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Hey, there's been some topics of conversation in the Tourism and Travel thread and the German language thread that are perhaps better served by a more general current events thread. If you're visiting Germany and want some travel tips, try: Ask me about Germany. If you are learning German and want some help, try: The German Language thread. Germany is the world's fourth largest economy after the US, China and Japan, and the world's second largest exporter after China. It's noted for its beer, sausage and kickin' techno. Hot topics include: Church tax, the pirate party, nuclear power, bailing out southerners and the best clubs to have sex in. For a seemingly reasonable discussion of German politics have a read of A New Germany? by Perry Anderson (from 2009 possibly slightly out of date). I would be interested to hear other peoples take on this, if they believe it to be accurate.
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Sep 25, 2011 22:07
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:15 |
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BexGu posted:unixbeard, are you German or living in Germany? Im real curious on how Germany is taking basically being the corner stone of the Euro. I'm a German citizen and live in Germany but I grew up in Australia and haven't really been here that long so my viewpoint is really as a foreigner living in Germany. From what I've seen the response is mixed, there is definitely populist sentiment against the current situation but the economic reality is that Germany has benefited hugely from the Euro. Countries don't go broke overnight and the situation in Greece had been building up over many years, and the lack of political will across the euro zone is what let it get to this point. It's not like Germany is without sin. DerDestroyer posted:Is there any truth to this financial bailout of Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy etc as being nothing more than a very indirect way of bailing out German banks who actually own the debt and would be insoluble if there were defaults? There is a lot of truth to that. The problem is all the banks lend money to one another all the time for very short periods of time (days). This creates what is called liquidity and is needed so banks can meet the requests of people withdrawing their cash, paying employees etc. Here is a simplified example: Bank A gets a bunch of deposits and lends it out most of it for 2 years so it can pay interest on the deposits. For whatever reason, over the next 1-2 months more people come to withdraw their money than they forecast. The bank has the money but it is locked up because it lent it out for a while, so they can't get it back just now. Bank A will go to bank B and borrow just enough cash to meet the withdrawal requests, and when their loan or other mature it will pay back Bank B. And this all works fine and has worked fine for many decades. Now lets say Bank A lent that money to Greece. If Greece defaults, all of a sudden Bank A is missing a bunch of cash it needs to pay back depositors. That's bad in itself, but not insurmountable as maybe the local regulators of Bank A have some money available to pay back the the depositors. The real problem is when Bank A goes to Bank B to borrow short term. Bank B knows Bank A has a lot of Greek debt. Bank B is rightly starting to worry that if it lends it to Bank A, and Bank A has to declare bankruptcy due to Greek default, maybe Bank B wont get their short term loan back. If the situation gets bad enough, the only sensible thing for Bank B is to not lend to Bank A, and you end up with a liquidity crisis as no-one is lending to anyone else, and the short term liquidity that keeps an economy ticking over dries up. It would be a repeat of the GFC from 2008, no one knows who is solvent and who is safe to lend to (at an institutional level), so no one lends. When you also take into account that a lot of other banks and pension funds etc have lent money to Bank A, if it goes under it will throw into question all of those other banks and you get the contagion effect. It is a situation that is clearly best avoided. quote:I'll be coming to Germany on an Internship this Spring and I'm hoping to land something permanent afterwards. How likely is the entire German economy going to collapse into a clusterfuck of unemployment and austerity measures within the next 2-3 years? It's unlikely in my opinion. There are a lot of problems but everyone is in the same boat so to speak. Like if you take China that has lent a lot of money, for sure it could drive countries to bankruptcy but those countries are the ones that buy Chinese goods that have made it so rich. So if they go under all of a sudden China loses its export markets which would be very damaging to its financial position and stability. It is in everyones interest to find a solution, and thanks to the GFC politicians are at least aware of how bad things can actually get. The media likes to hype it up and sell doom and gloom cause that's what gets readers. Complete economic destruction is pretty rare, and when you have 80 million people who all need basic services at a very bare minimum, something will happen. You can see a chart of unemployment by state here: http://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/2192/umfrage/durchschnittliche-arbeitslosenquote-nach-bundeslaendern/ which is all in German unfortunately and you need to register to get the numbers. The top states are all from the historic east while the lower ones like Bayern and Ba-Wu have very low rates, I think around 5% or lower. It is not over yet though and never say never I guess. Just pray nothing bad happens to China, at least until the US sorts itself out. WTBCzero posted:How likely is it that Germany will keep to its plans to shut down all of its nuclear power stations? I read a analysis somewhere that this decision was made in the expectation it could be reversed later when anti-nuclear feelings had died down a bit. I couldn't really comment on if it will be reversed, however it seems like they are purchasing a lot of nuclear generated power from other countries like France and somewhere in Eastern Europe. Germany has been a leader in alternative energy sources however they are heavily subsidised, and I believe recently they cut the subsidy to solar panels which gutted the industry somewhat. If there is a protracted economic crisis I would expect further subsidy cuts. unixbeard fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Sep 26, 2011 |
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Sep 26, 2011 11:14
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Jinx posted:Not to side-track the thread, but as a Polish citizen living in Poland, who recently migrated here from err...a few different places (including NZ and AUS), I am curious as to your experiences when it comes to fitting in with your German colleagues? Do you have much of an accent? Do you think there is significant 'Englishification' in Germany? And what is your opinion about it? I think my accent is pretty bad, and I wish I spoke German better which is mostly my fault for being a lazy language student. Imagine Steve Irwin speaking baby german and you're bound to get some confused looks along the way. The culture is definitely different from the Anglo culture I am used to, but people are people and I have never felt ostracised because I was a foreigner or anything like that. I live in Berlin which is not a typical German city but I can't imagine the cultural values being vastly different in other places. I personally don't see a great "Englishification" in Germany, but you get a lot of say US TV shows here etc which does have a cultural impact as it did in Australia.
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Sep 26, 2011 18:43
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niethan posted:What are some of the differences? For one thing the attitude towards friendship is different. Say in Australia you have the concepts of "mates" which to a degree means a superficial friendship with everyone you've ever met. Germans seem a little more "closed" when you meet someone new, however I do feel that my German friends would give me the shirt off their back if i needed it, which differs from the more casual friendships I was used to. Also, community and looking out for one another seems to be taken a lot more seriously here then it was in Sydney. For example it seems pretty common that people in WG's cook and eat together which was never something I experienced living in share houses. It's obviously not all of them that are like that, but it is definitely more common. Everyone also seems to be vastly more politically aware than in Australia, where most people are pretty apathetic about it. It would be a while before you ever saw something like the pirate party get people voted in. The attitudes to education and work seem to be different as well, I think the social support is where that comes from. Like my cousin's boyfriend was 28 and had never had a job. That is pretty much unthinkable in Australia, but if you add in 18 months civil service, a four year degree, maybe a year travelling and further study it doesn't seem uncommon. In Australia the social support for students is minimal so most people do a three year degree then enter the workforce because they are tired of living in a dump and eating 2 minute noodles every night. Sydney is quite an expensive place to live so unless you are making decent money your quality of life can take a bit of a hit and life can be quite stressful. People seem to be more focussed on their career and work back in Australia, if only out of necessity. The work environment seems more hierarchical, you have your manager and your managers manager and unless you've been at the same company for 40 years you wont get much say in decision making. They are also a lot more methodical in the way projects are done, there's a lot of planning and discussion, to the point where actual implementation becomes almost an afterthought. I find it a little slow sometimes, but usually things are done to a high standard when they are completed. The discussions are also great because you're free to speak your mind and have your concerns addressed, rather than dancing around issues trying to be polite. Most people I worked with are pretty open about what they are thinking and what they are after, which is refreshing. I think thats why some people from anglo cultures find Germans a bit blunt. I still sometimes feel like im being interrogated when I leave a social situation early or something. "Where are you going? Why cant you stay here?" look i just gotta go do some stuff OK, it's all boring so ill spare you the details. Those are kind of hostile questions where I'm from but here people are just interested I guess. There's just a million little things like that. Also I have memorized the product lines for about five different supermarket chains. If i want a cheese I like I go to one place, a cereal i like its somewhere else, the tuna i like a different one, that's also something a bit different. Shops are also open on Sundays as well, l was used to being able to go grocery shopping at 10pm on a sunday night and I would go to one place and it would have multiple varieties of everything and high quality fruit/vegetables etc. I don't think one is necessarily better than the other its just one of the little things I had to adjust to. The church seems more powerful here as well, I read something a while back that Berlin liberalised its Sunday trading laws but the political representation of the Church intervened at a federal level and they had to change it back. Details of that stuff I miss out on because its local to Germany so not really covered in English, and I've learnt my lesson about reading Spiegel international edition. I don't really like to generalise about Germany or Germans based on my experiences, which are limited and reflective of the people I've meet and the circles I am in, but those are just some of the things that have struck me about living here.
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Sep 26, 2011 19:28
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I hope you've never bought anything that wasn't produced in Germany otherwise you're supporting those who outsource
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Oct 12, 2011 22:38
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Boiled Water posted:I don't think it's possible to buy everything as locally or nationally sourced, unless maybe you live in china. The reason why companies outsource is because consumers of their products vote with their wallets and choose the cheaper version the vast majority of the time. If you become protectionist by raising tariffs on foreign made goods you'll lose your export market because other countries raise their tariffs on German made goods. Exports are a big part of the German economy, so if that goes, where are the jobs then? I am not saying I agree with it but that is the situation that is faced. If everyone bought German made then it wouldn't be a problem but the reality is they don't.
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Oct 12, 2011 22:48
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Here's a longish piece on the current Eurozone crisis http://www.scribd.com/doc/69146208/By-George-Europe-and-the-Holy-Grail It's a good overview of what's most likely to happen, and the conclusions are particularly interesting: quote:With Eurozone banks in the spotlight one of the large holes in the Euro Area has been shown to be the absence of institutions to tend to the recapitalisation and restructuring of banks, and of triage and an orderly resolution process. Three rounds of stress testing, in September 2009, July 2010, and July 2011, were seen as woeful. The difficulties of resolving the banking system’s weaknesses are underscored by the significance of the large role of banks in the European credit system, in contrast, say, to the US where capital markets figure more strongly, and by the close relations between banking systems and political elites in much of the Eurozone. In a nutshell for the Eurozone to survive greater fiscal unity is required, but that might impact on sovereignty of those within the Eurozone. If it's against the German constitution, good luck. Time for a comfy chair and some popcorn, though realistically I think they will just talk and talk and talk until the whole thing has blown over, or at least that's what they will try. unixbeard fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Oct 18, 2011 |
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Oct 18, 2011 16:55
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Ardennes posted:Yeah, I don't think it is going to blow over, someone is going to have to pay that all the accumulating debt. Well this is what they are hoping to see. Greece writes down it's debt 50% (i.e. saying the bonds you have now are only worth 50% of what we said they were), which will cause a confidence crisis in the EU banking system, cause that's where a lot of the Greek debt is. You add in EU banks lending to one another and yeah it gets messy. Enter some EU fiscal authority that says "We will prop up any bank that fails, so dont worry about that Greece thing its really business as usual". And there is a good chance that would solve the immediate crisis, if such an authority existed (it doesn't, yet). Greece wouldn't have its huge crippling debts, the banking system wouldn't collapse, and everything would almost be a-ok. This still leaves the underlying problem that Greece is broke and there is nothing anyone else can do about it. Why is greece broke? Cause it spent too much and didn't collect its taxes. It needs to be reformed. Reform doesn't have to be about austerity (which imo is the completely wrong way to approach it). Say Italy has its own "oops" moment. No-one wants to give a guy like Berlusconi a blank cheque without the power to actually enforce real reforms. Giving an EU wide authority power to intervene in a sovereign nations fiscal policy is a big, big step, and likely unconstitutional in German at least. I wouldn't say public sentiment within the eurozone is particularly warm. I don't personally see how a fiscal union could happen but I don't personally see how anyone thought the euro could work without it. This leads me to believe this is all part of the plan, they just needed some crisis to force the issue, and a crisis was pretty much inevitable. I tend to be a bit paranoid though. unixbeard fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Oct 18, 2011 |
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Oct 18, 2011 17:25
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:15 |
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Landsknecht posted:Reform needs to happen on a massive level in all the eurozone economies, as we're basically hosed in 15-25 years. There is an interesting quirk about the European growth model that was pointed out to me by a guy I work with who was an economist in his previous career. The premise of growth is based on productivity growth. Even if you have more people retiring than entering the workforce (i.e. a demographic problem), you can still see growth if those new workers are able to produce more than the old ones. And it's not about over working people, it's about technological advancements that enable fewer people to do more stuff, i.e. being more productive in the economic sense. Germany is good at doing "hard" stuff like engineering, which requires a highly skilled workforce. That is why you can get paid to go to university and study here. The bet is that 1 engineer can do as much productivity wise as a few unskilled workers, so with the demographics trending to a smaller pool of available workers, they are better off focussing on training more engineers. It's something I think Germany does pretty well, and they are trying to solve the demographic problem by encouraging people to have babies. There are not a lot of other options if they want to head off a crisis down the line. If it will work or not I have no idea. Germany does have a rather high level of debt as a % of GDP. Inflation would help reduce that, but it would also dig in to pensions, and as a whole they seem pretty terrified of inflation. I have a bunch of cousins here in Berlin who all early-mid twenties and just assume everything will be the same in 40 years when they are retiring, it makes me cringe. The whole growth through productivity gains thing isn't going to do a scrap for the current crisis because a) it involves a lot of investment (not austerity!@) and b) it takes a long time (in the order of generations) for its effects to be realised. Ardennes posted:The Greek elite have failed at running their country, it should be them and the financiers that back them that should pay not the people of the country. They are fundamentally incompetent criminals. This is totally the problem and I agree any solution is basically just going to gently caress the Greek people in the name of EU stability or financial stability or both. It's disgusting.
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Oct 19, 2011 11:23
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