Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted

[jeffrey]

Germany, with its manufacturing base and export prowess, is the America of yesteryear, an economic power unlike any of its European neighbors. As the world's fourth-largest economy, it has thrived on principles that the United States seems to have gradually lost.

It has tightly managed its budget and adopted reforms — such as raising the retirement age — that some other Eurozone nations are just now being forced to undertake. And few countries can match Germany's capabilities for producing and exporting machinery and other equipment, or its infrastructure for research, apprenticeships and financing that support manufacturing...

Germany has the economic strengths America once boasted - latimes.com

[photo]

With the Marshall Plan, how could they not?

[baconexplosion]

We unfortunately are an empire in decline...