As the next G20 meeting approaches, George Soros has torn into German fiscal policy in a speech at Berlin’s Humboldt University yesterday. He warned that its unwavering pursuit of austerity savings is putting the future of the European Union and the single currency at risk.

“By insisting on pro-cyclical policies, Germany is endangering the European Union. I realise that this is a grave accusation, but I am afraid it is justified,”

“By cutting its budget deficit and resisting a rise in wages to compensate for the decline in the purchasing power of the euro, Germany is actually making it more difficult for the other countries to regain competitiveness,”

“[The policy is] a recipe for disaster because it pushes the debtor countries into a deflation cycle and imposes stagnation and, worse, and that creates resentment”

Which echoes American attitudes towards the current economic difficulties – Tim Geithner, secretary to the US Treasury, and Larry Summers, director of the US National Economic Council, laid out the case for more stimulus in the WSJ.

But the Germans are having none of it. Germany’s finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble turned to the FT to set out the case for austerity.

Behind the calls for us to pursue a more expansionary fiscal course lie two different approaches to economic policymaking on each side of the Atlantic. While US policymakers like to focus on short-term corrective measures, we take the longer view and are, therefore, more preoccupied with the implications of excessive deficits and the dangers of high inflation.

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Time will tell who is right.