Did Germany Do Things Right?

[NHartphotog]

Germany took America's place as the Manufacturing Economy of the World, and they reap the benefits.

Thank government for supporting the free-trade idiocy that killed us, and for encouraging businesses to send our jobs overseas. Government sets the rules, and makes the tax policies that make businesses do one thing and not another. Our ruling Elite got the economy that benefits a few at the very, very top. Government loves a few of us working 80 hours a week and generating massive taxes (working too hard to even think of protesting), and the rest not being allowed to work at all (so they get government "programs" sending them money).

[KevK]

Originally Posted by Dane_in_LA

Having worked in both Europe and the US, my impression is the exact opposite. US companies are bloated with middle management who mostly interact with each other or check paperwork, while the ranks of people who actually do things and handle things are steadily thinning.

I am working on a project management certification (yes, I'm part of the problem here) and out of 42 defined processes for project management, one - yes, 1 - is labeled "Execution". Everything else is planning and verification and documentation. Now, I'm not suggesting you do without these things, but the focus seems to have slipped from the enterprise that needs organizing to the process of organizing itself.

I agree with you. Even at my company which is a very large telecom company, they have not hired people in a long time. As workers retire, they just force mandatory overtime to get the work load done. People are working 50 and even 60 hour weeks while unemployment is 10.5%. Does not make a lot of sense to me but it is cheaper for employers to force overtime than to hire new employees to do the work.

[KevK]

Originally Posted by NHartphotog

Germany took America's place as the Manufacturing Economy of the World, and they reap the benefits.

Thank government for supporting the free-trade idiocy that killed us, and for encouraging businesses to send our jobs overseas. Government sets the rules, and makes the tax policies that make businesses do one thing and not another. Our ruling Elite got the economy that benefits a few at the very, very top. Government loves a few of us working 80 hours a week and generating massive taxes (working too hard to even think of protesting), and the rest not being allowed to work at all (so they get government "programs" sending them money).

If there is ever a moment that will be recorded as the beginning of the end of the United States middle class it will be the day that Clinton signed NAFTA into law.

[Lycanmaster]

Germany and France both. They have weathered the economic storm to a much healthier degree than the US has.

[Neuling]

Amazingly despite the strong economy it says on Spiegel (Germany's Time magazine, so to speak) today that 9 out of 10 Germans across all strata of society say Germany has to get away from capitalism as growth is the wrong way.

[Neuling]

I just read an interesting article, which confirms what I have written before on CD, maybe even in this thread, and which people did not believe. Namely, that Germany is doing so well because of its lack of intellectual extremes.

Wider den Exzellenz-Kult: Es lebe das Mittelmaß! - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten - KarriereSPIEGEL
(Maybe you can have it translated in Google...)

Germany doesn't have excellent universities such as Harvard, Stanford, the MIT, etc., nor does it produce Nobel Prize winners, probably because of that lack of elite universities. German universities are just average, both in terms of professors and students. And that is their strength, they produce masses of well-rounded people. And many Germans don't attend college at all, but chose a solid 3 or 4-year apprenticeship instead, which combines theory and practice. The number of societal dropouts is also very small.

In the article, which is based on a book and other studies on this topic, it says that the US on the other hand is much more divided. There is a small intellectual elite, and a vast majority of relatively poorly educated people.

For a functioning society extremes don't really matter, neither geniuses, nor stupid people. The bulk of the population between the extremes is what matters, as boring as that may sound

[Oerdin]

Germany got a lot of things very right. The parlementory system means who ever wins the election actually is free to govern without the opposition blocking everything and creating gridlock as in the US, Germany's pro-union rules require the unions to have seats on the board of directors so there was much less outsourcing of manufacturing plus CEO compensation wasn't allowed to rise out of wack as in the US, Germany has very low business taxes so businesses repatriate their foreign earnings quickly and easily, start ups are freed from most regulations & requirements while getting great tax incentives but that doesn't mean the big multinationals get off scot free and instead they're watched closely, and the #1 thing which makes Germany's economy better (and this is shared with virtually every western nation other then the US) the health care costs are kept very low by national health care. That means German companies don't have to pay huge health care costs like American companies do even though Germany get far better health care then Americans.

It doesn't hurt that in Germany you go to jail if you try to give money to a politician, it's called bribery, unlike in the US where we pretend bribes are just "contributions". That means big donors can't buy special favors or politicians so government corruption is much less then in the US plus the politicians are far more responsive to the wishes of voters.