Not a word about the fact that Germany simply produces desirable products? Somehow that has to factor in. Financial policy and the education system favors a conservative manufacturing sector that incrementally improves upon what Germany has done for decades.
While I got my ME degree in Germany my dad, who is a solid state physicist, spent all his energy trying to accelerate the development of a German electronics sector. He was always ranting about the hurdles thrown up by politics in Germany, "We'll just continue building cars and machines for the next 100 years." Well, sounds like it's still working although the end of the cold war and the common market has distorted things in Germany's favor, an effect that probably won't last.
While I got my ME degree in Germany my dad, who is a solid state physicist, spent all his energy trying to accelerate the development of a German electronics sector. He was always ranting about the hurdles thrown up by politics in Germany, "We'll just continue building cars and machines for the next 100 years." Well, sounds like it's still working although the end of the cold war and the common market has distorted things in Germany's favor, an effect that probably won't last.