5 ms·

Germany doesn’t compete in cheap manufacturing, they compete in highly precise manufacturing. There are bunch of things that are only manufactured in Germany. Y

by mertbio 11mo ago

Germany doesn’t compete in cheap manufacturing, they compete in highly precise manufacturing. There are bunch of things that are only manufactured in Germany. You don’t hear those companies that much because they are not public but they are well known by the people who work in specific industries. When you combine them, they are way bigger than the German companies you hear everyday which are laying off people or closing factories. For some reason, every time Europe is mentioned, there is always a comment about how Europe is struggling but when you look at the quality of life, happiness or life expectancy, all those numbers are higher than the US. People should stop obsessing with GDP.

constantcrying 11mo ago
I know many of these companies and I have even been invited to some of them. I am not some American desperate to insult Europeans. I am a German, I work in the German industry, my livelihood depends on this economy. >When you combine them, they are way bigger than the German companies you hear everyday which are laying off people or closing factories. This plainly is not true. Even the "small champions" are struggling, because they are mostly suppliers to the large companies. A very significant part of the "Mittelstand" exists as specialized suppliers to the German car, Aerospace and Railway companies. If those are struggling, then the suppliers feel the pain just as much.
- locallost 11mo ago
  I am not German, but I live in Germany and things can be debated in detail and from various viewpoints. Things are rarely black and white. But I am getting kind of tired of the canned half informed opinions like "outrageous energy prices" usually although not always followed by "closing cheap nuclear will do that for you". Energy like natural gas is still elevated compared to 2021 but it's nowhere near outrageous anymore. Electricity as an end consumer I can now get cheaper than in e.g. France, and they just announced dirt cheap industry prices etc. So things can be complex, what was the case in 2023 might not be in 2025. Things change but it takes too much effort to question if what was true two years ago is still really true, so we are stuck with these lazy views.
  - constantcrying 11mo ago
    I did not even mention energy prices in my post. But it is a basic truth that high energy prices reduce the competitiveness of industry. >and they just announced dirt cheap industry prices Any person who thinks that this is any more than a figleaf lacks basic economic understanding. Where does the German government get money? From German industry. The industry price is a tax break. But you are also right, just continuously talking about the price of energy is another way to avoid talking about the structural issues. Lack of cost competitiveness does not just come from differences in the price of electricity. The hard truth is that the Chinese are very good at manufacturing. Even for high quality products. For decades they have only gotten better and have taken over more and more industries, they did this by being cheaper and better, while also innovating. The future of the German industry depends on rising to that challenge and actually being able to stay better than the Chinese. If you work somewhere in German industry, a phrase you are going to hear is "so haben wir das immer schon gemacht" (this is the way we have always done this) and you will find an institutional unwillingness, from the management down to the staff, to engage in radical change, to try new things and to embrace new technologies. This protects German industry from fads, which quickly fade, but it also means that it is always at risk of drastically falling behind when it comes to genuinely superior ways of working.
    - mertbio 11mo ago
      > Where does the German government get money? From German industry. This is not true. Two biggest income source for the government is sales tax and income tax. https://www.bundeshaushalt.de/DE/Bundeshaushalt-digital/bundeshaushalt-digital.html https://www.bundeshaushalt.de/DE/Bundeshaushalt-digital/bund...
      - constantcrying 11mo ago
        Come on, at least try thinking about this. How does someone get money to pay income or sales tax with? Exactly, from his job, what are the high paying jobs in Germany? Exactly, the German industry. The German industry has been a decade long wealth generator. For the citizens of Germany and the government.
AlexandrB 11mo ago
GDP is a leading indicator. You can't fund European-style transit and social services forever if there's less money coming in.
- mk89 11mo ago
  Which is why is not a good indicator... Government overspending, for example, increases the GDP.
  - gruez 11mo ago
    No, GDP is a necessary but not sufficient condition for lavish government services. Yes, there are ways to juice GDP figures without actually having a functioning economy that can support lavish government services, but if your GDP is flat or declining, there's no way you'll be able to continue affording lavish government services.
    - mk89 11mo ago
      You can make debt, as many governments have been doing until now... And debt (spending) ironically will increase the GDP. If a company keeps on producing goods and doesn't sell them? That increases also the GDP. ( as long as they don't throw them away ) If a government makes debt to buy weapons and increase the army? Look at the Russian +4% GDP just because of that. However, how sustainable is that? The GDP doesn't care at all about that. The GDP doesn't provide the full picture of how a country is doing economically, but it's good to have a first overview to later do a deep dive into, but so are other "tools". It's an old tool created 100 years ago, and we keep on using it although the world has changed drastically since then.
noobermin 11mo ago
certain people want the rest of the world to become like china and india, top down sweatshops so they can squeeze just a little more dollar out of people
trueismywork 11mo ago
Even those companies are struggling nowadays with quality of goods made in China improving extremely fast. > For some reason, every time Europe is mentioned, there is always a comment about how Europe is struggling but when you look at the quality of life, happiness or life expectancy, all those numbers are higher than the US. But quality of life in Europe is decreasing fast. Pension is becoming unsustainable. Govts are going bankrupt. Infrastructure is collapsing. People correctly see that Europe as a whole will fall behind in some years unless things change
- croes 11mo ago
  And millionaires and billionaires become more and more. The problem isn’t money but the distribution. Volkswagen payed 4.5 billion in dividends in 2024
  - gruez 11mo ago
    >Volkswagen payed 4.5 billion in dividends in 2024 How does that compare to Germany's deficit? Or their impending pension obligations?
  - constantcrying 11mo ago
    >Volkswagen payed 4.5 billion in dividends in 2024 German industry also provides millions of high paying jobs to German citizens. In the last decades a career in any of these companies meant guaranteed financial stability to each of the employees. The "downside" of having good paying, high quality, stable jobs is the existence of billionaires. The narcissistic complaint that billionaires should not exist, when their existence is just the direct consequence of having a functioning economy is so absurd. What matters is whether these companies are good for the population, which they are. By the way, guess where a significant part of that 4.5 billion went? And not just as taxes.
    - hulitu 11mo ago
      > German industry also provides millions of high paying jobs to German citizens provided. Until some time ago. The layoffs have started since some time.
fransje26 11mo ago
> There are bunch of things that are only manufactured in Germany. You don’t hear those companies that much because they are not public but they are well known by the people who work in specific industries. There is small town of 35,000 inhabitants around the corner from where I live. It produces 50% of the world's surgical equipment, from a base of around 600 companies. There are good reasons why "made in Germany" is not as dead as some people want us to believe.
- jiggawatts 11mo ago
  A common talking point is that the number of people working in engineering is decreasing over time. The implication is that "we are making less", but the real story is that "we are making things more efficiently". A case in point is agriculture in Australia, where a crop farm might be as big as a thousand acres, whereas its common in SEA for a family to have just one or two acres. The huge scale is enabled by multi-million dollar tractors, drones, huge irrigation systems, etc... German manufacturing is the same.
  - bryanlarsen 11mo ago
    Google says that the average farm size in Australia is 10,000 acres. I didn't think they were significantly smaller than the farms in Saskatchewan Canada which average 2,000 acres.
    - jiggawatts 11mo ago
      The average is pulled up a lot by huge cattle ranches, crop farms are much smaller.
      - bryanlarsen 11mo ago
        No they're not. > A survey of farm practices with 1312 grain producers found that in 2011, the average farm size was 3810 ha (a little less than 10,000 acres) https://www.yieldgap.org/australia https://www.yieldgap.org/australia 1000 acres i too small to be economic as a wheat producer in Saskatchewan, Canada. I suspect it's the same in Australia. Definitely cannot support multi-million dollar tractors or combine harvesters. The rule of thumb in Saskatchewan is about 10,000 acres per employee. There are lots of farms with less than 10,000 acres, but they generally don't have employees.

by mertbio 11mo ago

constantcrying 11mo ago

I know many of these companies and I have even been invited to some of them. I am not some American desperate to insult Europeans. I am a German, I work in the German industry, my livelihood depends on this economy. >When you combine them, they are way bigger than the German companies you hear everyday which are laying off people or closing factories. This plainly is not true. Even the "small champions" are struggling, because they are mostly suppliers to the large companies. A very significant part of the "Mittelstand" exists as specialized suppliers to the German car, Aerospace and Railway companies. If those are struggling, then the suppliers feel the pain just as much.

locallost 11mo ago
I am not German, but I live in Germany and things can be debated in detail and from various viewpoints. Things are rarely black and white. But I am getting kind of tired of the canned half informed opinions like "outrageous energy prices" usually although not always followed by "closing cheap nuclear will do that for you". Energy like natural gas is still elevated compared to 2021 but it's nowhere near outrageous anymore. Electricity as an end consumer I can now get cheaper than in e.g. France, and they just announced dirt cheap industry prices etc. So things can be complex, what was the case in 2023 might not be in 2025. Things change but it takes too much effort to question if what was true two years ago is still really true, so we are stuck with these lazy views.
- constantcrying 11mo ago
  I did not even mention energy prices in my post. But it is a basic truth that high energy prices reduce the competitiveness of industry. >and they just announced dirt cheap industry prices Any person who thinks that this is any more than a figleaf lacks basic economic understanding. Where does the German government get money? From German industry. The industry price is a tax break. But you are also right, just continuously talking about the price of energy is another way to avoid talking about the structural issues. Lack of cost competitiveness does not just come from differences in the price of electricity. The hard truth is that the Chinese are very good at manufacturing. Even for high quality products. For decades they have only gotten better and have taken over more and more industries, they did this by being cheaper and better, while also innovating. The future of the German industry depends on rising to that challenge and actually being able to stay better than the Chinese. If you work somewhere in German industry, a phrase you are going to hear is "so haben wir das immer schon gemacht" (this is the way we have always done this) and you will find an institutional unwillingness, from the management down to the staff, to engage in radical change, to try new things and to embrace new technologies. This protects German industry from fads, which quickly fade, but it also means that it is always at risk of drastically falling behind when it comes to genuinely superior ways of working.
  - mertbio 11mo ago
    > Where does the German government get money? From German industry. This is not true. Two biggest income source for the government is sales tax and income tax. https://www.bundeshaushalt.de/DE/Bundeshaushalt-digital/bundeshaushalt-digital.html https://www.bundeshaushalt.de/DE/Bundeshaushalt-digital/bund...
    - constantcrying 11mo ago
      Come on, at least try thinking about this. How does someone get money to pay income or sales tax with? Exactly, from his job, what are the high paying jobs in Germany? Exactly, the German industry. The German industry has been a decade long wealth generator. For the citizens of Germany and the government.

AlexandrB 11mo ago

GDP is a leading indicator. You can't fund European-style transit and social services forever if there's less money coming in.

mk89 11mo ago
Which is why is not a good indicator... Government overspending, for example, increases the GDP.
- gruez 11mo ago
  No, GDP is a necessary but not sufficient condition for lavish government services. Yes, there are ways to juice GDP figures without actually having a functioning economy that can support lavish government services, but if your GDP is flat or declining, there's no way you'll be able to continue affording lavish government services.
  - mk89 11mo ago
    You can make debt, as many governments have been doing until now... And debt (spending) ironically will increase the GDP. If a company keeps on producing goods and doesn't sell them? That increases also the GDP. ( as long as they don't throw them away ) If a government makes debt to buy weapons and increase the army? Look at the Russian +4% GDP just because of that. However, how sustainable is that? The GDP doesn't care at all about that. The GDP doesn't provide the full picture of how a country is doing economically, but it's good to have a first overview to later do a deep dive into, but so are other "tools". It's an old tool created 100 years ago, and we keep on using it although the world has changed drastically since then.

noobermin 11mo ago

certain people want the rest of the world to become like china and india, top down sweatshops so they can squeeze just a little more dollar out of people

trueismywork 11mo ago

Even those companies are struggling nowadays with quality of goods made in China improving extremely fast. > For some reason, every time Europe is mentioned, there is always a comment about how Europe is struggling but when you look at the quality of life, happiness or life expectancy, all those numbers are higher than the US. But quality of life in Europe is decreasing fast. Pension is becoming unsustainable. Govts are going bankrupt. Infrastructure is collapsing. People correctly see that Europe as a whole will fall behind in some years unless things change

croes 11mo ago
And millionaires and billionaires become more and more. The problem isn’t money but the distribution. Volkswagen payed 4.5 billion in dividends in 2024
- gruez 11mo ago
  >Volkswagen payed 4.5 billion in dividends in 2024 How does that compare to Germany's deficit? Or their impending pension obligations?
- constantcrying 11mo ago
  >Volkswagen payed 4.5 billion in dividends in 2024 German industry also provides millions of high paying jobs to German citizens. In the last decades a career in any of these companies meant guaranteed financial stability to each of the employees. The "downside" of having good paying, high quality, stable jobs is the existence of billionaires. The narcissistic complaint that billionaires should not exist, when their existence is just the direct consequence of having a functioning economy is so absurd. What matters is whether these companies are good for the population, which they are. By the way, guess where a significant part of that 4.5 billion went? And not just as taxes.
  - hulitu 11mo ago
    > German industry also provides millions of high paying jobs to German citizens provided. Until some time ago. The layoffs have started since some time.

fransje26 11mo ago

> There are bunch of things that are only manufactured in Germany. You don’t hear those companies that much because they are not public but they are well known by the people who work in specific industries. There is small town of 35,000 inhabitants around the corner from where I live. It produces 50% of the world's surgical equipment, from a base of around 600 companies. There are good reasons why "made in Germany" is not as dead as some people want us to believe.

jiggawatts 11mo ago
A common talking point is that the number of people working in engineering is decreasing over time. The implication is that "we are making less", but the real story is that "we are making things more efficiently". A case in point is agriculture in Australia, where a crop farm might be as big as a thousand acres, whereas its common in SEA for a family to have just one or two acres. The huge scale is enabled by multi-million dollar tractors, drones, huge irrigation systems, etc... German manufacturing is the same.
- bryanlarsen 11mo ago
  Google says that the average farm size in Australia is 10,000 acres. I didn't think they were significantly smaller than the farms in Saskatchewan Canada which average 2,000 acres.
  - jiggawatts 11mo ago
    The average is pulled up a lot by huge cattle ranches, crop farms are much smaller.
    - bryanlarsen 11mo ago
      No they're not. > A survey of farm practices with 1312 grain producers found that in 2011, the average farm size was 3810 ha (a little less than 10,000 acres) https://www.yieldgap.org/australia https://www.yieldgap.org/australia 1000 acres i too small to be economic as a wheat producer in Saskatchewan, Canada. I suspect it's the same in Australia. Definitely cannot support multi-million dollar tractors or combine harvesters. The rule of thumb in Saskatchewan is about 10,000 acres per employee. There are lots of farms with less than 10,000 acres, but they generally don't have employees.