Why is it that Germany seems to be just about the only country in the world who is not struggling with a disappearing middle class? They are doing well in that regard because they are the most unionized country in the world and their increased wages drives their demand. How do they manage to keep their wages high in light of the pennies-on-the-dollar labor found elsewhere? They do it by government regulations prohibiting companies from exporting jobs. Of course this is something that the “free traders” among us say is impossible but it seems Germany didn’t know it was impossible and went ahead and implemented it anyway.
Could the same thing be done in the U.S.? Could we actually drive up demand by driving wages back to where they were twenty years ago. In the last decade the auto industry’s starting wage has gone from $28/hour to less than $15/hour and there are similar numbers throughout other industries in the country. The middle class is quickly disappearing as a result. And with the middle class disappearing so is the discretionary income and resulting demand. We are in a catch-22 until we can figure out a way to bring the middle class back to existence.
The conservative elements in our country insist that the door to the middle class is pretty much now closed and we must depend on trickle-down from the rich to maintain any semblance of prosperity in this country. I just don’t buy into that logic. If our once mortal enemy of Germany can maintain their middle class through corporate regulations prohibiting the export of jobs then certainly the biggest economy in the world can do something similar.
Germany is now pretty much bailing out all those other E.U. countries with their affluence. And this is just a score of years since they incorporated the very destitute East Germany into their country! Maybe we should take a plan from their play-book and duplicate it here in our own American style. But like our healthcare debacle we can’t seem to learn that the rest of the world has pretty much learned to control their medical costs through a universal single-payer system so how are we ever going to learn how to bring back our middle class through lessons from elsewhere?
Now don’t get me wrong here; I am not saying that Germany is a better country than we are. They have some restrictions on their citizens that should never and would never be acceptable to us. We don’t have to become another Germany to learn some ways of doing things better. Pragmatism is finding what works and then using it regardless of where it came from.
But what do I know….
RJ's Corner 
you knew I was coming here when you commented on Germany.Im going to suggest that unions are not even close to being the reason germany flourishes-having lived there for more years than I have lived in the us (by choice). First, it has coalition governments which means decisions are supported by multiple parties. Second, they have a very high personal savings rate and very low personal deb. Third, they do not ban competitor imports or put tarrifs on many of them-they figure quality will “out” and let the market place work its magic.This allows them to have an extremely high export rate, resulting in an extremely high GNP. They work hard and they play hard and have a traditonal protestant work ethic. finally they accept high taxes which means that have a really strong infrastructure in every sense of the word. They also have universal health care (not taxed, mainly paid for by the users) which has a fifty milion dollar surplus or somesuch.
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Yeah Barb I knew you would have more info on their successes. Thanks for adding to the pot. All the things you say are also things we should strive to emulate. That is if we were not so arrogant to think we are the only ones who can have a good idea.
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I so agree with this post and have never been outside the USA(well Canada) you get my point.We use to have a sign outside our door at the NICU of a very good hospital in Rochester NY it said ” Leave your ego at the door” and believe me the talent that passed thru those doors was awesome! sounds like our country needs this.
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Welcome Pam. I see you got the main message of this post and that is as you said “leave your ego at the door”. I just can’t understand why we Americans don’t understand the value of that statement. If we could just learn some of the valuable lessons other countries could teach us we would be in much better shape than we currently are. We could have healthcare for all of us at a greatly reduced cost; we could balance our budgets with all the money we would save by quitting being the police of the world; and we could bring back the middle class. Why do we let our egos cause us so much trouble and not see that very fact?
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But German also have a very high sense of both being German and Germany as a country. Their egos ARE large…and well earned. Our country did better when people believed they lived in a great country.
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Hi Janette. I don’t personally know anyone from Germany so I can’t speak from even a limited experience here. But I image Germans to spread the gamut of egos. Maybe as Barb mentioned that since they have to form coalition governments they can get more done without the partisanship that is endemic within our current system.
In reality I only used Germany as an example of those doing things that we seem incapable of accomplishing. This post as Pam understood was more of an inward look than an outward one. Pretty deep…. (ha)
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Would you go back and get paid less because your ego was part of your pay? Do you expect the same of this generation? Is the cost of heath care high because of ego or because machines are expensive because they were built by people with egos?
Would you do without those machines if you get to that point? There is a great deal of ego in the end of life stages. We spend a great deal of money on keeping someone alive who would have gladly gone home to die two decades ago. That is ego isn’t it?
It IS an inward look. Where is the line?
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Welcome back Janette. I guess I need to emphasize the main point of this post again. I am definitely a pragmatist in that I try to learn from others mistakes and successes. That is one of the reasons I have always been a history nut. I think we should take the good ideas from others and implement them for ourselves. Ego is a big part of why we in the U.S. don’t seem to do that but I don’t attribute ego to all that is.
I don’t understand the first question but will address the others.
It is a very well known fact that we spend about twice as much on our healthcare as almost everyone else in the world. Why can’t we learn from them how to do it with less costs. I don’t think we are the only country to have MRIs and such. How do they do it for less and are actually healthier and live longer than we do?
I think I saw somewhere that we do spend 20% (actually I think it is more than that) of our the last two months of life. I don’t think that is an ego think more than fear for the dying person and maybe his family (everyone wants to get to heaven, but no one wants to die to get there). From a medical standpoint doctors take an oath to take care of their patients. Do we want the dreaded “death panels” as the anti Obamacare folks say to decide when you die. But again I don’t think this is a thing that has only occurred in the last two decades. It is just that our technology has increased.
Thanks Janette for your thought provoking words.
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