[Eye_of_Mordor]

If these were 2 people, then who is the 'problem':

* US with heavy debts?

* Germany with savings?

Germany is in a position to fix its infrastructure, but then again, this can wait until there's a need for job creation.

Also, outstanding tax 'reforms' are more a symptom of weak political influence by corporations, which is a good thing.

Germany isn't the US, and for this reason, it is rich.

Edit: punctuation

[adventured]

The US is wealthier than Germany is.

The net mean wealth per adult in the US is upwards of $350,000 to $400,000. In Germany it's half that.

The net median wealth is roughly equal (especially after US housing values have recovered, and the stock market is near all-time highs).

Germany only has $50,000 in net median wealth per adult. They are not that rich. France by comparison is nearly three times that; Belgium is three times that; Australia is four times that; Italy, Japan and the UK are over twice that.

Total assets in the US are upwards of $200 trillion according to the Federal Reserve. Household assets alone are nearing $100 trillion (~$80 trillion net after liabilities).

[pcrh]

Those numbers are heavily influenced by the value of domestic property. Most Germans rent, for example.

Further, storing wealth in domestic property is a poor use of money.

Edit: If you look at countries by net financial wealth per adult, a quite different picture emerges.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...

[cyphunk]

As someone living in Germany (#12 on that list), having lived in Israel (#9) many years and US (#1)... the wealth per capita doesn't compare to quality of life I experienced at all. I'm sure pairing quality of life with wealth is a no-go for most analysts but I do not see why not. In fact Israel and the US were environments that demanded a massive amount of effort just to stay out of debt and get by day to day. So the fact that these lists and metrics do not account for actual quality of life leaves suspicion for the general analytical modal as a whole.

The only competition which I can see per capita wealth lists equating to a national advantage is for general growth. There is reason to question what value growth brings to people day to day. My impression is that a society in decline demographically is forced to answer to something more than peoples purchasing power alone which might just make for a more livable society. Or put simply: a system that has to worry about more than just growth tends to be one concerning itself at least slightly more with peoples quality of living.

[adventured]

I disagree. The US is the world's most valuable real estate market overall; it's a massive market when it comes to home owners; and it's extremely liquid as far as real estate markets go, with not only a very large number of buyers and sellers but also a massive financial engine behind it (critical for buying and selling).

It's clearly a perfectly good use of money. It has assisted the US in acquiring a median net wealth as high as Germany, while having four times the population, a very challenging feat.

[pcrh]

The major part of the value of domestic (as opposed to commercial) property is that of the land on which it sits, this is a non-productive use of that land (i.e. the land per se doesn't produce anything, unlike in agriculture). The money in domestic real estate would be put to better use if it were instead invested in enterprises that produced goods or services.

[userulluipeste]

Yes, US is still juicy! It can afford to live on its own fat (accumulated wealth) and not give much of a damn to stay competitive, at least not for a while. As mentioned in another post around here ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9340296 ), the natural flow of capital is towards healthy economies. (The other way around is called investment, and implies higher degrees of risk.) US was the healthiest economy for a long time and so a lot of good things flew it its direction. But usually wealth is not that easy to get. Germany? Germany only a few years ago finished paying its WW1 war indemnity! (Its WW2 arrears still pending, I presume.) Germany suffered massive destruction in war, then it suffered (at least partly) occupation and socialism for a significant period of time! Germany suffers from demographic recession (hence the low prices of real estate assets). And Germany, with all that, manages to keeping it up! Wealth will continue to flow, and you gave enough clues from where.

[patrickk]

The German numbers are heavily skewed by East Germany, which is still below the living standards of West Germany. If you live in a wealthy, West German city (as I do), the quality of living is very high indeed.

[adventured]

The US is skewed by absorbing a vast wave of Latin American immigration in the last 30-40 years, which is a perfectly reasonable comparison to absorbing East Germany (which was 16 million in 1990).

[cyphunk]

I hear the argument but not sure it compares well. If one looks at Germanys consensus from 2013 they find that the east is different in every manner. Diversity, wealth, education. The difference here is that the effect from influx to the US from poorer demographics is they distribute better than what is seen in Germany which helps reduce the statistical impact.

[userulluipeste]

US is absorbing immigrants from its south through a heavily defended wall, with an option to kick out of its borders anyone that it doesn't like (and this in fact happens). East Germany on the other hand, had to be taken in what is current Germany with everything it had, be it good or bad. Not comparable at all!

[lispm]

The thing is the numbers can not be compared.

Wealth in the US and Germany is totally different. The US invests in the stock market, the value of companies is extremely high ... it's just a fictional value.

[adventured]

That's incorrect.

Roughly 20% of household US assets are held in equities of any sort. Values are modestly elevated, but not dramatically so. The S&P 500 pe ratio is 20, historically the median and mean are both near 15; the S&P is likely elevated a mere ~15% above a normal range (representing approx. $3 trillion in asset value for households, or a mere 3.x%).

Besides that, there's nothing fictional about Apple generating $50 billion per year in profit and being worth $733 billion.

Or Deere generating $3 billion in profit and being worth $30 billion.

And on and on for thousands of other companies that also are anything but fictional.

[lispm]

The US stock market are driven by speculation, financial products are useless, the economy is fueled by printed money, the health system is expensive, consumption is largely useless, ...

Check out Germany sometime. It does not look or feel a lot poorer.

[adventured]

The US is not fueled by printed money (quite a thing to say at a time in which the EU is launching a large QE program). The Fed's balance sheet is $4.5 trillion, while the US economy has added $3 trillion to its GDP since 2007 (during that time Europe has added $0 to its GDP, with Germany effectively adding $0 to its GDP over the same time). It's clear that US growth, in both GDP and assets, drastically exceeds the Fed's help.

All assets are valued by speculation in some form or another. Saying the stock market is driven by speculation does not lessen the fact that the value of the companies is real - as real as any other asset you can name. All assets on earth are supported by the same confidence requirements of buyers and sellers as equities are.

What asset would you list in Germany that is somehow more real than publicly traded companies in the US? Euros?

A stock certificate for one share of Berkshire Hathaway A shares, is as legitimate a value as the cash in your pocket or any other asset you could possibly name.

The US is the world's second largest manufacturing economy, and was only passed by China finally a few years ago.

[lispm]

> The US is the world's second largest manufacturing economy, and was only passed by China finally a few years ago.

It's just that Germany is manufacturing more, per capita.

[plongeur]

How about visiting Germany, Belgium and France?

You will notice that in Germany there are way fewer poor people than in those other countries. The worst off people in Germany are more healthy, happy and hopeful than in the US or Belgium or France.

[orbifold]

As long as you can get away with it, the position of the US is actually more desirable. Essentially they are using their hegemonic position to levy a global tax. Their debt obligations are in the currency of international trade, so they can afford to essentially have a deficit indefinitely, without much consequences.

[tiatia]

> If these were 2 people, then who is the 'problem': * US with heavy debts?

If I may quote Greenspan: "That all of these claims on government are readily accepted reflects the fact that a government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. A fiat money system, like the ones we have today, can produce such claims without limit.

* Germany with savings? >Germany is in a position to fix its infrastructure,

Nope German infrastructure is in ruins. She does not have any savings. She has Lehman debt obligations, Greek government debt and billions of unpaid retirement obligations. She gives its products away for free.

> Germany isn't the US, and for this reason, it is rich.

The average American is richer than the average German.

Neither too much export, not too much import is good. BOTH is a sign of weakness. The best country is one that exports a tremendous amount but has an close to zero account deficit.

[lispm]

> Nope German infrastructure is in ruins.

Yeah, sure. I happen to live in Germany and I don't see to many ruins. Actually the city where I live invests a billion $ into a concert hall and 1.5 billion $ into a new X-ray research laser facility.

[tiatia]

Sure, Bozo, I am German _AND_ American and live in Asia. I know a few places.

German universities? Third class.

Transport system? Bad. Don't even think about how slow the ICE trains in Bavaria run.

Bridges? Many are overdue for reconstruction.

I would have to look up in how many years (hint: very few) Germany expects a doubling of cargo freight traffic. Impossible without massive investments in infrastructure. Look at many train stations. Offenbach, Heidelberg, Wuerzburg. OMG!

Internet? Slow because bad infrastructure. (China is different there. Regarding the internet they like shooting them-self in the balls)

Energy? Stupid investments in solar infrastructure instead of research. They subsidize Chinese manufacturing and take the money from the poor (high costs for electricity). Wind energy? Produced there, where it is not needed.

Last but not least, the 1 BILLION into a concert hall for rich people that was supposed to costs 35 or 70 MILLION is a sign of stupidity and corruption but not a sign of a "healthy infrastructure investment"

[omnibrain]

I live in germany and the infrastructure is rotting away. The bridge Schiersteiner Brücke is only the latest and biggest example. You only have to look into your local newspaper to find other examples.

Since 2003 the invest into infrastructure is net-negative: https://www.kfw.de/PDF/Download-Center/Konzernthemen/Researc...

[lispm]

Surprise: Germany could not build up East Germany and keep the West German infrastructure at the usual levels.

Next surprise: we have a lot infrastructure and it is expensive to maintain. Look how many airports we have nobody needs.

Next surprise: in places we need more infrastructure. We are for example investing a lot of money into the energy system. Or transport.

[vnglst]

It's not in ruins, but Germany's highways are definitely not as good as they used to be. Especially if you compare them to the roads in France or The Netherlands, for instance. The internet infrastructure in Germany needs work as well: It currently ranks below Russia and Hungary, far below countries like Sweden, Netherlands and the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_c...

[rbehrends]

> It's not in ruins, but Germany's highways are definitely not as good as they used to be.

It's not the highways themselves. It's primarily bridges and side roads that are affected. Schierstein Bridge, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schierstein_Bridge

> The internet infrastructure in Germany needs work as well: It currently ranks below Russia and Hungary, far below countries like Sweden, Netherlands and the US.

That's extremely misleading. Average download speed not only is a very poor metric for infrastructure, but depending on which chart you look at, you may be getting pretty much the opposite results. For example, check out Netflix's internet speed report [1].

In practice, the internet infrastructure in German is generally excellent in cities and metropolitan areas. The primary problem (same as in many other countries) is coverage in rural areas. The issue here is not lack of government investment, however, but forcing ISPs to invest money in these not very profitable markets. Despite subsidies and incentives, this is still facing obstacles. That said, the situation has improved considerably over the past years [2]:

"Germany remains above the European average in all technology combinations, with noteworthy improvements in overall NGA coverage recorded in 2013. Near-100% coverage of overall broadband and 97.5% coverage with fixed technologies were reported in 2013 as well. NGA access rose through the year, ending the period on 74.8% of households (21.3% in rural areas) – nearly 9 percentage points higher than the previous year."

[1] http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/

[2] https://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/study-broadband-...

[lispm]

> It's not in ruins, but Germany's highways are definitely not as good as they used to be.

Go to East Germany. They got the new roads. Brand new autobahns.

I live in West Germany and an Autobahn is not far away. First class. The surface has just been renewed with a more silent asphalt.

[Luc]

You're right of course, though I'm not sure you can call it investing when they pay four times as much as planned for a concert hall :)

[lispm]

Why not? The money gets spend and we get a very luxurious concert hall - more than originally planned.

[tiatia]

It is factor 10.

[smcl]

You're gonna have a tough time defending that "ruins" statement. I know that anecdote != data, but I've been quite a few times what was East Germany (not just Berlin, but places in Märkisch oderland and in/around Dresden) and even though these are the poorer parts of Germany they're still ridiculously modern and well served in terms of infrastructure (Chemnitz is a little brutal, mind).