I think you’ve missed my point entirely. As usual.
Claudia
This is extremely comical, because one of the standard complaints I receive from Germans in the US is that our stores are overstaffed and they hate being approached by salespeople. One guy was really mad, because a total of two salespeople had approached him at Target and asked, “Can I help you find something?” He told me, “IF I NEED HELP, I’LL ASK FOR IT!”
I told that same guy that I hate shopping at Aldi, partly because you never know where anything is in the store on a given day, and they’re so understaffed that there’s no one to ask. He told me, “If the customer can’t find the peanut butter, that’s HIS PROBLEM! IT’S NOT THE STORE’S PROBLEM!”
Luckily, German stores aren’t staffed the way this guy wishes American stores were.
Some Germans have even complained to me that American waitresses come back in the middle of their breakfast and ask them if they want more coffee. (And the coffee refill is free!)
I think some Germans prefer things to be understaffed.
Which is not to say it’s strong by world standards. (By the way, the US is the largest exporter of agricultural products, and I was wondering what country was No. 2. I thought it was Brazil, but when I looked it up, it turned out to be France! With so little land!)
You’re not making any sense here. Low wages don’t cause unemployment. They increase employment, because they lower the cost of hiring people. France’s wonderful social structure helps cause the high unemployment, because it increases the cost of hiring.
I have been told it by countless German engineers, corporate CFOs and others who have witnessed it. I have also found that Germans are afraid to change professions, because if you try that when you’re much over 30, potential employers view you as a “loser” (that was the word the Germans used). They think you must have failed at your previous profession or you wouldn’t be changing.
It’s different depending on which cashier or waiter you ask. Some cashers (and supermarket baggers) are university students, and in bad economic times (like now) some of them are even engineers keeping busy. Others are quite uneducated. Many clerks at coffee shops have degrees in literature, anthropology or a foreign language.
One reason is high corporate income taxes in the US, although those are often offset by corruption, bureaucracy and poor infrastructure in Latin America. Part of the reason is low wages in those countries, but a very big part of the reason is that they want plants that are close to their clientèle. Why do VW, Daimler Benz, BMW and nearly all the Japanese car companies locate plants in the US? Because they want to exploit workers more easily?
Here in Germany, Germans complain about things being understaffed. We are perfectly aware that there is, what we like to call “eine Servicewüste” (a service desert). It might just be that when a German first comes to America, he or she isn’t used to so much attention and might feel hassled and pressured, but I wonder how long they’ve been in America when they say that? People get used to things, so they just need some time there. I admit I felt the same way the first year or so, but after living in the States for so many years, I was shocked to see that service here still has a long way to go.
You know what, Jamie. When I was new in a America, older ladies called me “honey”. That’s a total no-go in Germany and I felt insulted. As time went on, I not only got used to the endearment, but started to love it. I even found myself calling younger women “honey”. I miss that here.
There you go. The economy is not entirely dependent on low unemployment rates. If it were, a lot of countries that are doing well economically would be considered weak countries. Still, employment means more buying power, which boosts production. No doubt about that.
I do make sense because you also need to take mentality into account. France is by far not a developing country. Workers want to get paid well for their quality work. If the wages are too low, or better: lower when compared to other countries of the same standard, they will not put much effort in finding a job or doing their work well and efficiently.
That view has been changing because in many areas, employees must be flexible and be able to adjust in order to compete on the job market. It is not possible anymore to learn a job and stick with it for 42 years, as the generation before us had done.
That is the same here. It is true that there are people who rather receive welfare checks than go to work, but I also know that there are plenty of people on welfare for years on end in the USA.
Are you saying that Mexicans are the major clientèle of those companies?
VW, Daimler Benz, BMW locate plants in the US, but these plants are not the majority. Most of their plants are located in Mexico, Brazil, and Japan. Funny, it seems that there are parts made in this country, while other parts are made in another. The car is a puzzle of parts all produced in different countries.
Claudia
I resent being called that, and I chew women out for it. The reason is that I saw men skewered for decades for calling women that and even lose their jobs because of it. So feminists spent years viciously attacking men who call women “honey”, and then women call us “honey”. Recently, however, I’ve noticed that I don’t mind taking it from women who are too young to know about or have been involved in all those attacks on men.
However, you’re forgetting about human dignity. An economy that leaves millions of people sitting around with no higher purpose in life than sitting around is not treating its people well. To be treated with dignity, they have to have an opportunity to develop themselves and contribute to society. So even a prosperous economy with high unemployment rates is a bad economy, in some sense.
I’m amused to remember an Iraqi friend going to visit relatives in France. When she came back, she told me, “I couldn’t live there! All people there do is eat and [have sex]! They even limit them to 30 hours of work a week!” Since she was new in the US, she had to work two jobs to make ends meet – plus she went to college – and all that work wore her out, but she preferred it to the life she saw in France. She felt that in the US she had more dignity and a better future, because whatever she achieved, she achieved herself, and there was no “nanny state” taking care of her.
You’re making my point about Germans preferring to sit on their rear ends for years instead of seeking out work they think is beneath their dignity. Here, as I’ve mentioned, you get engineers bagging groceries during bad times, and nobody looks down on them. Most people think, “Good for him! He’s at least doing something while he looks for work in his field.”
Not anymooooooore! In my state, someone can receive 48 months of welfare in their lifetime. Once they’ve exhausted that, that’s all. When you get on welfare, you’re obligated to get off it as soon as possible. The state will do anything to help you find work – even pay to retrain you (or train you for the first time) and pay for childcare while you’re in school – but they push you hard to get to work. There’s a lot of pressure. Most states are similar now.
When they instituted a work requirement for people on welfare, some welfare recipients were angry about it. However, some were happy later on. I remember one woman saying she’d never done anything in her life up to then but sit around on welfare, and that thanks to the change in the law, she realized for the first time that she could have a productive role in society. She was grateful, and she felt important.
However, Obama is against that system and wants people to be able to receive welfare indefinitely without having to work. At least that’s what he’s said in the past, and it’s what his policies reflect.
Those companies do a lot of business in Latin America, so it makes sense for them to build things there. In fact, Mexicans buy more products from the US than Americans buy from Mexico.
There’s no such thing as an “American”, “German”, “Japanese” or “Swedish” car anymore.
Oh, I was talking about women calling women “honey”. Usually, when a man calls a woman “honey”, it is not meant as an endearment, especially not in the past. But I am positive you know that.
I think you are the one who forgot about human dignity when you said that high wages and a good social structure is a bad thing because it hurts companies and drives them out of the country. Now all of a sudden you care about human dignity?
So, what do these companies do? They leave the country, they understaff, and they overwork their employees, instead of contributing to society by creating new jobs, a good social atmosphere and stopping tax evasion. As long as they are prosperous, they don’t care if they are in a developing country.
No, I’m not. And why are you constantly saying “Germans”. My point was: have you ever asked a cashier or relief waiter what they had actually learned before they took that job. Did you think I was talking about America?! We were talking about Europe. So, have you? Apparently not, yet you keep accusing us of being couch potatoes because we think we are so high and mighty!
Of course they do, because such a large number of companies ARE from the US! That’s only logical. It makes sense for them to produce cheaply, and that’s the only reason.
Thank you for agreeing with me again.
Claudia
There are a lot of very dynamic and successful companies one of which I took an interview with recently: Interview with Companisto GmbH
Companisto is at least as effective and lucrative as any American VC firm. As a matter of fact, I don’t think there is any American VC agency that is as good as Companisto.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: Soft drink sponsored traffic report on radio channel[YSaerTTEW443543]
It often was meant that way, but the feminists had an appetite for male blood and had the men punished no matter how they meant it.
It’s an affront to human dignity to make a person dependent on the state, to pay him far more than the real value of his work, or to pay him to do work that is not needed. All of these things prevent the person from developing and making his best contribution to society.
Another affront to human dignity that frequently happens in Europe is when a person retires from his company and the government places punitive taxes on him if he begins working again. If someone retires at 62 or 65 and is still young and wants to be active professionally, that’s his right, but some governments try to prevent it. They think they’re preventing him from “taking a job away” from a younger person, but these working retirees – especially consultants – often create jobs for younger people.
No, it’s because the US makes stuff the Mexicans want. We don’t have a trade surplus with every country, and overall we have a trade deficit. So the sheer number of companies in the US doesn’t ensure that others buy more from us than we do from them.
I realize that there’s a great deal of overkill in Europe when it comes to training people for menial jobs. People may spend their years from age 14 to age 20 being prepared for jobs that are not careers and that can be learned adequately in less than a month, such as waiting tables or working as a cashier.
In Europe, I once sat with two of my hotel school girls in a pizzeria and watched them pick apart the technique of our waitress, who was a chemistry student or something like that. The girls must have found 15 or more errors. Finally, I told them, “You know, the customers don’t notice or care about that. She’s kind, accommodating and helpful to the customers, she’s efficient, and that’s all people notice or care about.” And, in fact, except when it comes to very high dining, people don’t notice the difference.
In the US and Canada, a waiter or cashier is generally someone who is making some money, learning the workings of their place of employment, maybe gaining some public contact skills they didn’t have before, and taking that all and moving on to something better.
Jamie, you are not a teenager anymore. Please think back. Men did not regard women to be on the same level as them. No doubt “honey” was meant as an endearment by some men and every once in a while, but generally it was not. And it often went hand in hand with butt- or breast grabbing. When a father, husband or boyfriend calls a woman “honey”, it is not the same as when some stranger does it. And such endearments just have no place in the work place. At all! But that’s another topic.
Where does anyone want to make people dependent on the state? That wouldn’t make sense: it would only cut into their budget! People dependent on the state don’t get the real value of their work, let alone more. Unemployment pays only 67% to someone with children and 60% to someone without children of the unemployed’s last paycheck. This gets less as time goes on, until the unemployed receives Hartz IV (Wellfare).
As far as I can see it, companies don’t want to hire retirees. Here, the idea of retirement originally was so the person who had worked for more than 40 years can finally enjoy life and grandchildren. I agree that older people would make valuable workers, but most companies want young and dynamic people who are in top health and out for a carrier. The taxes are not the issue here. A retiree pays taxes also, and depending on the income and marital status, it lies between 25 - 35%.
US companies in Mexico produce for the world, not just for the Mexican market.
Claudia
I agree with you there. We have apprenticeships for jobs that could be learned in a six weeks course. But the reason for this is because, unlike in America, we have different level schools. The translations are not entirely correct, considering that we have a different model, but I will try it nonetheless. A Hauptschüler (pupil of secondary school) is in school for nine years, with an optional tenth year, a Realschüler (a pupil of middle school) for ten years with an optional eleventh year and a Gymnasiast (a pupil of academic high school) for 12 years to get Abitur and then move on to college/university. In order to fulfill his/her required school years, a Hauptschüler or Realschüler gets an apprenticeship which is combined with Berufsschule (trade school or vocational school). If someone chooses not to become an apprentice and prefers to get a job right away, he or she still needs to go to Hauswirtschaftsschule (a kind of trade school) for two years. As you see, we have a completely different school system that has its roots in, you’ve guessed it, the Middle Ages when a father payed an artisan to take in and educate his son. Does that make more sense now?
There are more kinds of schools, all of which would just be considered “college” in America.
In Germany, we don’t have an apprenticeship for cashiers, either. People working in stores usually had an apprenticeship of two years as a salesperson or a three year apprenticeship as a retailer (Einzelhandelskaufmann/frau).
Claudia
I wish to clarify something: I didn’t mean to say, “People dependent on the state don’t get the real value of their work” but people dependent on the state don’t get paid the same amount of their last paycheck. I expressed myself wrong.
Regular employees don’t get paid more than the real value of their work. When you look at the ratio of pay increase and inflation, you will see that the pay increase for workers is not matching inflation. And when workers in a developed country get paid less for the same amount and quality of their work as compared to other workers in another developed country, it will stifle employment.
I’m not against corporations. Without them, we’d all be without work. But I am against corporations that evade taxes by finding loopholes, leave the country or hide money in the banks of another country, work their employees like slaves because they are too stingy to hire more people and make full use of their freedom to hire people to work only a few hours a week so the employer doesn’t have to pay social security contributions. Unfortunately, it seems like the majority is doing one or more of these things. What also hurts us is the financial system. Banks control and ruin you as they please. And that is actually the point I was trying to make: it’s not the laws and taxes the stifle the economy, at least not to such a great extend; its corruption, tax evasion, mismanagement (especially of tax money), flawed and bad social security, exploitation of labor and the excessive craving for profit.
Claudia
Returning to the subject (you guys have digressed to no end :))) ), this just came to mind:
Obama has prosecuted three navy seals who allegedly punched a terrorist (ok, he was uncooperative, they had to subdue him somehow right?).
Obama is about to prosecute a navy seal who wrote a book about how Bin Laden was killed.
But
Obama hasn’t prosecuted Spike Lee, Al Sharpton and their army of thugs aka the black panthers for sending Zimmerman death threats (Spike Lee even went so far as to publish Zimmerman’s address on the web, only his incompetent pot-addled mind mistakingly posted another family’s address and screwed up their day causing them to move due to all the death threats coming their way), for mucking up his life and for dragging him and his family through the mud. Not a single inditment was handed down! Where’s justise? (I still maintain that Zimmerman acted in self defende and under the Florida “stand your ground” law should have never been arrested!!! But they have turned the case on its head and as a result ruined a good man’s life, but that’s my opinion of course).
So the wrap up is: Obama prosecutes decorated heroes (navy seals), but lets thugs (Al Sharpton, the black panthers) off skot free (doesn’t even give them a slap on the wrist!) Is he doing his job as the president of the greatest nation in the world? I think not. Even Clint Eastwood wants his fired. :))
For that alone I would never vote for Obama, he’s unfit to serve, and should have been deposed.
It’s just that a lot of Americans got caught up in the hype in 2008 and voted for a mistake.
Obama might have been a mistake but Romney will be a much bigger one.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: Announcing politician as guest speaker at local political event[YSaerTTEW443543]
I think Obama’s ideas are sound, but he attacks and tries to change laws that Americans hold very dear and are rooted in tradition. That is a big mistake. I prefer Obama’s plans regarding the economy to those of Romney. Romney is a follower of Reaganomics. The economy did well during Reagan’s years , but that was the same under Clinton’s. Personally, I think politicians (as I stated before) receive way too much credit for the rise or decline of the economy. Reagan and Clinton might just have been lucky to be in office just when the economy was on the rise anyway. There are too many other factors playing significant roles and the economy around the world was doing real well, not just in America. But if the country wants to do well, the government needs to cut and better coordinate its spending rather than lower the taxes.
But Obama has such a bad reputation now, I don’t think he will make it.
Claudia
No, Torsten.
I agree with you, Claudia. A country’s president is not entirely responsible for its economy. He can’t found companies and create jobs himself. This is has to come from the nation’s entrepreneurs.[YSaerTTEW443543]
TOEIC listening, talks: Company executive is introducing course participants to their new real estate training program[YSaerTTEW443543]
Look at history, and you’ll find that Clinton basically continued Reagan’s policies, had the same Fed chairman, had a Republican Congress after his second year, etc. Clinton was pragmatic and had no real ideological objection to Reagan policies if they worked. He was also to some degree aware of his position as a servant of the people, and when they hammered his party in the mid-term elections, he changed course. You won’t see any of this with Obama. He is a pure ideologue, and unlike Clinton, he doesn’t understand economics.
That’s true to some extent, but not completely. There are presidents who received loud criticism for doing “nothing” about a recession or depression when they were in office, but under those presidents the recovery came faster, because the economy was allowed to fix itself without any government mischief. Then there have been presidents who prolonged depressions, like Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama. They follow strategies of heavy taxation and government intervention that suppress business development and make their recessions last a lot longer.
Both of those presidents took measures that encouraged business development and hiring, and they did not pursue policies that suppressed economic activity. To that degree, they were responsible for the rising economies during their tenures.
It may be counter-intuitive to you, but it’s well known that when a country lowers its taxes, the government takes in more revenue rather than less, and the economy starts to boom, because that capital is available for business development and is not being held back by the government and being put to non-productive use. There is case after case to prove this.
In an interview, Obama was once presented with this fact – that lower taxes bring in more government revenue. He said he knew that, but that he wanted to raise taxes for the sake of “fairness” and didn’t care about the revenue impact. This just shows that the man cares more about his ideological vision than about truth or what actually works or helps the people.
And if you shackle the entrepreneurs, like FDR, Carter and Obama have, you are responsible for the lack of economic growth that ensues.
A curious fact:
Romney has been running a successful company - Bane Capital. He has a lot of experience in enterpreneurship, he knows the tricks of the trade.
Obama on the other hand doesn’t have a modicum of experience in enterpreneurship. He doesn’t have any idea how to run a company, much less a country. He didn’t even have a lemonade stand in his childhood. He has no hands on experience, which is what is expected of him as a president.
Sure, Obama is an excellent speaker, I’ll have to give him that, he can stir the masses, but as a politician he’s a failure I’m afraid. Romney isn’t much of a public speaker compared to Obama, but as far as his business acumen goes he’s head and shoulders above Obama. Obama is so out of it.
So you concur with Obama who’s hell bent on punishing success by levying usurous taxes on the wealthy?
But, did you know that the rich pay upwards of 70% of all taxes country-wide. Plus they ensure jobs in the country. If you tax them more, they’ll have to lay off some of their staff and you’ll put a lot of people out of a job.
It may sound contrary to common sense, but raising taxes on the rich will WORSEN the economy. Obama can’t understand it, or maybe won’t.
His obstinancy amazes me. Success should be rewarded, not punished with high taxes.
I think he wants to raise taxes so he can have more grassroots supporters in his pocket. He thinks that everybody likes sticking it to the man and enjoys having the rich paying a cartload of taxes. But this won’t fly! A lot of Americans are fit to be tied over Obama’s tax scheme. They know how much harm it’ll do in the long haul. Obama can’t fool all of the Americans all of the time.