Cherman Engineering

I read an article today by Stephen Hill in the Atlantic about how President Obama is looking to Germany as an economic role model. Specifically, the article addresses how Germany has managed to maintain a healthy manufacturing sector in the face of international economic woes and increased competition from cheaper labor markets.

I found the article particularly interesting because I think it touches on a few very good points where the U.S. can learn from Germany (and Europe in general). First, the author talks about how German industry maintains a healthy industrial Mittelstand (middle class - but referring to middle-sized businesses rather than individuals) that specializes in high tech, high precision goods. These companies actually supply the Chinese manufacturing juggernaut with the tools they need. In most cases, these companies have workers that get paid well and have full health coverage. Most important, however, is the fact that none of this would be possible without a strong (and longstanding) link between private companies and Germany's vocational training programs:

"The Land of Bismarck has fed its manufacturing machine with a steady supply of technicians, engineers and skilled workers through a superb apparatus of vocational training and technical apprenticeships. Companies work closely with regional technical schools, sometimes sponsoring programs to prepare the graduates so they are immediately job-ready." 

Though trade school numbers in Germany are high, they've also seen declines since the 90s. Source: German Federal Statistical Office.

As the author states, Denmark does an even better job of this than Germany; the vocational schools there know years in advance exactly which companies will need to fill which positions. I think there are two big challenges that the U.S. would face in trying to emulate this kind of workforce planning. With a population about four times the size of Germany's and many more times the size of Denmark, coordinating the needs of companies and the respective training programs would be much more difficult in the vast United States. Second, and more fundamentally, a paradigm shift would have to happen in the U.S.: I feel like in the last 20-30 years, young Americans have been told time and again that you've come up short if you didn't go to college and at least complete a Bachelor's degree. Many students who did reach this goal, and beyond, are now finding that college degrees aren't all they were cut out to be, and meanwhile, U.S. manufacturers can't find skilled workers. I think there needs to be a general reevaluation of the "value" of vocational training, along with various other professions beyond skilled industrial labor (Primary and secondary school teachers are the first that popped into my head).

The second thing that the author brought up that I found particularly interesting was the fact that "Germans have harnessed their wealth to foster an equitable and broadly shared prosperity that has given Germans an enviable living standard." A comment from a reader expounded on this: "In many ways, Germans are simply better at living and working together. They have a sense of national community combined with inherent resourcefulness which, when combined with smart and inclusive policies, ensures a great part of their long-term success." Though I think both of these writers are on to something, I also think both are perhaps a tad on the idealistic side in ignoring many of the shortcomings of German society. I think that Germany in fact has many of the same internal divisions and conflicts that are also present in the U.S.; but in Germany, the fierce American individualism and libertarianism is notably absent, so that highly progressive taxes and a robust welfare state are widely accepted facts of life (one indicator of this: the FDP are the strongest anti-tax/pro-business party in Germany – though not nearly as extreme as the Republicans or Tea Party – and after seeing their best result ever they still only received 14% of the vote). These social programs actually work for the most part, and the result is that the gulf between rich and poor is not nearly as wide as in the States.

Finally, a bit that the article does not mention: that despite having all of these efficient vocational training programs that help maintain a healthy manufacturing sector, Germany has also piggy-backed on some of the extremely harmful developments in the working world that the U.S. has spearheaded. I'm talking here about the rise and spread of the concept of the eternal intern (see this article from the Washingtonian). It's a buyer's market (for the employer, that is) out there on the job market, so German as well as American companies know they can get highly educated people to work for next to nothing because they want to gain some experience; at the same time, employers don't have to make any long-term commitments to most of their workforce.

As a former TA, I'm finding out now that I jumped out of the pot and into the fire of the private sector: it all looks a whole lot like what I experienced as the current employment model at universities: fewer and fewer well-paid professorships and an army of well-educated, underpaid "teacher-interns" teaching courses previously taught by professors. With the number of 'real' jobs shrinking, this 'well-trained army' in turn has nothing to look forward to but vicious competition for the few positions that remain. Not only is this employment model unsustainable, it will eventually come back around to bite employers in the ass as well. In the end, an intern with little or no job security and little hope for a permanent position are also less invested in their employer's success. It's a scary world out there, so let's hope the U.S. starts copying more of the German model when it comes to vocational training, and that the Germans realize that they're better off not taking a page out of the States' book in this case.

[steps down from soapbox]

Update: A new look for vocational training in the U.S., from NPR's Morning Edition

Mitt oder ohne?

The Obama-Romney election last night was the second presidential election I have watched from abroad. The first was the ill-fated Kerry-Bush election in 2004, which I watched in a dorm room just outside Vienna, crammed in with some 25 people, every one of us with incredulous and downcast faces as we watched the results come in. Aside from our massive disappointment that four years of George W didn't convince the American people to choose an admittedly boring (but still far superior) Democratic candidate, we also knew that a solid chunk of our year of teaching English abroad would center around trying to explain to Austrian youth why the American public didn't seem to see what was even obvious to them – that Bush and co. had run the whole ship aground.

Europeans – and from my experience specifically Germans – are alternatively fascinated, disgusted, vexed and curious about our political system, and also the epic campaigns and sums of money surrounding our elections. I have observed that Germans are fascinated by the spectacle of the presidential debates and the drama stirred up by interest groups and the campaigns themselves, but they are also disgusted by the sheer sums of money wasted on negative campaign ads, frantic travel to events, and behind-the-scenes fundraisers involving the super-rich. Being a frugal people in general this comes as no surprise. Now, of course I realize that many Americans harbor the same feelings, but the Germans and most other Europeans have a point of contrast that we as Americans do not: German and European elections are extremely subdued affairs by comparison, and legally limited to very short time periods, with strict rules regarding financing, advertising, and running a campaign. They are certainly boring, but to me they seem to be a much more fair and measured method of instituting a popular democracy.

Having such boring elections, I've found that Germans really enjoy simply sitting back and watching the show unfold in the U.S. in all of its glory: the gaffes, the scandals, the ups and downs. However, this fascination is mixed with a very distinct awareness that what happens across the Atlantic will have a very real effect on their economy, their foreign policy, and their lives. Many Americans of course feel helpless voting in an electoral college system, where gerrymandering and various other obfuscations in the electoral system render the individual vote almost pointless, but imagine what it's like for Europeans: they look on from a distance without a chance to cast even a semi-pointless vote, knowing full well that the winning candidate could likely have an adverse effect on their lives.

Really, Pakistan??

One of the most interesting graphics that surfaced toward the end of the campaign was a 21-nation poll taken by GlobeScan, the findings of which showed that an overwhelming majority of countries – especially in Europe – would elect Obama in a landslide. German support for Obama remained steady from 2008 to 2012 at about 65 percent for Obama to just 8 percent for Romney (with the rest presumably having no opinion or being unsure). The most overwhelming support for Obama in Europe came from the French and Spanish, where just 2-3 percent supported a Romney presidency.

I found myself pondering the discussions in the U.S. media and political milieu about the shift to the right of the GOP, and thought it would be interesting to see if Europe's view of American presidential candidates had also shifted accordingly. I tried without success to find polls tracing these sentiments. Indeed, it would be incredibly interesting to see if such overwhelming majorities would have supported Jimmy Carter or Walter Mondale or Lyndon Johnson, or if Richard Nixon would have had an equally anemic following in Germany or France. In any case, Germans (and I) now often joke that their most conservative mainstream party, the CDU/CSU, has a much more progressive agenda than our liberal party on nearly all social and economic issues. They are all in full agreement that a progressive taxation system is necessary (and fair!) for the funding of very useful and important government programs providing health care, pensions and infrastructure to its citizens. In Germany, being called a 'socialist' is hardly an insult. Furthermore, it was the conservative CDU's Angela Merkel that instituted Germany's unprecedented pledge to phase out all nuclear power generation in the coming years (with the caveat of course that this move came under significant political pressure from the more progressive Grünen and the SPD).


I am optimistic and hopeful that with the re-election of Obama the U.S. and it's population is moving in a direction that will result in a more progressive, tolerant, and environmentally-friendly society, but the spectacle of the 18-plus-month-long campaign – and the fact that 3 billion dollars of largely private and anonymous campaign funding were funneled into it – is a clear indication to me that we have a long way to go before anything like Europe's progressivism could emerge as a formidable force. The U.S. might be getting less conservative, but we are still by a good margin the most conservative Western nation in the world.