5 ms·

Where and how are the german companies beating the US ? US wealth is borrowed wealth ? From whom did they borrow it then ?

fwdpropaganda 8y ago
> Where and how are the german companies beating the US ? Have you seen many American cars on the road lately? Not a rhetorical question, I'm actually expecting an answer.
- holydude 8y ago
  I did in Norway :-). Seriously picking a car industry which is and always had been different in the US than in Eu is a shitty example to prove a point. If it would not be for your liberal americans throwing billions at your german cars they would be nothing compared to what they are now. Ever been to SK ? How many non korean cars have you seen ? The entire IT industry dwarfs everything Europe has or will have in the next decades and still it is just a fraction of the US of A produces or trades with the world. Besides Germany is your China of europe dumping shit to weaker markets en masse. Just looking at the list of largest german companies gives you a hint of how Germany really operates.
  - fwdpropaganda 8y ago
    > Seriously picking a car industry which is and always had been different in the US than in Eu is a shitty example to prove a point. (etc) I'm not trying to "prove a point". You asked for an example ("Where and how are the german companies beating the US ?") and I gave you one: German car companies are beating american car companies in the us. So before you change the subject into china, south korea, the IT industry, weaker markets, mass production, and so on and on, can you first acknowledge that you asked for an example of German companies beating american ones, and I gave you exactly one such example?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - mpweiher 8y ago
    Well, you asked for an example, so you were given an example. However, I agree that examples are not all that useful. Numbers are, and these show that, in aggregate, German companies are beating US companies, individual sectors notwithstanding. And the US is borrowing tons of money from the outside world and has been doing that for decades. Now you can try to dispute that, but you'd need to come up with some solid arguments backed with data. Certainly your point that these awful commies are mooching off the great capitalists is ... a little off base. As in not compatible with the facts.
    - holydude 8y ago
      Your inability to understand the subject is astounding. Funny how you demand from me to show you numbers when you are not doing so yourself .. but what can i expect from a german right ? ;) My point was never about commies mooching off the great capitalists so again you missed this one as well. The point was that the european economies gained its wealth and glory by employing capitalist practiced in the countries of 2nd and 3rd world while pretending moral superiority and bad mouthing countries like the US or China.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - dang 8y ago
        You violated the site guidelines badly more than once in this wretched flamewar. That's bad, and we ban accounts that do this. We've also had to warn you before about this. Would you please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site only as intended from now on? The rules are the way they are because we don't want this community to destroy itself. If it's valuable enough for you to participate in, it's valuable enough for you to help preserve it. Helping to wreck it is incongruent, and I'm sure you're not doing that intentionally, but unfortunately the effects are the same.
        fwdpropaganda 8y ago
mpweiher 8y ago
Just in 2017, the US had a $64 billion trade deficit with Germany. 2016 was pretty much the same, and as I said, it's been like that for a long, long time. And no, that's not by dumping cheap products due to low labor costs. Labor costs in the industrial sector tend to be quite a bit higher in Germany, strong unions and labor protection and all that awful "socialist" stuff. The surplus is because German products are high quality and are in demand. In fact, most of the top categories of exports are the same for the US and Germany, so it's a pretty direct competition. Overall, the US trade deficit was $478 billion in 2016. Recently, Germany had a trade surplus with China, despite the much lower Chinese wages. The US current accounts deficit is very similar in scale, at $462 billion in 2017. That's the difference between the amount that the US (private+public) borrowed from foreign countries and the amount that foreign countries borrowed from the US.
- holydude 8y ago
  That is very much a false dichotomy. Your german products are of good quality but largely overvalued and this shows when Trump threatens with tariffs ;). There is actually very little that makes as much money for the germans and is not directly connected to a field where german companies have a specific monopoly. I hope you are joking right now and know how borrowing public and private money works.
  - mpweiher 8y ago
    LOL. You have to threaten tariffs when you can't compete. And yes, unlike you, I do know how borrowing money works: the US is currently borrowing half a trillion dollars per year from foreign sources, net.
    - dang 8y ago
      Would you please stop using HN for flamewars? It's totally not ok, and you've done it a lot and we've had to warn you about it repeatedly. You've posted many awesome things to Hacker News so we'd hate to ban you, but protecting the site from flames is more important. This is a problem we need you to fix. Please read and follow https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and help take care of this place instead of helping to wreck it. I'm sure you wouldn't fuel flames in a forest or a garden, so please don't fuel them here.

fwdpropaganda 8y ago

> Where and how are the german companies beating the US ? Have you seen many American cars on the road lately? Not a rhetorical question, I'm actually expecting an answer.

holydude 8y ago
I did in Norway :-). Seriously picking a car industry which is and always had been different in the US than in Eu is a shitty example to prove a point. If it would not be for your liberal americans throwing billions at your german cars they would be nothing compared to what they are now. Ever been to SK ? How many non korean cars have you seen ? The entire IT industry dwarfs everything Europe has or will have in the next decades and still it is just a fraction of the US of A produces or trades with the world. Besides Germany is your China of europe dumping shit to weaker markets en masse. Just looking at the list of largest german companies gives you a hint of how Germany really operates.
- fwdpropaganda 8y ago
  > Seriously picking a car industry which is and always had been different in the US than in Eu is a shitty example to prove a point. (etc) I'm not trying to "prove a point". You asked for an example ("Where and how are the german companies beating the US ?") and I gave you one: German car companies are beating american car companies in the us. So before you change the subject into china, south korea, the IT industry, weaker markets, mass production, and so on and on, can you first acknowledge that you asked for an example of German companies beating american ones, and I gave you exactly one such example?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mpweiher 8y ago
  Well, you asked for an example, so you were given an example. However, I agree that examples are not all that useful. Numbers are, and these show that, in aggregate, German companies are beating US companies, individual sectors notwithstanding. And the US is borrowing tons of money from the outside world and has been doing that for decades. Now you can try to dispute that, but you'd need to come up with some solid arguments backed with data. Certainly your point that these awful commies are mooching off the great capitalists is ... a little off base. As in not compatible with the facts.
  - holydude 8y ago
    Your inability to understand the subject is astounding. Funny how you demand from me to show you numbers when you are not doing so yourself .. but what can i expect from a german right ? ;) My point was never about commies mooching off the great capitalists so again you missed this one as well. The point was that the european economies gained its wealth and glory by employing capitalist practiced in the countries of 2nd and 3rd world while pretending moral superiority and bad mouthing countries like the US or China.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - dang 8y ago
      You violated the site guidelines badly more than once in this wretched flamewar. That's bad, and we ban accounts that do this. We've also had to warn you before about this. Would you please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use the site only as intended from now on? The rules are the way they are because we don't want this community to destroy itself. If it's valuable enough for you to participate in, it's valuable enough for you to help preserve it. Helping to wreck it is incongruent, and I'm sure you're not doing that intentionally, but unfortunately the effects are the same.
      - fwdpropaganda 8y ago

mpweiher 8y ago

Just in 2017, the US had a $64 billion trade deficit with Germany. 2016 was pretty much the same, and as I said, it's been like that for a long, long time. And no, that's not by dumping cheap products due to low labor costs. Labor costs in the industrial sector tend to be quite a bit higher in Germany, strong unions and labor protection and all that awful "socialist" stuff. The surplus is because German products are high quality and are in demand. In fact, most of the top categories of exports are the same for the US and Germany, so it's a pretty direct competition. Overall, the US trade deficit was $478 billion in 2016. Recently, Germany had a trade surplus with China, despite the much lower Chinese wages. The US current accounts deficit is very similar in scale, at $462 billion in 2017. That's the difference between the amount that the US (private+public) borrowed from foreign countries and the amount that foreign countries borrowed from the US.

holydude 8y ago
That is very much a false dichotomy. Your german products are of good quality but largely overvalued and this shows when Trump threatens with tariffs ;). There is actually very little that makes as much money for the germans and is not directly connected to a field where german companies have a specific monopoly. I hope you are joking right now and know how borrowing public and private money works.
- mpweiher 8y ago
  LOL. You have to threaten tariffs when you can't compete. And yes, unlike you, I do know how borrowing money works: the US is currently borrowing half a trillion dollars per year from foreign sources, net.
  - dang 8y ago
    Would you please stop using HN for flamewars? It's totally not ok, and you've done it a lot and we've had to warn you about it repeatedly. You've posted many awesome things to Hacker News so we'd hate to ban you, but protecting the site from flames is more important. This is a problem we need you to fix. Please read and follow https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and help take care of this place instead of helping to wreck it. I'm sure you wouldn't fuel flames in a forest or a garden, so please don't fuel them here.