Reply to: Germans not so rich

[suityou01]

Ok fair enough. apologies.

What's this handwringing all about eh? Brillo could you hand SasGuru back to MF please.

[eek]

Did you know that the Nissan Sunderland factory alone churns out more cars per year than all the car factories in Italy put together?
Sadly of course all the profits end up in Tokyo.

surely you mean Paris as Renault has a very significant stake in Nissan.

[sasguru]

That wasn't the point was it. The article says:
"Germany may have sold lots of Mercedes and BMWs to Greece and that makes the export figures look good. But the Greeks cannot pay for them. Instead, Germany has "loaned" Greece the money. Yet there isn't a hope in Hades of all this money being paid back. "

Those figures above account for >650 billion of the exports in 2012, that's over 60% before Portugal, Spain or Greece exports are counted. Exports to Greece were around 9 billion.
So according to the Telegraph 9billion out of >1000 billion is falsely making the exports look good.

Ok fair enough. apologies.

[sasguru]

Italy's among them, although I don't know how many of those imports from Germany are Italian industrials importing German components, just as German industrials import Italian components. Probably a lot of trade back and forth there.

Did you know that the Nissan Sunderland factory alone churns out more cars per year than all the car factories in Italy put together?
Sadly of course all the profits end up in Tokyo.

[ZARDOZ]

Logical fail.
The fact that the PIIGS don't appear in a list of the biggest importers of German goods only tells us that they are small economies, not that the vast majority of their imports don't come from Germany.

That wasn't the point was it. The article says:
"Germany may have sold lots of Mercedes and BMWs to Greece and that makes the export figures look good. But the Greeks cannot pay for them. Instead, Germany has "loaned" Greece the money. Yet there isn't a hope in Hades of all this money being paid back. "

Those figures above account for >650 billion of the exports in 2012, that's over 60% before Portugal, Spain or Greece exports are counted. Exports to Greece were around 9 billion. Less than 1% of their total exports.
So according to the Telegraph 9billion out of >1000 billion is falsely making the exports look good.

[sasguru]

You're comparing London against the whole of Germany? Every country has areas of much greater wealth and much greater deprivation. Apart possibly from Luxembourg which doesn't have space. In fact even in London the pattern repeats at a smaller scale - central Vs greater, north VS south, borough X Vs borough Y.

London may be the heart and the pulse, and even the brain, of the UK, but just try removing the heart and brain from a body and see how that turns out. You need all the dull fatty bits (the north) to keep the heart and brain going.

Jeez you're a bit slow. No I'm not comparing London's gross GDP with Germany just its GDP per capita.
In terms of gross GDP its still larger than Switzerland
And what do you think the North contributes to London? Nothing. The stats show (in spite of Zardoz's ignorant post above) that London subs the North hugely. Take it away and London gets even richer.

http://www.ukmediacentre.pwc.com/ima...DetailsID=1562

[yannek]

hi folks, I'm new here in this forum. this tread has got an interesting thought. how would you define a rich person and how a poor one. unfortunetly this statistic shows something about germany's economy and not about the ratio of poor and rich poeple in germany. germany had a social market economy, now its more like capitalism (totally free) market economy. in my opinion it's like a ticking bomb for the society, when rich poeple get richer and poor poeple can't life with their wages. what do you think about it?

oh, please excuse my english, i'm a bloody herman

[d000hg]

It's a little silly to compare to the "UK" with Germany.
There are actually three "countries" or economic entities to compare: (1) the services powerhouse and global city of Greater London with the highest per capita GDP in Europe, (2) Germany and (3) a depressed region we may call ScotNorthland, unproductive and dominated by the public sector.
I am pleased I live in what other countries in Europe will aspire to be in 30 years, the global services entrepot of London, to coin a phrase, when Germany is a husk of its former self, having suffered a life-changing demographic shift, that will see 10 working people for every 9 pensioners by 2030.

You're comparing London against the whole of Germany? Every country has areas of much greater wealth and much greater deprivation. Apart possibly from Luxembourg which doesn't have space. In fact even in London the pattern repeats at a smaller scale - central Vs greater, north VS south, borough X Vs borough Y.

London may be the heart and the pulse, and even the brain, of the UK, but just try removing the heart and brain from a body and see how that turns out. You need all the dull fatty bits (the north) to keep the heart and brain going.

[d000hg]

He who measures his wealth in units of currency will always be poor.

Except that wealth is by definition used to measure how much currency and other material goods you own.

[Mich the Tester]

Logical fail.
The fact that the PIIGS don't appear in a list of the biggest importers of German goods only tells us that they are small economies, not that the vast majority of their imports don't come from Germany.

Italy's among them, although I don't know how many of those imports from Germany are Italian industrials importing German components, just as German industrials import Italian components. Probably a lot of trade back and forth there.

[sasguru]

If you believe the Daily Telegraph that they are having to lend money to Greece and Spain to drive their economy that would appear to be true. But when you look at who is really buying their exports you can see that it isn't.

Logical fail.
The fact that the PIIGS don't appear in a list of the biggest importers of German goods only tells us that they are small economies, not that the vast majority of their imports don't come from Germany.

[doodab]

Hermann ze German.

[Mich the Tester]

If you believe the Daily Telegraph that they are having to lend money to Greece to drive their economy that would appear to be true. But when you look at who is really buying their exports you can see that it isn't.

Stop these facts! People here want a good rant, especially if it's a rant against Hermann the German.

[ZARDOZ]

They are also having to lend the money to the captive markets that buy said exports.

If you believe the Daily Telegraph that they are having to lend money to Greece and Spain to drive their economy that would appear to be true. But when you look at who is really buying their exports you can see that it isn't.

[doodab]

They are also having to lend the money to the captive markets that buy said exports.

The difference between them and us is that they export the propping up of the economy through debt and we have oursourced it to the private sector.