Posts tagged economy

latimes:

Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted: Germany with its manufacturing base and export prowess is the U.S. of yesteryear, an economic power unlike any of its European neighbors. It has thrived on principles America seems to have lost.

The couple, in their early 50s, aren’t retired or well off. They live in a small Tudor-style house in this middle-class town about 30 miles northwest of Frankfurt. He’s a foreman at a glass factory; she works part time for a company that tracks inventories for retailers. Their combined income is a modest $40,000.

Yet the Krugers have a higher standard of living than many Americans who have twice that income.

Their secret: little debt, frugal habits and a government that is intensely focused on high production, low inflation and extensive social services.

That has given them job security and good medical care as well as well-maintained roads, trains and bike paths. Both of their adult children are out on their own, thanks in part to Germany’s job-training system and heavy subsidies for university education.

For instance, Volkmar’s out-of-pocket costs for stomach surgery and 10 days in a hospital totaled just $13 a day. College tuition for their son runs about $260 a semester.

Photo: Vera and Volkmar Kruger, seen here in the town of Limburg, Germany, not far from their home in Elz, earn about $40,000 a year but live as well as an American couple making twice as much. Credit: Don Lee / Los Angeles Times

This is one of those few times when I think about moving back…

(via New Americans in South Carolina | Immigration Policy Center)

Guillermina owns fours stores in Greenville, SC, but the economy and a tough new immigration law have made things difficult for her and many Latinos in South Carolina. #bbcmagazine #bbcalteredstates (Taken with instagram)

My story from Miami, Florida: BBC News - Foreign investors fuel Florida housing boom

You can check out photos from the road here.

(via Employment: Defending jobs | The Economist)

(via Market Frenzy, From Trading Rooms to Living Rooms - NYTimes.com)

Good rundown of this last week on Wall Street.

World News America - North Dakota cashes in on US oil thirst

A recent oil boom in North Dakota has turned local farmers into millionaires and pushed the unemployment rate to the lowest in the country.

A Superpower in Decline: Is the American Dream Over? - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Dependence on China: The indispensable economy? | The Economist

China is, in itself, a big and dynamic part of the world economy. For that reason alone it will make a sizeable contribution to world growth this year. The harder question is whether it can make a big contribution to the rest of the world’s growth.

kattykay:

How to stop a currency war | The Economist:

As fiscal austerity kicks in, the appeal of using a cheaper currency as a source of demand will increase, and the pressure on politicians to treat China as a scapegoat will rise.

If China’s weak currency becomes a scapegoat for America’s continuing economic woes, the US risks ducking the more fundamental causes of its own weakness, poor education and dysfunctional government.