Germans need to wake up to the truth about who’s subsidising who in Europe

German taxpayers like to think they are financing the lifestyles of their feckless southern cousins. But the truth is rather different, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

150129-germany

Angela Merkel and Italian PM Matteo Renzi Germany is making a mint from Italian debt

The letters page of the FT is often pretty interesting. Today's is better than most. Several of the submissions are well worth a read (John Griffiths on the scandal of corporate remuneration, for example) but the most interesting comes from Olaf Dreyer of Hamburg.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.