I'm John Bachelor. I welcome Joseph Sternberg, member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. He writes the political economics column. He's in London, and we're reflecting on the European

challenge for not only recovery from these last years of war and before that pandemic, but also

growth. Europe has done everything right and not grown.

So what needs to be done?

Joe is taking us by the hand and leading us to the German finance minister Lars Klingbile.

What's important here to understand is that his party, the Social Democrats, the SBD,

is in coalition with the CDU, the Christian Democrats,

meaning they share cabinet posts. Klingbile is given the cabinet post that is the equivalent

of the chancellor of the exchequer, or in American terms it would be the Treasury Department,

maybe with a little influence from the central

bankers. So Klingbile is in a very strong position for a party that's associated with socialism,

leftism, and subsidies. Joseph, a very good evening to you. What do we need to know about

Lars Klingbile? He's young. He's very attractive. His approach to being a member of the

SPD. Is this out of step or sympathetic? Good evening to you. Hey, John. Well, you know, this is one of

those interesting European political stories that seems a little obscure if you're looking at it from

the U.S. but turns out to be kind of important because the real thing that we're talking about here is going to be whether there is any hope for the German economy.

And that has a lot to do with the future shape of German politics.

And Lars Klingbile, as the leader of the Center Left Social Democratic Party party is a really important part of that story.

And the SPD, as with many parties of the center-left these days, is a little bit divided

between its further left wing and then a more technocratic or centrist wing.

And Klingbile is part of that centrist wing.

And what he has been doing over the past month in particular is deciding that really the best

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