The Germans are walking tall in the eurozone, but just how rich are they? Since 1999, German average earnings have risen by about 23pc, compared with 39pc for France and 48pc for the UK. This gives the lie to the idea that the euro has been a fantastic boon for Germany - and the associated idea that the German economy would be sunk if the euro were to go or Germany were to leave. It is true that the German exchange rate, at the moment synonymous with the euro, has been far lower than it would have been if there had been a separate German currency. And that implies, of course, that German exports have been stronger than they would have been if there had been a German currency. But that is not sufficient to make the case that the euro has been a boon for Germany. For a start, Germany may have sold lots of Mercedes and BMWs to Greece and that makes the export figures look good. But the Greeks cannot pay for them. Instead, Germany has "loaned" Greece the money. Yet there isn't a hope in Hades of all this money being paid back. So the reality is that the Germans have given loads of Mercedes and BMWs to Greece - although they still appear in the export figures. That doesn't sound like very good business to me. And the national accounting is a bit dubious as well. The second sense in which the euro has not necessarily been a good thing for Germany is that man cannot live by exports alone - not even German man. This is something that is not widely understood. There is a considerable amount of export fetishism, not just in Germany but in many other countries too. Yet the ultimate objective of economic activity is consumption - if not now then at least in the future. Exports are in reality the price that we pay for imports. Generating consumption is what the German economy has been pretty bad at. And this is partly related to export success because one of the consequences of operating with an undervalued exchange rate is that imports are more expensive than they would be if the exchange rate were higher. Cheaper imports would have increased German consumers' real incomes, which would have encouraged them to spend more. Furthermore, under those circumstances it is conceivable that the German government might even have been prepared to relax policy a bit, rather than thinking that it should be as tight as possible, "pour encourager les autres." So the German economy would end up better balanced, with less reliance on exports and a higher share of consumption. This is the technical answer to all those know-alls who confidently say that Germany has been the big winner from the euro. But there is another answer which is quite simply to ask how badly Germany did under the Deutschmark. Is the answer that Germany did badly? I think not. Germany outside the euro, or Germany without the euro, would be in roughly the same position as Germany was with the Deutschmark. You might be surprised to see how well the UK comes out against Germany on some economic measures. The British sometimes have a reputation for arrogance, which is mostly ill deserved. On the contrary, about their own country most British people are often embarrassed. In relation to Germany, they are infused with an acute sense of inferiority. I call it Vorsprung Durch Tecknik syndrome. Yet on GDP per head the UK is just above the eurozone average and only just behind Germany. In 2012, for consumption per head, that is to say average living standards, the UK came out with a higher figure not only than all the usual suspects such as Italy and Spain, but higher even than France and Germany. Now admittedly this picture can be misleading because of the much greater use of credit to support consumption in the UK, and the associated low rates of personal saving. But that does not account for all of it. British workers are relatively well paid, work relatively long hours and, (compared with some countries), at least until recently, are comparatively lightly taxed. And the UK has experienced some periods of relatively high economic growth. Germany grew faster than the UK in the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. But in the Eighties and Nineties, as well as the early 2000s, the UK grew faster. The financial crisis of 2007-8 and the subsequent recession hit the UK very hard. Admittedly, Germany was initially as badly affected, but it made a faster recovery. Just as it is wrong to compare two countries when one is at the peak of an unsustainable boom, so it is wrong to make comparisons when one is still reeling from a major economic shock. Finally, the UK now seems to be inching forward again. Let's hope it doesn't all end in a penalty shoot-out. Roger Bootle is managing director of Capital Economics. roger.bootle@capitaleconomics.com