The Economist - USA (2020-03-28)

(Antfer) #1
The EconomistMarch 28th 2020 Europe 47

I


n mostlanguages, if someonesaid
youhadcancer,it wouldbea diagnosis.
InDutch,it ismorelikelytobeaninsult.
Kankerlijer(“cancer-sufferer”)isoneofa
longlistofDutchprofanitiesandexplet-
ivesderivedfromdiseases.Anundesir-
ablepersonmightbetoldto“typhusoff”
(optyfussen) or“getconsumption”(krijg
detering). If in(American)Englishyou
laughyourassoff,inDutchyoumight
“laughyourselfthepleurisy”(lachenjede
pleuris). NooneinEnglandhasbeen
calleda “poxybitch”forcenturies,butin
theNetherlandsyoucanstillcallsome-
oneapokkenteef. A damnedlongwayisa
klereneind(“cholera-end”).Andsoon.

Becauseexpletivesarebasedonsocial
taboos,inmostculturestheyarelinked
tosex,excrementorreligion.Many
Dutchswearwordsareaswell,butthey
oftenfeelweakerthanthemedicalones.
SchijtislesslikeitsEnglishcognateand
morelikethegentlerFrenchmerde.
Mierenneuker(“ant-fucker”)isanano-
dyneexpressionforsomeonewhofusses
overdetails.“Whore”isaninsultin
Dutchtoo,butwhentherapperLil’
Kleinehada beefwithpopsingerAnouk
lastautumn,hewentwiththeharsher
kankerhoer(“cancer-whore”).
ScholarsarenotsurewhytheDutch
swearwithillnesses.Onetheorylinksit
toCalvinism,thepuritanicalstrainof
Protestantismthatcaughtonhereinthe
16thcentury,whichholdsthatthevirtue
ofthosedestinedforheavenwillshow
itselfinworldlyprosperity,healthand
hygiene.“Therewasa shiftinfocusfrom
theafterlifetothislife,which,forex-
ample,diminishedthestrengthof‘God
damnit’,”saysMartenvanderMeulen,a
Dutchlinguistandauthorofa bookon
swearing.Onthistheory,“acursemight
bestrongerif youusedsomethingin
actuallife,likea disease.”
However,thereisalsowhatlinguists
callthefrequencyhypothesis:theDutch
maycursewithdiseasessimplybecause
it caughton.Language,as LaurieAn-
dersonsaid,isa virus.Perhapssomeday
Dutchkidswillsavageeachotheronthe
playgroundwithcriesofcoronalijer.

Dutchdisease


Swearing

AMSTERDAM
A countrywheresicknessesarecurses

I


t was shapingup to be a bumper year for
the Hotel Esplanade in Dortmund. On
February 13th its owners threw a big party
to celebrate a €2.5m ($2.7m) extension, and
to mark the moment that Katja Kortmann
took over as manager from her retiring fa-
ther. Two weeks later the cancellations be-
gan: first a trickle, then a tidal wave of up to
300 a day. On March 27th the Esplanade will
close its doors to guests and send its 40
staff home. The plan is to reopen on April
19th, but Ms Kortmann doubts that will
happen. “It’s just tragic,” she says.
Desperate times, desperate measures.
On March 25th Germany’s mps—sitting the
requisite two metres apart in the Bundes-
tag—backed an extraordinary set of poli-
cies designed to shield the country’s work-
ers and companies from the worst ravages
of the virus. Even sceptical observers have
been surprised by the government’s speed
and boldness. Its package, the most com-
prehensive in Europe, includes several ele-
ments, some of them dusted off from pre-
vious crises.
Chief among them is an expansion of
Kurzarbeit(short-time work), under which
the state pays 60-67% of the forgone wages
of workers whose hours are cut. The
scheme, copied across Europe, helped Ger-
many avoid mass lay-offs in 2008-09, but
Ms Kortmann’s experience shows how
things will differ this time. In the previous
crisis, notes Sebastian Dullien of the imk
research institute, manufacturers that
faced declining orders used Kurzarbeitto
reduce the hours of shift workers. Now the
scheme will have to bolster consumer-fac-
ing outfits whose customers evaporated
overnight. Almost all the Esplanade’s staff,
including Ms Kortmann, will be on zero
hours once the hotel shuts. The govern-
ment is planning for Kurzarbeitto extend to
2.15m workers—5% of those with jobs—at a
cost of €10bn for a year.
Larger firms can avail themselves of
€400bn in liquidity guarantees issued by a
new Economic Stabilisation Fund, mod-
elled on a bank bail-out fund from 2008.
Another €100bn may be reserved for direct
equity stakes in companies, including
“strategic” firms at risk of takeover, and the
same amount can be provided to the state
development bank, which Olaf Scholz, the
finance minister, has promised will lend in
unlimited quantities to troubled firms.
Germany’s 3m small companies and free-
lancers, meanwhile, can receive grants of

€9,000-15,000 to cover fixed costs like rent
as long as they can prove that they have
been hurt by the pandemic, which should
not be hard. Along with various other
measures the package amounts to a cool
€750bn (though the full sum is unlikely to
be used). Several German states are offer-
ing further help and Mr Scholz has hinted
at a separate post-crisis stimulus.
Germany has had to slaughter several
sacred cows to get here. The government’s
supplementary budget foresees borrowing
of €156bn this year, around 4% of gdp,
which means the hallowed schwarze Null
(“black zero”) no-deficit policy, in force
since 2014, is history. The Bundestag had to
invoke an emergency clause in the consti-
tutional debt brake, which normally limits
borrowing to 0.35% of gdp. A rotating cast
of international financial institutions has
long urged Germany to loosen its purse-
strings. It took covid-19 to do what the imf
and European Central Bank could not.

For now the measures will cushion the
worst of the blow. But for smaller firms
with thin cash reserves, the help will only
go so far. Alexander Zimmer, who runs the
Marienburg Monheim Manor, a conference
centre near Dusseldorf, is one example. His
workers will receive Kurzarbeitergeld, but
he will top it up to a full salary to make life
easier for them. He thinks he can do that for
three months at most.
At the European level there has been
some cross-border solidarity: several Ger-
man states have accepted patients from
overloaded French and Italian hospitals.
But the German government is unwilling to
heed requests to back jointly guaranteed
euro-zone debt (see Charlemagne). “If
we’re declaring war on the virus, euro-
bonds should be the instrument of choice,
but I’m not hopeful,” says Moritz Schular-
ick, an economics professor at the Univer-
sity of Bonn. The pandemic has changed a
lot in Germany. But not everything. 7

BERLIN
Germany spends big to combat the
corona crunch

Coronanomics

Money for all

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