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To: Don Lloyd who wrote (114057)	7/23/2001 6:25:29 PM
From: PMG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

Internal labor flexibility synchronized with cycles is only going to work if the cycles are not in fact death spirals. Right, but this just the same as for asset investment. You cannot sell a plant or any other specific asset if the industry is in a death spiral. But these 'structural' or strategic changes can and should be addressed in the planning process. By the way, emergency lay-offs are also possible in Germany. Only governments and government subsidized companies can maintain employment levels over decades, and the price paid will always be stagnation, protectionism and a lower standard of living. Only a very small portion of companies is state-owned(primaryly former monopolies like Deutsch Bahn, Deutsche Post, Deitsche Telekom). National state subsidies are generally no longer legal in the EU (equal competion across coutries). (However, the EU has still a big problem with this in the agricaltural sector). As for stagnation and lower standard of living - I cannot see that this is the case, compared to the USA. There is at least no lower standard of living. Much of this talk is ideology and of course also pronounced by certain groups of interests here. Increasingly, small and moderate sized, highly focused companies are going to run rings around the industrial dinosaurs feeding from the public trough. You have a lot of self-employed freelancers here who have no restrictions to team up and distribute again just as it is needed. They are also often enagaged by the dinosaurs. Just want to say that the inflexibility and its adverse effects is widely overstated. And, any society has to address the problems in the end. The responsibility is just shared in a different way among the parties, the individual, the companies and the state. I hope this is interesting Regards, PMG