Productivity and unemployment.
“88% of people in Germany are also quite busy, and statistically have a higher productivity per capita than US employees, so don't be so patronising.” You said.
Well, let me refer you to an official .gov UK site. Of course they are in collusion with the “Cowboy’s” cooking the books to show that America has such a high productivity. :)
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=160
Fact is if you want I can give you DOZENS of credible sources that claim quiet the opposite of what you state. The productivity in the US is HIGHER than ANY European state. But that’s not all! Even if you look at the actual output per unit of time (Not GDP divided by employed labor force) in certain industries, the US beats nearly anyone out there.
On average the American works nearly 60 hours per year more than the average German. Less holidays and longer work weeks combined with less annual leave gives you nearly 1 ½ weeks of work more per employee per year.
More elderly or younger people are in the labor force where in Germany they are mandatory retired. More women are in the labor force as well.
Unemployment is at about 5.6% vs. 12% for Germany, which does cook the books to make it show better than it really is. Long term unemployed taking 1 Euro jobs ( http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1416143,00.html ) and in retraining programs are not counted in their unemployment statistic as certain other “exclusions” as well.
First off, I must admit rather sheepishly that when I added that throwaway remark about productivity I didn't check my facts first. I'd already posted before I did a Google search and found that US productivity is indeed higher. Per capita productivity PER HOUR is also higher in the USA, but not by as much. However, I didn't then post a correction myself because of the advanced hour and because I fully expected to find this morning a raft of statistics to contradict me - and here it is. Thanks for your trouble. However, it's not really relevant to my argument anyway.
I accept that Americans work harder and longer hours, with less holidays, and that more elderly people and women are working in the US. Whether this is a good thing for your society is open to debate - but it's your country, after all. I have also never disputed that unemployment and excessive social programs are harmful to the German economy. Almost everyone here agrees this is the case.
You're absolutely correct that the Left party a.k.a. PDS a.k.a. SED raked in a lot of votes: about 25% in the old GDR and about a whacking 4.5% in the old FRG. The old GDR is a problem, of course. Over 85% of people in Germany overall voted for the established parties. So your point is...?
BTW , SPD means Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands. The CSU (slightly right of the CDU) means Christlich Soziale Union. You're getting the two mixed up, a harmless mistake.
CDU is the Christlich Demokratische Union. The two Nazi parties call themselves National Democrats and Republicans. What's in a name, eh?
As I said in my post, it's quite true that the Nazis lifted elements from socialist theory to get German workers on their side. Social security goes back to the Kaiser's and Bismarck's time (1880s I think)- those two were notorious Socialists. Helping the less well-off in this way was a German tradition, which not coincidentally helped defuse popular discontent with the elites in power although it didn't alway work, of course - as in 1919, 1932, 1953).
You're correct the Nazis had a command-driven economy. However, Germany under the SPD never did. Obviously not Socialists, then.
You keep on harping on that Germans are socialists = Nazis. I have no truck with either. Both the SPD and the CDU subscribe in varying degrees to the "social market economy" - i.e. the market operates without undue state interference, and the less fortunate get welfare so they're not reduced to crime or begging if they are handicapped or jobless or old. This isn't particularly controversial in Germany. In fact, you (still) have something like this in the USA, don't you?
Germans get irate of course about excessive benefits to wasters and about benefit fraud, and the govt. fights a constant battle to ensure that the undeserving don't sponge off the rest of us. Both the main parties are committed to cutting back social programs, it's only the details of these cutbacks that are at issue.
I'll say it once more and for the last time. Nobody here is defending socialism; but Germans do defend the social market economy, and they make a very sharp distinction between the two.
And also for the last time. Nazis are not socialists, whatever sources you quote to back up this ludricous assertion.
Right, back to work.