Portugal is were it is because of a lot more reasons than the housing bubble, though I agree with you that the only element of Germany’s blame for housing bubbles in the Eurozone in general (so, not just in Portugal) was way back in 2009/10 when they pushed ultra-low interest rates as the “solution” for the consequences of the 2008 Crash because it was what was better for the likes of Deutsche Bank and the Landesbanken which were overexposed to subprime and soverign debt.
(I actually have a recent comment were I list the IMHO various reasons for the housing bubbles in Europe one by one and that one is just one of them and most definitelly include in that list local problems like refusal to regulate AirBnBs and even the incentivising of foreign investment in the local realestate market)
Those “temporary” ultra-low interest rates lasted for over a decade and pushed up mortgages, both via the pathway of making the same monthly mortgage payment allow for a much larger mortgage (which together with other problems in the housing market innevitably pushed house prices up to the point were people were paying the same montly payments as before with much larger interest rates) and via the pathway of causing a “race up the yield ladder” which moved a lot of money from things like Treasuries (which even ended up with negative yields) into things like realestate and stocks, increasing Demand in those things and thus pushing prices up.
Further, and again to help the likes of Deutsche Bank, Germany also pushed for continued light-touch-regulation on Financial Institutions and unconditional rescue of affect banks with no requirement for reform (most notably no requirement to divest from and close the investment banking operations of retail banks), which in turn led to the progressive swamping of housed markets in places where most people were owner-occupiers with much more wealthy realestate investors, further pushing up prices.
This is without even going into the stuff which is not housing related and were Germany also put pressure to do all the wrong things for peripheral economies, such as the imposition of Austerity in countries like Greece and Portugal, something which even Christine Lagarde, former head of the IMF and president of the ECB later admitted was the wrong thing to do.
Let’s not excuse the German politicians whose prime priority was the interest of Deutsche Bank, just as we shouldn’t excuse the past and current incompetent moron politicians in places like my homeland.
Portugal is were it is because of a lot more reasons than the housing bubble, though I agree with you that the only element of Germany’s blame for housing bubbles in the Eurozone in general (so, not just in Portugal) was way back in 2009/10 when they pushed ultra-low interest rates as the “solution” for the consequences of the 2008 Crash because it was what was better for the likes of Deutsche Bank and the Landesbanken which were overexposed to subprime and soverign debt.
(I actually have a recent comment were I list the IMHO various reasons for the housing bubbles in Europe one by one and that one is just one of them and most definitelly include in that list local problems like refusal to regulate AirBnBs and even the incentivising of foreign investment in the local realestate market)
Those “temporary” ultra-low interest rates lasted for over a decade and pushed up mortgages, both via the pathway of making the same monthly mortgage payment allow for a much larger mortgage (which together with other problems in the housing market innevitably pushed house prices up to the point were people were paying the same montly payments as before with much larger interest rates) and via the pathway of causing a “race up the yield ladder” which moved a lot of money from things like Treasuries (which even ended up with negative yields) into things like realestate and stocks, increasing Demand in those things and thus pushing prices up.
Further, and again to help the likes of Deutsche Bank, Germany also pushed for continued light-touch-regulation on Financial Institutions and unconditional rescue of affect banks with no requirement for reform (most notably no requirement to divest from and close the investment banking operations of retail banks), which in turn led to the progressive swamping of housed markets in places where most people were owner-occupiers with much more wealthy realestate investors, further pushing up prices.
This is without even going into the stuff which is not housing related and were Germany also put pressure to do all the wrong things for peripheral economies, such as the imposition of Austerity in countries like Greece and Portugal, something which even Christine Lagarde, former head of the IMF and president of the ECB later admitted was the wrong thing to do.
Let’s not excuse the German politicians whose prime priority was the interest of Deutsche Bank, just as we shouldn’t excuse the past and current incompetent moron politicians in places like my homeland.