Originally Posted by BoredSocial

Not really a moral issue imo. You can simply say 'for you to have unrestricted access to our markets you must give us unrestricted access to yours... and we will respond in kind to any restrictions you might put up'. In a game of chicken with the US economy most countries realize that they are up for a lot more pain than we are if they take it to the wall.

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

I agree with all of your points. I'm just really annoyed by people who respond to my criticisms of our 'free trade' system by saying I'm some sort of protectionist. I'm not a protectionist if free trade is a viable option. Assuming it's not I think we should in fact protect our industrial base. Germany, Japan, and China all do it aggressively. Not doing it puts our own industries at a really ugly disadvantage.

Originally Posted by DeucesAx

How does germany aggressively protect it's industrial base?

Originally Posted by DeucesAx

How does germany aggressively protect it's industrial base?

Originally Posted by emitnulB

Actually, since we're running such an enormous trade deficit, a lot of the money we send to foreign trading partners is reinvested in the US through government bonds which are subsequently distributed domestically to our citizens through government channels in a way which tend to favor the extremely rich through subsidies and extremely poor through welfare. Then we again send the same money back over seas to or trading partners while wiping out our middle class because they are not benefiting from the welfare that the rest of society receives.

Unfortunately another side effect of this excessive borrowing by the government is inflation of the currency due to them being unable to repay their debts legitimately, which is yet another middle class killer. This kind of relationship actually benefits the debtor as opposed to the creditor because the creditors get paid back with devalued currency, or, if the government chooses to default, will not get paid back at all. Though it could be easily argued that both parties are net losers because the production capabilities of the debtor nation are not being fully utilized while they are essentially free loading off the creditor nation forcing lower net economic output globally.

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

Next one isn't really a matter of them protecting their industrial base so much as us screwing ours: healthcare. German manufacturers do not have to cover their workers basic (read most expensive) healthcare costs out of their bottom line. This is absolutely huge.

Originally Posted by Vael

According to this, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ichcc.pdf, total labor cost in Germany are higher though (manufacturing)

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

They're also Germans. I would pay almost 1.5 American factory workers for one German

This is obviously tongue in cheek... But honestly the euro currency is mostly responsible for Germany doing as well as they have over the last decade. If you pull the stats on what % of the German economy is factory/export driven versus the US you'll notice theirs is much higher. The earlier poster was right in a lot of ways. German manufacturing is much higher end than US manufacturing on average. This has the effect of changing what the BLS report actually means. It's not apples to apples in other words.

Originally Posted by nullspace

Do you have any further reading on the effect of the Euro on the German economy?

Originally Posted by steelhouse

I would support taxing all income over $100K and re-distributing it as a check. I was reading about an island in the southern pacific Where they did not want one resident to gain to much power over another so they put limits on the amount land one could hold and it seems to be working pretty good.

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

Obviously there's tons of stuff out there... But just look at the performance of the German economy in the 5 years pre Euro and the time before the Euro crisis. The economic data tells the story. Also think about what happens when the balance of trade gets out of whack... One countries currency appreciates and makes their goods more expensive and the other countries goods cheaper. Having a common currency prevented the Germans from having to a) consume more of their own products or b) go through painful deflation.

Originally Posted by nullspace

I don't see how a countries currency appreciating is necessarily bad, seeing how it is usually a market response due to an increase in demand. If the price rises too high then the market will just readjust. Also, it could decrease the cost of production if much of the factors of production are imports.

The people who get hurt when a currency rises are those who have goods that aren't really in demand (or are inefficient producers, like Greece perhaps?). They will have to lower prices, but at the same time imports become less expensive.

Anyway, if you have some interesting articles relating to these ideas then I would be happy to read them. If they are just something you thought up by looking at "economic data" then lol.

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

Don't be a dick. The 'Germans helped by euro being cheap' thing is a commonly known fact that has been voiced by several articles I've read and multiple economics professors whose lectures I've sat in on. Also I've got an investing/econ blog that has been mentioned twice in a WSJ 'what to read this morning' list. I'm also in a reasonably decent econ program. Add all of this up and I'd say I'm qualified to look at broad macro data and point out the really obvious conclusions.

The fact that having a cheaper currency is good for exporters isn't really debatable. Here I used Google for you:

http://www.iie.com/publications/pape...esearchID=1778
http://wallstreetpit.com/83414-euro-...others-in-zone
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/def...out-2010-07-14

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

Well for starters there is the entire Euro currency. It's kept the German currency artificially cheap versus all of it's European trading partners. Next one isn't really a matter of them protecting their industrial base so much as us screwing ours: healthcare. German manufacturers do not have to cover their workers basic (read most expensive) healthcare costs out of their bottom line. This is absolutely huge.

Then there are various small import restrictions, a superior education system that prepares workers to do the jobs our manufacturers can't fill, and a tax system that is actually somewhat punishing to companies that outsource too much. The Germans actually have a truly amazing industrial policy that is very hard not to admire.

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

They're also Germans. I would pay almost 1.5 American factory workers for one German

This is obviously tongue in cheek... But honestly the euro currency is mostly responsible for Germany doing as well as they have over the last decade. If you pull the stats on what % of the German economy is factory/export driven versus the US you'll notice theirs is much higher. The earlier poster was right in a lot of ways. German manufacturing is much higher end than US manufacturing on average. This has the effect of changing what the BLS report actually means. It's not apples to apples in other words.

Originally Posted by BoredSocial

Obviously there's tons of stuff out there... But just look at the performance of the German economy in the 5 years pre Euro and the time before the Euro crisis. The economic data tells the story. Also think about what happens when the balance of trade gets out of whack... One countries currency appreciates and makes their goods more expensive and the other countries goods cheaper. Having a common currency prevented the Germans from having to a) consume more of their own products or b) go through painful deflation.