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> All the Hartz reforms did was suppress wages and make the average German poorer. That's exactly what I'm saying. (edit: on the wages and poorer part; it's of

by JanSt 9y ago

> All the Hartz reforms did was suppress wages and make the average German poorer. That's exactly what I'm saying. (edit: on the wages and poorer part; it's of course _NOT_ everything they did) > Germany's industrial success was evident years before they went into effect. > Hartz is like trickle down economics and a lower minimum wage: the wealthy have good reason to love it and the wealthy will make up spurious reasons why you should love it too - which many people will believe. Without those reforms Germany would be part of the European crisis. It was called "the sick man of Europe" not long ago, not without a reason. > China achieved a similar measure of manufacturing success with an education system that was a great deal worse They did mostly mass production by hand while german factories are mostly automated and people there do a lot of higher-value work that requires much more knowledge than the chinese kind of manufacturing. > while the UK has an equally good education system and did not achieve anything like Germany's manufacturing prowess. The UK is and has been much more focused on finance. The brightest will join a bank there, while in Germany they will engineer new things. Germany has 2-3x the number of patents per year compared to the UK > Not everyone. German industrialists (like the guy who wrote this article) love lower wages. Sure, everyone is wrong. Nearly everyone would be right.

crdoconnor 9y ago
"Without those reforms Germany would be part of the European crisis. It was called "the sick man of Europe" not long ago, not without a reason." It would have been fine. Germany was labeled the sick man of Europe in the late 90s. It wasn't Hartz that gave it an economic boost, it was joining the Eurozone. Plenty of other countries have had similar reforms and not experienced any beneficial stimulus (although that doesn't stop European elites trying to ram a pseudo-Hartz down everybody's throats). "They did mostly mass production by hand while german factories are mostly automated and people there do a lot of higher-value work that requires much more knowledge than the chinese kind of manufacturing." This is simply an artefact of the Chinese being poorer while they first enacted this policy. They moved up the value chain and are now close to the top - they're building commercial airliners and designing and building phones every bit as good as an iPhone. In spite of that this education system is still pretty poor and China has not engaged in any reforms similar to Hartz.

by JanSt 9y ago

crdoconnor 9y ago

"Without those reforms Germany would be part of the European crisis. It was called "the sick man of Europe" not long ago, not without a reason." It would have been fine. Germany was labeled the sick man of Europe in the late 90s. It wasn't Hartz that gave it an economic boost, it was joining the Eurozone. Plenty of other countries have had similar reforms and not experienced any beneficial stimulus (although that doesn't stop European elites trying to ram a pseudo-Hartz down everybody's throats). "They did mostly mass production by hand while german factories are mostly automated and people there do a lot of higher-value work that requires much more knowledge than the chinese kind of manufacturing." This is simply an artefact of the Chinese being poorer while they first enacted this policy. They moved up the value chain and are now close to the top - they're building commercial airliners and designing and building phones every bit as good as an iPhone. In spite of that this education system is still pretty poor and China has not engaged in any reforms similar to Hartz.