The Economist article on Germany
 

I just stumbled across this article on the internet and thought some of you might be interested. It was written earlier this year. I have only glanced over it but here is a preview.

The article is called Modell Deutschland uber alles, which translates to Let's prioritize modeling Germany. It talks about good and bad points of the Germany economy. From what I've seen I think it is full of shit but it might be fun to discuss. IMO a discussion might help visualize differences in corporate constructs.

http://www.economist.com/node/21552579

I'm in "Fiscal Cliff" summer school trying to pull my grade up. Your article will have to wait. However, I work for a German company with some German workers. I'll put the question to them, "Is your economy "wunderbar"?

... saving over spending, and foreign over domestic demand has often been damaging. It has held down Germans' living standards

German living standards are hardly low, IMHO. In my 11 years in Germany, I never really thought that saved too much rather than spent. To me, it seems they may have consumed less in terms of lots of junky foreign products than we do, but they do not hesitate to buy quality and, as such, commonly buy German manufactured goods (which are of uniformly high quality).

For the most part, they drive newer, nicer cars than we do and items such as clothing and other consumer goods in their stores are generally of higher quality than the stuff one sees in our large stores. Plus, virtually nobody on the globe spends more on vacations that Germans, with their six week of vacation per year.

OTOH, I agree that their model isn't really exportable to most other countries, particularly the economic basket-cases south of the Alps. Their economic success is at least as rooted in culture as it is in economic policies.

We all want to make $30 an hour but don't want to do the hard work necessary to support those wages or pay the prices that those wage levels would create. So we export our own jobs to keep the prices down........Then wonder why our (post) industrial cities are a mess and our economy sucks.

I really do think we've become a nation of idiots. Or, maybe we have been all along, but WW2 left us without competition for a couple decades? It's easy to end up on top when everyone else is on their deathbeds.

Regards,
Dave

Got news for y'all, Imelt has seen the light and is bringing back all the GE appliance products to the U.S. - insourcing they call it. Firms that outsourced simply because everyone was doing it have discovered that building stuff in China was really not cheper. Plus how do you innovate if the product is being made somewhere else.

What I learned from my time at Federal Mogul, was that there are problems with controlling the production, process and quality issues long distance. That and social/political situations in some other countries can be a nightmare as well.

Do you have a link, Rob?

Regards,
Dave

I wonder if Germany is just the healthy part of a diseased patient. Interesting thing about letting workers have input with management. I think Harley Davidson did something like that when they were suffering from quality control issues and it brought them back to a healthy place in the market.

I agree, but you have to take a balanced approach to this. Having a "Check your brain at the door and do as you're told." policy for employees is no good. The opposite extreme, leaving the employees to run the entire show while management remains aloof and distant is even worse. Trust me, I've worked under both styles. A management team that knows when to step in and when to back off is what you want. Problem is, you can have a team that gets that, then there is a regime change and everything goes down the toilet.

Reminds me of a line from Rocky Mountain Way;

"Well, she's tellin' you this, then she's tellin' you that, changin' it every day....and says it doesn't matter."

Regards,
Dave

Liberalizing labor rules and holding down wages? ;)

Pete

Why is "holding down wages" a universally good thing?

John

I was commenting on the article ;)

Pete

Pete you post the fewest words but have the most impact....you are like Hemingway in that regard....instigator par excellance

You puzzle me. Who said anything about wages? I'm talking about the practical problems of trying to run a factory from half way around the world.

Regards,
Dave

I guess for the same reason that denial or omission of benefits is a wonderful thing to some people.:confused:

Regards,
Dave

Was it this? This was more about cultural differences like the shitty work ethic that is omnipresent regardless of the presence of labor agreements or pay levels.

Dave

Dave I was comenting on the article! Agreed about work ethic.

I'm like Hemingway? Thanks! I'll be strutting like a peacock all day now :)

Pete

A misogynistic drunk. ;)

John

I recall making this exact point in a post a few months back and got slammed for it by a number of forum members. I'll wait and see what the response is to your post, but I suspect that your comment will be more easily consumed by board members. :rolleyes:

Here's a bit on German union workers in the auto industry.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederic...twice-as-much/

There's another element that goes into the German car companies' profitability. Though their cars contain pretty much the same amount of steel, rubber and leather, the engineering that goes into them adds a lot more value to what finally hits the road. However, the article's comment about collaborative labor relations in Germany is spot-on. Having managed construction in Germany for 8 years, I never once saw evidence of the silly work rules and jurisdictional disputes common on union construction work here.

The German mind seems to start with cooperation when it comes to teamwork. I think a lot of it comes from the language. For example a common greeting in Bavaria is "Servus" which literally means "at your service". Another is Gruss Gott which literally means Greet God. Another is Gruss Dich which is short for God bless you. However increasingly it seems they are using Hallo.

What do we have? Hi. `Sup. Howdy. Our greetings don't have the same sense of community as the German greetings. And as the language goes so goes the mind.