German companies

An unhappy business

The new government’s reforms worry German bosses

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Readers' comments



What the article calls "a tool that has made the labour market more flexible" are really methods to evade collective agreements, effectively creating two classes of workers.

About the "power-hungry industries" that get relief from a renewables tax it is important to know that the previous coalition has stretched their definition to include, e.g., golf courses and chicken farms. These subsidies must now be compensated by the remaining market.

There are many reasons to be unsatisfied with the coalition agreement. These are not.

the_blurp in reply to Oreg

what creates the two-class employee market is the rigid job protection and the unions who only care about their 'insiders'. Take that away and companies would not need to use any other tools such as temp-workers etc... they would simply hire normally as they could also fire normally again when they no longer need all that staff.

and the golf-courses, etc. is a common theme, but simply wrong. look it up. There is not one golf course that gets tax-relief. A few tried applying, but were denied. You have to be in international competition for the energy-tax relief.

Oreg in reply to the_blurp

I agree that job protection for insiders is too rigid. That needs to be fixed for all workers, not sidestepped for some.

The golf course was granted a reduced "grid fee" which is not a great example. Wiesenhof, however, is a chicken farm that has in fact been granted relief from renewables taxes. So have 68 other food producers, more than the total of all industries in 2011. In 2012 the number of successful applications has skyrocketed more that 14-fold.

Jo612 in reply to Oreg

Even if there would be a total cut of industry exemptions the so called "EEG-Umlage" will only decrease from 6 to 5 cent, which is actually nearly 1/5 of the electricity price. Of course it is not ok to grant a chicken farm and such things those exemptions, but on the other had it won't change on the long-run at all: the EEG-mechanism is just not good, because it makes the electricity price for most people higher, cause renewable energy has granted feed-in-tariffs and on the other hand making conventional energy from lignite and hard coal cheaper (because everything is traded on the same exchange), even if they have had granted even higher subsidies in the past and will produce environmental harm in the future. The mechanism itself is just sick and has - at least in my opinion- to be reformed!

But for the industriy exemptions there will may be a soon reform, at least the European Union will open up an allowance-process...

Forsaken tech

Morbidly facetious opinions, ill-disciplined research. Only when you read an article in the Economist about a topic you are knowledgeable of do you realise how shallow their insights probe.


So, as we all know, German will be in the doldrums soon enough whilst, thanks to easy money, Britain will prosper beyond the wildest expectations.

Pity that yearly increase of over 100 billion US$ in the already highest external debt in the world (bar those two economic giants: Lux and Ireland).

One day investors will finally look at stats (a thing they rarely do) and a new CDO fiasco will occur. Or will it be 1992 deja voo all over again as they say in those Mafia films?

Britain and British journalists please wake up. No time for joking or distracting attentions with somebody else's eventual problems.

We are in a fix.

Joshua Tree in reply to sanmartinian

"We are in a fix."


Indeed. You - the Portuguese - are.

So stop shedding crocodile tears about other countries' comparatively minor troubles and get your own house in order. You owe it to your European partners/creditors.

Junoir in reply to sanmartinian

Pssst, this is a 'Charlemagne' thread where the subject of the article is Germany. Therefore there is no reason why the writer should make any reference to Britain at all.

"No time for joking or distracting attentions with somebody else's eventual problems".

Who's joking? And anyway, writing an article about another country's difficulties doesn't mean the writer is 'distracting attention' from those of his own.

Strange how neither you nor Pedro have ever been able to grasp this.

"We are in a fix".

No doubt, so in that case, there are lots of articles in TE for you about Britain. Please consult relevant section(s)where you will be able to debate the 'fix'.

Here's one for you for starters, about the autumn statement.

Bonne lecture!

sanmartinian in reply to Junoir

To Junoir on my being off topic

Glad to read you again, Junoir. From your last post and long absence, I thought you had abandoned us for good.

And reinvigourated too! Nice new youngish style. Good for you, old bloke!

Yes, you are right. I was completely off topic. My only excuse is I did it on purpose.

I've been so fed up with my drawing attention to the dangers of Britain's fast increasingly largest foreign debt of any sizable economy, I've decided to shout in some other place where the “jeering crowd” and those stalkers of mine would have a chance to bring me down in flames.

If lucky, I might persuade some (highly improbable, I must admit); if not, at least the replies would be blasted through their loudspeakers and some inattentive minds might be wakened up.

In all honesty I have to confess an incident intervened and helped me. One of my twenty something grandsons is staying with me and acts as granddad white knight. An Economist reader too (mostly via granddad's subscription, I'm sorry to say...) he reported two replies of other posters to my comment as being off topic. Moderators didn't pay him any attention, so I have assumed my post was approved too.

To be honest, Moderators couldn't do otherwise. My comment and replies to it were the only existing ones at the time and, so, if deleted, the poor correspondent-in-Berlin's good article would be left without comments.

Embarrassing, you see.

The reason for all this parleyvoo is that I'm even more worried about the health of world finances than I was in 2003 and joined my voice to the chorus that were predicting the 2008 meltdown (it really started in 2007) and nobody paid any attention to until too late.

Britain's foreign debt can have a worse impact than the CDO fiasco in 2008 .

We, the world, are in a fix.

In 1920, German foreign debt was so large it could never be repaid. In a vain attempt to avoid the London ultimatum of that year, printing presses went into overdrive, the German hyper inflation of 22/24 was born and the rest is History.

You see, as opposed to those whose psychological fulsomeness is not guaranteed and keep blasting at any opinion they don't share, I don't care whether I'm right or wrong. In fact, in this particular case I'd much prefer to be wrong.

But chances are, I'm not. If so, I've a funny sense of duty that makes me warn of the possibilities of disaster.

If that offends those, such as you and me who feel English but no longer are officially so, tant pis.

I'm never bothered or offended by those who attack me, be it personally or the human groups I belong to.

That's for nervous weaklings or hot heads, and I address myself only to similar mindsets as mine.

I am terribly fond of all those well meaning human beings of whatever caste, nationality, shape of nose, cultural habits or opinions. I have little patience for the ill meaning and impolite.

À tantôt, vieux copain. On boira un verre ensemble si on se retrouve. Fouquet, coté George V?

Blast, someone has used that line already! In 1939, to be precise.

I hope you won't take it badly if I don't pursue this matter for the time being.

PS an unimportant correction to your post: this is not a Charlemagne thread. It is a Business thread; no need to summon all those dozen-plus professional "recommenders" to applaud comments against opinions disliked by the Charlemagne fan club. Four or five, if that much, will beat me any day.

PSII You mention Pedro. My eyesight not getting any better, I now use a trick to save it. I now only read and reply to posters' histories and write "first" comments on "Add your comment" with a little red pen on the left. Far less tiresome. I haven't read Pedro for donkey's years if you alow me a small exaggeration. Must try to look 'im up.

Joshua Tree in reply to Junoir

Well, it seems were are on the page "on this one", so to speak.

It's obvious Sanmartinian + his little side-kick are afraid Portugal will be cut loose from mother Europe (read: the euro), and that they seem to believe the best they can do to help avert this dreadful fate is to flatly deny different parts of Europe have different traditions, cultures and needs (remember the silly car headloght debate?) and perform differently, because they dread the impliction that the better-run countries, on whose support Portugal currently depends, could go different ways.

Both should relax. As the last five years of crisis have shown, however poorly Portugal is performing, it will be dragged along.

sanmartinian in reply to Junoir

To Junoir on being off topic and Britain's economic health (again)

A couple of days ago, I replied to you about being off topic on purpose in this thread on the subject of Britain's dangerous foreign debt.

I'm very happy to comment far better news came out this morning. Manufacturing in Britain, one of worst features in the British economy for the last few decades, has jumped forward.

It's excellent on its own, even better because it was better than forecast.

If we keep this way we'll get there.

Yet all roses have thorns and, again, Britain's foreign debt went up once more at an even faster pace than in the previous set of data.

That's what most worries me and certainly does worry all those with a share in running the British economy. They are certainly not incompetent; running a national economy with all these free individual decisions is no piece of cake.

Despite this last not hopeful bit of stats, the way to go is to revive manufacturing and productive services (all those except betting on foreign exchange, shares and bonds so prevalent in the City).

If the trend of increasing manufacture and productive services continues, foreign debt will be tamed. It'll take a hell of a long time but that's the only way.

The news made my day, I'm sure it'll please you too.

Joshua Tree in reply to Junoir

One of these days you and I should really discuss the health of the Portuguese economy. With Sanmartinian busy talking about other countries worries on end, someone should tend to our ailing friend in the south-west.

Will Portugal exit bailout procedures in mid-2014, as scheduled (and as Ireland has shown is possible just days ago)? And will it be able to stand on its own feet again after all those years? Or does it need "debt restructuring", as some say?

Those are pressing matters, I believe, and they should be addressed.



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