#and then maybe cologne or dusseldorf

[softforluke]

5sos tour announcement in december damn i am so ready to start another countdown to see them again, life is empty without a 5sos countdown💔

[cabaret19860520]

I noticed in this video maybe yesterday the man in the back with the funny way of playing bass here seemed upset, just by looking. I did notice Andre Rieu didn't understand why this singer seemed so upset before she didn't have a solo but glad now she did. Because people like Andre Rieu, like another very renowned German violinist born in Dusseldorf who moved to Cologne and as an adult Freiburg, when they talk to rebellious young people have to show this because they are so good and sensitive but the young people are so dangerous for wanting attention, not to say she was. Anyway, people by biology you see in orchestras are predictable. They ban together and go against me...

He actually was the same with the American blonde solo singer, but with this girl from Europe he had to wince back like it was okay. It made me wonder. Since I admit I'm American and Asian, it shouldn't happen to me but happen to many others. He wonders a lot on the spot, but I accepted it. Like, what am I as a singer compared to others, but he was wondering if I could sing if I say I just will play violin professionally and sing in private to impress others. It's nice he didn't say it but used the time for me, to express "love." I liked that.

[alexstorm]

In Germany I don't see many cities they'll tour. Probably the same cities as always Berlin, Dusseldorf, Munich and maybe Frankfurt and Cologne and that's it. // That's not many, lol? Do you know how many cities they're gonna visit in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland? 1 per country.

Yep. And they gonna visit exactly zero in Africa or Asia. So people should feel lucky.

[jassiesboyfriend]

Here's Dusseldorf so far, with a couple of pictures from Amsterdam thrown in. This residency has been good to me; I’ve been able to settle down and nail some of my wider show concepts down, and decide on the artwork list more. Things are less languid here than I thought — I didn’t realise that the area where I am at has the highest concentration of Kunsthalles, Kunstvereins, Kunstinstituuts, and almost everything and anything to do with art. But as people have been telling me, Dusseldorf and Cologne were some of the most important cities for art in Europe. Until the artists went to Berlin, that is, but most of the collectors still stay here because it’s such a beautiful, well-maintained city.

How am I feeling from my last trip to Amsterdam? A lot of things. I felt a lot of emotions, many of them hard to articulate. I’m thinking about the company that I was with — it’s hard to come up with terms for how I feel. It’s been a while, but it felt like no time has passed between us. And yet, I could feel that I had changed. It was a confusing feeling sometimes.

I’m listening to George Clanton right now and thinking about all the times that I was in Bushwick, or Prospect Park, Brooklyn. I’m thinking about crossing the roads late at night, when it’s raining, the yellow lights from the streetlamps coming down. I’ve got my coat on, and maybe you’re by my side. I’ve always felt alright then; why don’t I feel alright now? Is it because I don’t find the same comfort anymore? Perhaps this is what distance does — I’m not so much at ease with you anymore. And maybe, in some cruel twist, maybe now the roles have switched between you and I. Now it’s time for me to figure out what the hell I want.

It was so horrible to go through 2018 and 2019 — two of the hardest years for me mentally and emotionally. 2020, ironically, was the start of my mental recovery. I wish that I could turn back time in some way and tell myself that it was okay, or tell someone I used to know to just be a bit more patient — I didn’t have the guts to make things better for myself then or to tell the truth, but I’m in a better place now.

[naliya]

It's been a year and I still miss Germany.

I miss...

I miss the street food places, the currywurst, those ridiculously high tables with no chairs, their vaguely disgusting smell of meat, ketchup and spices while you eat standing up with the noise of the street around you...They don't exist over here.

I miss strolling along the Rhine; that one footbridge in Cologne that brings you to an almost-island, how you feel so small when it rises after strong rains, how you never look at the Seine the same after you've lived close to it.

I miss that small movie theater that refuses credit cards but that shows a lot of OV. Racing to the cash machine down the street trying to be on time for the start of the film, forgetting to buy popcorns along the way. The German and their love for cash, I will tell you... even the machines prefer it over there.

I miss that Irish pub and it's karaoke nights; out of the tram station at Friesenplatz, there's a Starbucks at the corner where you turn left, then follow along the street and here it is.

I miss the Christmas markets on every squares, the big lighten trees, the smell of wood and sweets as warm wine heats you up from the inside out, ridiculously expensive chocolate-covered bananas and strawberries on a stick... Christmas isn't such a party in France.

I miss how polite and respectful of one's personal space German people are overall, how quiet, I never felt louder than back there.

I miss drivers who actually respect those walking and biking on the sidewalks. The contrast when going home had always struck me, and it still does now.

I even miss complaining to no ends that finding a coffee shop that still sold coffee after 6 pm was like trying to find a unicorn, and off to McDonald's we were.

I miss seeing that windmill almost out of the train station in Bremen, waiting for half an hour in the middle of Bonn for a train to pass, eating at that weird South-American place in Dusseldorf just because they had offered free food...

I miss the bread, I miss the Cologne Cathedral being the first and last thing I would see upon arriving and leaving, that nice gentleman helping with my suitcase, that wonderfully bizarre antic shop close to the Wallraf-Richartz museum, how it must be forbidden by the law to wear anything but beige past sixty, that voice announcing the next tram station and the rails whining under our feet...

I miss feeling like maybe I belonged there.

I miss... I miss...

I guess this is is why they have a word for it: I have wanderlust.

[buckylokistark]

Paintings ~ Part II

Summary: Loki fled his home, too tired of being the cause of his father’s constant disappointment. With help from Heimdall, he escapes to Midgard, the last place his father would look for him. In dire need of a job, he meets Y/N, a struggling artist trying to be recognised for her work. Can they help each other or are they holding one another back?

Masterlist

previously on Paintings: “Depends, are you Y/N?” You opened and closed your mouth a few times. Having recognised his face, you realise you were standing right in front of none other than Tony Stark, former CEO of Stark Industries and billionaire.

__________

“Uhm, huh- yes, yes I am. Pleased to meet you, sir.” You held out your hand for him to shake, trying to stop stumbling over your own words. Seriously, it’s English, what’s so hard about that?!

Tony Stark then took your hand, shaking it with a firm grip before releasing it and sitting back down. Wait, when did he get up?

“So, you’re making the new artwork?”

“Yup, that’s me, I’m the one.” God, you’re still acting like a fool. Get it together!

“So modern art is your niche?” You nodded. "And you’ll do any modern style?"

“Well, I focus on expressionism, although I am not bad when it comes to surrealism, for example Salvador Dali and his melting clocks. Kubism, abstract expressionism, acrylic, watercolour, I can do almost all expressionistic art forms with most materials.” You take on a proud tone, happy to talk art. This is where your comfort zone lies, your escape route, your go-to topic for a safe conversation. 

“You’re in luck, I want something expressionistic, never been one for surrealism. You had anything in mind?” He was completely down to let you handle anything, as long as he knew what 'anything' contains.

“Not really, I need to make a painting suitable for a person but also make it suitable for their home and perhaps other occupants of the room. Would you rather we schedule a time for me to come take a look or do you want to email me some photos?” You got out your agenda, having always preffered writing things down instead of typing. It might have something to do with forgetting typed things, only remembering them when on paper.

“I think a visit would be better, right? Makes you get a feel of the room, the space, a more in-depth experience for a better result.” He was just grasping at ideas now, sipping his coffee calmly and leaning back in his chair.

“Hmm, yeah, you’re right, but some people are too busy or aren’t comfortable in letting me in their house so they email me.” It was indeed more difficult, but they weren't comfortable so you just had to work with what you had.

"Not to sound like an absolute douchebag, but my team did a background check and everything, they wouldn't let me just choose someone, they had to check them thoroughly. You're very lucky, by the way. I had to persuade them to let you do your thing. I believe you know what part made them doubt you?" You did know what he was talking about, and shame filled you to the brim.

About twelve years ago, you had an enormous fall-out with your family, resulting in them sabotaging your income by spreading awful rumours about you. Your income did decline drastically, making you nearly bankrupt. In the desperate need of money, you ended up working for Strak Industries, a company solely focused on copying and faking Stark Industrie products. From securitysystems and phones to merchandise, everything was copied. You got a job of replicating the stuffed animals as close as you could get with cheaper materials. The pay wasn't great but it got you back on your feet, ready to continue painting. Stark Industries and Strak Industries got in a huge fight, legal authorities getting involved. Because you had workes your way up to manager of the production of all the stuffed animals, you were put in a bad spot.

"yeah, sorry, I was on the brink of losing everything," you ended up saying, cursing yourself as soon as the words left your mouth. "losing everything?!" You could've said anything and you chose that?

Stark gave you a look, but thankfully didn't comment on the words.

"So, when do you want me to come by? I would prefer as soon as possible, but it's up to you." He opened his phone, looking on his agenda for a possible date. Scratching his goatee lightly, he pursed his lips before sighing and saying, "Would coming thursday work? Two days away?"

"Yes, absolutely. Any time in mind? Perhaps early morning or afternoon?"

Stark tought for a moment, excusing himself to look more thoroughly on his phone to see when he'd have time.

“How about 5 o’clock in the afternoon? would that work for you?" He tilted his head, eyes so intense it seemed as if they were looking right through you.

After finetuning the details, you finished talking and drove back to the shop, cursing yourself for taking so long.

Soon you arrived at your atelier, seeing Loki through the glass window reading a book.

You smiled to yourself. Loki was the kindest soul you've met in your life, gentle and soft like nobody else could ever be. It made you wonder if there was a possibility for something more. something intimate.

a crow, as black as the night, flew past, snapping you out of your thoughts. Your eyes followed the black bird before wandering back to the shop. Finally you moved, slowly walking towards the entrance.

the bell above the door jingled softly, letting Loki know someone entered. He looked up and smiled, slowly closing his book and moving towards you with so much grace it was impossible to look away. 

“Hi Loki, I got to go, still need to finish that two window piece for Mrs. Barton and the final sketch for the mural that one woman, what’s-her-name, wanted. The blue, winter, ice-y vibe?” You rushed to the back of your shop, throwing your bags in a corner and running up the stairs to put on your older clothes, the ones that were allowed to get a bit of paint on them.

“The woman’s called Idina Menzel, the one who voices the lead character in that new movie, Frozen?” Loki has listened to you praise the trailers with such emotion, he took it up himself and researched the main characters, discovering that the woman who ordered a mural two weeks ago from your shop. The mural made more sense now, as well. 

The words Loki spoke made you halt. Lead character in Frozen? She asked you, a small, unexperienced artist, to paint a mural for her? A smile began to grow on your face. Spinning around, you ran back to Loki. 

“Oh my- she- she ‘s famous and bought something from me? This is huge! I will be known by a few circles of famous people now that Tony Stark and Idina Menzel ordered from me! Do you understand what this means? I can finally get recognised for my work, I can finally earn enough to buy my own place!” You barrelled full force into Loki, hugging him close. Loki himself slowly hugged back, unsure of what exactly to do. 

Loki smiled. You were happier than you’ve veer been all year, even with the stress of performing good for famous people. Lost in his thoughts, Loki looked out the window. A black raven sat on the little bench across the street, looking right at him. No, he thought with a shock as his eyes grew large, not an ordinary black raven. This little bird was Diaval, loyal assistant to Maleficent, Loki’s distant relative. What is he doing here? 

“Loki? Is something wrong?” His eyes flew back to yours when your words registered in his head. 

“No, love, nothing’s wrong. I just realised I forgot to do something, could I be excused for a bit so I can go home and finish it?” He glanced outside, seeing Diaval still sitting there, quietly waiting. You let go of him, nodding your head.

“Of course you can, no problem. I got nothing planned for the rest of the day so the shop won’t be empty, you’re free to go.” With that, you hugged him one ast time, saying a quick goodbye before turning around and walking to your current project. One last look and wave, and Loki was out the door. 

“Where is she, Diaval?” The raven flew to the right, landing in a small alley and morphing back to human. 

“This way, she’s bought a new place down in Queens when she heard you were staying here.” Loki groaned. Ever since they found out about each other, Maleficent started acting as his big sister, watching all his moves like a hawk.

He followed Diaval into the alleyway, preparing for the inevitable Apparition he had to make. 

“Alright, name the address, I’ll take us there,” Loki said, making his disdain clear in his voice. Diaval rattled the location, and off they were.

“Where are we?”

“The back of the diner a block away from your house, she put anti-Apparition-wards up, didn’t she?” At the last part, Diaval sheepishly nodded his head.

"Hello Loki."

"Maleficent." As was expected, Maleficent looked as stunning as the gods themselves, flaunting her body with a black. Maybe it was a family thing?

"I have come here to talk to you about important matters." As the words left Maleficent’s mouth, Loki's eyes flicked to hers. Important matters? With her resources it must be life-threatening to come to him for assistance.

"There have been... unusual sightings in Europe. It appears to be a form of magic, more powerful than I have ever seen in my entire life."

"You have any leads on the exact location?" 

"It seems to be traveling. I have people running tabs on it. It started in England, then went off the radar for a while before reappearing in France, where it travelled through Belgium, into Holland. They're travelling east, getting closer to Germany as we speak."

What could there be in Germany, the northern part of it, that would be attractive to someone who possesses magic? You got the big cities, Dusseldorf, Berlin, maybe Hamburg? Or perhaps...

"Cologne. They're heading for Cologne." Maleficent looked at him weirdly. 

"Why would they go to Cologne?"

"I visited this woman, truly magnificent, who took care of all mutants from Holland, Belgium and Germany. The school of Xavier was too expensive and small for mainland Europeans, so I helped set it up just outside the city," Loki admitted with a sigh. He had hoped to never see her again, one time was more than enough and he doesn’t know how she’ll react to him suddenly appearing out of nowhere after leaving her alone for eighty years.

__________

Taglist: @birdgirl90 @lunawitch19 @bird-with-pencils @shesakillerkween

[apricotescort-blog]

Köln Escort Ladies

As the top provider of Escort Services in Köln and Düsseldorf, our goal is to help you achieve ultimate satisfaction with the finest Callgirls in either of these two wonderful cities. Our ladies are carefully chosen to meet the tastes and preferences of all our gentlemen clients.

If you like big, blond and bubbly, give us a call. Or perhaps a dark, smoldering beauty is more your style. Maybe you’d like to start your Escort adventure by enjoying a stimulating conversation while sharing a bottle of champagne, or you’d prefer to dive straight into the excitement and fun.

Apricot Escort Cologne & Dusseldorf has the perfect adult companion for all your wishes, desires and expectations.

[en24news]

Fortuna Dusseldorf: Five new in the starting eleven in the cup against Aue

Fortuna Dusseldorf: Five new in the starting eleven in the cup against Aue

[ad_1]

Dusseldorf –

"I will change the team to two, three, maybe even four positions. Because all players in the squad train well and deserve a chance at other times, but also because some may need a little break – in view of Sunday's game against Cologne, "Fortuna Dusseldorf head coach Friedhelm Funkel (65) had before Second round duel announced with second division Aue – and lets deeds follow!

[novikartika]

Second Stopovers at Düsseldorf to Cologne (1)

Finally, i went out to another country! after first exam I passed (if i’m not mistaken), I decided to join my friend who wanna go to Düsseldorf. Actually she went to that city because of taking care her visa to UK. WAW UK!. Thus, if you want to take care your Visa from Netherlands as your based country, you would have 2 options either Amsterdam or Düsseldorf in Germany. My friend took Düsseldorf then as reason taking her dayoff as well and I joined her! Anw i with 2 Others (include my friend who wanna take care her visa) prepared our trip before I departed one day in advance. Well, actually this was kinda my fault! (I thought) when i proposed to them “ What if we take cologne as our second trip after Düsseldorf?” ahhh i tought i messed up, yet they said yes! Haha fyi Cologne is one of city in Germany in which people recommend to go the most instead of just going to Düsseldorf . There is the largest roman cathedral in Germany i guess and might in Northern Europe if i just looked up at wikipedia. it has Gothic style and honestly it’s super big! after this trip and i visited some cathedrals, turned out “meehh, colonge’s cathedral is bigger and larger” ok, i suggest to you if you have plan to travel and visit some cathedrals, perhaps cologne cathedral is supposed to be another last visitation instead, becuase you will chip away your opinion about other might be visited. it juts my opinion, it’s all up to you.  Well fyi, after i learned lil bit about cathedral itself, Gothic style was built with some reasons behind it. One of them is to get rid of evils with the darker style and in the hope that they would not bother people to pray. Just looked up by your self you curious more.

Ok we decided to take the trip in the morning by train instead of bus. Because the bus which provides trip to Düsseldorf only would depart in the evening (around 5 p.m maybe) unfortunately me and my friend still had something to do well, after long discussion, Morning would be nice instead. We departed around 8 i guess from Nijmegen and we almost late of getting the train to Germany! ah it would be worse if we missed the train. We had to run and hurry to get the train while it’s drizzling. The first train we used NS and connecting train by ARRIVA. well it sounds like moeslim word doesn’t it? just based my opinion. huh? ok neglect it, after pretty long wait on the train, we arrived in Düsseldorf! ok first impression, it’s pretty nice. My thought after what people told me about  the city ”why’d you go to Düsseldorf? nothing to see and visit, you go to cologne instead!” well, it’s not true. I guess it’s pretty nice to visit just for walking and sipping coffee. Haha. Well our plan was going to several places in Düsseldorf, and like usual, we went to everywhere by walk. i would enclose my schedule if you might have a chance to go there as reference. Ah ya little info, when i engaged conversation with stranger, she said that Düsseldorf looks like cities in Spain. I have no idea whether it’s true or not bcos i just i visited one city in Spain. Well just experience with yourself then!

Here we go:

At Düsseldorf: Stadtmuseum; center; Konigsalle; Rheinuferpromenade.

At Cologne:  Hohenzollern Bridge; Great St. Martin Church; Cologne Cathredal; City Hall; House of Fragrances; Basilica of the Holy Apostles; Hahnen Gate; 

Roonstrasse Synagogue;  Hiroshima-Nagasaki Park.

I would try to give you a glance of the places. It would be longer if i tell the detail.

First of all,

1. Stadtmuseum

Inside museum, there is a bunch of histories of Dusseldorf. The price around 4 Euros. Lots of pictures, and other collections such as fashion, art, photography, music, film, etc. Fyi, this museum is the oldest museum in Dusseldorf.

2. Konigsalle

It’s a bridge which is pretty famous here. Perhaps it’s due to its environment and close to center.We spent our lunch here and prayed dhuhur with sitting down on the park’s seats along the canal.

3. Center

It’s kinda city center where (window) shopping, Finding lunch/dinner would be appropriate for you. And actually while we waited for ka Nana, Me and Dea spent our time with waiting in the small restaurant which sold Turkey pizza 1 Euro. Well the pizza was so thin (that’s why it’s cheap! haha) and we ordered french fries also .

Close to shopping center

4. Rheinuferpromenade

This was our last stop of visiting at Dusseldorf. Many people were tanning/sunbathing because sun was pretty warm and became right time to enjoy leisure time. While we were sitting on the grass, we bought ice cream there. Good experiences with eating ice cream in the last winter. Near this place, there is Rhine river and bridge. With big outside staircase, you could also be sitting and lying down.

5. After getting tanned (not really, we just sitting down and getting along), we took our coffee and tea in coffee shop. Well it’s nice to have this experience!

And several places we met in middle of our walk

Park ..

Road near center and the canal.

Well the info is elaborated better in www.duesseldorf-tourismus.de . Just look it up!

[tinymixtapes]

Daniel Bachman flees the USA to lay low and strum his guitar in Europe for a while

Daniel Bachman, our resident favorite enfant terrible of American Primitive guitar, clearly wants to avoid something at home for the next few months (maybe his mum is hassling him to clear out the garage, or maybe he’s got an overdue library book and wants to lay low for a while — who knows?) and has duly announced a very extensive tour around Europe (beginning later this week), which will keep him way off the USA’s grid until May. Luckily for Bachman, he’s got a still-fresh album called Daniel Bachman to promote while he’s over there, which TMT called “humble and intense.” Additionally, he’ll be kept company on his epic journey by like-minded guitar-scraper Jake Xerxes Fussell (who is about to drop an album of his own). What crazy shenanigans can two young Americana revivalists get up to as they make their way through what looks like almost every city in Europe? Only time can tell… but I feel a kooky TV sitcom coming on (and its theme song is totally Bachman’s “Farther Along,” for which you can watch the video down below). Daniel Bachman’s formerly-super-secret Euro-trip itinerary: 03.09-11.17 - Dawson City, Canada - Klondike Institute of Art & Culture 03.13.17 - Vancouver, Canada - The Cobalt 04.02.17 - Rotterdam, Netherlands - Worm 04.03.17 - Netherlands - TBA * 04.04.17 - London, UK - TBA * 04.05.17 - Liege, Belgium - Amer * 04.06.17 - Ghent, Belgium, - Inderuimte Ghent 04.07.17 - Brussels, Belgium - Ancienne 04.08.17 - Nantes, France - Soiree Pas Normal at Le Lieu Unique 04.09.17 - Angers, France - Ruralfaune 04.10.17 - Mettray, France - Le Barre 04.11.17 - Lyon, France - Le Sonic 04.12.17 - Marseille, France - L’Eolienne 04.14.17 - Toulouse, France - Le Bierographe 04.15.17 - Montpellier, France - TBA 04.16.17 - Barcelona, Spain - El Pumarejo de Barcelona 04.17.17 - Madrid, Spain - El Gato Verde 04.18.17 - Santiago de Compostela, Spain - Sala Riquela 04.19.17 - Lisbon, Portugal - Galeria Zé dos Bois 04.20.17 - Porto, Portugal - TBA 04.21.17 - Berlin, Germany - Nogatklause ^ 04.22.17 - Hannover, Germany - Oberdeck ^ 04.23.17 - Bonn, Germany - Kreuzung an Sankt Helena ^ 04.24.17 - Weisbaden, Germany - Wakker am Wallufer Platz ^ 04.25.17 - Cologne, Germany - TBA ^ 04.26.17 - Dusseldorf, Germany - Nimbus ^ 04.27.17 - Paris, France - House Concert ^ 04.28.17 - Bexhill-on-Sea, UK - Musics Not Dead ^ 04.29.17 - Totnes, UK - Unit 23 ^ 04.30.17 - Bristol, UK - Centerspace ^ 05.01.17 - London, UK - Cafe Oto ^ 05.02.17 - Cambridge, UK - The Blue Moon ^ 05.03.17 - Nottingham, UK - TBA ^ 05.04.17 - Clun, UK - The Sun Inn ^ 05.05.17 - Liverpool , UK - HUS ^ 05.06.17 - Todmorden, UK - TBA ^ 05.07.17 - Sheffield, UK - Broomfield Community Center ^ 05.08.17 - Stirling, UK - Stirling Tolbooth ^ 05.09.17 - Glasgow, UK - Glad Cafe ^ * Ignatz ^ Jake Xerxes Fussell http://j.mp/2mOndJx

[triangleinfotechsolutions-blog]

6 Imperative Approaches For Doing SEO in a Right Way

Doing SEO in the right & wrong way is only relay upon the knowledge and skills of professionals. What is the right way for doing SEO? Maybe, a countless diverse range of thoughts comes in every person's mind. Every person has a different mindset to do things. In recent years, we see contemporary changes and updates in the way of doing Search Engine Optimization but the debate is always become a point of concern in experts to adopt any particular approach of SEO. Here we have 6 Imperative Approaches for Doing SEO in a Right Way. Let's take a look one by one to understand each one comprehensively.

1. Interlinked Only Worthwhile Pages on Website:

To know, you are doing SEO in the right way or not it is important to check the ground-report of Interlinking on your website. Yes, this is the primary aspect to check the performance of your website. Do interlinking of main pages with only worthwhile stuff of your website and don't mix-up irrelevant stuff to complete the task of Interlinking. A Successful, SEO Strategist always does the task of Interlinking with Worthwhile Pages Only (that will also Boost Your Ranking as well).

2. Erase Site Slowdown Things From Your Site:

Every person doesn't want to lose potential clients due to the slowdown speed of the website. Maybe you are thinking that how can I include this thing in SEO Imperative Approaches. Optimizing & Analyzing the Speed of Website and WebPages is also the part of Search Engine Optimization Process. To do marketing in the right way you must have given an ultimate experience to the visitors of your website when they visit on your portal.

3. First, Build Content for Humans and Then for Google:

Without content, you can't make an effective strategy. What do you want on your website & marketing content? How much you focused on SEO Optimized Content? Well, one of the big mistakes that many SEO Professionals do is positing and sharing content for Search Engines First and Then for Human. They will also become the loophole of your bad marketing roadmap and that's why you can't accomplish triumph in your goal. Here we just want to say you build content for humans first and then go for search engine requirement.

4. Encourage Authoritative Websites for Inbound Linking:

Pressurizing Reputed Sites to link to you is also a right way for SEO. Inbound Linking is working as an Enthusiasm in Search Engine Marketing. As we know, the combination of Do-Follow and No-Follow Link provides you a Natural Link. Authoritative or Trustworthy Website Inbound Linking is always a Fruitful Approach to Enhance the Value of Your Website in Search Engine.

5. Create High-Quality Content For Marketing:

Content matters a lot. You can't deny the vital significance of quality content for marketing strategy. High-Quality & Audience Engaging Content always give Glossy Impact in your SEO Strategy. Even, we can also say that around 55% SEO Results Depends on the Quality of Content on Different Portals (Including Your Own Websites & Other Portals Where You Are Doing Day to Day SEO Activity By Using Content).

6. Constitute an Understandable URL (Try to Make it Short):

Yes, and if you are making URL which is not Understandable then your approach for doing SEO is not in the right way. For doing SEO in the right way you must constitute Understand URL and even try to make it a Short and Meaningful URL for Your Audience. If your audience is not able to understand the meaning of URL (because of its complicated meaning) then Search Engine also can't crawl your website on some right keywords.

SEO COMPANY USA

seo company newyork

seo company chicago

seo company phoenix

seo company san antonio

seo company san francisco

seo company miami

seo company boston

seo company dallas

seo company atlanta

seo company austin

seo company portland

seo company tampa

seo company nashville

seo company virginia beach

seo company salt lake city

seo company sacramento

seo company st louis

seo company baltimore

seo company tucson

seo company jacksonville

seo company cincinnati

seo company indianapolis

seo company milwaukee

seo company cleveland

seo company buffalo

seo company houston

seo company los angeles

seo company philadelphia

seo company san diego

seo company las vegas

seo company seattle

seo company san jose

seo company orlando

seo company denver

seo company minneapolis

seo company charlotte

seo company new orleans

seo company raleigh

seo company charlotte

seo company kansas city

seo company pittsburgh

seo company columbus

seo company providence

seo company riverside

seo company oklahoma city

seo company richmond

seo company louisville

seo company detroit

seo company memphis

seo company grand rapids

 SEO COMPANY EUROPE

seo company pisa

seo company istanbul

seo company london

seo company kiev

seo company rome

seo company berlin

seo company amsterdam

seo company copenhagen

seo company budapest

seo company edinburgh

seo company milan

seo company lisbon

seo company dublin

seo company florence

seo company cannes

seo company bruges

seo company dubrovnik

seo company granada

seo company bergen

seo company bilbao

seo company reykjavik

seo company monte carlo

seo company riga

seo company innsbruck

seo company nice

seo company krakow

seo company warsaw

seo company verona

seo company york

seo company zurich

seo company seville

seo company siena

seo company geneva

seo company zagreb

seo company vilnius

seo company bratislava

seo company turin

seo company avignon

seo company palma de mallorca

seo company brighton

seo company lyon

seo company goteborg

seo company bayeux

seo company sofia

seo company valencia

seo company gdansk

seo company belgrade

seo company dresden

seo company palermo

seo company zermatt

seo company inverness

seo company moscow

seo company saint petersburg

seo company madrid

seo company paris

seo company barcelona

seo company athens

seo company brussels

seo company munich

seo company prague

seo company vienna

seo company stockholm

seo company oslo

seo company oxford

seo company helsinki

seo company hamburg

seo company tallinn

seo company salzburg

seo company manchester          

seo company strasbourg

seo company naples

seo company bern

seo company liverpool

seo company luxembourg city

seo company cologne

seo company malaga    

seo company genoa

seo company thessaloniki

seo company reims

seo company aarhus    

seo company cordoba

seo company belfast

seo company bologna

seo company bucharest

seo company rotterdam

seo company ljubljana

seo company assissi

seo company marseille

seo company lubeck

seo company bath

seo company porto

seo company stavanger

seo company dusseldorf

seo company split

seo company antalya

seo company glasgow

seo company antwerp

seo company mykonos

seo company wroclaw

seo company lucerne

SEO COMPANY CANADA

seo company toronto            

seo company montreal

seo company calgary

seo company vancouver

seo company edmonton

seo company waterloo

SEO COMPANY india

seo company mumbai

seo company delhi

seo company bangalore

seo company hyderabad

seo company ahmedabad

seo company chennai

seo company kolkata

seo company surat

seo company pune

seo company jaipur

 SEO COMPANY AUSTRALIA

  seo company sydney

seo company melbourne

seo company brisbane

seo company perth

seo company adelaide

seo company gold coast

seo company new castle

seo company canberra

seo company sunshine coast

seo company wollongong

 SEO COMPANY uae

  seo company dubai

seo company sharjah

seo company abudhabi

seo company al ain

[alexstorm]

In Germany I don't see many cities they'll tour. Probably the same cities as always Berlin, Dusseldorf, Munich and maybe Frankfurt and Cologne and that's it. They use the same tour cities and countries every time

Yeah, I know but it would be nice if they could at least announce those same cities. They're also always doing the same cities in France or Italy (boring btw). So I guess we have to build a 5-star hotel in the middle of nowhere for them to come there. lmao

[i-dont-givea-damn-blog-blog]

What do I like about Germany

It's been a couple of months since I came here. There are little things that I totally love about this country. And all these little things are possible because of its limited population.

(Maybe Sanjay Gandhi's idea during Emergency was valid? Hmm.)

1. All the transport system is wheelchair friendly. I mean all of it. Not just the bus and the train - the platform leading to it, the elevators leading down to the U Bahns. Everything! So many elders and disabled people access all places as if it's nothing. Totally inspiring coming from India.

2. People travel usually for work. People who work for instance in Cologne do not live in Cologne. They live in nearby towns, suburbs and even in other cities like Bonn or Dusseldorf. The fact that 50km distance can be travelled in 20 minutes through a normal (not the bullet one which is quite expensive) train makes this easy.

3. German everywhere. On the keyboards, on computers, on official documents and every other place where you wouldn't expect to find a language other than English.

4. Beer. The Kolsch in Cologne is exquisite. And the Gluhwein. Simply out of the world in a chill Christmas market.

5. Water is costlier than Beer and water is usually stirred. Weird.

6. Normal weekdays and weekends are usually very quiet. People pack up everything in office by 5.30 and have dinner by 6.45 and sleep by 9. They also turn up to work between 6-8.30 and have lunch by 12. All this was at least an hour ahead for me.

7. Practically owning a car is not required. The transport is comprehensive and connects so many places that it becomes unnecessary to even think about owning vehicles.

8. People are genuine and they don't really have a need to cheat others. Because the government actually works. Social security is a big deal here.

9. Whoever I've spoken to are actually in support of Ms Merkel. They think that it is a collective responsibility of Germans to bail out countries in need like Greece and to take in immigrants. They are quite open minded which is great given the political situation in 2017. Germany is the last super power where right wing ideas are still vastly in the minority.

[jeroldlockettus]

What Are the Secrets of the German Economy — and Should We Steal Them?

More than 22 percent of Germany’s workforce is in the manufacturing sector. (Photo: Jens Meyer / Associate Press)

Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “What Are the Secrets of the German Economy — and Should We Steal Them?” (You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above.)

Smart government policies, good industrial relations, and high-end products have helped German manufacturing beat back the threats of globalization.

Below is a transcript of the episode, modified for your reading pleasure. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post.

*      *      *

Unless you’ve managed to totally tune out every American politician, you’ve probably heard that our manufacturing sector has been crushed.

Bernie SANDERS: We have had, for the last 30+ years, disastrous trade policies.

President TRUMP: We’ve lost 60,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

The consensus estimate is that we’ve lost about five million manufacturing jobs since 2000. There are a number of factors — but clearly, one of them has been global trade.

David AUTOR: We estimate that as much as 40 percent of the drop in U.S. manufacturing between 2000–2007 is attributable to the trade shock following China’s accession to the W.T.O. in 2001.

That’s David Autor, a labor economist at M.I.T. You may remember him from an earlier episode of ours called “Did China Eat America’s Jobs?” Short answer: yes, at least a good portion of them. Autor points out there were gains in non-manufacturing sectors, which more than offset the number of lost manufacturing jobs. But these new jobs typically pay less and leave workers worse off. Or, as an economist would put it:

AUTOR: The reallocation process seems to be slow, frictional, and scarring.

The U.S. is hardly alone in losing those good old high-paying manufacturing jobs. Many big, old, successful western economies have suffered the same fate. This downturn has changed our politics. In the U.S. …

TRUMP: We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country and that’s what they’re doing.

And elsewhere …

Gerard BAKER on CBS This Morning: You see it in the U.K. vote to leave the E.U. You’re seeing it in other parts of Europe — a spread of this desire to kick back against globalization.

But there’s one big, rich, Western country that’s different.

Jens SUEDEKUM: We don’t hear that anti-globalization, anti-China rhetoric.

A country whose manufacturing sector has proved remarkably resilient.

SUEDEKUM: The United States, the manufacturing share today is below 9 percent. We still have 22 percent of the workers active in manufacturing.

It’s a country that not only doesn’t have a trade deficit, but has one of the largest trade surpluses in the world.

Dalia MARIN: The exporting sector is doing very well. It’s a good sign.

So what is this übermensch of a country?

SUEDEKUM: At the moment, there’s a bit of euphoria in Germany. The economy’s doing great and unemployment has almost disappeared.

That’s right: Germany.

SUEDEKUM: At the moment, the mood is good here. But Germans are also melancholic people.

Today on Freakonomics Radio: how did the German economy go from rubble to rock star?

Daniel STURM: Germany has a very unusual economic geography.

MARIN: Germany is not a shareholder economy, it’s a stakeholder economy.

Uwe REINHARDT: In Germany, the unions have representatives on the board of the company.

And: what would happen if the U.S. tried to copy the German model?

*      *      *

I’d like you to meet Jens Suedekum.

SUEDEKUM: Hello. I’m [a] professor of economics at Dusseldorf University.

His research specialty?

SUEDEKUM: I do research in international trade.

A few years back, Suedekum and his colleagues read the research that David Autor and his colleagues published about the American manufacturing crash.

SUEDEKUM: The tone was very negative in the United States — that China cost millions of jobs, put so many people out of work, led to reduced wages. Basically, we wanted to understand if that’s also going on in Germany.

Suedekum applied the same research methodology to Germany. He found that, as in the U.S., some German industries did suffer a lot because of low-cost Chinese manufacturing. But …

SUEDEKUM: But, on the other hand, the overall conclusion that comes from our study is much more positive. The important difference is that Germany managed to take advantage of this gigantic export market.

The “gigantic export market” being, primarily, China.

SUEDEKUM: If you add both together, then trade basically had zero impact on the manufacturing share itself in Germany.

Why was Germany able to find an economic equilibrium that has escaped so many other countries? To find that answer — and to appreciate the magnitude of this economic turnaround — we have to go back in time a bit. Let’s start just after World War II.

REINHARDT: Germany was basically rubble and demoralized; for very good reasons, in deep shame.

Uwe Reinhardt is an economist at Princeton. He was born in 1937 in the countryside near Cologne.

REINHARDT: By and large we young people had this burden of shame put on our shoulder. We never asked for that, but we had it. I sometimes think one outlet is to work like hell and say, “Let’s just work and see if at some point we will once again be”— the German word is salonfähig, meaning, “be fit to be invited to a civilized party.” We worked hard. Everyone worked hard. I worked in Cologne as an apprentice. Everything was rubble. Then you saw, year by year, “Here was rubble. There is a new building now.” You literally saw Germany grow again.

Germany’s growth was helped along by American financial aid. Here’s U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, nearly two years after the end of the war, speaking at Harvard, where he was receiving an honorary degree.

George MARSHALL: Ladies and gentleman, I’m profoundly grateful.

Marshall used this occasion to announce a plan to rebuild Europe.

MARSHALL: The truth of the matter is that Europe’s requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products — principally from America — are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help, or face economic, social and political deterioration of a very grave character.

The Marshall Plan sent a lot of money to Europe — the equivalent of more than $100 billion today.

Jeromin ZETTELMEYER: Initially there was a bit of a controversy whether Germany, in particular, should be a recipient of Marshall aid.

That’s Jeromin Zettelmeyer. Until recently, he was a senior official in Germany’s Ministry for Economic Affairs; now he’s a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

ZETTELMEYER: But, as the politics changed after the war and the Cold War became the most pressing issue — containment of the Soviet Union — it was very quickly decided that Germany would get Marshall Plan aid. It played a big role in German post-war reconstruction.

Reconstruction, that is, in West Germany.

STURM: It’s well known that in the wake of the Second World War, Germany was occupied.

The economist Daniel Sturm grew up in Germany and now teaches at the London School of Economics. His specialty is called spatial economics.

STURM: Spatial economics is an umbrella term the role of space in economic activity. That could be space across countries as studied in international trade, that could be space across regions or the role of space within cities.

You can see where is this going, can’t you? After the war, Germany was divided and occupied by the Allied powers. For a spatial economist who happens to be from Germany, this division would provide a perfect natural experiment. There was West Germany …

STURM: … which was the combination of the American, British, and French zone …

And East Germany …

STURM: … which was the Soviet zone.

The border between West and East Germany was also a border between capitalism and communism. In the West, cities like Hamburg, Bonn, Frankfurt, and Munich began to rebuild, and resumed their capitalist pursuits. Not so in the East. And Berlin lay firmly in the east. Before the war, it was the capital of Germany, easily its largest city, and an economic powerhouse. Now, it too was divided — eventually by the Berlin Wall. West Berlin was officially a part of West Germany. But it was an island of capitalism in a sea of communism.

STURM: A lot of industries are forced to relocate and find new homes in West Germany.

And so it was for four decades. Until November 9th, 1989 — the fall of the Berlin Wall.

ABC NEWS: Just a short while ago, astonishing news from East Germany …

BBC NEWS: Within hours of East Germany’s decision to let its people go by opening the border to the West, the city erupted in frenzy of celebration.

CBS NEWS: Tens of thousands of young Berliners are on the Berlin Wall.

STURM: When the Berlin Wall came down, I was serving in the Army. There was still conscription at the time. I was a lorry driver, so I was servicing the spatial economy, transporting goods around for the German army. But I had no training in economics at that point.

But years later, Sturm the economist began to examine the economic data generated by the political divisions.

STURM: One of the classic questions in spatial economics is the question, “Why do people, firms and workers, locate where they locate?” There [are] two, big competing theories: one is there’s something fundamentally good about some locations, maybe access to a river, nice weather, or other locational advantages. The competing theory is that it’s really cumulative causation. Once a critical mass of economic activity has been established in a location, people will gravitate to that location, so there’s nothing inherently good about the location other than that many other people have decided to locate in that location as well. Trying to distinguish between these two explanations, unfortunately, is very difficult.

Difficult especially when you can’t run experiments in economics the way you can in other fields. When you can’t, say, divide a country in half, and cordon off its most important city to see what happens there. But of course that’s essentially what happened in Germany. Before the war, many large industries were concentrated in Berlin. But they shriveled during the Cold War. Now, after reunification, Daniel Sturm and a colleague, Steve Redding, took advantage of this shock to the system.

STURM: Once that shock dissipates, do we see that everything gravitates back to its old pre-war equilibrium, which would suggest that everything is driven by fundamentals? Or do we see that the new location pattern that was developed during division continues after reunification so that we don’t go back to the old pattern, but stay in the new pattern that has been developed during the shock period of division?

Granted, a city like Berlin can’t just flip a switch after 40 years and tell all its big companies to come home. They had built buildings! Their workers had homes there! Still, Sturm felt he could at least address the question by looking at the data. First stop: airplane-traffic data.

STURM: The main reason we looked at air hubs is it’s a sector where you get a lot of historical data.

Before the war, Berlin had the biggest airport in Germany.

STURM: It was, in fact, also the biggest airport in Europe.

But during the post-war occupation, a lot of airplane traffic migrated to Frankfurt — in part because the U.S. military had its main airbase there.

STURM: It took ‘til the mid-1970s for Frankfurt to take over the role as [the] hub airport for Germany and for Berlin to fall back into the role of a regional, provincial airport.

Okay, not that surprising that Berlin’s airport fell out of favor during the occupation. But what happened after reunification? Did Berlin recapture all that air traffic — or did Frankfurt retain its hold?

STURM: And that’s exactly what we find.

That is, Frankfurt retained its hold.

STURM: There’s no evidence of the pattern of air travel gravitating back to its old pattern.

To this day, Frankfurt has the biggest airport in Germany, with more than 60 million passengers a year. Berlin, while still easily the biggest city in Germany, has only the fourth- and seventh-busiest airports, which combined have only about half the traffic of Frankfurt.

STURM: Germany is the only European country where the country’s main air hub is not in the largest city. You can see the unusualness of the German situation. If [the] division hadn’t happened, it would be very difficult to believe that Germany’s main air hub today wouldn’t be in Berlin.

The air-traffic story is compelling because the data are so definitive. In other cases, it’s hard for an economist like Sturm to make such a clean comparison between cities. But, he argues, the anecdotal evidence at least suggests that the air-traffic data are part of a larger economic pattern.

STURM: If you look, for example, at Munich. Both Allianz, Germany’s biggest insurance company, and Siemens, its biggest manufacturing conglomerate, moved to Munich in response to [the] division. Similarly, the banking sector left Berlin and migrated to Frankfurt, which, prior to the war, was a secondary banking center. Publishing went to Hamburg and we can continue in this way.

In other words: one indirect consequence of the war, and the resultant political division, was that the German economy became more decentralized.

STURM: Germany has a very unusual economic geography or very unusual distribution of economic activity in space. It’s a much more decentralized country than some other European countries, such as the U.K., France, or even Spain, where economic activity seems to be highly agglomerated in one or two leading centers. In contrast in Germany, you have a number of mid-sized towns that have very vibrant economic structures such as Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and many more.

Now, is economic decentralization necessarily a benefit? Cities like New York, London, Paris, and Tokyo might argue otherwise.

STURM: There’s a large literature that documents that there are returns to density. Bigger cities seem to be more productive. From that perspective, it may be better to concentrate economic activity in a few large cities.

But density also has its costs: higher housing prices and cost of living; more traffic congestion.

STURM: From that perspective, it may be better to spread economic activity apart.

So is it possible for economists to learn the optimal population distribution across a country’s cities?

STURM: The question is a tricky one, and one that, arguably, we have much less of [a] handle on understanding the full empirics and the importance of different effects. If we split London into two cities and moved one to the north of England and left one where it is right now, what exactly would be the implications for U.K. economic activity? It would be great if I could solve that question and provide you with a precise empirical estimate. But it’s something that is very difficult.

Okay, fair enough. Hard question to answer. But keep in mind it also has political implications. A lot of recent elections have seen populist momentum from outside major cities, with voters who feel the cosmopolitan elites don’t represent their economic interests.

STURM: One of the key obsessions of U.K. politics is to try and redistribute economic activity away from London to other parts of the U.K., which compared to London, are lagging. There is spatial inequality in Germany as well, but it’s not as extreme with Berlin being the vibrant place and everything else being a backwater. We have a number of cities that, in terms of per capita income, are very comparable. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Germany has, so far, weathered the populist tide.

Maybe but … maybe not. We spoke with Sturm before the recent German elections. Angela Merkel was easily re-elected as chancellor but the ruling coalition parties lost seats in Parliament to the Alternative for Germany party. It has an anti-immigrant platform and is especially strong in the former East Germany, where the economy isn’t nearly as strong as in the former West. Which suggests one of at least two things: the German economic miracle may be running into trouble; or, at the very least, the former East still has a lot of catching up to do. Including Berlin itself.

MARIN: I came to Berlin right after the fall of the wall.

That’s Dalia Marin. Today she teaches economics at the University of Munich; but at the start of reunification, she was at Humboldt University, in the former East Berlin.

MARIN: It was a very exciting moment because under communism, they had not really an economics department. They didn’t know anything about Keynes and Adam Smith. Under communism, they basically were teaching Marxism and Leninism. They didn’t know anything about the market because they were a planned economy. They had no alternative, then, to fire these people.

The firing of communist economists was one of many, many adjustments that came with reunification.

STURM: Reunification was a major economic shock.

Among the problems East Germany faced: a bloated socialist bureaucracy and dilapidated infrastructure; an unproductive workforce and massive government subsidies for food and housing; and, oh yeah, the lack of functional capitalist markets. The German government worked hard to bring East Germany back into the fold.

SUEDEKUM: There was a huge economic boom that came with it because there [were] massive infrastructure investments in the East.

STURM: There were also enormous transfers paid to try and jump-start the East German economy.

SUEDEKUM: There was huge euphoria about reunification but then this mood changed fairly quickly. In ‘93, ‘94, the country went into a hangover mood.

MARIN: Because it was difficult for West Germany to absorb East Germany.

One big difficulty was getting East and West using the same currency — the West German Deutsche Mark. Jeromin Zettelmeyer says the conversion happened at an even one-to-one rate, which had a huge effect on real wages.

ZETTELMEYER: Even though that did not translate into the same wage level in the East as in the West, wages went nonetheless higher than they would have been without that. So you have a period where effectively the wage levels in the East in hard currency exceed Eastern productivity and that produces more unemployment.

SUEDEKUM: To give you perspective, we had an unemployment rate in Germany in ‘91 [that] was roughly 5 percent; maybe 2 million unemployed people. But then in ‘97, the whole unemployment rate went up to 11, 12 percent. It was a dramatic period.

The drama, of course, didn’t end there.

ZETTELMEYER: And then you have Germany join the euro.

The euro had become the common currency of the European Union and Germany, unlike Britain, decided to embrace the euro as its currency. Zettelmeyer argues that from the German perspective, the euro was overvalued. That made German exports more expensive, which put a drag on their economy. Beyond that, the new scenario inspired an exodus of German capital.

ZETTELMEYER: The reason is that investment opportunities in the southern European countries suddenly looked more attractive.

In Spain, for instance.

MARIN: There was an extreme capital flight to Spain and the housing sector in Spain quadrupled. Part of the reason why that happened was because German households, in fact, bought houses in the nice parts of the beach of Spain.

But it wasn’t just German households moving their money. Companies did too. For years, countries like Spain and Portugal had been cheaper for a company to operate in. But they also came with their downsides: unfriendly business policies, the threat of high inflation, the occasional currency crisis. But now, as fellow E.U. nations using the common euro currency, Germans took a second look.

ZETTELMEYER: It was almost like having these countries sign up to this fitness plan and that made them very attractive.

Manufacturing in Germany, therefore, became less attractive.

ZETTELMEYER: And that made unemployment even worse.

So if you add up all these factors, some subtle and some quite blunt, you can see why Germany, by the early 2000s, was not in great economic shape.

SUEDEKUM: You had the impression that the German economy is about to fall off a cliff or something. That’s where this famous expression of “the sick man of Europe” was coined by The Economist.

So how did “the sick man of Europe” turn into the economic stud we see today?

SUEDEKUM: At first glance, this system looks pretty inflexible and rigid.

*      *      *

It’s no secret that the German economy is booming right now.

RT: The country is the economic engine of Europe, with enviable numbers on public and private debt, productivity growth, and employment ….

CGTN: This week Germany also announced a record trade surplus.

PBS: We Germans have 1 percent of the labor force of the world and we have 10 percent of the exports of the world.

But just 15 years ago, things were looking pretty grim. The country was struggling to reunify after the Cold War; adopting the euro had its downsides, including a flight of German capital from Germany; and unemployment was at nearly 12 percent.

SUEDEKUM: The talk shows were full of people arguing that Germany is not competitive. Wages are too high. The labor market is too inflexible. The Social Security system is too generous and we have to do something dramatic about it.

That, again, is the University of Dusseldorf economist Jens Suedekum.

SUEDEKUM: You can think of that period from ‘93 ‘til 2003 as a decade of stagnation. That was the mood that predated the Hartz reforms in 2003.

The Hartz reforms were named after Peter Hartz, a Volkswagen executive who became an adviser to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Schröder and his Social Democratic party had been elected to lead Germany in 1998.

SUEDEKUM: There was this impression that if somebody can reform the country, it’s going to be them because they’re Social Democrats. They have the unions on their side. [In] 2003, Schröder announces what he has called, “The Agenda 2010,” and the famous Hartz reforms, they were part of this agenda.

Among other changes, the Hartz reforms lowered government assistance to the poor and unemployed; made it easier for firms to fire employees; and encouraged more part-time, low-wage, non-union jobs. As you can imagine, such reforms did not make Schröder universally beloved.

SUEDEKUM: It had a huge political cost because he lost the left wing part of the Social Democrats. It cost Schröder the chancellorship. He lost the election in 2005 to Angela Merkel. But ultimately, the common narrative is those Hartz reforms created the turnaround.

That, at least, is the common narrative. Some economists think it’s more nuanced than that. That there are more factors to consider. Let’s start with Germany’s unique system of labor relations.

SUEDEKUM: At first glance, this system looks pretty inflexible and rigid.

And unusual in at least one other way. German manufacturing is not dominated by gigantic firms.

MARIN: One of the distinctive features of the German manufacturing sector is you see all these small- and medium-sized firms.

ZETTELMEYER: Germany is fairly unique in having companies with between a few hundred and a thousand employees that do a lot of exporting.

Such firms are often family-owned and typically receive government support; collectively, they’re known as the Mittelstand.

MARIN: The interesting thing is that, normally, when you have small and medium enterprises, they are not international. The major thing about the Mittelstand in Germany is that they are very international. I’m talking here about the export superstars.  

SUEDEKUM: You have all these so-called “Hidden Champions” in Germany. These are medium-sized firms often located somewhere in the countryside. But they are the world market leader for some very specific niche product where they offer the highest quality.

Products like pipe organs. Or battery chargers. Or professional movie-making equipment. Or fish-processing machinery.

SUEDEKUM: The workers of these firms are highly paid. They’re protected. The unions, the work council is important there.

A work or works council, is like a trade union writ small, sometimes representing the workers of just that one firm. And it participates in decision-making with the firm’s executives. It’s part of a system known, in German, as …

MARIN: Mitbestimmung, yes. Co-determination. This is a very important part of the way Germany is doing business.

So the governance of firms — small and large — isn’t determined solely by executives and big shareholders, but with input from the workers themselves. That goes for factory decisions and boardroom decisions. Uwe Reinhardt again:

REINHARDT: In Germany, the unions have representatives on the board of the company. Siemens or Mercedes probably have two or three union bosses sitting on the board.

This setup gives workers more leverage over employment policies — including wages.

SUEDEKUM: The system of industrial relations in Germany is that there is wage negotiations at the industry level. The union, the employer association for each industry, sit together. They bargain a wage and that wage is basically applied everywhere in the country in that industry.

Kind of the way sports leagues work in the U.S., at least to some degree.

SUEDEKUM: That’s the rule. But there are exceptions.

One big exception is known as an opening clause.

SUEDEKUM: That means at the firm level, if the work council agrees, it is possible to deviate from these arrangements under certain well-specified circumstances. That’s important. The employer, the firm, has to prove that this downward deviation is necessary to prevent, for example, bankruptcy or to remain competitive. They have to make sure, “Unless we have this flexible wage setting, we really have a fundamental problem and we may have to fire workers.”

You may be surprised to learn that German workers willingly accept a wage lower than the one their union negotiated. But they’d learned from history. Specifically, from their own history at the end of the Cold War.

MARIN: With the opening up of Eastern Europe, firms would threaten to go Eastern Europe.

SUEDEKUM: [With] this threat of production relocation to Eastern Europe, the firms realize[d] they need to restructure, they need to become competitive.

MARIN: And that threat actually brought a big change in the way wage bargaining was organized.

Specifically, a heavier reliance on opening clauses.

MARIN: The individual firms could adjust more flexibly to the circumstances that the individual firm was facing.

SUEDEKUM:What’s very important [is] that the unions in Germany were co-operative. The unions, in principle, could have just said, “No, we’re not willing to cooperate. We just try to achieve the maximum that we can for our members.” But the unions deserve quite some credit for being flexible and being willing to cooperate

So here’s a question: how well would this co-operative labor model travel? The German auto firm Volkswagen found out a few years back when it opened a factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee. By the way, this was before VW’s emissions scandal — or the accusations of collusion between VW and other German carmakers. Which, by the way, if you’re even a little bit cynical, you might think could help explain a good bit of the German economic miracle, since cheating and winning do often travel in the same direction.

But that’s not the story we’re telling right now. The story we’re telling right now is about when VW came to Chattanooga to make cars …

Calvin SNEED for ABC-WTVC NewsChannel 9: VW’s German ownership has made it clear it wants a German-style works council that involves workers and management at the Chattanooga plant to negotiate employee concerns. Both the United Auto Workers union and the American Council of Employees union have come up with plans to work through their versions of a German-style works council. That type of labor agreement would be historic in this country.

So far, so good — the labor unions were up for copying the German model. But Tennessee’s political leadership, which historically has not been union-friendly, didn’t like this idea one bit.

Chattanooga Times Free Press: Senator Bob Corker says Volkswagen would become a “laughing stock” if it partners with United Auto Workers. Corker called it “incomprehensible” that Volkswagen management invited U.A.W. for discussions. And he’s not the only one upset. Governor Bill Haslam says discussions with U.A.W. have hindered business recruitment in Tennessee.

Governor HASLAM: There’s no question that if the U.A.W. comes in there, it will impact our ability to recruit other businesses to Tennessee.

The plan was ultimately ditched. The Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt says that, considering the recent history of American auto manufacturing, including its bankruptcies, these politicians’ concerns about American labor unions may not be unfounded.

REINHARDT: The way I put it to the freshmen at Princeton is a business firm is just a little bowl into which Tender Vittles are poured.

Tender Vittles, in case you don’t recall, was a brand of, “semi-moist” cat food that cats allegedly went crazy for.

Tender Vittles Ad: Tender Vittles cat food says fresh to your cat at every meal. “Fresh!” “Fresh!”

REINHARDT: I always used that as a metaphor for businesses. The customers pour in the Tender Vittles and in the U.S., when you had a union, they would fight and spill the whole bowl of Tender Vittles. In the end, no one could eat anymore. I looked at U.A.W. “It’s insane, they’re going to kill their company.” Sure enough, they damn near did. General Motors was almost bankrupt. In Germany, the unions have representatives on the board of the company. Yes, they say, “The first thing” — that this bowl of Tender Vittles — “we have to make sure that the bowl is there. We can fight all we want, but don’t spill the bowl.” You don’t destroy your company. That was not the attitude of Anglo-Saxon unions, either in England or the U.S.

Some economists — Dalia Marin, for instance — think that a work council can bring together unions and firms anywhere.

MARIN: Yeah, I think it’s an institutional arrangement that can be in principle replicated in other countries.

Or: maybe Germany is simply different. Jens Suedekum again:

SUEDEKUM: Culturally, there is a sense [that] you have to be flexible when circumstances change, when new challenges arise. This is deeply embedded in the German approach of doing things.

Even Marin doesn’t disagree with this.

MARIN: It’s true. It’s part of the culture. You try to come to a common goal. This has a high value. Germany is a stakeholder economy in that sense. Yeah? It’s not a shareholder economy, it’s a stakeholder economy.

This culture, Marin says, also manifests itself in management style. Her research has shown that German C.E.O.’s are more willing to grant decision-making power to lower management. And that, she argues, improves quality. Because those are the managers who have the best sense of what customers want. This requires C.E.O.’s to have quite a bit of faith in their managers.

MARIN: That is part of a cultural thing: people trust each other.

An earlier episode of Freakonomics Radio, called “Trust Me,” explored an important but often-overlooked element of successful societies. It’s called social trust.

David HALPERN from a previous Freakonomics Radio episode: It’s like the dark matter of the economy and society. It matters very greatly and yet we don’t seem to focus on it very much.

And on the standard measures of social trust …

MARIN: You see that Germany comes out very high.

Not quite as high as the Scandinavian countries. But well ahead of the U.S., France, Italy, Spain, and England. And in Germany, trust has been increasing lately — unlike most of those other countries. Whatever the causes, the fact is that German firms enjoy a relatively harmonious relationship with their workers. Which can come in handy when you’re facing a big external threat. Like China …

SUEDEKUM: That arrangement made Germany ready for globalization and made it competitive when globalization really kicked off at the turn of the millennium.

That, Jens Suedekum points out, is when China joined the World Trade Organization.

SUEDEKUM: That’s the time when trade between Germany and China went through the roof. Now, as of 2017, China is the biggest trading partner of Germany.

It’s not that Germany didn’t experience any of the labor contraction that hit the U.S. and other countries.

SUEDEKUM: It’s that we had more offsetting positive effects in other communities and in other industries.

Offsetting positive effects driven by a seemingly insatiable Chinese appetite for German-made goods.

SUEDEKUM: Luck is one part of the story. We just happen to produce the type of stuff that China wanted and China needed.

Stuff like specialized machinery made by all those Mittelstand companies. And stuff like high-end cars: BMWs, Audis, Mercedes-Benzes.

SUEDEKUM: German engineering is legendary and German machinery is legendary. That’s one part of the story.

But the other important part of the story is that German manufacturers already had practice staring down the threats of globalization. They were lean and mean and they’d built a collaborative culture and institutions that prized flexibility. Here’s Zettelmeyer again:

ZETTELMEYER: It is true that the success of Germany in export markets is a national prerogative, that so many jobs depend on them. As a result, you tend to have unions both at the company level and sector unions that are happy to prioritize competitiveness over wage increases.

To be fair, Germany has seen a decline in manufacturing as a share of G.D.P.

SUEDEKUM: But our work showed the globalization and trade actually contributed nothing to this manufacturing decline. The manufacturing decline is driven by other channels: technology, robots, automation. But it’s not trade. It’s not globalization.

Suedekum’s research, in fact, shows that globalization helped Germany retain manufacturing jobs.

SUEDEKUM: If you do a net calculation, we have a plus of maybe half a million jobs.

Compare that to the loss of over a million manufacturing jobs in the U.S. — just from trade with China. But as Suedekum points out, workers everywhere are now facing competition from robots and computers. And yet, even in this realm, German labor has so far been resilient. In a new paper,  Suedekum and his colleagues find that, “robots have not been major job killers in Germany so far, somewhat in contrast to the buzz in some of the contemporary public debate.”

Granted, this has been achieved in part by wage cuts. But once again, the German system of industrial relations has proven adaptive. It has also been proven durable. There are a lot of long-standing labor practices in Germany that seem to produce systemic benefits. For instance: its famous system of apprenticeship, which is funded by both the government and the private sector.

SUEDEKUM: The system of apprenticeship is one of the biggest advantages that Germany has, especially for manufacturing.

ZETTELMEYER: The apprenticeship system ensures a flow of relatively talented young people into industry that might not even consider industry in other countries.

SUEDEKUM: We’re talking about kids who don’t go to college. In many other countries, they would just pick up a job somewhere and start working and receive on-the-job training for one firm, right? In Germany, you go through this system of vocational training. Half of the week you work for one employer and the other half of the week you go to school and receive some general training. The biggest advantage of that is that the workers acquire something that we economists call not just firm-specific, but industry-specific or occupation-specific human capital.

That helps you to adapt when your employer goes broke and you just need to find a new job. Then, you fare much better.

It’s this kind of institution that may explain why Germany weathered the 2008 financial crisis, and subsequent euro crisis, relatively well. It saw only a small rise in unemployment. The German system of co-determination also helped. Here’s Dalia Marin again:

MARIN: There was a big bargain between the government, the entrepreneurs, and the unions that the firms will keep the workers, in particular, the skilled workers, and will get a subsidy for keeping them from the government.

And the financial crisis actually strengthened Germany’s position in the E.U., at least on one dimension: currency. You’ll remember that Germany was initially punished for embracing the euro, in that its exports got relatively expensive. But now it stood to benefit.

Jeromin Zettelmeyer:

ZETTELMEYER: In some sense, German competitiveness is the flipside of lack of competitiveness in other countries that are part of the same currency union. Imagine what would happen if we exited the euro. The currency would appreciate, the new Deutsche Mark would be much stronger. What that means is that, in dollar terms, German industrial wages would be way higher. The euro is keeping the German currency undervalued, so to speak, because — even though there is no interference through intervention, no currency manipulation whatsoever — we are in the same currency as countries for whom the euro is rather strong, like some of the Mediterranean countries. That lack of competitiveness in the south is holding back the value of the euro as a whole and that increases the surplus.

“The surplus” meaning the trade surplus. That makes up a big part of what economists call a nation’s “current account.”

ZETTELMEYER: Many people to a first approximation think of it as the trade balance, which is basically the value of goods that you export minus the value of goods that you import. But that’s a little too narrow. Investment income is also in there, which is quite big in Germany. It’s not all about the trade balance.

What is the state, then, of Germany’s current account?

ZETTELMEYER: The German current account is the biggest in the world in absolute terms.

In 2016, it hit a record high of nearly $300 billion  — more than China’s, which has more people and a bigger economy. As a former government official, Zettelmeyer confirms that Germany’s record surplus is a major source of pride.

ZETTELMEYER: It was certainly the prevailing view that we have a big surplus because everyone loves all our products, including ourselves. Everyone wants German stuff. This is why we export a lot. And we want German stuff too, which is why we tend not to import so much. We just buy our own things.

This means that other countries may see a big trade deficit with Germany. Which doesn’t necessarily make them happy.

NEWSY: President Donald Trump is criticizing Germany again.

NBC: This morning, German magazine Der Speigel reporting the President sharply criticized Germany in a meeting with European Union officials, lashing out, saying “The Germans are bad. Very bad. Look at the millions of cars they are selling in the U.S., terrible,” according to participants there.

But it’s not just Trump. Other E.U. nations have argued the same thing, as has The Economist. Germany, they say, is making tons of money selling its goods around the world, but it doesn’t use that money to buy other countries’ goods. It’s a criticism that Zettelmeyer doesn’t completely dismiss.

ZETTELMEYER: Even if it’s true that people just love our products, we are so great, BMWs are fantastic — we are awash in cash. Normally a country should, then, be spending this cash. If we don’t like, whatever, U.S. cars, maybe we don’t spend it on U.S. cars. But surely there are very nice holidays in the U.S. Surely there are services that we can buy from abroad. There is a general puzzle as to why a country would not actually spend these export proceeds.

There’s another way Germany could shrink that surplus. Firms could give their workers a big raise.

ZETTELMEYER: Here is the slightly weird thing about Germany: we have a labor market set up that was critically shaped by a period when Germany was not very competitive. Somehow this continues to function as if the biggest problem in Germany is to maintain its competitiveness — when that’s actually not true. We are very competitive. We could let wages go up. But there is a very large degree of caution among the unions and the employers that prevents this from happening.

That caution hasn’t stopped the German government from acting.

ZETTELMEYER: Even though it wasn’t billed as,“Let’s try to reduce the current account surplus. Let’s try to reduce Germans’ hyper-competitiveness,” we have done a lot in this government to raise wage levels.

But this is not happening primarily in the high-wage manufacturing sector.

SUEDEKUM: One impression of German labor market is all these well-paid, highly-protected jobs in the manufacturing industry. But on the other end of the spectrum, you have a huge, huge low-wage sector in Germany. Actually, one of the largest low-wage sectors in Europe. The Hartz reforms expanded this low-wage sector, which is completely uncovered by union agreements and, until recently, wasn’t even subject to a minimum wage. We had people working for as little as three euro 50, so basically maybe less than five dollars an hour.

ZETTELMEYER: The current government has actually done quite a lot to raise wage levels. We have introduced a statutory minimum wage in several stages in 2015 and then this year. It’s now fully there. It is also reasonably high. It is higher than in terms of how it affects the wage distribution than in the United States, for example. We also have done a bunch of legislation that essentially strengthens unions. Part of the problem is that the services sectors don’t lend themselves to unions much, or at least, historically, unions have been weaker there.

SUEDEKUM: And, yeah, you have many immigrants working in the sector. Especially in East Germany, that sector is very active. All these nice arrangements that you hear about when you hear about German manufacturing sectors, just don’t apply to that sector of the economy.

ZETTELMEYER: There has been some legislation to strengthen unions, particularly big unions, majority unions. But the next big step would involve changing the labor market constitution fundamentally, taking away the so-called autonomy of wages setting from employers and unions. That, we are certainly not going to do. That’s a good institution. If you’re really serious about wage increases in Germany at this point, the only way you can do it is through public-sector wages. The public sector is quite large and the government can raise public-sector wages. Why not?

While Zettelmeyer supports the idea of potentially spending down Germany’s account surplus, he notes there may be one good reason to proceed cautiously. The economist Daniel Sturm expressed the very same caution:

STURM: Germany’s birth rate is about 1.5 children per woman. These are birth rates that are below the European average and mean that population in Germany is going to shrink for the foreseeable future and it’s going to do so at a fairly dramatic pace.

That means fewer young people to work, and more old people to collect benefits. One potential solution, of course, is more immigration. Chancellor Merkel’s recent decision to accept roughly a million refugees from Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere was a controversial one. Again, witness the strong showing by the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party during the recent elections.

STURM: Unless you wanted to accept a million people a year  — which would, politically, be completely unacceptable  — even in Germany, you cannot compensate for such a shortfall of birth rates through in-migration.

All that said, when one of your country’s biggest economic problems is whether its surplus is too large, or whether it’s too competitive on the world stage — well, a lot of countries would love to have your problems. So, we couldn’t help but ask this crew of German economists we’ve been speaking with today what lessons, if any, the U.S. should take from the German success. First, the spatial economist Daniel Sturm:

STURM: One of the most important lessons is that training workers and, particularly, training workers at the lower end of the skill distribution is key to increasing productivity and to increasing social cohesion, a feeling of belonging and contributing. It’s not just the top 20 percent that are highly successful, but that success spread throughout the workforce and that there is training for different types of people, for different types of occupations. All of those are really valued and are important contributions to the economy.

Next, Jens Suedekum from the University of Dusseldorf:

SUEDEKUM: We also had these losers of globalization here in Germany, people who had problems because of trade. But [the] big difference is, in Germany, these people receive more support from the government. There’s a safety net. There is trade-adjustment assistance. There’s active labor market policy trying to bring these people back to other jobs elsewhere and subsidies, trying to keep the communities alive. We do a relatively better job in cushioning the losers. I’m not saying we’re perfect in that, but I think we’re doing a better job than the United States.

Jeromin Zettelmeyer, the former government official, thinks it would be hard to simply transfer Germany’s labor-relations infrastructure to a country like the U.S.

ZETTELMEYER: For example, unions play a big role in the German model. In the U.S., unions are just not that strong. We can always say, “One of the lessons is you should A) increase the role of unions and B) make them very reasonable and very co-operative like the German ones.” But we wouldn’t even get through stage A of this.

Zettelmeyer points out that the German model has plenty of its own problems. For instance: an emphasis on tradition, perhaps at the expense of innovation.

ZETTELMEYER: The German industry is very much geared towards helping incumbents do well. The unions are supportive. The state is there to lend you a hand. We have a very generous supply of credit from specialized banking segments that specifically lend it to Mittlestand companies. We have lots of barriers to labor mobility in Germany, so there are very high hiring and firing costs. The typical churning that you get in an economy is lower and that’s arguably a good thing in the sense that we have good companies that make good products and have good jobs that are preserved. But it also has a bad side and that bad side is simply not visible, which is we are preventing the growth of impressive companies in new sectors. It’s not a very dynamic economy.

MARIN: Yeah, it’s true.

That’s Dalia Marin, from the University of Munich.

MARIN: You don’t have these big high-tech firms like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and so on. Germany doesn’t have that. There are some, but very few.

Even Germany’s world-beating auto sector is vulnerable, she says.

MARIN: One problem today is how is the car industry going to do in the future when you have these autonomous cars? The car has become more computer and software than hardware. But the advantage of German carmakers was the hardware and not the software. Will Germany survive this threat? Because that’s not where the comparative advantage in Germany is.

The U.S., meanwhile, has had its own comparative advantage. And Jeromin Zettelmeyer argues this has had the unfortunate side effect of wounding its manufacturing sector.

ZETTELMEYER: A very important reason why traditional manufacturing has declined in the U.S. — which is completely under-emphasized, particularly by the Trump administration — is domestic competition; extremely dynamic growth in new sectors in the United States, particularly, of course, the computer industry and the software industry, the platforms, the I.T. giants. This growth sucks away labor and makes it harder for traditional companies to compete.

This has nothing to do with globalization. This has something to do with technical change, but it has a lot to do just with the general dynamism of the U.S. economy. One of the reasons why the manufacturing share is high in Germany is because the German industry lacks this dynamism. The U.S. has traditionally been a much more dynamic economy. The U.S. has a very good model and what the U.S. should focus on is to maintain and improve its model, not about copying the German one.

Coming up next time on Freakonomics Radio: there’s one autoimmune disease that’s different from the rest:

Alessio FASANO: The culprit, the enemy, that turn[s] on the immune system to attack your own body, is known. It’s gluten.

The disease, as you likely know, is celiac disease. The story of how it was discovered; how it was, until recently, vastly underdiagnosed; and how it’s led to a mass gluten-free movement that often has nothing to do with celiac disease.

Alan LEVINOVITZ: There was a perfect storm of celebrity endorsements, other fad diets, and a foundation of anti-carbohydrate bias that set the stage for gluten-free to take off.

“Gluten, Gluten Everywhere” — that’s next time, on Freakonomics Radio.

Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC Studios and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Greg Rosalsky. Our staff also includes Alison Hockenberry, Merritt Jacob, Stephanie Tam, Eliza Lambert, Emma Morgenstern, Harry Huggins, and Brian Gutierrez; the music you hear throughout the episode was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook, or via email at radio@freakonomics.com.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

David Autor, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dalia Marin, professor of economics at the University of Munich.

Uwe Reinhardt, professor of economics at Princeton University.

Daniel Sturm, professor of economics at the London School of Economics.

Jens Suedekum, professor of economics at Heinrich-Heine University.

Jeromin Zettelmeyer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

RESOURCES

After the Fall of the Wall: Life Courses in the Transformation of East Germany, edited by Martin Diewald, Anne Goedicke, Karl Mayer (Stanford University Press, 2006).

“Explaining the East German Productivity Gap –The Role of Human Capital,” Joachim Ragnitz (January, 2007).

“From Sick Man of Europe to Economic Superstar: Germany’s Resurgent Economy,” Christian Dustmann, Bernd Fitzenberger, Uta Schönberg, and Alexandra Spitz-Oener (2014).

“The German Labor Market Reforms and Post-Unemployment Earnings,” Niklas Engbom, Enrica Detragiache, and Faezeh Raei (July, 2015).

“German Mittelstand: Engine of the German Economy: Facts and Figures about Small and Medium-sized German Firms,” Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (2013).

“The Growth of Low-Skill Service Jobs and the Polarization of the US Labor Market,” David H. Autor and David Dorn (August, 2013).

“The Hartz Myth: A Closer Look at Germany’s Labour Market Reforms,” Christian Odendahl (July, 2017).

“History and Industry Location: Evidence from German Airports,” Stephen Redding, Daniel Strum, and Nikolas Wolf (August, 2011).

“Manufacturing Job Loss: Trade, Not Productivity, Is the Culprit,” Robert E. Scott (August, 2015).

“The Marshall Plan: History’s Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program,” J. Bradford De Long and Barry Eichengreen (October, 1991).

Marshall Plan 1947-1997: A German View by Susan Stern (Inter Nationes, 1997).

“The Rise of the East and the Far East: German Labor Markets and Trade Integration,” Wolfgang Dauth, Sebastian Findeisen, and Jens Suedekum (July, 2014).

EXTRA

“Did China Eat America’s Jobs?,” Freakonomics Radio (2017).

“Trust Me,” Freakonomics Radio (2016).

The post What Are the Secrets of the German Economy — and Should We Steal Them? appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/secrets-german-economy-steal/