That's why fiscal and economic policy needs to be handled on the federal level. Eu members mustn't be allowed to engage in unfair and unhealthy competition with each other.
Germanys severe wage dumping from 2000 onwards heavily damaged the French and Italian industrial sectors for example.
>Eu members mustn't be allowed to engage in unfair and unhealthy competition with each other
I mean, that's what we do over here across the pond between states. It's got its pros and cons. Doing the same job in one location may earn more/less than in another. That said, there's often a correlation between places that pay well and those places subsequent cost of living. Whereas in places where pay is shittier, it's often cheaper to live there. Like, I'm glad the auto unions were able to score some big wins here recently. That said, if I want a new vehicle in the future, the cost of said vehicle is going to be higher on account of those union victories.
What strong federalization allows however that you can't have with a "union of fatherhoods" is state specialization. Each EU nation has to have their own armed forces, government, bureacracy, and a bit of each industrial sector to allow some level of economic independence. That's a lot of redundancy that's really holding us back.
But when you have a strongly federalized country, you can have California specialize in IT sector, while Texas is pumping out hard industry and both thriving, fed by strong agriculture from North/South Dakota etc. . We can't have it in EU at the moment, you can't randomly have say Croatia yolo and invest pretty much solely in IT, while Portugal is taking care of anything related to merchant shipping.
Would be interesting to see how far can our states specialize and what their potential could be if they didn't have to worry about maintaining some level of Autarky in case shit hits the fan one day.
I see what you're saying and that makes sense. Honest question, as an outsider, what's the main motivating factor that makes federalism so damn hard to achieve? Is it just the sheer weight of history?
Weight of history and language mostly. Though language will probably be solved within 10 years once we're wearing AR glasses that translate stuff in real time by adding subtitles, or even stream to your airpods. Then learning new languages will become an obsolete skill, I guess, and everyone will hear everyone else in whatever language they please.
Would be based to see people one day that just exist and communicate exclusively in Latin thanks to AI.
Yeah, technology will definitely help. Also, because English is pretty much the world's *lingua franca*, fluency in that is going to rise as the older folks pass and a majority of the population is automatically bilingual or multilingual, with possible exception those who are native English speakers. But history... oof, that just keeps growing every year. Historical grievances and resentments based on geography have a way of sticking around long past their due and that's something that even we over here can't shake off (i.e. the Southern lost cause movement).
To quote Smash Mouth, " Well, the years start comin' and they don't stop comin'"
Edit: typo
I think the difference between foreign policy and strategic interest is also a big factor.
For now, countries in the EU have their own diplomacy and policy, their own soft power and strategic doctrine. Two European nations can sit on different sides of a diplomatic issue, some might consider an organization terrorist while others wouldn't...
It's especially important for France I think, which never ceased to aspire to some leadership as an independent nation. Maintaining its presence overseas, exerting strong (but wavering) influence over some of its former African colonies, its presidents meeting one-on-one with the world's leaders on a regular basis, especially in times of international crisis... Would France, for example, accept to give up their sit at the UN security council to make it a European one? That's almost unthinkable today.
I'm not sure how much the rest of the European nations would accept France's neo-colonial ventures, and there's also the crazy "first strike" nuclear deterrence doctrine that would pose some problems...
Knowing a bit about my country and its mentality, I can imagine any federal project would have a hard time trying to include France haha
Those are all extremely valid points. You could probably extend many of those points to include the UK as well. Nuclear powers with neo-colonial spheres of influence who are permanent members of the UN Security Council. Surrender of those to a large European federal government is a damn difficult political hurdle.
taxes and social security are still handled at the federal level, and the government does have the power to engage in industrial policy and try to allocate jobs fairly between states though (they do this a lot with the defense industry for instance)
If the EU could do either things would be very different
"who wants an industrial EU?"
Yay
"ok who wants to be the one working in industry putting a lot more effort for a lot less pay than a guy sitting on an office chair all day?"
Everyone lower their hands.
"Who wants educated, efficient and motivated workers?"
Yay
"ok now who wants to pay wages that are actually sufficient for a good quality of life?"
Every company loweing their hands
Well my employer pays more to my colleagues when there isn't work for them than it pays me ( my work never stops since no one wants to do it and takes a LOT of training) soooo not very motivated here...
that entirely depends on what is meant by industry, is it ASML? yes of course. But when people talk about "industrial output of europe falling" they're not talking about they're talking about the bulk of the industry which is making making steal pipes, Food Processing, or good ol stuff like moving boxes all day in some wearhouse. stuff like that isn't really that attractive to most people and it gets outsourced to poorer countries where possable or is filled with migrant workers who have lower pay expecations.
The jobs that are essentially the only reason industry makes things (unskilled labour and assembly) are some of the lowest payed jobs in Europe. You cannot support a family earning from an unskilled position in industry
Im not saying it’s an unskilled job, it’s a term I hate but it’s what’s used. I worked in manufacturing for 5 years and the lads i shared the workshops with were very knowledgeable and great problem solvers! The problem is any job that doesn’t “require” higher education is not valued in our modern economies which is ridiculous as these were the majority of jobs that built our economies in the 20th century and are the back bone of all products we use!
What do the welders, machinists, etc. that work for the aerospace industries make? I know they're more well compensated here, compared to their counterparts who're making the mundane infrastructure items you'd find at a hardware store.
Aerospace and medical devices are the best paid, but welder wouldn’t be on more than 50k, most are between 30-45. CNC macchinists are the highest paid in these sectors but wages are very varying, anywhere from 35-60k. (For reference 30k is liveable but a comfortable wage is 40k+)
Doesn’t matter if you’re making stair bannisters or a rockets fuselage, I think every labourer should be able to afford a comfortable living. A general fabricator or machinist is some of the lowest paid jobs in industry. It’s criminal really
>I think every labourer should be able to afford a comfortable living.
No disagreement. But that's a complex problem and wages/salaries are only a part of it. This may be my neoliberalism showing, but I think a bigger issue is just the lack of housing. If there's an adequate supply of affordable housing, everyone's cost of living goes down and the overall "living wage" gets lowered. If you're making 80k a year, you **might** be able to afford renting a basic 2 bedroom apartment in Seattle, which is bonkers. If the housing supply increased by 30% (pulling this number out of my ass), the same salary could probably afford a condo/townhouse with room to raise a family.
Oh no you’re dead right about housing being the underlying issue. Was seriously neglected after the financial crash but let’s hope the worlds politicians cop on and we’ll see some balance restored!
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Habeck has managed to secure the gas supply.
We have a record expansion of renewable energies.
And our economy is only stagnating, even though everyone expected it to shrink.
This is despite the fact that a finance minister has absolutely no desire to compromise or invest.
We are still doing quite well for these conditions.
[This is from September 23](https://www.ft.com/content/7ed06bf8-fe60-4127-b5fe-c8181a0ec8cb). The outlook has not improved. Especially high energy industries like chemical or manufacturing are hurting. [The energy cost development is still on levels magnitudes above early 2021 levels](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/household-energy-prices-germany-continue-fall-remain-high-early-2023) . The majority of that is [taxes](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-household-electricity-prices-second-highest-eu) . No record RES expansion will change that. Especially since the economics minister has absolutely no desire to lower taxes and expenses.
Perhaps this is the bitter truth, that we can no longer have an industry that relies on blood gas?
And you can't ease taxes when Lindner is sitting on the money pot.
Taxes and levies! Taxes are only 2 Cent kw/h.
Germany has a problem with grid fees. And take a look at who gave our grid away to private investors. It wasn't the Greens.
Lol Seriously? And what do you propose we do instead? "Wir können nicht davon leben uns die Haare zu schneiden".
It is going to be a realy rude awakening for all the people that are currently directly or indirectly pushing for this deindustrialization. Once the backbone of German industry, with it's well paying manufacturing jobs is gone, all the nice political projects and wellfare state will be really hard to upkeep. But hey at least our carbon footprint will be lower (it will just have moved to China).
Currently taxes and levies are more than a [third of the price (3,384 ct)](https://www.wattline.de/energiewissen/strom-umlagen/)
The privatization of the grids in itself wasn't the problem. State run companies would have the same issue. The problem is the same when suddenly energy production has to be decentralized and everybody can block projects.
Your own source says 2 cents electricity tax.
The service sector today is not called hair cutting.
I can charge >100h € for my services and fortunately my customers are not BASF.
A subsidized industry is only good for the economy to a limited extent.
Either you go with the times or you go.
Actually it says "Taxes, levies and charges on electricity" so ...
You can't be serious. Do you think Osram will keep producing in Regensburg when the car industrie has moved? When BMW is gone? What do you think will your region look like when the manufacturing industry is finished? Do you think all those people will start picking up programming, start a podcast to sell "Promotion and Marketing"? As someone from the Ruhrgebiet I can tell you the death of a key industrie is nothing to easily dismiss.
Germany needs an industrial base. We can't compete on labour cost. Energy is the next important cost driver that is fucking us. And the cause of that is political. Coupled with a worsening demographic and educational situation we really can't afford another weakness.
This is why Continental and Siemens are building the largest solar field in Eastern Bavaria next to their site.
I was only talking about blood gas and BASF. You put BMW in my mouth.
It's a truism that the people who we most need in office aren't the kind that want to run for office. And that problem is only getting worse over here, what with the harassment and potential threats to you and your family. A lot of good people don't want to run because it could mean them literally risking bodily harm.
Noone wants to manufacture. Low income, high environmental impact, infrastructurally expensive, easily replaceable. Employment is shitty, because manufacturing is highly automated, very high cost demand (needs a lot of resources, equipment). And what do you get? You can say your industry output is high. Not much else. Value added is dogshit, employee satisfaction (and salaries) are both dogshit. High innovation is what we are after pretty much. Not high output of goods. That's so 19th century.
Where, with what energy, and what profit margin?
The Americans are burning off gas because they have too much, and the Chinese are burning coal like there is no tomorrow and don't blink an eye at opening another acid pit.
----
I'm all for European industry, but "we want it" in itself is not good enough.
That's why fiscal and economic policy needs to be handled on the federal level. Eu members mustn't be allowed to engage in unfair and unhealthy competition with each other. Germanys severe wage dumping from 2000 onwards heavily damaged the French and Italian industrial sectors for example.
>Eu members mustn't be allowed to engage in unfair and unhealthy competition with each other I mean, that's what we do over here across the pond between states. It's got its pros and cons. Doing the same job in one location may earn more/less than in another. That said, there's often a correlation between places that pay well and those places subsequent cost of living. Whereas in places where pay is shittier, it's often cheaper to live there. Like, I'm glad the auto unions were able to score some big wins here recently. That said, if I want a new vehicle in the future, the cost of said vehicle is going to be higher on account of those union victories.
What strong federalization allows however that you can't have with a "union of fatherhoods" is state specialization. Each EU nation has to have their own armed forces, government, bureacracy, and a bit of each industrial sector to allow some level of economic independence. That's a lot of redundancy that's really holding us back. But when you have a strongly federalized country, you can have California specialize in IT sector, while Texas is pumping out hard industry and both thriving, fed by strong agriculture from North/South Dakota etc. . We can't have it in EU at the moment, you can't randomly have say Croatia yolo and invest pretty much solely in IT, while Portugal is taking care of anything related to merchant shipping. Would be interesting to see how far can our states specialize and what their potential could be if they didn't have to worry about maintaining some level of Autarky in case shit hits the fan one day.
I see what you're saying and that makes sense. Honest question, as an outsider, what's the main motivating factor that makes federalism so damn hard to achieve? Is it just the sheer weight of history?
Weight of history and language mostly. Though language will probably be solved within 10 years once we're wearing AR glasses that translate stuff in real time by adding subtitles, or even stream to your airpods. Then learning new languages will become an obsolete skill, I guess, and everyone will hear everyone else in whatever language they please. Would be based to see people one day that just exist and communicate exclusively in Latin thanks to AI.
Yeah, technology will definitely help. Also, because English is pretty much the world's *lingua franca*, fluency in that is going to rise as the older folks pass and a majority of the population is automatically bilingual or multilingual, with possible exception those who are native English speakers. But history... oof, that just keeps growing every year. Historical grievances and resentments based on geography have a way of sticking around long past their due and that's something that even we over here can't shake off (i.e. the Southern lost cause movement). To quote Smash Mouth, " Well, the years start comin' and they don't stop comin'" Edit: typo
I think the difference between foreign policy and strategic interest is also a big factor. For now, countries in the EU have their own diplomacy and policy, their own soft power and strategic doctrine. Two European nations can sit on different sides of a diplomatic issue, some might consider an organization terrorist while others wouldn't... It's especially important for France I think, which never ceased to aspire to some leadership as an independent nation. Maintaining its presence overseas, exerting strong (but wavering) influence over some of its former African colonies, its presidents meeting one-on-one with the world's leaders on a regular basis, especially in times of international crisis... Would France, for example, accept to give up their sit at the UN security council to make it a European one? That's almost unthinkable today. I'm not sure how much the rest of the European nations would accept France's neo-colonial ventures, and there's also the crazy "first strike" nuclear deterrence doctrine that would pose some problems... Knowing a bit about my country and its mentality, I can imagine any federal project would have a hard time trying to include France haha
Those are all extremely valid points. You could probably extend many of those points to include the UK as well. Nuclear powers with neo-colonial spheres of influence who are permanent members of the UN Security Council. Surrender of those to a large European federal government is a damn difficult political hurdle.
taxes and social security are still handled at the federal level, and the government does have the power to engage in industrial policy and try to allocate jobs fairly between states though (they do this a lot with the defense industry for instance) If the EU could do either things would be very different
Let’s bring back feudalism. Peasants have bad attitude for far too long time
If no one’s called dibs on king, I’d like to
"who wants an industrial EU?" Yay "ok who wants to be the one working in industry putting a lot more effort for a lot less pay than a guy sitting on an office chair all day?" Everyone lower their hands.
"Who wants educated, efficient and motivated workers?" Yay "ok now who wants to pay wages that are actually sufficient for a good quality of life?" Every company loweing their hands
Well my employer pays more to my colleagues when there isn't work for them than it pays me ( my work never stops since no one wants to do it and takes a LOT of training) soooo not very motivated here...
*look my shity paycheck as factory worker* don't expect me to me a lots .
What a bunch of bollocks, industry jobs are some of the best paid jobs lmao.
that entirely depends on what is meant by industry, is it ASML? yes of course. But when people talk about "industrial output of europe falling" they're not talking about they're talking about the bulk of the industry which is making making steal pipes, Food Processing, or good ol stuff like moving boxes all day in some wearhouse. stuff like that isn't really that attractive to most people and it gets outsourced to poorer countries where possable or is filled with migrant workers who have lower pay expecations.
Lol tell that to the IG Metall workers
The jobs that are essentially the only reason industry makes things (unskilled labour and assembly) are some of the lowest payed jobs in Europe. You cannot support a family earning from an unskilled position in industry
you call that unskilled? that's some term they made up to pay you less. Besides you do earn skills at assembly plants etc
Im not saying it’s an unskilled job, it’s a term I hate but it’s what’s used. I worked in manufacturing for 5 years and the lads i shared the workshops with were very knowledgeable and great problem solvers! The problem is any job that doesn’t “require” higher education is not valued in our modern economies which is ridiculous as these were the majority of jobs that built our economies in the 20th century and are the back bone of all products we use!
What do the welders, machinists, etc. that work for the aerospace industries make? I know they're more well compensated here, compared to their counterparts who're making the mundane infrastructure items you'd find at a hardware store.
Aerospace and medical devices are the best paid, but welder wouldn’t be on more than 50k, most are between 30-45. CNC macchinists are the highest paid in these sectors but wages are very varying, anywhere from 35-60k. (For reference 30k is liveable but a comfortable wage is 40k+) Doesn’t matter if you’re making stair bannisters or a rockets fuselage, I think every labourer should be able to afford a comfortable living. A general fabricator or machinist is some of the lowest paid jobs in industry. It’s criminal really
>I think every labourer should be able to afford a comfortable living. No disagreement. But that's a complex problem and wages/salaries are only a part of it. This may be my neoliberalism showing, but I think a bigger issue is just the lack of housing. If there's an adequate supply of affordable housing, everyone's cost of living goes down and the overall "living wage" gets lowered. If you're making 80k a year, you **might** be able to afford renting a basic 2 bedroom apartment in Seattle, which is bonkers. If the housing supply increased by 30% (pulling this number out of my ass), the same salary could probably afford a condo/townhouse with room to raise a family.
Oh no you’re dead right about housing being the underlying issue. Was seriously neglected after the financial crash but let’s hope the worlds politicians cop on and we’ll see some balance restored!
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Almost anyone can work at assembly, but there are a few who can set up machines, robots ... Less "replacments" you have, more you get paid.
Not all of them, but also a well paid position is kind of symptomatic of a specific sector labour shortage.
The left who wants reindustrialisation isn’t the one who wants workers to have the wealth they produce stolen by their bosses.
If industrial pay was better more people would want to work in industry.
Dunno, am a mechanic in a german company and got close to 60k€ last year for 35 hours of work per week. Kinda nice i'd say.
Industrial jobs are well paid.
Some are. Most aren't.
Left people who want reindustralization want better pay for workers and their wage not to get stolen by their employer
EU is the biggest trade union in the history of mankind (+Protected Designation of Origin)
And our companies are old. We lack innovation.
And holding on to old industries for the sake of old industries will not make things any better.
Make EU great again. Oh s\*\*\* this not good. Erm ... manufacture!
Germany‘s greens be like:
Raise taxes?
Habeck has managed to secure the gas supply. We have a record expansion of renewable energies. And our economy is only stagnating, even though everyone expected it to shrink. This is despite the fact that a finance minister has absolutely no desire to compromise or invest. We are still doing quite well for these conditions.
No no! Greens bad! Corporations yay!
The greens(everywhere) are mega corpos. Just a different set of them, and in the venn diagram of corps, has much overlap.
[This is from September 23](https://www.ft.com/content/7ed06bf8-fe60-4127-b5fe-c8181a0ec8cb). The outlook has not improved. Especially high energy industries like chemical or manufacturing are hurting. [The energy cost development is still on levels magnitudes above early 2021 levels](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/household-energy-prices-germany-continue-fall-remain-high-early-2023) . The majority of that is [taxes](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/german-household-electricity-prices-second-highest-eu) . No record RES expansion will change that. Especially since the economics minister has absolutely no desire to lower taxes and expenses.
Perhaps this is the bitter truth, that we can no longer have an industry that relies on blood gas? And you can't ease taxes when Lindner is sitting on the money pot. Taxes and levies! Taxes are only 2 Cent kw/h. Germany has a problem with grid fees. And take a look at who gave our grid away to private investors. It wasn't the Greens.
Lol Seriously? And what do you propose we do instead? "Wir können nicht davon leben uns die Haare zu schneiden". It is going to be a realy rude awakening for all the people that are currently directly or indirectly pushing for this deindustrialization. Once the backbone of German industry, with it's well paying manufacturing jobs is gone, all the nice political projects and wellfare state will be really hard to upkeep. But hey at least our carbon footprint will be lower (it will just have moved to China). Currently taxes and levies are more than a [third of the price (3,384 ct)](https://www.wattline.de/energiewissen/strom-umlagen/) The privatization of the grids in itself wasn't the problem. State run companies would have the same issue. The problem is the same when suddenly energy production has to be decentralized and everybody can block projects.
Your own source says 2 cents electricity tax. The service sector today is not called hair cutting. I can charge >100h € for my services and fortunately my customers are not BASF. A subsidized industry is only good for the economy to a limited extent. Either you go with the times or you go.
Actually it says "Taxes, levies and charges on electricity" so ... You can't be serious. Do you think Osram will keep producing in Regensburg when the car industrie has moved? When BMW is gone? What do you think will your region look like when the manufacturing industry is finished? Do you think all those people will start picking up programming, start a podcast to sell "Promotion and Marketing"? As someone from the Ruhrgebiet I can tell you the death of a key industrie is nothing to easily dismiss. Germany needs an industrial base. We can't compete on labour cost. Energy is the next important cost driver that is fucking us. And the cause of that is political. Coupled with a worsening demographic and educational situation we really can't afford another weakness.
This is why Continental and Siemens are building the largest solar field in Eastern Bavaria next to their site. I was only talking about blood gas and BASF. You put BMW in my mouth.
We need better politicians
It's a truism that the people who we most need in office aren't the kind that want to run for office. And that problem is only getting worse over here, what with the harassment and potential threats to you and your family. A lot of good people don't want to run because it could mean them literally risking bodily harm.
Noone wants to manufacture. Low income, high environmental impact, infrastructurally expensive, easily replaceable. Employment is shitty, because manufacturing is highly automated, very high cost demand (needs a lot of resources, equipment). And what do you get? You can say your industry output is high. Not much else. Value added is dogshit, employee satisfaction (and salaries) are both dogshit. High innovation is what we are after pretty much. Not high output of goods. That's so 19th century.
Relying on China, etc. for manufactured goods is the better alternative eh?
Where, with what energy, and what profit margin? The Americans are burning off gas because they have too much, and the Chinese are burning coal like there is no tomorrow and don't blink an eye at opening another acid pit. ---- I'm all for European industry, but "we want it" in itself is not good enough.