281–290 of 348 posts
As someone who lives and works in Germany I'm always surprised when I hear of the strength of the country. I've worked for several very large corporations here, financial and automotive, and how anything is achieved at all remains a complete mystery to me. It seems to me that all the success reported is directly in spite of their attitude towards technology and IT in general instead of because of it. The culture here…
Not a word about the fact that Germany simply produces desirable products? Somehow that has to factor in. Financial policy and the education system favors a conservative manufacturing sector that incrementally improves upon what Germany has done for decades. While I got my ME degree in Germany my dad, who is a solid state physicist, spent all his energy trying to accelerate the development of a German electronics sec…
> solid state physicist, spent all his energy trying to accelerate the development of a German electronics sector. Out of cursiosity: What did he try to do, and what organisations was he using?
What is often overlooked is this: Germany was export-oriented before the Euro, during the transition and with the Euro. Germany was export-oriented before reunification, during reunification and after reunification. The industry will adopt to those external factors: Germany was 'Exportweltmeister' with the super strong DM (which dominated European currencies) and it is a leading export nation with the Euro. There are…
In so much of the developed world we're becoming more and more politically split along urban/rural lines, is this the case in Germany is does their distributed industry even things out?
The analysis is incomplete. It does not take services into account. Yes, Germany has a positive trade balance in goods. But the trade balance in services is negative. This ... well ... balances the balances. The UK has shifted its economy from production to services. Hence the negative trade balance for physical products excluding services.
Adding in services doesn't change much: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Balance_...
The link you posted doesn't show the UK on it. It just compares four Euro countries.
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Sitting here and writing this from Louisiana I _strongly_ beg to differ with your notion of American homogenization.
I'm in California, I agree that the idea that the US is fully homogenized is overblown
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German products arent as high quality ad they used to be and most if them are pretty stale in terms of innovation. Sure they change the shape of cars and add new leds and interior eye candy but that is not progress. Imo german cars are low quality and lack diversity, and same goes for most machinery made in that country. US, Japanese, South Korean or other EU made products can be of similar or higher quality. Germany…
I cannot agree with this assessment, because you're talking about a key industry from the 80s. Germany's strengths is not just in cars, but also in tangible b2b products that require a high degree of know-how and engineering. Southern Germany is plastered with such companies, they deliver products to the rest of the world you and I haven't even heard of unless you're working in some specific business. These companies…
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German products arent as high quality ad they used to be and most if them are pretty stale in terms of innovation. Sure they change the shape of cars and add new leds and interior eye candy but that is not progress. Imo german cars are low quality and lack diversity, and same goes for most machinery made in that country. US, Japanese, South Korean or other EU made products can be of similar or higher quality. Germany…
No pun intended, dude, but I think you speak mambo jumbo... :D "German products arent as high quality ad they used to be and most if them are pretty stale in terms of innovation." Germany just surpassed again South Korea as the most innovative country. News are just three days old. Where do you base your own assessment? Did your BMW break down? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-18/germany-b...
The Fine German engineering required the removal of the front bumper to replace a headlight bulb (just the bulb, not the entire assembly). What kind of idiot designs a car that way? The fuel injectors on the 2.0t engine routinely clog up with low mileage, requiring either expensive cleaning, or more expensive replacement.
The suspension has a design flaw that results in tires cupping after only 2-3k miles. Tire rotation does nothing to solve the problem; purchasing expensive tires doesn't alleviate the issue, they just wear out as fast, costing $$. VW has known about this issue since this model was released but denies responsibility.
The number of recalls this car has had in a short 8 years is a joke. The number of repairs it has required outside of recalls in 8 short years is a joke. The VW that built the Bug, the Bus, the Rabbit/Golf, Sciracco and Jetta, that VW has died. Now VW is just trying to push up market and failing.
I've owned a VW for the entirety of my driving life. This will be the last one I buy since VW (at least in the US) doesn't give a shit about quality.
„ France and the UK were opposed to German reunification, and attempted to influence the Soviet Union to stop it.[8] However, in late 1989 France extracted German commitment to the Monetary Union in return for support for German reunification.[9]“ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_euro
We can look today at Germany as a mature, stable partner in the world but at the time, the argument that there might just be 'something in the soil' of the primary belligerent of the last 2 world wars was not entirely insane. Gratifyingly the world saw that the nation's contrition was sincere and we enjoy the fruits of its labour today.
It seems to me that there are at least three primary belligerents of the last two world wars (I would also include Russia).
It was a fancy read until > an efficient & strong military Now I doubt everything.
Top 10 in the world seems not bad.
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Was half way through your post when I was about to write my comment about hidden champions,glad you mentioned it. This is something that tends to be overlooked quite often. Very very few countries have a model like this.Take the UK, as an example.An average town or even small city rarely has anything that isn't just for local market. For a lot of companies it's kind of fine,as the market is big enough to earn comfy l…
There used to be tens of thousands. In 1979 there was a policy decision to end UK manufacturing and focus on the City and services. No end of highly successful UK export businesses disappeared. Many of them quietly a world leader. Many of them famous names that had existed for a century or two. Sheffield was the steel city with all the production, infrastructure and suppliers to feed all the cutlers, precision instru…