The Economist - USA (2020-03-28)

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