Letters to the Editor
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Because the Germans care about quality.
That reputation for "German Engineering" isn't all advertising. You can see it even as a tourist in Germany. Things there, everything from socks to cars, are well made, expensive, and built to last.
I think it comes from living in physically small spaces. If I have a small house or an apartment, a wardrobe instead of a walk-in closet, a kitchen in a space most Americans would see as a glorified closet, I would also only want the best things I could get. Not the most. The best. If I'm going to buy a (coffee maker, electric toothbrush, kitchen knife, pair of shoes, car), I want to buy a good one that will last for 20 years. Not a cheap one that I will throw away when it breaks.
From friends and relatives who live there, the Germans do things like get their shoes repaired. Regularly. Because they only have a few pairs, they were expensive, and they're worth repairing.
It doesn't surprise me at all that the Germans are the top exporter. We could learn from them.
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One reason is they have zero qualms dealing with anyone
Iran, Burma, China, Cambodia, Congo, Sudan, Syria, Zimbabwe. If you got money they got the shit. They also provide very favorable financial terms to despots. In fact the key reason that Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 was that their Russian arms dealers decided to finally pressure their German bankers to call their loans and pay them after a decade. This left Saddam with very few liquid assets so he decided to steal Kuwait's.
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Different Measures of Productivity
The Germans don't equate paying low wages with productivity or efficiency. Rather than devoting their resources and energy to busting unions and paying rock bottom wages, German businesses actually try to become more productive (more output per unit of labor) and make better products. And they have a social and governmental structure that backs them up. Too bad our business leaders are so short sighted.
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Do the numbers for Germany include "exports" to other EU nations?
We would expect that Germany, as a fully integrated member of a hyper-free-trade zone, would export a large fraction of its production to other EU nations (and likewise import a large fraction of its consumption). It's like talking about Rhode Island's exporting prowess sending shellfish to Connecticut. This isn't meant to diminish from Germany's design and manufacturing skill, but we should be careful how we interpret these numbers.
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@froggy
The Germans are very serious about quality, but they are also very serious, as a people, about standards in many aspects of society. The problem with the US IMO is that the concept of acceptable standards--in production, lifestyle, mores, and the way life should be lived--is seen as outdated and quaint. We give lip service to "family values" and religion, yet those are also part of the throw-away culture: disposable spouses, churches you're free to join or quit as you like, a belief in Jeezus without believing what he had to say. With core values like these, it's not hard to see why our business model is the way it is; if 50% of people find it easy to dump their spouse, how hard is it for them to lay off hundreds of workers they've never met to boost the quarterly earnings and get themselves that nice bonus? Or close a mill in Ohio, potentially killing a town off, because they'll work for slave wages in Bangladesh?? Quality standards be damned, and ethical standards don't figure in to calculating stock dividends, amigo.
The natural result is that everything becomes expendable. Our culture is regurgative trash; look no further than Hollywood, which lately only seems to produce anything involving a '60's TV show or superhero. TV is the same thing. Education has been reduced to training worker bees for retail jobs. In the end, people become just another resource to be used or discarded as we see fit, which is why we have the highest homeless, poverty and prisoner rates per capita in the Western world.
(Rant off.)
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Germany was already a top exporter before the EU free trade zone
jonn-msft: Germany was already the world's top exporter at the end of the 1980s, before the EU free trade zone came into effect in 1993. So, while a comparison with, say, Connecticut, may not be totally off-base, I attribute the current state of things more to postwar Germany's long-standing history of exporting its good, rather than the EU free trade zone.
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How do the Germans do it?
Boy is this a question waiting to be smacked out of the park over the far fence.
Ever looked at anyGerman car in comparison to its American counterpart?
Ever looked at any German product in comparison to its American counterpart?
Of course, the geniuses who graduate from American B schools and think that quarterly average return on the dollar has anything to do with anything independently of it being a representation of the underlying quality of the company and its products, have something to do with it.
I think if we took all the business school wannabees and gave them the job their small brains actually qualify them for - cannonfodder - the world would be a better place.
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My personal experience
I can't comment on Germany as a whole, but I can share a relevant story.
When I was doing some research as part of my summer job (and that led to grad school at the same institution) people were MAD for Zeiss lenses. They were the best for our instruments. Zeiss was THE mark of quality. I also have to say, well, it appeared well-earned, and I worked with imaging so I had to stare into a hell of a lot of displays. Zeiss as you may guess, is German.
That was 18 years ago. I still hear the name invoked. My camera's lens was manufactured under the Zeiss license - and that sold me.
That's just good quality engineering. I also hear pretty good things about their solar power work.
Do good work. Get lots of trading partners. It does work.
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German quality
I'd much rather drive a BMW or Audi than a Toyota or Honda. German cars are in my experience a hell of a lot more fun to drive, while a Camry is for people who don't like driving.
But if I'm paying for the repairs once the warranty's expired, give me the Toyota or Honda, because German cars break, and break expensively. Ask anyone who has a VW or Audi out of warranty. I drive an Audi now but will be buying a used Honda or Toyota when the lease runs out, because I refuse to own another German car out of warranty. Once bitten, etc.
Friend of mine just sold his 2001 Jetta for parts after the engine blew up. Yes I know that cheaper VWs are/were made in Mexico, but they're still designed in Wolfsburg.