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...Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? (my emphasis):

[Germany is arguably] the world's leading industrial power: right up there with China, except it's green, and getting greener all the time. Come on, is the West really in such decline? Yes, we can sit here on our island continent and gloom about the rise of China, as our elite like to do. But look at the Germans! For here's a strange fact: since 2003, it's not China but Germany, that colossus of "European socialism," that has either led the world in export sales or tied more or less for first place with China. (Each has about $1.2 trillion in export sales.) It's a net creditor, not a net debtor, like the feckless U. S. According to the Financial Times in December 2009, the U. S. had over $3 trillion in net external debt to the world at large. Worse, we are running up this dangerous net external debt at the rate of $1 trillion a year. While we are in the clutches of our foreign creditors, Germany -- at least in terms of this net external debt -- is completely debt free. That's what comes from being the champion exporter in the world.

Sure, at this moment, in late 2009, it seems China will edge ahead of Germany in export sales. But that's not only because of the recession but also because the euro has soared far more than any other currency. Even so, the European Union as a whole -- or just the "socialist" kingpins, namely, Germany and France -- still sell far more than China. Meanwhile, though the drop in the dollar was supposed to set off an export boom, America still lags behind Germany and China with a bronze, in third. So for most of the recent past, it's not been China, with 1.3 billion people, or the U. S., with 300 million, but Germany, with 82 million, that has led the world. But in China and the U. S., we have to work till we drop. The Germans take six weeks off: in a sense, they have been outcompeting us with one hand tied behind their backs.