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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

#321

Post by lispm »

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?

Growing larger cities is also a trend in Germany. Especially the young mobile population moves to cities to study at universities. Cities are also attractive for their infrastructure.

Small and medium sized towns often (not always) struggle with that and are looking into ways to become more attractive...

Just imagine, Adidas (sports, revenue 21 billion Euro), Puma (sports, 4.6 billion Euro revenue) and Schaeffler (14 billion Euro revenue, from manufacturing) have their home in Herzogenaurach, a small town in Bavaria with 23k population.

http://herzo.adidas-group.com/#working/places/intro

How do you get people working there? When Munich, Berlin, etc. are trending?

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

#322

Post by playing_colours »

durnygbur wrote: post #34

The most un-understandable thing is that none of this export wealth reaches an individual, especially a guest worker, a foreigner. It's quite shocking to discover by a foreigner specialist lured to the country by the multitude of positive economic news. Cost-cutting and exorbitant charges and contributions everywhere. The entire export wealth is captured by the oligarch families and the highest level executive caste.

It is captured by large taxes that were inefficiently spent on anything, but investments in future growth and prosperity.

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

#323

Post by pjc50 »

elfexec wrote: post #279
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…

> 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. Germany was export-oriented even before WW2. It's funny whenever you read about "How germany or japan became industrial powers after ww2". With many crediting the US or whatever aligns with their agenda. The truth is that both germany a…

> Just because it doesn't have the dominant city center like London and Paris doesn't mean it isn't centralized.

That's .. kind of the definition we were using? If it's centralized, in which city is it centralized?

The London dominance of the UK is almost debilitating; it's very hard to get any kind of policy discussion that sensibly includes even Birmingham or Manchester. Let alone all the Brexity post-industrial towns.

It's also not entirely true that the UK has lost "manufacturing" - we still make a lot of stuff in £ value terms, but it tends to be small production runs of expensive stuff. Scientific instruments, aerospace, weapons, pharmaceuticals. The industrial relations disaster of the 1970s caused a backlash against vast production lines - not very many of those left apart from Nissan.

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

#324

Post by noobdood »

yorwba wrote: post #268
noobdood wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same stuff? What about quality? Newb here.

China probably has more people at every level of education than Germany, they're just more sparsely distributed. So the one person with really in-depth manufacturing knowledge spends their time supervising a bunch of greenhorns who barely know how to operate the machines, making lots of cheap crap. But they're learning something new every day and may eventually become skilled enough to cost-effectively manufacture hi…

Thanks

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

#325

Post by DraftDodger67 »

lispm wrote: post #315
DraftDodger67 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Therein lies the problem - the current fertility rate for German mothers is only 1.42. How long until there are no more Germans left to run these companies?

Fertility rate in Germany is currently at 1.57.

That rate is inflated by foreign mothers. The rate for German mothers is much lower: https://theatlas.com/charts/S1TgULGJe

Its the same throughout Europe, the fertility rates for native women are much lower than for migrant women. Countries with high migrant populations like Sweden, Germany, France, UK have misleading total fertility rate statistics.

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

#326

Post by d10r »

ahartmetz wrote: post #267
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…

If you only work for very large corporations, you work for some of the most inefficient corporations. You get a higher salary for the resulting frustration. That's the deal. If you want to work in an environment that works according to common sense and achieve something, take a pay cut and join a smaller company. Of course, you still have to do your research and choose wisely.

That's why I call those salaries "Schmerzensgeld" :-)

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

#327

Post by notfromhere »

Despegar wrote: post #48

I've said it before in another comment [1]: >There's nothing I enjoy more than the plight of the German Saver, who's obsession with "fiscal responsibility" has led to shitty austerity politics all across the EU (to be fair some other northern European countries like Netherlands also share the same view) and depressed growth for the poorer southern European countries. Germany has benefited most of all from the unfinis…

The U.S. labor market isn’t that tight for non-supervisory roles and wages aren’t going to grow beyond inflation under current policies. We’ve been in a ten year expansion with no wage growth to speak for.

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

#328

Post by d10r »

neilwilson wrote: post #312

Germany isn't Germany any more. It is a component of the Eurozone - which is a unified currency area - like the USA, or the UK. What Germany does is 'vendor finance' other parts of the Eurozone. The Greek government buys German battleships and the savings the Germans are famous for buy the paper the Greek government issues to close the circle. Then they blame Greece for going into debt once the ponzi scheme reaches i…

> The eternal problem is that exporting is giving away the output of your people in return for a shiny bauble

That's an important point!

In the case of China, I'd guess that it was a strategic decision to do so. Being in debt with others gives others political power over you - at least as long as you are not stronger (ultimately, in a physical sense) than them. I guess China wanted to avoid that as long as it wasn't strong enough. Now that China is getting stronger and stronger, they are starting to invest that accumulated capital in order to gain political power over other, weaker nations. That's btw. a hot topic even on Germany, if it's ok to let the Chinese buy local companies and other assets.

In the case of Germany, I don't really understand why it went that way. The surplus seems to have become some kind of fetish. During the Greek crisis, the risks of such imbalances became visible. The big risk for Germany is imo that a major country like France or Italy will tip over politically, leading to the destruction of the Euro. There's no playbook for how to handle that and I guess it would be a messy and ugly political process which may render quite some of those collected "shiny baubles" worthless. With European history in mind, I don't think taking that risk is worth it.

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

#329

Post by nick_meister »

ethnologica wrote: post #313
nick_meister wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I live in a "third world" country (Argentina, one of the worst-performing economies in the world) and just had an interview with a German company (a large SaaS in Berlin) offering relocation to me and my family. Not sure what to do, I have a shit boring remote email marketing job for a US company. But with my small US salary, I live quite well here (own a big house w/ 1000 sqrt. m. garden in a nice small…

From someone living and working in Germany - when enumerating your quality of life, you are living a good life! This is nothing you could get in Germany. You would exchange living in a sunny country, where you own a house and your kids are able to go to a private school with cold and rainy weather (besides summer but summer is short), renting a much smaller apartment compared to your house and a shitty public educati…

Thanks! I appreciate your comments.

Anyway, schooling systems are quite different between ARG and DEU, in Argentina private schools are quite common and the quality of these is quite bad when compared with German Gymnasiums. I know that private schools in Germany are quite uncommon. I attended a Gymnasium in Germany for some months when I was a teenager many many years ago (I'm nearing my 40s) and found the quality of german public schools way better when compared with Argentinian schools (private or public ones). At least Gymnasiums, not sure about Gesamtschules and Realshules.

You are right regarding weather and housing :)

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

#330

Post by nick_meister »

kiney wrote: post #319
nick_meister wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I live in a "third world" country (Argentina, one of the worst-performing economies in the world) and just had an interview with a German company (a large SaaS in Berlin) offering relocation to me and my family. Not sure what to do, I have a shit boring remote email marketing job for a US company. But with my small US salary, I live quite well here (own a big house w/ 1000 sqrt. m. garden in a nice small…

I'm german. In 2004/05 I was in argentina a whole year as an exchange studen. Last year I visited my guest family again. Let me tell you that argentinians are very good in talking argentina way worse than it is. I also travel quite a bit, argentina is _far_ from being third world. In Berlin you will only be able to afford a smallish rented flat with a typical IT salary... used cars in good condition on the other hand…

Awesome thanks! I live in a small city near Cordoba surrounded by mountains, lakes and rivers, and don't like big cities like Buenos Aires or Rosario. How much do you think is needed for renting a medium comfortable appartment or house in Berlin? In a not expensive neighborhood, but neither a bad one.

Will send you a PM if I have more questions :)

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