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

Post by scrubs » Sun, Feb 11, 2024, 9:47 PM UTC

jhbadger wrote: post #147

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…

The problem with the "Anglophone" strategy of focusing on ideas -- like the old "Designed in California. Assembled in China" statement that used to be on Apple iPods, is what happens when China (and elsewhere) start having their own designers (which is starting to happen)? What value will California provide then?

Post by davidf18 » Mon, Feb 12, 2024, 1:16 AM UTC

lenkite wrote: post #121

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.

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Mon, Feb 12, 2024, 11:01 AM UTC

scrubs wrote: post #151

jhbadger wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the "Anglophone" strategy of focusing on ideas -- like the old "Designed in California. Assembled in China" statement that used to be on Apple iPods, is what happens when China (and elsewhere) start having their own designers (which is starting to happen)? What value will California provide then?

California can still ace software in the long run. Second the secret sauce with apple isn't physical hw or software but the ability to set out both in a integrated fashion and actually get all the parts to hit targets to deliver. Beating apple on software (linux?) is one thing. Ditto hw. Both at the same time is tougher. Apple is operationally strong. That won't leave to China either. Sure they've messed up etc etc b…

Post by pgeorgi » Wed, Feb 14, 2024, 3:48 PM UTC

pgeorgi wrote: post #31

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.

Several decades of politics and industry kicking the can down the road and hoping that the challenges go away by itself. For example: German car makers are still somewhat reluctant to embrace electric motors (no matter the power source or storage) and would like to stay with combustion engines (no matter the combustible) because that's a niche they and the entire downstream industry feel comfortable with. Yes, a larg…