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June 10, 2008: According to Jeffrey Stinson in USA TODAY, Germany's economy is on the upswing in constrast to the economies of the U.S., Britain, Spain and some other Europeans. Last month unemployment dropped. It enjoys a trade surplus. Germans have invested in machinery that has brought productivity gains. Germany has lower budget deficits, "achieved by increasing the sales tax and raising the retirement age to 67 from 65." Stinson writes that "Germans also are enjoying better economic times than Americans and many other Europeans because they didn't go on a spending spree the past few years." He points out that Germans have low personal debt.
East of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. West of Poland and the Czech Republic. North of Austria. In the north, 2,389 kilometers (roughly 1,493 miles) of coastline along the North and Baltic Seas (seas separated by Denmark. 357,021 square kilometers, about 970 kilometers (400 miles) at its widest point and 750 kilometers (450 miles) north and south. Capital: Berlin.
Official name: Federal Republic of Germany
The Federal Republic of Germany absorbed what had been East Germany (German Democratic Republic) in 1990.
The Federal Republic of Germany has been a member of NATO since May 5, 1955. It is one of the founding members of what is now the European Union.
Germany is a parliamentary democracy with a bicameral legislature. The Bundestag (lower house) is the principal legislative body. Either body can initiate legislation. To become law, most legislation must be approved by both bodies and by the executive branch of government - the prime minister.
Germany has twenty-four or more political parties, including the Animal Welfare Party, the German Communist Party, the Green Party, and a party that some call neo-fascist: the NPD (Nationalist Party of Germany). But the logic of politics makes gives dominance to two political parties: the center-conservative CDU (Christian Democratic Union) on the one hand and center-left SPD (Social Democratic Party), historically a moderate socialist party, the came to power with the old Weimar Republic.
In the elections of June 2004, the CDU led with 36.5 percent of the vote. The SPD received 21.5 percent. Next, at 11.9 percent, came a coalition that included the Greens. The SPD put together a coalition that included the Greens, allowing Gerhard Schröder, an opponent of war against Saddam Hussein, to become prime minister.
The much feared NPD received only 0.9 percent of the vote. The German Communist Party received only 0.1 percent of the vote. Some people never give up.
Reports are that within the NPD are a lot of government agents. To gain power the NPD must attract mainstream Germans. To get there they are complaining about “secret government” conspiracies by the “directors of the global economic and financial system.” They complain about opinion-terror, in other words government and mainstream journalism controlling opinion and trying to silence them. They complain about Jews, globalism and foreign influences, including foreigners "swamping" Germany, interbreeding with Asians and Africans, and they excuse youthful "neo-Nazi" violence as "semi-instinctive," and therefore legitimate, responses.
In the late 1920s, Germany had a huge Communist Party, Stalin was in power in the Soviet Union not far away, doing terrible things and creating more of a fear of communism, and the Great Depression started in Germany in 1927. The NPD has no developments with which to ride to power that compares to all this. The German people, moreover, have learned from the past. Fears of the CDU have been exaggerated. And what substantial dissatisfactions and legitimate concerns arise among the Germans will be addressed by one of the more centrist political parties - as the CDU has done in taking a tougher line on immigration.
Figures unless otherwise stated are from the CIA Factbook.
Factbook: "The German economy - the fifth largest economy in the world in PPP terms and Europe's largest - began to contract in the second quarter of 2008 as the strong euro, high oil prices, tighter credit markets, and slowing growth abroad took their toll on Germany's export-dependent economy."
Estimated per capita GDP:
2008 $34,800 (13th among European nations, behind the UK and ahead of Spain)
2007 $34,900
2006 $34,000
GDP annual growth rate:
2008: 1.3%
2007: 2.5%
2006: 3%
Germany has high unemployment, at 10.7 percent for 2003. It remains about the same for 2004, at 10.6 percent. Germans have been losing jobs to outsourcing. Seventy percent of U.S. workers losing jobs to outsourcing, it is said, find work within six months, but in Germany only 40 percent find work within six months.
Germany's high unemployment has been putting a strain on Germany's budget. Falling revenues and rising expenditures have created a government debt above 3 percent - the limit allowed by the Economic Union. Pressure is on Germany but it is not about to be booted from the E.U.
The Germans have been working an average of 10 percent fewer hours than workers in the United States, but Siemens, the telecommunications giant, has extended the work week from 35 to 40 hours per week.
Military expenditures as a percentage of GDP: 1.5 (2005)
Gender Gap: The World Economic Forum lists Germany as ninth in the world in the elimination of a gender gap. This is ahead of the United States, which does not appear among the top ten.
Vitualien Markt in the city center is an example of good local government intervention in the a city's economy. It is in an area of expensive real estate, but the city keeps the rents low enough for old-time shops to continue rather than being replaced by fast food franchises.
Pedestrians are around, and a few bicycles and no cars. Rick Steves, the travel guy, says Viktualien Markt is a favorite with locals for fresh produce and friendly service. While this most expensive real estate in town would have been overrun by fast food places, Munich keeps the rent low so these old-time shops can carry on. Says Rick Steves, the PBS travel guy, "The Viktualien Markt's beer garden taps you into great budget eating. Stalls sell the best Wurst, sandwiches, produce, and more."
Here is a look at Vitualien Markt, a bit different from the mall's in my home city and different from what I see from the parking lot at the local WalMart. http://www.stadtpanoramen.de/muenchen/viktualienmarkt.html
Germany has had a flatter distribution of wealth than Britain or the United States. The top 10 percent in household income in 1997 did 25.1 percent of spending for consumers goods. For the lowest 10 percent of households this was 3.6 percent. For the UK these figures were 27.2 and 2.3, for the United States, for 1997, they were 30.5 and 1.8.
In 2003 Germany spent $67.96 per capita on foreign aid, less than the UK at $74.88, much less than Norway at $307.95, but more than the United States, at $23.76.
As a percentage of GDP, The federal tax burden in Germany is about half way between that of Sweden and the United States - for 1999. Germany was at 36.6 percent, Sweden at 52.5 percent and the U.S. at 26 percent. In total tax revues, Germany was $9,733 per person, Sweden $
13,404 per person, and the U.S. $6,702 per person.
For 2008 deaths 10.8, births 8.18, down from 8.33 in 2005
At the beginning of World War II, Germany had a population of around 70 million. By 1948 the population had dropped to 67.3 million. By 1990 it was at 80 million. For July 2008 it is estimated at 82.37 million. A slight decline in the growth rate estimated for 2008: -0.044 percent per year.
According to 2005 estimates, Germany has 232 persons per square kilometer (601 per square mile). The median for the United States (2000 U.S Census) is 34 persons per square kilometer (88 per square mile).
More arriving than leaving, a net gain of 2.19 persons per 1,000 population, about the same as 2005.
Infant mortality estimated for 2008: 4.03, down from 4.16 in 2005 (deaths before the age of one year per 1,000 live births).
Average life expectancy at birth estimated for 2008: 79.01 years.
Living with HIV/AIDS, ages 15 to 49: less than 0.1 percent (2001)
As of 2004, Germany had a health care plan in which working people paid from 8 to 16 percent of their wages into the system, while the unemployed and retirees received health care free. Those with incomes who weree affluent enough could opt out the system and avail themselves to private health care.
Germans in 1999 spent on average $2,697 per person on health care, compared to $4,271 in the United States.
Crime is described at Nationmaster.com as low in Germany. For assaults, Germany is described as 1.4 per 1,000 population, compared to 3.2 for Norway, 7.5 for the UK and 7.7 for the United States.
In 1949, the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) abolished the death penalty. The death penalty remained in Communist East Germany, the former German Democratic Republic, until 1987.
In the year 2000, the German government banned corporal punishment in child rearing. (My German-American mother would have been dismayed by such law.)
15 percent of Catholics attend mass weekly (New York Times, April 19, 2005).
Germany has stretches of highway with no speed limit. There cars are built for speeds over 100 miles per hour. And they do it with fewer car accident deaths per capita than do people in the United States. Data from 1999, at nationmaster.com, has the U.S. leading in "motor vehicle" deaths per 100,000 population, at 15.5. Germany is 9.8, Canada 9.6, Sweden is 5.6. (Swedes also do not like the music of Richard Wagner as much as Germans. They tend more toward emotional moderation.)
In 2002, 41 percent of Germany's population was accessing the internet.
SOURCES:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php
Copyright © 2008 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.