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Germany is supposed to by a open market...
As I say supposed, with labor costs higher then Sweden,
social costs that have no peer and a 35 hour work week
in the car industry, they're about as productive as
a 50s push rod V8 is fuel efficient.
So how do the German protect their manufacturers from
better and less expensive imports...
1st. Measure is duties which can reach as much as 15%,
but this would not be enough to make German cars competitive.
2nd. How about insurance costs... a system the Germans have
perfected to the point where buying an import in Germany
ends up being very very expensive. Let me give you an
example, if you take two cars which are in a similar segment
ie. Golf R32 and a Subaru STi... they cost about the same, are
both quick and offer similar crash safety. However the STi will
cost 2.5x times as much to insure, because the German insurance
industry is using a system which is not based on crash frequency
and the value of an automobile, no... they use a system where
they decide to categorize cars as they please and especially
as it pleases German car manufacturers.
So it does not matter if ie. a SAAB or other import costs
$10'000.- less to purchase, because the insurance system will
make sure that at the end of the day, you pay more then the
$10'000.- of savings in extra insurance, and the bigger the price
advantage of the import, the more ridiculous the insurance rate.
This can go as high as 25% of the new value of a car per year, for
a driver with a spotless record, while German cars end up costing
no more then 7% or their value for full coverage for the same driver.
If the car was made in Europe or Germany by GM or Ford, rest assured
they use the same system.
If this is the FREE trade thing that the WTO is supposed to enact,
then I can only say that there is nothing FREE about it, all the
non German car manufacturers can try as hard as they can to make
better and less expensive products, at the end of the day the
insurance trick denies them and compensation for their hard work.
Regards,
Coolknight
posted by 212.77.42...
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