As bank runs become a frequent occurrence, companies start to cut costs January 5th, 1999 Financial contagion has collapsed its tentacles upon Der Kaiser; GDP growth has finally dipped into the negatives, bank runs collapsing illiquid commercial banks one after the other, and the DAX 40 has fallen 17% in the past few months. This has led German companies to engage in a rapid cutting of costs, descaling industry expansion projects and calling for mass retrenchments. This has been responded to by a large amount of unhappy labourers taking to the streets after being fired from their jobs. Director Esdar, representing German interests at the IMF, has been questioned over his significant level of inaction to this expanding crisis. Factory worker Raghav Kumar in an interview questioned, “What does the IMF even do?”, and it is hard to rebut this rhetorical question.