Worse, state-subsidised banks have made it impossible for Germany's publicly listed banks to make a decent return on their retail-banking operations.
Instead, Kohl's government mistakenly imposed an absolutely unaffordable welfare- state structure, including too-heavy taxes, on the former East Germany, making impossible the kind of resurgence West Germany experienced after Erhard's reforms.
In other words the solution is the same as it ever was, and may be as politically impossible as ever it was: the Germany government would need to provide official underwriting for the funds borrowed by the Italian, Spanish and other eurozone governments, what is known as mutualisation of borrowing, to reduce their borrowing costs and provide assurance of credit supply.
The broad coalitions that dominate the landscape in both Italy and Germany will find it all but impossible.
Was it really so impossible to put Eichmann on trial in West Germany?
Right now, getting guarantees from France and Germany on all this is proving impossible, but that could change in the course of the night, I am told.
Moreover, should Germany slip into a recession, I believe that the political climate will turn sour and make any check writing by Germany to save Greece or others an almost impossible task.
FORBES: Forget Spain And Greece, Signs Of German Weakening Spell Trouble For Europe
With no evidence linking him to specific war crimes, however, it was impossible under previous German law to bring charges against him in Germany.
For many, spending for pleasure is impossible: around one-fifth of respondents in Britain, Germany and France say they have no spare cash after covering the basics.
And since it is impossible to see such an IMF initiative without the participation of Germany, as the biggest and strongest European economy, you have to wonder whether eurozone finance ministers are straw-clutching (again).
Cancelling the meeting had been impossible, as the few phone lines between the two parts of Germany were jammed.
And it would be impossible to completely cease using coal-fired power stations - especially in Germany - because of a lack of alternative capacity.
BBC: Switching from high to low carbon energy is a challenge
Germany and others argue in this instance that it is politically impossible both to encourage total capital mobility by means of a single currency, while allowing some countries within the union to act as tax havens for the savings of others.
With the company's core rural consumers saturated with stores, union-pandering urban politicians making it tough to impossible to open big city locations, and overseas missteps in key markets like Germany and South Korea, there's reason to believe Wal-Mart's growth phase is near its end.
Even if this was legally possible, which it isn't under current euro-zone rules, it was politically impossible: there is no appetite in some euro-zone countries, notably Germany, to create a transfer union, nor to bail out a country whose banking system is widely suspected to be a haven for money-laundering.
In November the president of Germany's federal police complained that the encryption technology used by Skype makes it impossible for his officers to listen in on conversations.
Despite the scale of the crisis, Merkel said that "incredible opportunities" were opening up, adding that growing up in East Germany to become the chancellor of a unified German state had proved to her that nothing was impossible.
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