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Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

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Re: Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

#81

Post by lispm »

stephen_g wrote: post #58
apo wrote: post #8

I was surprised the article didn't mention the euro, specifically how Germany gets to denominate its goods in a cheap currency that doesn't fully reflect its strong fiscal policies.

This is a huge thing - Germany couldn't run its huge trade surplus without its currency appreciating and reducing its competitiveness otherwise. It's a pretty bad deal for the consumption-based Eurozone economies though - they have to internally devalue instead of just being able to devalue their exchange rate. It's one of the major problems with the Euro... It was a terrible idea from the start, and situations like…

> Germany couldn't run its huge trade surplus without its currency appreciating

The Euro policy is not German monetary policy. Germany has always asked for a harder currency policy.

Germany also had a huge trade surplus long before the Euro. The economic numbers were going down after a the reunification and its problems (collapse of the East German economy). Germany is now back to the same success West Germany had before the reunification. Now with a larger market (the EU integration now is deeper and with more countries), simplified exports to the larger market (mostly) with a common currency, a much better access to east Europe as an emerging market, ...

Re: Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

#82

Post by DinosaurArms »

mtempm wrote: post #43
educar wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a similar anecdote except the German in my story fixed the tap himself! I was squarely impressed with the skills an average German has.

This is so German actually. I've been living in Australia the past year (which has a lot of Germans) and twice I helped someone change a flat tyre. Both times a German also came to assist, and both times it was an American who didnt know how to change a flat (there arent that many of them in Aus).

Most cars (from my experience) in Germany have separate tyres for winter, so changing them is something you need to do twice a year. Back in New Zealand I drove for about 12 years and never had to change a tyre.

Re: Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

#83

Post by llukas »

DinosaurArms wrote: post #82
mtempm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so German actually. I've been living in Australia the past year (which has a lot of Germans) and twice I helped someone change a flat tyre. Both times a German also came to assist, and both times it was an American who didnt know how to change a flat (there arent that many of them in Aus).

Most cars (from my experience) in Germany have separate tyres for winter, so changing them is something you need to do twice a year. Back in New Zealand I drove for about 12 years and never had to change a tyre.

Most people do it in autoshop

Re: Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

#84

Post by johndotsun »

imesh wrote: post #79
johndotsun wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying Americans have become complacent and lazy because they don't know how to catch, clean, and cook a rabbit is like saying that Americans have become complacent and lazy because they don't know how to steer a covered wagon across the plains.

Yeah except being able to catch, clean and cook your food is still a valuable skill. However I would say there are more Americans who can do that than Germans... It's hard as hell to get a hunting license in Germany.

I suppose it's useful if you're really into wild camping. Realistically how often would the average person, even someone living in a rural state, need to catch, clean and cook their own food? How many decades has it been since a significant portion of the population has needed that skill? Probably several generations at least. I bet less than a fraction of a percent of the population lives in a situation such that they don't procure most of their food through purchases of the products of agriculture or animal husbandry. A town has to get very small and very remote before periodic trips to the grocery store become so onerous that it's actually more efficient to set snares or sit in a tree for days on end waiting for a deer to wander by.

I suspect that any scenario in which hunting/trapping becomes a valuable skill for a significant portion of the population is also a situation where knowing how to operate an animal drawn vehicle is also a useful skill.

Re: Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

#85

Post by lispm »

everybodyknows wrote: post #45
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #21

The article asks why there are so many successful mid-size companies in Germany, and it lists reasons such as continuity of leadership, scientific competencies, system of apprenticeships and others. I don't see how this answers the question in the title. How does the school of mathematics of the University of Goettingen help make German factory workers competitive with Chinese ones? Why aren't these companies moving…

Wage suppression. Seen most obviously by simple comparison to other Eurozone states: http://fortune.com/2014/10/22/why-germany-is-the-eurozones-b... This is not something Germans -- such as apparently the author of OP -- like to talk about.

Now you have to show that the 'hidden champions' the author talks about are using 'wage suppression'.

Actually the midsize manufacturing companies offer long-term employment, fair wages, jobs in rural areas, jobs which require high-qualifications, ...

These people who are working in these midsize manufacturing companies are in high demand and that they have low wages or participate in low-wage jobs is completely wrong.

We are talking about companies like the manufacturing company bought by Tesla.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/8/13561146/tesla-acquisitio...

Re: Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

#87

Post by lispm »

binarray2000 wrote: post #57
everybodyknows wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wage suppression. Seen most obviously by simple comparison to other Eurozone states: http://fortune.com/2014/10/22/why-germany-is-the-eurozones-b... This is not something Germans -- such as apparently the author of OP -- like to talk about.

To add to less talked about downsides of the "German boom": Wage suppression has caused the fact that Germany has the largest low-wage sector in Europe. An article in English: http://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=18499 > The share of low-wage workers (less than 2/3 of the median hourly wage) rose from 17.7% in 1995 to 23.1% of all workers in 2010. The number of low-wage workers increased from 5.6 million in 1995 to 7.9 mi…

> has the largest low-wage sector in Europe .

That's easy, since Germany is also the largest country in Europe (not counting Russia), has the largest number of employees, has a lot of people from East Europe coming for work, ... The alternative would be to move many of these jobs outside of Germany, which sits right next to a lot low-wage countries.

The low-wage sector was also expanded, because politics wanted to reduce long-term unemployment and thought that a low-wage job with some social security is better than not working.

We should also remember that Germany with now 80+ million people has taken in 20 million people from East Germany (with its economy mostly collapsing) and many of them have still a harder time to find jobs, which has a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is exactly that this eastern part of Germany now lacks this large based of mid-sized companies who are competitive.

Re: Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

#88

Post by tallanvor »

imesh wrote: post #79
johndotsun wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying Americans have become complacent and lazy because they don't know how to catch, clean, and cook a rabbit is like saying that Americans have become complacent and lazy because they don't know how to steer a covered wagon across the plains.

Yeah except being able to catch, clean and cook your food is still a valuable skill. However I would say there are more Americans who can do that than Germans... It's hard as hell to get a hunting license in Germany.

Is being able to catch, clean, and cook a wild animal really a valuable skill for most people in the western world? If you enjoy it, fine, but for most of us, the skills that earn us money are going to be much more valuable.

Re: Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

#89

Post by Arnt »

a_bonobo wrote: post #69
sverige wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American with some German ancestry, I find this to be very embarrassing. (The Swedes in my family can all change a tire as well, including my sister, but the German side is embarrassed.) Americans have become complacent and lazy, with no sense of "know how" or "make do." Hell, kids don't even know how to clean and cook a rabbit, let alone how to catch one with a snare. If the zombie apocalypse ever happened for…

I assure you 99.99999% of Germans don't know how to clean and cook a rabbit.

You're saying that there are only 8 Germans alive who can do it. Between 90 and 99% sounds more reasonable.

Re: Why Germany Still Has So Many Middle-Class Manufacturing Jobs

#90

Post by patrickg_zill »

sumedh wrote: post #28

I have an interesting anecdote to share, couple of years back I was working in an Indian branch of an MNC. The water from the tap on a wash basin had low pressure and it was frustrating to wash your hands but I guess we never complained because in India you just accept such minor inconvenience. One day the VP from the American HQ came to the Indian office and yes he was German, during the intro meeting he talked abou…

This jives with my experience.

One time in an expensive hotel in Asia, there were a few times when things were simply wrong, even though we had a named person assigned to our group as a manager to call on.

I met with the German general manager and suggested that his systems for ensuring a quality experience were not correctly set up.

He sat up straight in his chair and told me that he would deal with all the issues we had. From then on we had no more problems with the account manager...

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