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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, FEBRUARY
24, 1984
-- The reputation of West German scientific journals has de
clined...and...the number of Nobel prizes awarded to Germans in
scientific fields since the war is barely a third of the number
won in the first four decades of the century. "We do second-rate
research rather well," said Klaus Pinkau, director of the Max
Planck Institute of Plasma Physics at Garching, near Munich.
-- The country's unprecedented affluence and enviable range of
social benefits have tended to dampen entrepreneurial spirit and
diffused some of the energy that fueled the so-called economic
miracle of the immediate postwar years. For anyone over 30, six
weeks of annual vacation is common, a benefit generous even by
European standards. The key trade union demand in the current
round of wage negotiations is reduction of the work week from 40
hours to 35. Large vacation bonuses, employerc:ontr1butfons to
personal" savings, accident, health and unemployment insurance-
all tend to inhibit talented scientists and engineers in mid
career from branching off on their own....
A 1982 study by the Cologne-based German Economic Institute found
that on top of the average wage of $11,000 a year, German indus
try paid an average of $8,000 in mandatory fringe benefits. "We
have an enviable record of labor peace, but�� an extremely
h�gh price for it," said Gerhard Fels, the 1nst1tute' s deputy
director....
Chancellor Helmut Kohl's center-right coalition government has
already instituted measures aimed at rejuvenating German indus
trial excellence.... In a speech last month, Foreign Minister
Hans-Dietrich Genscher called for creation of two privately
funded universities for engineering and science, each with 2,000
students, modeled after Caltech [ in Pasadena, California 1. "We
will be able to recapture our peak in research only when we
create elite universities such as those that exist in the United
States, Japan, Britain and France," Genscher said .... But
regaining the position it lost over the past two decades will be
a slow and difficult process for West German industry, if it can
be achieved at all.
"Things seem to be moving in the right
direction now," Fels, the economist, said. "But it remains to be
seen if it's enough."
The high-flying economies of Japan and the United States are racing ahead,
with the U.S. increasingly looking to the Pacific Rim area for its future.
Meanwhile the Soviet Bloc languishes in the economic doldrums, and the
nations of Western Europe fear that they too may be consigned to a second
class future. It might prove to be a very logical policy for the Soviet
Union to turn more than ever to Western Europe for economic relief. The
West Europeans presently have all the technological expertise to help the
Soviet world--the very latest in high technology may not be necessary. And
the West Europeans could certainly use the business--especially if trade
ties with the United States continue to worsen. In this light mark March
1
on your calendars. That's the date when the Common Market is scheduled to
slap new tariffs and quotas on a range of U.S. products in retaliation for
U.S. tariffs on imports of European specialty steel products.