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Reunification was big. It took em a minute to get their together, but they did. Germany is the prosperous center of Europe, economically and politically.
Why Germany Has It So Good -- and Why America Is Going Down the Drain
While the bad news of the Euro crisis makes headlines in the US, we hear next to nothing about a quiet revolution in Europe. The European Union, 27 member nations with a half billion people, has become the largest, wealthiest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the world's economy -- nearly as large as the US and China combined. Europe has more Fortune 500 companies than either the US, China or Japan.
European nations spend far less than the United States for universal healthcare rated by the World Health Organization as the best in the world, even as U.S. health care is ranked 37th. Europe leads in confronting global climate change with renewable energy technologies, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the process. Europe is twice as energy efficient as the US and their ecological "footprint" (the amount of the earth's capacity that a population consumes) is about half that of the United States for the same standard of living.
Unemployment in the US is widespread and becoming chronic, but when Americans have jobs, we work much longer hours than our peers in Europe. Before the recession, Americans were working 1,804 hours per year versus 1,436 hours for Germans -- the equivalent of nine extra 40-hour weeks per year.
"Since 2003, it's not China but Germany, that colossus of European socialism, that has either led the world in export sales or at least been tied for first. Even as we in the United States fall more deeply into the clutches of our foreign creditors -- China foremost among them -- Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all its jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or any trade deficit at all. And even as the Germans outsell the United States, they manage to take six weeks of vacation every year. They're beating us with one hand tied behind their back."
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/148501
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This is what happens when you have responsible adults running the country rather than greedy corporations and plundering capitalists.
Reunification was big. It took em a minute to get their together, but they did. Germany is the prosperous center of Europe, economically and politically.
They did Fascism pretty damn good too.
Germany also has a low birth rate. Helped somewhat by (gasp) immigration.
HA!
There was an interesting write up on this in the Economist... (digs) Couldn't quite find it.
It noted an interesting contrast between the US and Germany's labor markets. argh. Maybe it was NPR...
WH, call me dense, but I didn't get the picture. ?
Dramatic look prairie dog/gopher. Old internetz meme.
Helps that Germany doesn't spend $650+B a year on defense.
But yes, having come back from a couple of weeks there, it's an amazing country with an amazing infrastructure. Everything just works there ... as long as you don't want to go shopping on Sunday. Worth noting that their marginal tax rates are *much* higher than those in the US (plus they have a sizable VAT, 19%?); at least they're getting a well-run country for their tax dollars.
zing!
(ouch)
Germany is freakin great. As was said, reunification did a number on them, many were afraid of the massive cost of it leading to shirts in the west like "rebuild the wall... TEN FEET HIGHER." It seems, however, that the massive spending programs were justified as they were used mainly on the necessary infrastructure to bring in many high tech, high paying companies and they are reaping the benefits today.
Germany also understands the dangers of defecits and is planning to cut their defecit by 40% over the next 5 years, mostly through spending cuts.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-0...ort-shows.html
We have a German exchange student living with us for the school year (17 year old boy). Debt as Americans know it is unbelievable to the average German. They can't imagine a 30 year mortgage, much less never ending revolving credit. That is how they run their families; it is not surprising that they would demand at least some of that from their government.
Cutting energy subsidies AND the military? Damn centrists with their rationality and common sense approach to problem solving!
I wish more Americans had that mindset. We'd all be better off for it.
Don't those silly Germans know that they're supposed to just keep spending and spending?
Bloede Deutscher!
We can't even agree if spending more money than you make is a bad thing. LOL. Maybe this is what happens when you have publicly funded tuition for all citizens AND a truly representative democracy...
Americans have been suckered into the credit black hole by the finance industry. Most Americans cannot even conceive of living without carrying many $1000s in CC debt.
eg:
Banks in the United States are poised to make $38.5 billion in customer overdraft fees this year,
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5790YM20090810
bank lends you $2 overdraft for cup of coffee = $35 overdraft fee => 1700% interest
Actually much higher than that on an annual basis if you pay the fee the next month.
And on the topic of credit cards and Germany ... we didn't use one until we got to Munich, after nearly a week in-country, and that was to guarantee extra room charges (minibar, etc). The other hotels simply asked us when we checked out if we had consumed anything and collected the amount then. Every meal was paid for in cash. While there were some shops taking credit cards, all the transactions we saw (except in the silly mega-Christmas tourist trap shop in Rothenburg ob der Tauber) were done with cash. Even our hotel accommodations were set up with paper vouchers. I was worried that they wouldn't work but every hotel and attraction happily accepted them.
Youtube works better imo
^^^Genius.
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