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How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

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Re: How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

#291

Post by trhway »

cyberpunk wrote: post #260

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…

>then every few years when the projects fail or are over budget (time or money) to replace the partner ... and then they have to start again

i've also worked with Germans a lot, and what you said is one of the keys to their success. Everybody makes mistakes. Mistakes are given. Majority of IT everywhere is mistakes, failures and waste :) What Germans do, at least in my anecdotal experience, is that they [slowly, with time, yet unstoppable] do ultimately notice the mistakes/failures and really react to it with strong reaction like you described, like closing projects, replacing partners, etc. - basically cutting the bad pieces out, cutting losses without fear of sunken costs.

Re: How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

#292

Post by pnako »

vangelis wrote: post #93
gharding wrote: post #70

[flagged]

So who exactly is responsible for this loss of national character? Is it a particular ethnicity or religion?

In France it's largely Islam and north-African immigrants. It managed to completely shatter the secular and assimilation/integration model that had worked for at least a century.

But to answer more generally the loss of character does not have to come from a single place. In cities like London or Sydney you can see that the loss of character comes from 50 different countries.

Re: How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

#293

Post by usrusr »

biztos wrote: post #236
lispm wrote: post #152

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…

Some members of my extended family own a company (actually a small family of companies) in that category, and of course it's in Swabia. They are market leaders in some very high-margin things most people never think about, and interestingly they sell a lot in Asia, where one might expect them to be more vulnerable to competition. German Quality is a huge brand worldwide. I also have a friend in Berlin who's sort of i…

Another way how this kind of company would likely fail to continually thrive in the US, even when it's not sold: those niche markets are so small that even when completely dominated the profits would be insufficient to get date-in-Hollywood rich or groom-yourself-for-presidency rich. So if you have bigger ambitions than the niche allows you'd hand over the reins to a "maintenance manager" and focus on something more promising. Those small niche specialist businesses reach excellence through a loyalty to whatever field that made them big that is fueled by limits to ambition. (I think I already posted this idea on some other HN that)

(and the businesses tend to be filled with a weirdly self-contradicting mix of nationalistic hybris and massive imposter syndrome)

Re: How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

#294

Post by Bayart »

owenversteeg wrote: post #78
geff82 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone with a regular job can not afford a house close to a major city any more and for sure can not afford any desirable German car. People dress cheaply, buy used cars and many live in frugal appartments, buy in stores that many American or Canadians would consider third world (never ever go buy stuff in an Aldi when you are used to Canadian standards...).

The Aldi is "third world"? What on earth? I personally shop in Lidl, not Aldi, but Lidl is often compared to Aldi, about as popular and occupies the same price segment. And I eat like a king from there! Excellent protected origin cheeses, meats, wines, organic products... Half the time I leave the Lidl I go with a shopping cart that would make an American foodie drool. My most recent purchase there included Manchego…

Aldi and LIDL (or any other chain with the same working-three-employees-to-the-bone and having and narrow set of products) are pretty ghetto compared to other EU supermarket chains with larger footprints and higher prices. Though there are things in Aldi I like (at least in my own country, I know there are two different Aldi structures going around).

And Germans definitely have a reputation for being cheap and careless with their appearance that's not quite just a cliché.

Re: How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

#295

Post by Bayart »

paganel wrote: post #141
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, expats are lured here thinking Germany is the Promised Land but realize too late that they can't afford to buy a family worthy home on your average white collar wage and due to how German corporate politics work, most of the non-natives are locked out of the lucrative careers even when speaking the language. Like someone said, Germany is a rich country of poor people.

> Germany is a rich country of poor people I suspect something similar happens across the border in Switzerland. I visited the French part of it a couple of times about 3 years ago and I was surprised how crowded the second-hand clothes stores in downtown Lausanne were (and the fact that there were any SH stores in that area at all). Also, looking at the prices in there and unless there’s some hidden UBI system up an…

I pretty much only buy second-hand now and it's got nothing to do with not being able to buy new. But for the price of some fast-fashion plastic crap you can get something made with actual quality fabric, by Europeans who get fair wages.

As far as I'm aware the country with the biggest second-hand culture in clothing is Japan, and they're not nearly living in poverty.

Re: How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

#296

Post by usrusr »

flukus wrote: post #283
lispm wrote: post #152

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…

> You'll find many of these companies in rural regions. 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?

It has always been a struggle and after reunification federal focus has shifted, naturally thethe rural/urban imbalance took the backseat to the easy/west imbalance, city or not. But a lot of anti-centralistic intertia has remained, and a lot of the political fight against rural/urban split was on state level anyways. The split is growing in Germany just like everywhere else, but it probably hasn't proceeded as far yet.

Re: How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

#297

Post by [deleted] »

nothis wrote: post #64
zwieback wrote: post #31

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…

Economics in a nutshell: "There must be a single number that explains all of this!" It can't possibly be that Germany actually built its exports based on quality. That can't be replicated by tweaking some tax laws.

[deleted]

Re: How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

#298

Post by dang »

tyzerdak wrote: post #221

I don't get why it's good for Germany. If they had their own currency with such exports they could print money to make it weak and so they will have more money. Btw I'm germany hater. Fking nazis team up with russia to fuck europe again.

You can't post like this here. We've banned this account.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

Re: How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

#299

Post by dang »

gharding wrote: post #70

[flagged]

You started a flamewar and then perpetuated it; that's not cool here. Please keep nationalistic and/or ideological rants off HN. They're driven by emotions that aren't compatible with the curiosity this site exists for. Also, they're predictable, which makes them tedious.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108033 and marked it off-topic.

Re: How Germany is able to run the world’s second largest export economy

#300

Post by [deleted] »

13415 wrote: post #252
gharding wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with you, even though what we are all heading towards is nothing but the total eradication of actual diversity, especially in Europe, pretty much on the American model that totally destroyed all unique characters of the American people of the various American states over the last 70+ years. But the "Germany is a very new country" trope/propaganda is not accurate, as is rather easily identified by simp…

Germany has integrated immigrants from all over Europe and beyond, a large Turkish community, Italians, Syrians, and from many other European and non-European countries, so it is in fact heading towards more diversity instead of more homogeneity. What you could say is that this trend is counter-acted by stronger, general cultural unification trend due to mass media (the Internet, mostly) and the influence of large, m…

[deleted]
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