Why is the German economy so strong?

amigafan2003 said:
They also have excellent labour relations and strong unions. It's well proven that trade Unions have a large positive impact on a countries economy, contributing to higher trained workers, more productive workers, higher retention and having lower workplace injuries and illnesses than non-unionised workplaces. TU's save businesses money in the long term.

http://www.thompsonstradeunionlaw.c...#union_reps_provide_excellent_value_for_money
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Your views on this are clear from your history and your post is less about Germany than it is ~ OH GLORIOUS TU's! ~
 
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I really think a lot this countries problems stem from the class system. Does Germany have a class system like England?

Japan and Germany are quite similar. Both were defeated in WW2 and both created industrial empires from the ruins. Somehow , the people are similar, their societies have lots of rules and the people are serious in way.

We'll never be an industrial country again, it's joke when you hear politicians talking of it.
 
groen said:
:rolleyes:
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Why the rolleyes Groen - is it not true?

[FnG]magnolia;21220065 said:
Your views on this are clear from your history and your post is less about Germany than it is ~ OH GLORIOUS TU's! ~
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I didn't say it was the only reason, merely that it's a contributory factor.

But feel free to ignore the facts if you want ;)
 
King Damager said:
People have explained about their exports being strong but not really properly....

Firstly, they gained a lot from the allied forces helping to rebuild their manufacturing industry after the war. But basically, they have a strong manufacturing industry. This is due to all the reasons that people have said above, good work ethic etc.. etc..

However, what people tend to miss, is how Germany have used the Euro to its advantage. Up until about 2002, Germany was running a positive, but smallish balance of trade. Once the Euro hit, this balance of trade became a lot bigger. This was achieved through the Euro.
Germany has always been one of the strongest currencies in Europe, and, under a floating exchange rate, we would see the Deutsch Mark being a really strong currency - as it was for a number of years. Basically the exchange rate market compensates for the strong economy and exporting industry.

If we consider a Euro of two countries (Germany and Greece - they're good extremes). When Germany entered the Euro, weaker economies, such as Greece, who traditionally would have had a much weaker currency under free floating exchange rates, brought down the strength of the Euro. Therefore, we hit a middle ground. So let's say, against the £, the Deutsche Mark was 1:1 where as the Drachma was 2 Drachma for £1. Now it averages out at about 1.5 Euros per pound for BOTH economies.

This means two things. The Greek economy starts to struggle as it can't produce goods at the correct rate, and it's products are being overvalued, and so it struggles to compete. On the other hand the German economy, becomes very competitive internationally (in the export, and coincidentally manufacturing, market). There high end products that would traditionally have demanded a premium because of the exchange rate with the pound are now being undervalued, and as such their effectively becoming overly competitive. Therefore their goods are selling really well, due to this undervaluing and this is why since about 2002 - the time that the Euro was created - Germany's balance of trade has increased massively.

They're basically doing exactly the same thing the Chinese are doing, whereby the Chinese fix their exchange rate low, to boost their exports. However, whereas America complain about the Chinese doing it, because it is very obvious, there are not so many complaints about the Germans because they're doing it under the cover of the Euro.

I've tried to make the theory in this as simple as possible, but this is basically why the German export market is so strong. It's also why they wouldn't want the Euro to collapse.


On top of this strong export market, Germany didn't fall into Gordon Brown's trap of 'Boom and bust is over'... Rather than taking the advantage of boosting the economy as much as possible during the boom pre-recession time, Germany actually maintained a relatively high (compared to the UK), unemployment level, but this meant that when the recession came, they didn't see the massive increase in unemployment, because their unemployment level was not artificially lowered by the Boom, and was therefore relatively stable. Stable unemployment level also helps stable inflation rate - see Phillips Curve.


Anyway, that's the long version of 'they export a lot' tl;dr

kd
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Basically this. Good explanation mate.

Also the fact that Germany is the biggest nation in Europe doesn't hurt, as they have always had a massive internal Market. In comparison a country like sweden, which has some manufacturing and similar attitudes, would never be able to be as strong economically because they are much smaller.
 
It must have a lot to do with the school system and the nature of the syllabus. I assume that the german syllabus has more practical studies with focuses on metal work and wood work which I think have been removed from the British syllabus.
 
I don't think I own a single German product

Asian all the way

The big myth about German stuff being better is not quite true plus its generally a hell of a lot more than its Japanese/Chinese counter part in terms of selling price.
 
Tombstone said:
Its one of those ironies that two nations which lost ww2 , Germany and Japan, are now such comparative powerhouses.
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Actually it really isn't irony. Japan and Germany were able to launch their wars because they were already highly industrialized (for the standards of the time mind you). Ideology went hand in hand with capability. They had an advantage. They used it. They both went too far and were beaten back as a result. It is no coincidence that both came out of the war as strong industrial nations. The Ideology was what actually was defeated with capability only being set back for a brief time.
 
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It's no coincedence that the 2 nations forced to seriously restrict their military after WW2 did so well economically.
 
Nitefly said:
Germans are powerful because they are German.

When they want something done, then it gets done.
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As someone who lived there for five years (and bought an apartment) I can tell you now that certainly isn't always the case, especially when it comes to things like banks, mortgages, tax etc. There is more red tape than you'd imagine. And Amigafan's post reminded me how difficult it is getting anything done with shoddy workers due to the terrible amount of power the workers council have over there. I worked with some terribly lazy people over there (believe it or not) because they knew they couldn't be touched. Having experienced both sides of the coin I am so glad our unions don't have as much power over here.

Oh, and good luck getting anything done on a Sunday. :D
 
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It's not just strong manufacturing it's forward thinking and investment. They dont have so many whingers or at least they ignore them.

It's like the huge research in to hydrogen as well as grid storage which includes batteries. They've also purchased ~50% of the PV cell supply.
It's things like this IMO. They invest and spend money now that in 10-20 years not only means they have cheap sustainable energy but they have the expertise and products to sell to the world.
 
Glaucus said:
It's not just strong manufacturing it's forward thinking and investment. They dont have so many whingers or at least they ignore them.
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Oh how the grass is greener, you seem to forget they are on a course to completely destroy their own nuclear industry as a result of pandering to the whingers..
 
[TW]Fox;21220452 said:
Oh how the grass is greener, you seem to forget they are on a course to completely destroy their own nuclear industry as a result of pandering to the whingers..
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It amuses me somewhat how people who have never lived somewhere seem to think they know exactly what it's like to live and work there and what the people are like. Good old stereotypes!
 
aardvark said:
they have a great work ethic, they work hard, they value science and engineering - frankly, they are better than us.
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They do still have their own problems. I'm under the impression that there are large multi-cultural issues and racism problems not too dissimilar from here, particuarly in relation to Turkish communities.
 
[TW]Fox;21220452 said:
Oh how the grass is greener, you seem to forget they are on a course to completely destroy their own nuclear industry as a result of pandering to the whingers..
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That isn't a bad thing for Germany. They don't need it, it doesn't fit in with their plans and it wasn't giving in, it was just good timing for politics to kill it and focus on what they need to.
 
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