pensions and support the industrial transition. Yet postponing investment today in the name of ageing will only weaken the wealth that will be needed to pay tomorrow\u2019s pensions.<\/p>\n

What does the debt finance?<\/h2>\n

Germany\u2019s problem, in short, lies in its inability to rank obligations that have all become urgent at once: reindustrialising, investing, decarbonising, rearming the country and financing an ageing population.<\/p>\n

Borrowing to maintain essential infrastructure, finance energy capacity or support industrial transformation is not comparable to borrowing in order to preserve a rent or postpone reform.<\/p>\n

The obsession with the amount of debt has, ultimately, obscured the decisive question: what does that debt finance?<\/p>\n

Modern states measure financial debt with obsessive precision. Yet they seem unable to recognise the debt they incur when they fail to maintain their collective capital.<\/p>\n

Germany did not ruin itself by spending too much. It weakened itself by believing that it could spend less than was required to preserve its power, while postponing the adaptation of its social contract<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That is its real crisis: not excessive debt, but an accumulation of debts it has refused to acknowledge.<\/p>\n

A power declines when it is no longer capable of deciding what it must preserve, reform and finance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  On 23 June 2026, Friedrich Merz told German industrialists that the country was losing between 300 and 500 jobs every day. A few days later, Volkswagen was considering tens of thousands of further job cuts. To read these events as mere cyclical setbacks would be to miss the essential point, because they all stem…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":31833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[648943387,648943386,648943384,648943385],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-demographic-ageing","category-german-industry","category-invisible-debt","category-underinvestment"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Debt Germany Refuses to See - Michel Santi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/invisible-debt\/ordo-liberalism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Debt Germany Refuses to See - Michel Santi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"  On 23 June 2026, Friedrich Merz told German industrialists that the country was losing between 300 and 500 jobs every day. 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Five of them were immediately followed by depressions. Let us never forget that the orthodoxy \u2013 already powerful at the time \u2013 had pushed President Herbert Hoover to maintain a budget surplus\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "debt"","block_context":{"text":"debt","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/debt"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/fake-news.jpg?fit=743%2C481&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/fake-news.jpg?fit=743%2C481&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/fake-news.jpg?fit=743%2C481&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/fake-news.jpg?fit=743%2C481&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":25555,"url":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/european-union\/germany-holds-back-europe","url_meta":{"origin":31828,"position":3},"title":"Germany holds back Europe","author":"Michel Santi","date":"January 21, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The most serious economic mistake of Germany in the last 20 years. Celebrated at the time as a victory for fiscal and budgetary discipline, breaking away from the carelessness attributed to the vast majority of European Union members strongly encouraged to follow suit. Engraved in the marble of the Constitution.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "European Union"","block_context":{"text":"European Union","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/european-union"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OS.jpg?fit=1200%2C513&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OS.jpg?fit=1200%2C513&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OS.jpg?fit=1200%2C513&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OS.jpg?fit=1200%2C513&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/OS.jpg?fit=1200%2C513&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":19340,"url":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/money\/debt-money-sin","url_meta":{"origin":31828,"position":4},"title":"Debt, money, sin","author":"Michel Santi","date":"March 20, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 The word for \u2018debt\u2019 in German \u2013 to owe money \u2013 is \u2018Schuld\u2019, and it also means \u2018sin\u2019 in this language. This dual meaning also existed in Akkadian in Babylon. In fact, it's a Babylonian sovereign, Hammurabi, who in 1792 BC was the first to set up a veritable\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Money"","block_context":{"text":"Money","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/money"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Ladetteestpay%C3%A9eTuessauv%C3%A9.jpg?fit=960%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Ladetteestpay%C3%A9eTuessauv%C3%A9.jpg?fit=960%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Ladetteestpay%C3%A9eTuessauv%C3%A9.jpg?fit=960%2C720&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Ladetteestpay%C3%A9eTuessauv%C3%A9.jpg?fit=960%2C720&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":19376,"url":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/european-union\/the-rome-syndrome","url_meta":{"origin":31828,"position":5},"title":"The Rome syndrome","author":"Michel Santi","date":"April 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 The Italians were, for centuries, Europe\u2019s bankers. The Medici\u2019s, for their part, lent extensively to the British and French crowns. Let us not forgetthe marriage \u2013 of convenience \u2013 between Henry IV and Marie de Medicis, who was also known as \u201cthe fat banker\u2019s daughter\u201d. What happened in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "European Union"","block_context":{"text":"European Union","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/european-union"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/crise-italie.jpg?fit=350%2C350&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31836,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31828\/revisions\/31836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}