121–130 of 149 posts
It's strange that they credit a holdover from the Holy Roman Empire days as being one of the reasons, but ignore the privatization of East German industry and the massive infrastructure investment after reunification.
This is not a recent phenomena though so those two factors you mentioned can't be considered as reasons.
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A lot of things are common sense. OK, "this part must go here because it looks like it does X." We just need a little motivation. Granted, doesn't mean you should rewire your house using YouTube videos
Watch enough YouTube videos and I hear you can build a whole house. http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/13/us/mother-house-youtube-build-...
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You don't have to hedge, that comment about inheritance tax is literally ridiculous and completely unsupported. The idea that the US has a problem with too little accumulation of intergenerational wealth is patent nonsense.
The idea that the US has a problem with too little accumulation of intergenerational wealth is patent nonsense. This is different from parent leaving you stock and bonds. Father dies, leaves company that makes engines to son and $50 million in cash because he has invested most in his company. IRS+State: son, you owe us half+ of what your father left you, or $1.1 Billion. If he borrows half of company's worth that's n…
That's not going to happen because those shares are going to be held by an immortal trust fund that never has to pay inheritance taxes. The trustafarian son will not have to borrow or sell a damn thing.
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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 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…
As for the other countries, all they can do is cut down importing I guess?
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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…
This certainly makes me think. I'm Dutch, and when I was a kid, I knew how to repair my bike. Today, I tend to hire others to fix everything. I wouldn't know how to replace a car tire (other than to try the obvious).
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…
Probably why there aren't much German software companies to write home about. Current software tradition is nothing but broken faucets .
Some other famous software companies: Avira, Crytek, SAP, Suse and Nero.
The apprenticeships are particularly important. Many brilliant friends of mine who failed university or even high school did an apprenticeship instead. Among them are CEOs, R&D managers and founders.
I've often idly wondered if you could do Software Development as an apprenticeship. Use industry tools in your work day, and theoretical computer science at night schools/block courses.
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> 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 re…
(1) My comment was an addendum to the post which (partly) explained to another post(er) why German companies aren't moving their production to cheaper markets. I remind you of this because the author of the article and many people here have a rosy view of the economic situation in Germany. Seeing only the "positives" and blending out the "negatives" because they don't fit the official narrative isn't helpful for our…
German companies ARE moving their production to cheaper markets. They have been doing this for decades and they are doing it today. At the same time the market has expanded and changed. Thus new jobs are created, even a few are coming back. If we talk about manufacturing, which was the original topic, you can see multiple trends (examples in parentheses): exports of jobs (ship yards), back-import of jobs (automated manufacturing), disappearing jobs (nuclear industry), creation of new jobs (renewable energy), ...
> economic powerhouses
East Germany is our own 'economic powerhouse'. Twenty million people with a much different job market, compared to West Germany.
> You obviously didn't read the articles I've posted.
None of that is new. If you read German mainstream media, that stuff has been discussed for a long time. FAZ, Handelsblatt, etc. have published a lot of these arguments. It's just that for each economist arguing that way, we can find another one, which argues against it. The media published this discussion. You just have to read it.
> abolishing the laws of mathematics
That's a very simplified argument, with a very limited view what actually happens.
> But would it be such a "success" without major influence in EU institutions, in ECB, without Euro, with other countries having their currencies (which they can devalue to make their good cheaper and imported - German - goods more expensive), with customs on its goods, with fairer wages in Germany? I highly doubt it.
Germany has influence not because the ECB or the Euro. It has influence because it is the largest european country, it sits in the middle of europe. ECB policy has NOT following German demands. The Euro was not a German invention. But that European monetary systems have been influenced by Germany because of its economic power has always been true.
If you look back, Germany has export oriented with large surplus for decades. Without the Euro, with the European Monetary System, with the Euro.
The german economy will simply adapt to the changing conditions: weak currency, hard currency. The industry will react, but it will always be export oriented. Generally the economists prefer a harder currency, which actually will not have a specially negative effect on the export industry. With the super-hard Deutsche Mark, the export industry was doing just fine.