Twenty years from now

[Bro Deal]

I was reading this story about germany's auto industry in the Economist and I found this quote rather interesting,

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8738865

Mr Reithofer at BMW will not accept a future in which it is too expensive to make cars competitively in Germany. “Can you imagine an industrial country like Germany in 15 or 20 years without such production?” he said recently. “I hate to think what would happen here if we lost our production base.”

It's quite different from attitudes in the U.S., where execs are busy hollowing out the country's manufacturing capacity. What do people think the economies of Western countries will be like in twenty years?

 

[slovakguy]

I
What do people think the economies of Western countries will be like in twenty years?

...we in the west become the modern analogues to the french royalty before the reign of madame guillotine...

 

[limerickman]

I was reading this story about germany's auto industry in the Economist and I found this quote rather interesting,

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8738865

Mr Reithofer at BMW will not accept a future in which it is too expensive to make cars competitively in Germany. “Can you imagine an industrial country like Germany in 15 or 20 years without such production?” he said recently. “I hate to think what would happen here if we lost our production base.”

It's quite different from attitudes in the U.S., where execs are busy hollowing out the country's manufacturing capacity. What do people think the economies of Western countries will be like in twenty years?

I got a guided tour of the BMW plant in Munich - eight years ago.
What a facility. The phrase "German engineering" doesn't do it justice : it was
magnificent.

German engineering/manufacturing is world class and I could never imagine that Germany would/could allow their manufacturing industry to relocate.

But you hit on an interesting point about the difference between US and German executives viewpoint.
I think the ChryslerDaimler illustrates perfectly the situation.
In both USA and Germany you have a unionised ChryslerDaimler workforce : in both countries you have manufacturing operations.
However Daimler in Stuttgart have accessed the Chrysler performance and have found it woeful.
Production takes longer, wages are too high, sales are down : Daimler in Stuttgart is enjoying superb sales, production time is excellent, wages are good.
Stuttgart made the decision to offload Chrysler this week - Daimlers shares increased by 20%.

Ther German auto industry went through a boom between 1970-1988 : cars sales went through the roof.
Volkswagen, BMW, Audi : we're dominant in the market.
The Japanese/French/Italians started to grab market share - what did the Germans do?
They didn't panic, they didn't relocate : instead they did what they do best.
They went away looked at their system, tweaked their systems, entered dialogue with their workforce, invested in research and development and produced a more effecient industry that is now flying.

American industry could do well to follow the German strategy.