German consumer spending has been broadly flat.

ECONOMIST: Rebalancing the world economy: Germany

To everyone's surprise the stodgy German media are now consumed with debate over the flat tax.

WSJ: The World Is Flat

As for the coming year, he believes a lot depends on the German elections - "if growth is fairly flat, " he says, "Mrs Merkel will have to come out with some growth policies to win over the electorate, and that will mark a move away from austerity".

BBC: Equity markets stay strong despite economic uncertainty

German Stephan Feck lost his balance on his second dive, landing flat on his back in the water.

WSJ: Menu

Anecdotal evidence suggests that even the German market is starting to wake up after more than a decade of flat or falling prices, but this has yet to show up the index that we use, which is published with a long lag (there are no figures for 2006).

ECONOMIST: The global housing market

If German prices rise by 3% a year and those in the periphery are flat, then countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece will gradually improve their costs relative to Germany.

ECONOMIST: Germany��s economy