How Germany builds twice as many cars as the US

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: pbm
Does Germany have any kind of 'affirmative action' programs.....to make up for WW2?


This is the dumbest excuse for a failing economy, blame a minority group of your population for your jobs going oversea and your mismanagement.

Hey, it is the janitor and office assistance's fault that we have so many problem in our products, right.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
And that appears to have worked well for them, don't you agree?

With a tax structure that all but assures car sales? Sure.

Germany also has far fewer cars per person that does the US. About 72%:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita

So apparently all of those well paying car manufacturing jobs don't necessary translate into more cars for the people. Higher costs maybe?

And $8.50 a gallon gas...who wouldn't love that?


You'll find low car ownership in NYC and high car ownership in New Orleans too, but does that means income in NO is higher than NYC?

The point is Europe as a whole is more densely populated and you do not need a car like anywhere outside of a large US city's downtown. They have infrastructures that makes car ownership not only unnecessary but also annoying (parking and traffic jam mostly).

And the $8.50/gal gas is to offset the huge property tax, income tax, sales tax, 20% federal military budget, etc that you will have to pay for roads, highways, stable oil supply, etc.

 

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
I imagine their thought process works something like this,

How about this thought process:

Having "the government", which actually does exploit people and forcibly lower incomes, come in and make arbitrary rules that will supposedly end the perceived exploitation involved in individual economic transactions?


Haha, you bring up the government. The government did just the opposite, and never really claimed it was trying to help the Big 3 or the UAW. Who's government are you talking about? This one encouraged freely importing of foreign cars, and even payed millions of dollars to the transplants to set up non-union low wage plants. Now, I'm sure you will argue both sides of the fence and say "see it was the gov". BUT THEY ARE FOLLOWING YOUR ECONOMIC THEORY lol. Duh, I've already said they were in on the plan. But that's not the plan in Germany, and wasn't always the plan here. But the gov is not that involved in the transplants operations. Why are they paying half the historical labor rate?

So the article that counters your kind of assertions just disappeared into vapor?

Quote:
Mund points out that the German example goes “against all mainstream wisdom of the neo-liberals. We have strong unions, we have strong social security systems, we have high wages. So, if I believed what the neo-liberals are arguing, we would have to be bankrupt, but apparently this is not the case. Despite high wages…despite our possibility to influence companies, the economy is working well in Germany.”


He could be talking right at you.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
He could be talking right at you.

As I have said before, the tax code is set up to funnel money into the car industry. From the article I posted prior:

Quote:
With consumers reluctant to buy their own vehicles and tougher competition depressing car prices across much of Europe, keeping German companies interested in the car market and spending on upmarket models is critical for BMW, VW, and Daimler. “Sinking private sales are a cause for concern,” says Axel Koblitz, managing director of the German auto service and dealer association ZDK. “Any change that would suffocate company demand would be very damaging.”

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-10/in-germany-the-company-car-is-a-porsche

It is corporate sales that are driving the industry, not individual consumers.

And they are looking at a possible 10% lower year than last:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/04/germay-cars-idUKL6N0BWBIL20130304

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
And that appears to have worked well for them, don't you agree?

With a tax structure that all but assures car sales? Sure.

Germany also has far fewer cars per person that does the US. About 72%:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita

So apparently all of those well paying car manufacturing jobs don't necessary translate into more cars for the people. Higher costs maybe?

And $8.50 a gallon gas...who wouldn't love that?


2010 numbers. I read just a couple of months ago the Germany surpassed the US.

http://chartsbin.com/view/1113

 

[01rangerxl]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Originally Posted By: Trav
Yes the German apprenticeship programs are a very important part of maintaining a highly skilled work force.
The acceptance that not everyone is entitled or should have a college eduction really places young people in the right profession or at least in the right direction.

Those that do deserve higher education get it. Team work and mutual respect is a huge part of the German work ethic.
The sharing of ideas between say engineers and assembly workers is strongly encouraged.
Its about the product not the individual.

Every one of my nieces and nephews in the US is going to college. Not one of them is anywhere near qualified for higher eduction by any stretch of the imagination.

Indeed.

As someone with a college education and more than one graduate degree, I don't fully understand why academic degrees are considered "higher" than good trade school degrees anyway. I have a LOT more respect for a highly capable mechanic or craftsman than I have for many of my academic peers. Maybe I'm just being cynical.

The idea in this country that you have to go to college and get an academic degree, and that trade schools are where you go if you're not smart enough, is just silly IMO.


I agree. Unfortunately the trade schools we do have aren't what they used to be.

Our four year colleges are kind of a joke too. Education is just paying a lot for a piece of paper in the US.

My high school was really pushy about everyone going to a four year college. I had wanted to go to a trade school, and even got my parents to be okay with the idea, but then ended up giving in to the suggestion of high school counselors, advisers, and peers that I go to a four year school. I did graduate college in four years with a degree in something I don't even care about, but I think it was the wrong direction for me. I spent most of those four years partying instead of focusing on what I really wanted to do.

I don't think education is a bad thing, I just think it's done better in other places. In the US it's all driven by money, not the greater good of the nation and its people or anything like that. We end up with diploma factories where kids can waste time and party.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
The idea in this country that you have to go to college and get an academic degree, and that trade schools are where you go if you're not smart enough, is just silly IMO.

Also in this camp. I have many highly educated friends that are unemployed or under-employed at this time with rather bleak outlooks.

I also have several blue collar types like myself who routinely earn much more money than them as well. A college degree is no guarantee of success.


THe benefit to some blue collar is that you cant really outsource to overseas. While your computer tech support, or your engineering design center could be pretty easily sent to New Delhi and staffed with employees making $50/day, nobody is going to get x done in their home/car/boat/office without someone local doing it.

Manufacturing blue collar on the other hand, we have done nicely at destroying that in the interest of wal-mart prices.

 

[mechanicx]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Originally Posted By: Tempest
Quote:
The idea in this country that you have to go to college and get an academic degree, and that trade schools are where you go if you're not smart enough, is just silly IMO.

Also in this camp. I have many highly educated friends that are unemployed or under-employed at this time with rather bleak outlooks.

I also have several blue collar types like myself who routinely earn much more money than them as well. A college degree is no guarantee of success.


THe benefit to some blue collar is that you cant really outsource to overseas. While your computer tech support, or your engineering design center could be pretty easily sent to New Delhi and staffed with employees making $50/day, nobody is going to get x done in their home/car/boat/office without someone local doing it.

Manufacturing blue collar on the other hand, we have done nicely at destroying that in the interest of wal-mart prices.


True, and also just destroying manufacturing jobs for higher profits and the same prices. But after they squeezed the blue collar manufacturing and even the white collar professionals, it still puts a squeeze on skilled service jobs. There's less people able or willing to pay a mechanic or technician for their services if they can avoid it some way.

 

[antiqueshell]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx


True, and also just destroying manufacturing jobs for higher profits and the same prices. But after they squeezed the blue collar manufacturing and even the white collar professionals, it still puts a squeeze on skilled service jobs. There's less people able or willing to pay a mechanic or technician for their services if they can avoid it some way.



Indeed mechanicx!

The way the "globalization" has been designed by the elite has become a very vicious circle. So much for these "experts" knowing whats best. No, on second thought they knew what was best for themselves at the expense of EVERYONE else.

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: 01rangerxl
I agree. Unfortunately the trade schools we do have aren't what they used to be.

Our four year colleges are kind of a joke too. Education is just paying a lot for a piece of paper in the US.

My high school was really pushy about everyone going to a four year college. I had wanted to go to a trade school, and even got my parents to be okay with the idea, but then ended up giving in to the suggestion of high school counselors, advisers, and peers that I go to a four year school. I did graduate college in four years with a degree in something I don't even care about, but I think it was the wrong direction for me. I spent most of those four years partying instead of focusing on what I really wanted to do.

I don't think education is a bad thing, I just think it's done better in other places. In the US it's all driven by money, not the greater good of the nation and its people or anything like that. We end up with diploma factories where kids can waste time and party.


Education is a great thing when the right people are educated.
In Germany they start looking at your grades and how you got on in school from grade 1 to determine if you have "the right stuff".

If your not quite up to snuff you may be good enough to study for a couple of more years to bring yourself up to the point they will let you "study" for a degree.

The problem in the US today is everyone want to be a Chief and all the Indians are running around with a degree trying to get the Chiefs job or be a little Chief.
Once all the Indians become a Chief the tribe will fade away.

 

[Win]

Originally Posted By: mechanic


.... Who's government are you talking about? This one encouraged freely importing of foreign cars, and even payed millions of dollars to the transplants to set up non-union low wage plants.



No, it didn't. For a long time there were the "voluntary" import quotas that kept DatsHonyota from running the big 3 out of business even sooner than they did. IIRC, that was what induced Honda to build here. These "voluntary" quotas may still exist for all I know.

Granted, the foreign car makers have now received huge taxpayer subsidies in this country, and it's pure hypocrisy to complain about taxpayer subsidies to the domestics, without acknowledging the tax "incentives" the foreign companies got (get) to help finish off what's left of the domestics.

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: Trav
The problem in the US today is everyone want to be a Chief and all the Indians are running around with a degree trying to get the Chiefs job or be a little Chief.
Once all the Indians become a Chief the tribe will fade away.


They would say the tribes are too lazy to do the Indians' work, and they need to bring in more Indians from outside. Then they would tell their kids to do everything to be the chiefs because being Indians are not good for their futures.

 

[Vikas]

Are you aware that even the whitest of white collar jobs are getting outsourced? Had you ever thought of Radiology could be outsourced? Would I see remote surgery in my lifetime? I bet I will! The only job which is immune to outsource is that of CEO because even though there is ample evidence that Banglore born CEO is as good as the one from Springfield, you don't see too many of them getting outsourced

 

[javacontour]

I've suggested we start outsourcing chiefs, not indians because aren't we where we are due to the current crop of chiefs?

 

[mechanicx]

There was some small level of voluntary quota mostly during the 80's but it wasn't much. It was set around ~2million vehicles, ~25% of the US market and probably only reduced imports by 100k vehicles a year or maybe less. It was nothing like the level of restriction and barriers Japan had on US car exports. I think they mostly ended by the late 80's to early 90's. Also, transplant produced cars were not subject to the quota, nor I think luxury models which rolled out Lexus.

And no disagreement that the foreign transplants received hundreds of millions in subsidies.

 

[javacontour]

I'm all for NONE of them getting subsidies. But the same folks crying about any subsidies given to encourage car makers to build factories here mostly justify subsidies when used to bail out car makers.

Let them all fail or succeed on their own merit.

Which is, ironically, what the German education system does. Instead of trying to bail out a child/young adult, they steer them into the best fit education.

A wise stewardship of resources.

Yet if we did that here, someone would be crying "civil rights violation" "that's not fair" "you discriminated against me because I was rich|poor, male|female, Caucasian|non-Caucasian, legal|illegal|native born, and so on.


Originally Posted By: mechanicx
There was some small level of voluntary quota mostly during the 80's but it wasn't much. It was set around ~2million vehicles, ~25% of the US market and probably only reduced imports by 100k vehicles a year or maybe less. It was nothing like the level of restriction and barriers Japan had on US car exports. I think they mostly ended by the late 80's to early 90's. Also, transplant produced cars were not subject to the quota, nor I think luxury models which rolled out Lexus.

And no disagreement that the foreign transplants received hundreds of millions in subsidies.

 

[mechanicx]

I'm totally against subsidies and affirmative action too. But I'm not for free trade that's a one-way street. And things aren't so simple when the media is ful of propaganda to push agendas.

 

[javacontour]

Sorry, I don't believe freedom is a propoganda pitch.

As a consumer, I want a wide variety of choices in the marketplace. So giving one country, even my own, preference over another is not in my best interest.

If you want to "Buy American" with your money, I'm all for that.

I simply do not want barriers that limit competition in the marketplace based on COO.

Now if a country is dumping products, then we'll talk. But if you say, tax country XYZ because we need to protect Detroit, then you are infringing on my freedoms to buy what I find works best for me and my family.

Feel free to choose how to spend the money you earn, but do not seek to act in a fashion that would not afford me the same, unencumbered freedoms in the marketplace.

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I'm totally against subsidies and affirmative action too. But I'm not for free trade that's a one-way street. And things aren't so simple when the media is ful of propaganda to push agendas.

 

[mechanicx]

So are you also against trade barriers China and Japan and others place on US products? If so, what would you do about it if anything? Is that freedom?

If you freely allow and buy imports you are impeding on Americans' ability to find work and jobs. Someone or something is always impending on someone else. You are acting no different really, you are impeding on one class or market (US worker, labor market) and favoring another (foreign worker, capitalist, consumer).

I don't think you are getting my point of propaganda. It's when only one viewpoint gets exposure. For example, if I own a media outlet and I direct it to promote one vehicle over another because I have a vieled anti-UAW agenda or some vested-financial interest, you can say it's freedom but it's still propaganda. If say the UAW published a car review journal, you'd probably consider it propaganda.

 

[javacontour]

Don't really care what they do as long as they are not dumping.

I think they are shooting themselves in the foot by keeping out goods based on COO.

In the long run, I think they only hurt themselves by keeping their markets closed. They will run out of willing trade partners if the relationship stays one-sided too long.

Allow open markets does not impede on anyone's freedoms.

So trade restrictions, when done solely to protect domestic competition from foreign competition ultimately only hurts the domestic worker and consumer.

Restrictions performed to prevent dumping (selling at lower than cost of production) are one thing. This prevents someone with sufficient capital to simply wait out those who cannot maintain a protracted price battle.

But if someone has a competitive advantage, such as more raw materials or cheaper labor, that's not an unfair advantage, and the consumer should not be punished because someone can do it better, or cheaper.