There's another thing to be jealous of that isn't mentioned: a huge amount (85%), and some of Germany's biggest corporations are privately or family owned.
I'm only familiar with the automotive part of it, but companies like INA Schaeffler (70k own employees + 220k Continental) are effectively owned by a mom and son team. Bosch (300k+ employees) is owned by a charitable foundation and a family. Volkswagen Group (400k employees) is for a large part owned by the state and had until recently a law protecting their voting rights. (I seem to recall the unions own part of it too, but I couldn't find a good reference. Maybe it was another carmaker?)
Outside the automotive industry, conglomerates like Siemens (>360k employees) also seem to have been family businesses for the longest times, judging by all the von Siemens that served as board members or CEO.
I'd hazard to say that these ownership structures allow German businesses to plan for long term growth rather than quarterly earnings and current stock values.
I have no idea why or how that situation came to be though.
The companies you describe above are known as Germany's mittelstand.
There was recently a documentary in the UK that detailed the success of the mittelstand and questioned whether or not it could be implemented in the UK, however I don't think that it can. The difference between Germany/UK and Germany/US is Germans give a shit about Germany.
Companies have better relationships with unions, with some union representatives sitting on the board.
Companies work with schools and colleges to train the workforce they need.
If people are made unemployed the state pays for their retraining if need be.
They have better quality hi-tech manufacturing jobs which are much less likely to be outsourced.
The mittelstand tends to care more about long term growth than being held randsom for growth in only the next quarter.
Finally, culturally, there's less of a dog eat dog attitude within German society. The UK/US boasts this kind of "fuck you I'm rich now" attitude which sees people exploit the system and then do everything they can to destroy it once it isn' needed anymore.
Edit: I also wanted to add that with unions being board members they are allowed to see the books of the company which helps them negotiate realistic deals for their members. Without board members having access to a company's books can result in unrealistic demands by the unions or the board lying about the availability of funds.
My father worked for Siemens VDO (now Continental), and I know for sure that Siemens does not any longer have any of the benefits of a privately-held company. It's become a frustrating corporate conglomerate - EBIT & cashflow is all the managers are interested in now, and accordingly, many of Siemens' sub-companies have either been sold or restructured (among them VDO, which turned out to be a very good deal for Siemens, and a very bad one for Continental).
Note that Continental (and by extension, VDO) was swallowed by the (smaller!) INA Schaeffler in 2008, but INA isn't allowed to take control of it until this year.
It will be interesting to see whether that will turn the tables again.
Well if you like things that are state owned, the government system in America owns 45% of the entire US economy (roughly $7 trillion in spending between local + state + federal).
Surely that makes it possible for our economy to plan really far into the future.
The reality is, you can have two identical government or business systems, and one can be a complete failure and the other can be wildly successful. It comes down to culture. America's culture is rotting and has been for decades. Sloth and greed dominate, and that's a bad combination (people do less and expect more).
My post talks about family owned businesses, which is pretty much as far away from state owned as possible. I gave Volkswagen as an additional example where there's limits on the voting rights of public stock.
the government system in America owns 45% of the entire US economy
I'm talking about real corporations, that in some circumstances are running circles around their American counterparts. This 45% of the economy you talk about is almost entirely pure "losses" that are almost-but-not-entirely compensated by taxes right? The comparison is silly.
I don't think its "the culture" that is "rotting", but rather the social capital, the social ties between individuals and entire sectors of the society, is declining since the mid-1960s (Book: R. Puttnam, "Bowling Alone").
You just said that the culture is rotting. The relations between the people of a nation is a massive part of the culture of a nation.
What people place value on, and consequentially how people relate to eachother, how they value eachother, whether they respect the rights of their fellow citizens, and on and on. All critical aspects of a culture.
A nation's culture is made up of the individual beliefs & values of each person. And all of those things determine the social and economic fabric / makeup of said nation.
I'm only familiar with the automotive part of it, but companies like INA Schaeffler (70k own employees + 220k Continental) are effectively owned by a mom and son team. Bosch (300k+ employees) is owned by a charitable foundation and a family. Volkswagen Group (400k employees) is for a large part owned by the state and had until recently a law protecting their voting rights. (I seem to recall the unions own part of it too, but I couldn't find a good reference. Maybe it was another carmaker?)
Outside the automotive industry, conglomerates like Siemens (>360k employees) also seem to have been family businesses for the longest times, judging by all the von Siemens that served as board members or CEO.
I'd hazard to say that these ownership structures allow German businesses to plan for long term growth rather than quarterly earnings and current stock values.
I have no idea why or how that situation came to be though.