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4. German consumer keeps penny-pinching
If recent figures revealed anything surprising, then it was the extreme fragility of consumers. Mr. Average Citizen is currently behaving as if he does not have two nickels to rub together. As we wrote recently, German consumers are flirting seriously with disaster. Retail sales ex cars and petrol plunged 3% at year-end 2007 and therefore showed its worst performance since the beginning of the 1980s. Admittedly, one is tempted to explain this by surging energy and food prices. The latter, for example, have climbed to the highest rate since the period 2001/2002 in which the BSE epidemic took its toll (cf. chart).