Germany versus Britain - shocking statistics

[sasguru]

I'm not taking about Germany, i'm talking about the UK.

KUATB

How do explain Germany's success then?
According to your "laws of economics" they should be a basket-case, no?

[sasguru]

A recent book I read (T Force) implied that one advantage the Germans had was all the outdated machinery was pinched by the Allies after the last global unpleasantness, so they had to re-equip with up to date machine tools.

The UK, by contrast, soldiered on with kit that had been designed when Victoria was a girl.

Go figure.

That might have held water in the 50s.
Now it looks like a loser's excuse.

[Robinho]

How do explain Germany's success then?
According to your "laws of economics" they should be a basket-case, no?

We weren't talking about Germany's success, we were talking about the UK's failure.

[minestrone]

The reality is that we are not that good at manufacturing, we tried propping up the industry for a period and it ended up a disaster.

On the whole we just don;t have the necessary attention to detail and the pride that comes from going above and beyond to give that extra bit of quality. You get that on occasion but I don't think it is possible to hire 10,000 people like that in one area.

[darmstadt]

Is this a CUK Daily Mail thread?


(In that it mentions the war and Germany which they do every single bloody day?)

[sasguru]

We weren't talking about Germany's success, we were talking about the UK's failure.

Look at the thread title.
We're comparing them and trying to figure out why 2 very similar countries, (even down to having similar genetics and language it could be argued) have turned out so different?
After the war, Germany started pulling away in the 60s in spite of having anything but laissez faire policies. In the 80s Maggie's very definite laissez faire policies put paid to manufacturing here, while liberalising the financial services industry with the Big Bang in 1986 and giving it an unhealthy priority - with the result that we are now bust.

So looking at the facts, it seems, in this Western European context at least, excessive laissez faire has led to our poverty.

[Robinho]

The difference is Germany never declared war on its own currency like we and America did, something which incidentally, is not laissez faire or free market.

Though i would be interested to know which side of the Berlin wall you would rather have lived.

[BrilloPad]

We're comparing them and trying to figure out why 2 very similar countries, (even down to having similar genetics and language it could be argued) have turned out so different?

The difference is Germany never declared war on its own currency like we and America did.

The difference is that Germany invested nothing in military.

We may have won the war - they won the peace.

[RasputinDude]

In the 80s Maggie's very definite laissez faire policies put paid to manufacturing here, while liberalising the financial services industry with the Big Bang in 1986 and giving it an unhealthy priority - with the result that we are now bust.

True to a point. But then a decision was made to reconfigure Britain's economy to being a knowledge and service provision one and successive governments pursued that aim recklessly. In fact, wasn't it Bliar who delivered a speech telling the Germans that they needed to modernise their economy and move out of manufacturing?

[Robinho]

True to a point. But then a decision was made to reconfigure Britain's economy to being a knowledge and service provision one and successive governments pursued that aim recklessly. In fact, wasn't it Bliar who delivered a speech telling the Germans that they needed to modernise their economy and move out of manufacturing?

Ultimately the government should have no place influencing what industries should prevail, instead it should let the investors decide what they deem the most productive investments.