sort of a short observation from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) Does Germany really has a larger GDP then California+texas and Nevada? That sounds wrong
There are over 100 million people living in Germany that's a third of Americas population so why can't you understand the GDP of Germany?
80.7 million(Germany) versus 67.4 million (38.3calif+26.4tex+2.7nev) But that's part of the answer it looked a bid out of porportion
Sorry about my numbers but still there's more in Germany than the 67 million you posted. Don't forget that Germany isn't fighting any wars so it can focus its attention on goods that others want to buy other than weapons.
Germany pays higher middle and lower class wages than California/Texas/Nevada, and lower executive class compensation - this gives it a break from the inequality damper the US economy in general is suffering. It has a better, and much cheaper, health care system - so better cared for people (big savings there in many ways) paying 40% less for their health care (problematic, from the GDP calculation, but probably a net gain) than what California/Texas/Nevada residents pay. The extra cost of the US military has in the past been balanced by the gains from captured markets and resources - Germany has to buy oil from US or militarized Russian sources, for example - but the rise of the international corporation defended by the US military but not taxed to pay for that military has reduced that benefit. Fortunately the US has been paying for its military on credit, and still has a chance to retire this debt by taxing the beneficiaries of its wars, but meanwhile a serious drag on its economy is inevitable. And Germany has a better educated population, more capable of high-productivity skill-based manufacturing, produced over the years by its superior public vocational education. The US has allowed (abetted) the erosion of its public vocational education, at the same time as it has reduced the wages and other sources of financing for private vocational education. Add to this the destruction of the vocational unions, which in the years of US prosperity served a critical educational function via apprenticeship programs and direct classroom training, and we see that significant GDP consequences are to be expected. It took a generation, from the time the US gave up on the New Deal approach (late 70s/early 80s) Germany had adopted (late 50s early 60s) until the generations raised under Reaganomics began to dominate the US GDP and the generations the Germans had raised under what in the US we called the "New Deal" (not sure what Germans called their post-War restructuring) took over the German GDP. It may take a generation or more of hard political struggle simply to reverse the trend. But it isn't a surprise. It's sunrise predictable, and has been predicted for decades now.
Germans also have much more job protection that their American counterparts. However, Germany is not dependent on US oil as the US does not export oil to Germany. Germany, like other European nations, is heavily dependent on Arab and Russian oil sources. US law currently forbids export of raw oil and natural gas with a few exceptions. Another key difference between US and German economies is that the German economy is highly dependent on exports. The US economy is not. The US has a more diversified economic base. I don't get your commentary on US military expenditures or how it is relevant. The US spends about 4% of GDP on its military. But the US military also one reason why the US Dollar is the world reserve currency and reserve currency status provides a host of benefits. Deficit spending it one of those benefits. International demand for the dollar allows the US to print more dollars and spend more dollars without suffering adverse consequences. So there are also significant economic benefits to prudent military spending which offset the cost of military expenses. Another important distinction between the US, Germany and any European member state is that unlike EU member states the US has direct control over monetary policies. The US has a fairly strong central bank. That isn't the case in Europe and that is one reason Europe remains on the cusp of recession 7 years after the liquidity crisis of 2008. The greatest problem the US faces is our political system. With the unfettered radicalization of the Republican Party and rise of right wing entertainment, the nation remains at risk of repeating the mistakes which led to the liquidity trap of 2007-2009 and the huge deficits incurred under the previous profligate Republican governments. The US needs to fix its political system. Fixing its political problems (i.e. how it elects representatives and keeping those representatives free from conflicts of interest) will solve every other problem the country faces, including income inequality.
Like I said - US or Russian sources. The German army failed to hold on to the Middle East oil, the US military largely supplanted the British and French military in the region, and the seceder - Iran - threw in with Russia. But there are no internationally controlling big "Arab" oil companies, regardless of the nominal size of Saudi Aramco or whatever Iran's operation is called these days - the fate of Saddam Hussein was maybe the last, but not the first, lesson in that arena - and the OECD corporations (Exxon, BP, et al) Germany is dealing with are operating under US military hegemony. OPEC does not have a serious army of its own. Nonsense. The US debt is bigger than its GDP at the moment, and was largely borrowed to finance its military operations and related domestic entailments. The US military is a huge expense, fundamentally rooted in the US economy. When it was being paid for by income taxation at 90% marginal rates and capital gains similarly imposed (to pay down WWII borrowing, etc) things weren't so bad - now it's a severe burden.
I don’t understand what you are trying to say or understand how you think it is relevant. If you are saying, Germany must in the future purchase natural gas from The United State or Russia, for the immediate future, that may be partially true. To purchase oil and natural gas from the US, US law must be changed to allow exports and export and import facilities and pipelines must be built in Europe and the US. That will take years. But longer term, Germany does have options. If you are talking about oil, it along with other EU states has other options. Oil and natural gas imports from the US would require a change in US law. Germany could develop shale reserves in other EU nations like Italy, France, and Estonia and/or reverse its position on nuclear power and use more nuclear power or it could import more Arab oil. EU is the second largest user of Arab oil, just behind China. And let's not forget about our Canadian friends who are awash in oil and natural gas. Actually no, the US national debt is not larger than its GDP. US national debt is at this moment about 12.8 trillion dollars. The US GDP is about 17 trillion dollars. The debt number you are using includes debt the government owes itself (inter agency accounts) which really isn’t debt in the classical sense of the word. The government, through the Fed, owns quite a bit of its own debt. http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/debt/current Again, I am not sure why you think this is relevant in a discussion on the German economy or why increased taxation would be a serve burden. Tax rates in the US are at historic lows. Additionally, in the post WWII America, the top tax rate was 94% and applied on income over $200,000 (equal to $2.88 million 2014 dollars). Now the top income tax rate is 39.6% on earned income above $400,000. The US income tax has become substantially less progressive and more regressive in the ensuing years. I take it your “now it’s a severe burden” was a bit of sarcasm?
Economy of Dutschland? It is on the decline and will continue to do so. Merkel, spooked by the NSA snooping around her iphone has picked the wrong side. So while the GDP is higher than Cali+Nevada+Texas...that will not be for too long. And what do I base this on? Pfeiffer Vacuum Technology, the usual German business...stocks have gone down -33.58% this year: http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/PFV:GR http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/06/b...orts-add-to-germanys-economic-shift.html?_r=0 http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes...ermany-economy-decline-20141119269765298.html Oh but that's Aljazeera so it isn't trustable...sure...well here is UK news: http://www.theguardian.com/business...-eurozone-fears-germany-cuts-growth-forecasts
So you, like Reagan, plan to renege on the money owed the Social Security trust fund? But to purchase oil and gas drilled and refined and marketed by the likes of Exxon and Halliburton and Saudi Aramco, the multinational beneficiaries of US military operations, Germany just needs to keep doing what it's doing. The context was a poster claiming Germany was jsut taking advantage of its lack of military expense. I was pointing out that the military of the US paid for itself when its beneficiaries were suitably taxed, and has only created a severe burden of public debt since these beneficiaries were exempted from that taxation.
No, I am just being honest. That is why the US Treasury separately reports debt held by the public. US debt held by the public also includes the 2.5 trillion dollars in US Treasuries notes held by the Federal Reserve. So the real US debt is more like 10 trillion dollars. Social Security and Medicare are not debts, they are programs run by the US federal government. Unlike debt, the benefits can be changed at any time; therefore they should not be treated as debt. There is no fixed benefit. If we treat Medicare and Social Security as debt, they we should include every other government program as debt. That just isn’t reasonable. Medicare and Social Security have always been funded on a pay as you go basis and that will continue for the foreseeable future. What Reagan did was make the tax code more regressive by increasing Social Security taxes and using the surpluses to fund tax cuts mostly for the nation’s wealthiest citizens. Now those who have benefited from that public largess don’t want to see their tax rates return to more normalized levels as should be the case. I recognized the screw job back when Reagan and a Democratic congress went down this path some 30+ years ago. But that doesn’t change the fact that Intergovernmental Holdings are not debt. They are analogous to intradepartmental debt of a private corporation and are netted out when reported. Well, Halliburton is an oil field services company, so it does not produce, refine or sell oil or natural gas. It services the likes of Exxon and Saudi Aramco. Germans also obtain much of their oil and oil related products through Royal Dutch Shell which has significant investments in Russia. But if Germany does nothing, yes it can continue to purchase oil and gas from its traditional sources. And Germany, like most nations around the world will continue to benefit from US military expenditures. Ironically, the largest user of Arab oil is China. It is American war ships in the gulf who are protecting China’s largest source of foreign oil. But as I previously mentioned, the large and power US military benefits the US too. It ensures free trade around the world and it cements the roll of the US Dollar as the global reserve currency which brings with it some huge economic advantages. Germany, along with many other countries, is taking advantage of its relationship with the US, but can you blame them? After WWII, we imposed some pretty severe military restrictions on Germany and Japan. But rare has it been the case that the US has fully funded its government without debt. We funded the Revolutionary Army with debt. US tax levels are at historical lows. So there is ample room for tax increases. However, as previously mentioned, the US tax code has become more regressive especially since Ronald Reagan. The US tax code needs to be and should become much more progressive. Just as an aside, I read the other day I read an article estimating the value of all US assets at something like 225 trillion dollars. Oh yeah, there is plenty of room for increased taxation. And we have a national debt of 10 trillion when you subtract out the intergovernmental holdings and debt held by the Federal Reserve. That is really very manageable if we have the political wherewithal to be fiscally prudent.