When you think about it, Germany is like the hot girl in a small town high school. She doesn't care if she's pretty (rich) in the absolute sense, she only cares

When you think about it, Germany is like the hot girl in a small town high school. She doesn't care if she's pretty (rich) in the absolute sense, she only cares that she's prettier (richer) than all the other girls in the small town (Europe). Instead of focusing on optimizing Europe's collective wealth, they are trying to maximize their wealth relative to the rest. There is certainly concerns about things like corruption in the periphery, and Spain and Greece certainly had their inefficiencies, but Germany is going about fixing it in a completely wrong way.