>Germany has probably the most successful economy in the world

Nope. Not even in the EU. Not even close. Where does this myth come from? Is it that it has passed the UK per capita?

I mean, there are loads of nice things about Germany, and economic strength is one, but that's a wild exaggeration.

Well, it's the biggest capital exporter in the world (huge surplus) and is the third largest exporter in total. It's also got the highest GDP in the EU by a fair margin.

Per-capita in the EU is skewed by a fair number of very small but very very rich countries. Luxembourg, the leader, being a tax haven and a population of half a million (!!) does not make it the healthiest and best economy.

Total GDP is irrelevant to everything. People use it like it means something, and it's just annoying.

Ok, that's quite convenient. What metric would you use? Because Germany has a higher GDP per capita than the UK or France. It would be a hard point to argue that any other country in the EU has a stronger economy than those three.

There's no reliable indicator to define success. GDP per capita is skewed heavily by some industries and doesn't represent how well people are doing.

Germany is certainly not the richest country in Europe but it has been one of the most successful when measured vs. 15 years ago. But that was achieved mainly by keeping wages low so that Germans, while usually living comfortably and not threatened by unemployment, have much less wealth than people in the UK or US.

Having countries peg their currencies to yours certainly helped: http://fortune.com/2014/10/22/why-germany-is-the-eurozones-b... , meanwhile the other Euro countries are suffering. Even freaking Finland.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/22/greece...

If you have BMW, VW, Daimler, Siemens, Bosch and Liebherr, you can afford not being friendly to startups. Until the next market turn or a disruptive tech makes those irrelevant.

Not sure. I've heard from a lot of start ups recently moving from London to Berlin. I doubt many start ups have the complexity of the tax system high up on their list. It's about finding talent (where Berlin improved a lot over recent years) and to some degree costs (where parts of London have become extremely expensive).

But it's probably mostly network effects. The US has an extremely complex tax code and SV is one of the most expensive places to live. It still remains a favourite among founders.

True. They try to fish startup founders by running corporate incubators but they will make sure that you won‘t get a high exit. If the idea works you‘ll get a job offer. If you decline, they will drop support like a hot potato. And because they know all insights, no other competitor is interested in you anymore. It‘s kind of a faux startup culture just to sell some „coolness“ to attract people to big corps.

Successful yes. Harmful and not very sustainable for everyone. Absolutely.

What metric are you using to measure successful?

High productivity, huge trade surplus, low unemployment, very high standard of living

Huge trade surplus (and resulting low unemployment) is effect of the euro, which is undervalued for Germany (and overvalued for most of the eurozone).

Germany sure is nice country to live in, but it benefits a lot at the expense of others.

average and peak developer income would be a good metric.