Berlin — A "debt clock" in Berlin, run by German tax lobbyists to shame the government into reining in spending, is falling for the first time in its 22-year history. In a sign of Berlin’s famously tight fiscal discipline, it shows public coffers moving into the black at a rate of €78 per second. Granted, at this pace it would take some time — more than 800 years — for federal and state governments to pay off all of the massive €2-trillion they owe. But the Federation of German Taxpayers (BdSt), the group that set up the digital clock, nonetheless hailed the turnaround as a good sign for Europe’s biggest economy. "Only recently the federal and state governments bore responsibility for this policy of piling up debt," said its president, Reiner Holznagel. "This policy that harms future generations has fortunately now been stopped." Debt levels have in fact been falling since 2013 to about €23,827 per person. But Holznagel said the effect would only be reflected in national and regiona...
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