What anemic America can learn from Europeâs export-happy engine and largest social democracy. Germany's unemployment rate is 7.5 percent, below the U.S. rate. In fact, during most of the last decade, Germany was either the world's top exporter or tied for the top spot with China. Yes, a nation of 82 million people outcompeted the United States (307 million) while paying in full for the perks of social democracy. Or, as Geoghegan likes to say, Germans are beating Americans "with one hand tied behind their backs." http://www.alternet.org/vision/147560/america,_there_is_a_better_way:_it’s_called_germany/
but how can we compare? they are the superhumans, it took the combined might of 2 superpowers to defeat them.
As of 2009, Germany had a Debt to GDP ratio of 64%. The debt to GDP of the United States was lower, at 59%. And German debt figures aren't handicapped by spending almost a trillion a year on Defense. So Germany, with higher taxes, no Defense and an economy that fared better than America in the recent recession-i.e. GER was able to spend less on "stimulus" than the U.S.-yet German debt levels are higher than the U.S. as expressed in output. Not to mention the obvious, extrapolating future debt liabilities, Germany's cradle to grave social net is hampered by the same demographics as everywhere else, too many retirees living forever, and not enough frauleins pumping out kids (future workers) to pay for it all. Secondly, do the demographics of the German population resemble America's? I crack up at the stupidity of these moronic pundits who "compare" the U.S. to Germany or Japan or Norway or wherever. I could make the same comparisons between differing American neighborhoods and show huge disparities in economic activity, unemployment, crime and educational levels. Scarsdale probably has 4% unemployment but in the Bronx it's 15%. So are we to believe there's some magical economic policy difference between the two areas accounting for the jobless gap or is assigning policy yardsticks as catalysts nothing more than cherry picking that ignores a plethora of other, more relevant factors? Besides, since the article concedes China is the global export leader, why wouldn't it be more appropriate for the U.S. to follow Chinese standards of virtual slave labor and zero regulation? Most of these articles aren't worth the paper they're written on.
Hello Dollar, Great post, couldn't have said it better myself. I would add that having a wideopen US market to export to is the key to German success. Put a 15% tax on those exports to replace the VAT rebate their exporters get and see how they do. Of course, the euro-dominated World Trade Organisation rigged the rules to protect euorpean exporters and penalize American manufacturers. Euro companies face no health care costs, because the government subsidizes them. Can the US impose an import tax to equalize that? Nope. American companies pay higher taxes because the US does not have VAT. The US tried to equalize that and of course a WTO tribunal said it was illegal under GATT and again protected the europeans. Now w e have a president who wants to give away more of our sovereignty and subject us to the whims and schemes of socialist international bureaucrats.
Lets say the US does go the way of Europe and just dismantles the military. Who is Europe going to call when another Yugoslavia breaks out? China??? ha ha ha ha