The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, doesn’t like to see its employees working too late, and it expects even senior staff members to be headed home by 8 p.m. On weekends, employees seeking to escape the confines of their own homes are required to sign in at the front desk and are accompanied to their own desks by a security guard. Sensitive documents are kept in safes in many offices, and a portion of Germany’s gold reserves is stored behind meter-thick, reinforced concrete walls in the basement of a nearby building. In this environment, working overtime is considered a security risk.
But the ordinary working day has been in disarray in recent weeks at the Bundesbank headquarters building, a gray, concrete box in Frankfurt’s Ginnheim neighborhood, where the crisis on international financial markets has many employees working late, even on weekends.
The Germans remember all too well the disastrous aftermath of the financial crisis of the 1920s and 30s. They have thus been vocal advocates for a strong Euro (to the chagrin of the French) and this current international banking crisis surely has them on edge. I feel for them.
The anemic current American growth rate is still what Europeans would consider good. The American economy will, I believe, weather this crisis, but the Europeans, rather weak to begin with, may have more serious problems. Our balance of trade is improving, and at some point the euro is going to be pretty sick, along with Europe.