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Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

bloomberg.com

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Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#121

Post by lenkite »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #52

I've lived in Berlin for fifteen years now. My view is very different from what this article is portraying. Germany definitely has issues. Some of them are short term issues. Some of them self inflicted. And others have been issues for a long time. But all of these are fixable. All it takes is change. Change is hard for Germans but if you look at their history, you see that that wasn't always the case. They are hard…

> 2) There's an energy crisis that was caused by the Russians

Didn't EU sanctions cause the energy crisis ? How did the Russians cause it ? From someone who is not in the NATO sphere, I can only marvel at how Germany can suicide themselves so effectively. Now, they are buying Gas from the U.S at 2-4x prices. The U.S. gas billionaires laugh their way to the bank while Germans fall into poverty.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#122

Post by zrn900 »

b212 wrote: post #115

Im Polish. 20 years ago my parents were taking 1-2 months of PTO every year to work on German farms. 2 months * 2 people and you could’ve renovated a whole mid-sized flat or get a decent 3 years old car. Now I’m making 2-3x more after taxes than my German friends. Yes, I’m self employed and yes I’ll need to take care of my own retirement but I’ll be better off after 1-2 years of putting $100k in ETFs than they could…

What do taxes have to do with German industry going bankrupt because their cheap oil and gas have been cut due to the sanctions against Russia...

Those taxes made all that infrastructure that Europe uses possible. From fast trains to ports. Also, those taxes help you avoid paying $1000 per head for healthcare and then up to $18,000 out of pocket every year labeled as 'copay' until the medical insurance picks up... then tries everything it can to reject paying. Then up to $3000/month for a small room in a shared flat for housing, and then a few thousand on food and other costs.

And like they said - if you think that juniors in California take home $135k after taxes, you are living in a very different universe.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#123

Post by Helmut10001 »

mendigou wrote: post #88
Helmut10001 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice summary, thank you. As a German who has spend significant time in the US, too, I could not put my finger on the missing part within all these pessimistic other comments. But it is there: Germany and the US are still very similar, if you leave some details aside. Just the timing is problematic at the moment. We will see. One big question is whether we can stop the AfD. The next big question is if we can channel a…

How is Germany similar to the US? Perhaps in the enshittification of society, but certainty not in the forces that drive innovation. Germany could be that innovation hub in Europe, and it seems incredibly resistant to do so. And all of the EU is trailing behind, unfortunately.

This is what I meant with timing: Germany's innovative younger people are held captive by a large conservative older generation that is pushing for security, which leads to overarching bureaucracy. This is especially bad in Germany because the government tries to regulate every tiny detail. Due to missing digitalization, they are failing on a grant scale.

On the other hand, this doesn't mean as you say that Germany has no potential to be an innovation hub. It just cannot use the potential currently. If you live here, you will see many good signs: Open source is strong. Chaos Computer Club mentality spreads and there is a fighting back against the government digital opression.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#125

Post by nradov »

throwaway4good wrote: post #63
skippyboxedhero wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. BASF is investing heavily in China. Nothing tells you more about this problem than the most German of companies moving to China. BASF's largest plant in Germany was hooked up directly to Russian gas. Russian gas is now going to China. So are BASF. I don't think regulation or subsidies are to blame either. Eastern Europe is receiving heavy investment because they have costs for workers under control and can p…

While the media focuses on China, Germany invests much more in the US. And if you summarize the investment in eastern europe, it is probably larger as well. The current government has famously green policies: Shutting down nuclear plants and perhaps have a willingness to accept heavy industry leaving Germany. It is however a very unpopular government so I don't know if those policies will hold long term.

There's nothing "green" about shutting down nuclear power plants.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#126

Post by ulfw »

pgeorgi wrote: post #55
vmchale wrote: post #44

Shutting down nuclear plants surely couldn't have helped.

The last new nuclear plant to go online in Germany was Greifswald 5 in November 1989. For 23 days. Given the massive failure of AVR Jülich, whose design was supposed to be "fail safe" while it's now the most 90Sr-contaminated nuclear facility world-wide, and the corruption around it, there's little trust that even if the technology is safe, operations would be. That accident in Jülich was 1979, rumors that something…

Germany getting rid of nuclear power will not make Germany any safer at all. Cattenom and Fessenheim to name just two examples are French power plants within viewing distance of the German border. The latter even having a German name due to history.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#127

Post by ulfw »

treprinum wrote: post #6
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #5

The article lists a lot of things going bad for Germany. But was there some underlying reason? Like demographics, shrinking population? Or is it just the obvious , Russian gas, rising Energy costs, now their prices are too high, so exports are down.

I'd say the main problem is "leadersh*t", incompetent captains of industry. It's so pervasive and prevalent that I really don't see any hope for them. People are also getting more and more unprofessional and expect high pay for subpar results. Devs on the other hand are hugely underpaid and the country operates in a two caste system of managers vs everybody else though not as badly as the UK. There is also a high ave…

100% this. In order to become a company leader in Germany you have to do things in a conservative way how 'it's always been done'. Be male, older and have a Ph.D. Just look at an average board of directors and you'll see 90% PhDs. No, they aren't any more intelligent or better educated nor trained. They just sucked up for more and more years to a professor at uni to get their PhD in something business. Doesn't help at all in actually RUNNING a business, but that's just how it's been done to get ahead.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#128

Post by [deleted] »

jijijijij wrote: post #114
nradov wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data doesn't support your argument. US homeownership rate is 66%. People are still buying. It has only become unaffordable in a handful of cities.

Who is buying? Affordability is at at the lowest point since the 90s. Look at the age developments... https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/homeownership-rate-... https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2023/06/homes/housing-ma...

[deleted]

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#129

Post by mdekkers »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #52

I've lived in Berlin for fifteen years now. My view is very different from what this article is portraying. Germany definitely has issues. Some of them are short term issues. Some of them self inflicted. And others have been issues for a long time. But all of these are fixable. All it takes is change. Change is hard for Germans but if you look at their history, you see that that wasn't always the case. They are hard…

> They inherited a booming economy and have been reluctant to change because they never had to. And now they are old and incapable of change, like most old people.

Can you share your unique insights about the characteristics of other demographic groups, and their impact on German society? Immigrants, perhaps? People of color? Muslims?

As a “old person” (not a boomer, before you “OK, Boomer” me) I deal with folks like you in the workplace every day. I have to listen to “oh you are too old to understand”, and “you are just too old to change” regularly told to all colleagues over 50.

Those prejudices are shameful.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#130

Post by anovikov »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #19

Germany's strategy has been to offer higher quality products at a huge markup. Just using the auto industry as an example, in the past twenty years the difference in quality between a mass market vehicle and a luxury vehicle has compressed. Competing on quality seems to be getting harder. The Anglophone economies, whose shift to services away from manufacturing has been ballyhooed and decried in many quarters, embrac…

Well, that's an understatement. In quality in particular, as in - in reliability of actual vehicles - German automakers have probably been worse than Japanese and Korean since at least 1980s. So much money is made on BMW repairs that break all the time. Now with the Japanese cars being so much more reliable and cheaper, and electric cars - first Tesla but coming up soon, even much better and cheaper Chinese ones - are also higher performance and have more of a "cool" factor - i don't know who still buys German cars.
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