Reading the CIA Online World Fact Book I came across some surprising statistics, the top three exporting countries in the world are #3-USA #2-China and #1 with only a population of 82 million is Germany!

My first thought was something doesn’t add up about the story of US manufacturing job losses in the last few years.

We were told manufacturing jobs, were transferred to other countries, due to the following reasons,
-high wages-
-union actions
-environmental regulations
-OSHA regulations
-short working hours
-too much holiday time off
-medical care costs
-unemployment insurance costs
-etc.

Well something doesn’t add up!

In Germany workers,
-earn close to US wages
-by law a union representative sits on the board of directors of all public companies
-environmental regulations are much tougher in Germany
-workplace safety regulations are tougher
-they work fewer hours per week
-every worker has a minimum four weeks of vacation plus holidays for a total of 39 days per year, the US has a minimum of one week vacation plus holidays for a total of 13 days per year
-Germany has universal free medical care which is considered one of the best in the world
-unemployment insurance last much much longer than in the US
-etc. etc. etc.

There are however at least two areas in which the US leads Germany,
-as a larger country it has vastly more natural resources.
-AND! US workers are the most productive workers in the world and have been so for many years!

Something doesn’t add up!

If Germany, with more of the “problems” purportedly hobbling US manufacturing can provide it’s workers and citizens with one of the highest standards of living and the US with more natural resources plus a more productive work force cannot,

SOMETHING DOESN’T ADD UP!

I am inclined to look not for something Germany has, but rather a flaw in the US model.

Extemporaneously, I would suspect Germany’s long tradition of working your way to the top by starting at the bottom, endows one with a broad, full and rich experience of the industry which you end up running. This multi year acquired in depth knowledge is what gives German companies their competitive edge.

Compare this to the US, where business school graduates lack this essential insight into the companies they are hired to lead.

The entire focus is not on improving product, but instead the focus is on quarterly profits driving stock prices, and the accompanying stock options, which are the chief focus of executives.

This is focusing on short term returns and combined with a lack of improving the product leads down the path of, first boost stock prices, then sell the business or export production to low wage countries.

In the end, executives will walk away with an incredible amount of money earned over what is a really short time span.

Compare this to German executives, expending many years working their way to the top; they would be aghast at the thought of selling or moving production of a company with such a long and rich heritage, to another country.

The American executive has meanwhile moved on to the next “hot market”, like financial services, no need for putting in years learning the rules. We’re making up the new rules as we go and grow, ……… unless something unexpected happens, or perhaps, what if the system was flawed and doomed to begin with?

Who cares!

I got my offshore tax haven account, my jet, my yacht, my mansion in the Hamptons, my Caribbean winter estate. etc. etc..

John Birk

Re the content of the show, a few family stories popped up in my head during the program, one of which is the story of my grandfather. He emigrated from Germany a few years after WWI, jumping ship and settling in New York with his brother. Without a scrap of English, they spent the 1920s, they had to get creative about employment. My mother tells me one of their most successful ventures was running a bootlegging operation out of the basement of a Bronx candy factory. But often times were hard and my grandfather would get by on a single cup of coffee with lots and lots of cream and sugar. After getting married in the late 1920s, he began looking for steadier employment, but no one would hire Germans… except other Germans. Luckily he met a German who owned several apartment buildings in the Bronx and was happy to have my grandfather work as a superintendent, carrying out repairs, renovations and maintenance work. Got a rent-free apartment out of. This employment within the immigrant community allowed at least some German workers who faced discrimination, esp. during WWII, to continue working when otherwise they would probably have been told something along the lines of “Krauts Need Not Apply.” It also allowed illegal immigrants, like my grandfather, to remain in this country instead of being sent back to Germany. As it was, he was able to continue at his job, keeping up apartments, for decades afterward. He and my grandmother learned English from radio, movies and tenants. My mother was able to get a full education, including tuition-free college at CCNY. Yes, and my mom went on to live the American dream. I wonder of at the parallels between his story and the story of immigrants today.

I know this comment wasn’t strictly employment related, but it was something that popped into my head and I wanted to share it with someone. Again, thanks for you program.

They state that women are paid much less than men. They should look at studies that adjust for experience, education, etc. The results show that hourly rates of pay for individuals of comparable skill are equal.

They also have a fictional account of a migrant to the Northwest. Why not look for real accounts? Shoddy historical work.

I’m really curious as to how the migrants would break down into occupations. I certainly know that a lot of Southern towns had growing black commercial districts, and blacks worked in trades, but how did their numbers compare to those blacks who moved straight from the farm to the north? I’m fairly sure that most African Americans moving off the farm had not been making the kind of wages suggested on the program; more likely they were trapped in a cycle of penury through tenant farming or sharecropping. I’d really appreciate the citations you mentioned. Thanks!

The same hue and cry went up during the great depression in the early 30s. In fact, thousands of illegal mexican aliens were rounded up and shipped back to Mexico, along with many mexican-american citizens caught up in the drag net. Even though some advocate doing this again, it would not address the root economic problems. In fact, fruit growers and other industries that depend on guest worker programs would go broke, further worsening the economy

Regarding the issue of cheap non-citizen labor, a more substantive problem, vis a vis the loss of jobs, is US corporate use of off-shore production and services. Here they take advantage of a significantly larger and less expensive foreign labor source, far from interfering labor unions ever pushing up labor costs. It would appear that US labor costs have priced themselves out of the market. We need to structure tax incentives to return jobs to the US that provide goods and services; our current major reliance on “the service industry” is not working. And not merely to produce goods, but quality goods that people want to buy. I offer GM as exhibit A for a company that ignored the marketplace and continued to produce inventory that would not sell in a world of increasing gas costs. Perhaps the increasing gas costs will drive more local and regional production of goods and services so that this will occur regardless of any conscious overall strategy by the powers that be.

You guys are always a treat to listen to – I’m looking forward to it.

Beth

Another aspect is the fact that the UI system today does not respond well to the precarious and PT nature of a lot of the work people are forced to take on today. You might also want to take a look at a particular weird glitch in the system today that deprives most of the over 600,000 non-tenure track (hired by the course, term or year) college teachers of unemployment insurance. For more info on the latter, see the booklet Access to Unemployment Insurance for Contingent Faculty at I would be happy to supply more details on any of the above. I am a labor historian and contingent faculty activist.