Dialog International

Job-Killer McKinsey Warns of Vanishing German Middle Class

The management consulting firm McKinsey has produced a study of the strengths and weaknesses of the German economy: Deutschland 2020. The study was made available to the conservative daily Die Welt, which has reported on it extensively.  McKinsey is projecting annual growth rate in Germany for the next 12 of 1.7%, and this means the German middle class will shrink significantly:

The study, by the consulting group McKinsey, found that in 12 years, 10 million fewer people could belong to the middle class than did at the beginning of the 1990s if economic growth levels do not surpass the forecast 1.7 percent, according to the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, which had seen the report."The economic growth that we have experienced over the past 15 years has not been enough to reach the citizens," Frank Mattern, head of McKinsey's Germany operations, told the newspaper. "For people in the middle-income range, small growth rates are equivalent to losses."

McKinsey believes a growth rate of at least 3% p.a. is needed for the German middle class to remain at its present level.  Why the anemic economic growth in Germany?  DIe Welt reports:

Die   Antwort ist vielschichtig. Sie hat zu tun mit mangelnder Dynamik und   zunehmendem Globalisierungsdruck, mit erstarrten Strukturen auf dem   Arbeitsmarkt und mangelnder Effizienz im Bildungswesen. Vor allem aber hat   sie mit Produktivitätswachstum zu tun. (The answer is multifaceted. A lack of dynamism as well as the pressures of globalization along with rigid regulation of the employment market and lack of efficiency in education.  Above all it has to do with increased productivity.)

When productivity increases faster than economic growth, more jobs are lost or displaced.  And the new jobs require entirely new skills:

Zwar entstehen durch Produktivitätsfortschritte auch viele neue Jobs   – wie die vergangenen Monate gezeigt haben – das allerdings meist in ganz   anderen Branchen und für ganz andere Berufe als dort, wo zuvor ein Jobabbau   stattfand. „Deutschland ist es bisher anders als anderen Ländern nicht   gelungen, gleichzeitig Produktivität und Beschäftigung zu steigern“, sagt   McKinsey-Experte Boris Maurer. „Genau an diesem Punkt muss das Land in   Zukunft ansetzen, um den Wohlstand dauerhaft zu sichern. Das wiederum wird   nur über mehr Wachstum gehen.“ (Advancements in productivity create new jobs, as we have seen in recent months.  But the new jobs are in entirely new sectors and different professions from the the old jobs. "In contrast to other countries Germany has not been able to increase employment along with productivity," said McKinsey expert Boris Maurer. "This conundrum needs to be addressed if Germany wants to remain an affluent nation. And that can only happen with higher growth.")

How can German enterprises achieve these higher rates of growth?  The short answer: hire McKinsey.

What is ironic is that McKinsey has for years been destroying the German middle class with its management theories.  Whether it's "lean management" or "just-in-time inventory management", Mckinsey has been advising German firms on the latest strategies, which always result in massive reductions in the workforce. Most recently, McKinsey has been selling its services to German executives in the field of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), which has led to the export of millions of jobs to India, China, etc.

So the best strategy for preserving the German middle class is to kick McKinsey out of the country.

Karma and Bad Times for Deutsche Bank in America

From the Buddhist Encyclopedia: The law of Karma simply deals with the causes of all deeds actively created past and present; and the effects in all present and future experiences; thus making one responsible for one's own life, and the pain and joy brought to oneself and others.

Does the law of Karma apply also to banks?  If so, then Deutsche Bank is experiencing the effects of its world-class arrogance.

In the US, Deutsche Bank is receiving a great deal of publicity, but not the kind of publicity it was looking for.  Now the bank the largest plaintiff in residential real estate foreclosures in the country, as the mortgage crisis deepens beyond the subprime mortgage market.

No city has suffered more than Cleveland, Ohio. One in ten homes in the city is now vacant, and whole neighbourhoods have been blighted by foreclosed, vandalized and boarded-up homes. Who has ended up holding title to the foreclosed properties?  See the diagram below:

One civic-minded blogger in Cleveland complained that he couldn't find an office for Deutsche Bank in the area:

The most active forecloser and biggest title-holder of foreclosed properties in Cleveland is Deutsche Bank, a German corporation which has no office I can find in Cleveland or even in Ohio, and which does virtually no lending here.

A group of activists in Boston were more successful in finding offices of Deutsche Bank.  The bank has been the most active in the city in foreclosing on homes:

In Boston some of those who have been tossed out of their homes are trying to force the bankers to see them as people and to stop the foreclosures. They gathered in front of Deutsche Bank to air out their grievances.

"Each day we get calls from tenants and owners who are facing evictions from their homes and neighborhoods. The only clear way to stop the crisis is for the Deutsche Bank to stop evicting our neighbors," said Steve Meacham of the group City Life/Vida Urbana said.

Ironically, the building is owned by a hedge-fund client of Deutsche Bank - the Blackstone Group. The  bank is trying to negotiate the sale of $20 billion in bad loans to Blackstone.

To add to Deutsche Bank's woes in America, a couple in California recently filed suit against the bank, claiming it concealed its Nazi past.  This is not what the Public Relations Department in the bank was hoping for:

Regina Lawrence, who is of Jewish descent, and Lamonte Lawrence, the founder of Lawrence Semiconductor, brought causes of action for “rescission and fraud in the concealment” against the bank in 2006, alleging that it deliberately failed to inform them that it had provided financial services to the Nazi regime during the time of the Holocaust in Germany.

Deutsche Bank's high-priced attorneys were able to successfully defend it this time, but it is clear that  the bank is facing unprecedented challenges.  So, tough times call for tough measures:  the bank will no longer  reimburse its  bankers for visits to strip clubs and prostitutes.

 

Greed and Fear: US Subprime Crisis Takes Its Toll in Germany

The New York Times had a great article on the globalization of the US mortgage crisis.  At the UBS annual shareholder's meeting in Zurich an investor yelled at the bank's chairman: “You’re responsible for the biggest loss in the history of the Swiss economy. Put an end to the Americanization of the Swiss economy!” And, in fact, UBS has already written off $37 billion in assets - more than Merrill Lynch, more than Citibank.

How bad is the crisis that began with subprime mortgage loans in the US but has spread to all types of mortgages and consumer credit?  EuroIntelligence puts the losses at $1 trillion. And Germany's banks have been hit especially hard.  But the crisis in Germany has been exacerbated by the state-owned banking system in Germany.  This week Germany saw its first high-profile political casualty: Ingrid Matthäus-Maier, the head of state-owned development bank KfW, has been pushed out ("retiring for health reasons" was the official explanation). KfW had provided its AAA-rated guarantee to the mortgage-backed securities held by the  IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG.  In an excellent op/ed piece in todays FT-Deutschland, Wolfgang Münchau of EuroIntelligence asks the question whether state-owned banks like KfW are even needed today in Germany.

The problem in Germany is deeper than simply poor risk management.  Because of their structure, the state-owned banks such as the Landesbanken are forced into risky capital markets transactions if they want to make a profit.  More often than not, they are on the receiving end of bad deals and the German taxpayers foot the bill.  Sebastian Jost in Die Welt writes about how BayernLB has become a black hole for German taxpayers: "BayernLB ist ein Klotz am Bein der Steuerzahler."

Die BayernLB hat Milliarden verbrannt. Der Steuerzahler muss dafür aufkommen. Die BayernLB hat wie alle Landesbanken aber noch ein viel größeres Problem: Sie kann überhaupt nur Geld verdienen, wenn sie riskante Geschäfte wagt. (BayernLB has burned through billions of euros. The taxpayer has to make good on this. But BayernLB, like all the other Landesbanken, has a much bigger problem.  It can only make money if enters into risky business transactions.)

How the state-owned banks justify these risky transactions is interesting to examine.  The financial expert and writer Hauke Fürstenwerth found the transcript of an internal conference call from IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG which he has published on the indispensible Web site NachDenkSeiten. The IKB bankers thought they were geniuses because they were buying $$billions of long-term securities - backed by junk mortgages - and funding them with short term credits in the commercial paper market. This was indeed a brilliant strategy until the merry-go-round suddenly stopped, the commercial paper market dried up, and the bank had to refinance these securities from internal resources - which it didn't have.  Here an IKB banker boasts of his "expertise":

Wir nutzen unsere große Expertise in diesem Bereich aber auch, um auf Provisionsbasis externe Gesellschaften bei deren Investments in internationale Kreditportfolien zu beraten. Dies bezieht sich insbesondere auf das Conduit „Rhineland Funding Capital Corporation” in den USA. Aufgrund unserer Beratung investiert diese Gesellschaft in vergleichbare Portfolien wie die IKB. Auf diese Weise stellen wir sicher, dass für Dritte die gleichen Qualitätsstandards wie für unser Haus gelten. (We use our great expertise in this area also in order to grow our fee income by advising 3rd-party investors with respect to their international credit portfolios. In particular, we are advising the conduit "Rhineland Funding Capital Corp" in the USA.  Thanks to our advisory services, the vehicle is acquiring a portfolio that is comparable to that of IKB. Therefore we are able to ensure that the same high quality standards that we have also apply to third parties.)

It turns out that Rhineland Funding was a captive vehicle of IKB, and the brilliant "experts" there acquired $$billions in worthless securities.  So far, IKB as been rescued 3 times already this year at a cost of $12billion to the German taxpayers.

The Subprime Crisis Leads to Mad Mergers in Germany

You have to ask: what are they smoking in Munich? First the BayernLB announces it lost $3billion through its exposure to the US subprime mortgage market.  Then the bank announced its interest in acquiring the bankrupt IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG.  IKB had collapsed from its worthless portfolio of US mortgage-backed securities. Two badly-managed public-sector banks, both reeling from the subprime meltdown in the US, want to merge. Where is the logic? And who is representing the interests of the German taxpayers who have to fund the massive bailouts of these institutions and their excellent adventures on Wall Street?

This global financial crisis exposes the flaws of the German banking system, and raises serious questions about the role of the public Landesbanken.  Americans have some difficulties understanding what Landesbanken are, since we don't have comparable institutions here. There is an excellent discussion of Landesbanken and the current crisis in the Atlantic Times by the business journalist Hans-Peter Canibol.  He provides a brief history for American readers, and then quickly gets to the heart of the problem:

"Politicians just love their regional banks; they provide posts and perks. BayernLB’s 10-member supervisory board includes three ministers of the Bavarian state government, one deputy minister, a “ministerialdirigent” (a deputy section chief), one mayor and four representatives of the Bavarian Sparkassen. The same goes for the supervisory bodies of the other Landesbanken. The reason is simple: the Landesbanken finance infrastructure projects, provide subsidies to attract new industry and hold shares in major companies all the way up to DAX concerns. In short, they are the ideal playing field for anyone who wants to pursue an active industrial policy.

But Landesbanken have one major flaw. They lack the bread-and-butter business that is the lifeblood of the commercial banks and the Sparkassen: since they do not lend money to private borrowers, they have no revenue from interest payments. So they look for opportunities in other areas. Unfortunately, they often lack sufficient expertise in those areas, and are forced to withdraw after suffering losses. Over the past few decades, there have been a number of sensational scandals involving the public banks of North Rhine-Westphalia, Berlin and Hesse. Each costed taxpayers billions of euros."

Rather than allowing the merger of BayernLB and IKB, the German government should force Deutsche Bank to purchase IKB, and refund the German taxpayers the €8 billion they have paid for the bailout so far.  After all, it was Deutsche Bank who packaged and sold the junk mortgages to its German rivals, earning handsome profits in the process.  Deutsche Bank's chief Joe Ackermann was rewarded with a €14 million pay pay package - making him Germany's highest paid manager - courtesy of the German taxpayer.

Deutsche Bank's Ackermann Cries for Help

Oh this is rich. The chief of Deutsche Bank - Germany's best-known prophet of neo-liberalism and the gospel of the unfettered markets - now pleads for government intervention in the capital markets:

"The head of Germany's leading Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann, said the world financial crisis currently unfolding would need strong and organized government intervention to stop further bleeding in financial institutions. Simple market corrections, he said, won't do the trick. "I no longer believe in the market's self-healing power," he told an audience in Frankfurt on Monday. "Making liquidity available isn't the cure-all."

Ackermann blamed the global financial crisis on the "real-estate bubble" and the sub-prime mortgage meltdown in the United States.  But he failed to point out that Deutsche Bank itself, under Ackermann's management, has been one of the prime movers behind both the bubble and the meltdown.

Deutsche Bank made $$millions in the US by packaging sub-prime mortgages into securities and selling them at a profit to public banks in Germany such as IKB Industrie Kreditbank and SachsenLB - forcing the German taxpayers to fund a massive bailout of these institutions.  Now, Deutsche Bank is the trustee on tens of thousands of foreclosed homes in the US, making it America's Foreclosure King. Don't forget that it was Ackermann and his fellow Vorstand members who lobbied for the the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in the US, so that it could acquire Banker's Trust and the broker Alex Brown. 

We are in the middle of a global financial meltdown which will be devastating for millions of investors, borrowers and homeowners.  The crisis is caused by the deregulation of the capital markets along with the the lack of transparency in transactions championed by Ackermann and his peers in Frankfurt, London, New York and Washington. For the past decade, life was good, and they were able to pocket $$billions in fees and bonuses.  Now, they are looking into an abyss and the government must intervene. This is the neo-liberal mantra: privatize profits, socialize losses.

Ackermann now joins the ranks of the Wall Street Welfare Recipients:

"The Wall Street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. They are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence, and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard. They have lost "confidence" in each other, you see, because none of these oh-so-wise captains of the universe have any idea what kinds of devalued securities sit in one another's portfolios."

German Government: Please Sue Deutsche Bank

Recently I wrote about how Deutsche Bank is intricately involved in the US housing crisis since it acts as trustee for tens of thousands of foreclosed properties here.  Early on, according to its CEO Josef Ackermann, Deutsche Bank realized that the American mortgage securities in its portfolio were quickly becoming worthless, so they were sold to the state-owned German banks at a profit.  Now these banks are rapidly failing from the bad investment in the securities they bought from Deutsche Bank and the German taxpayers must pay the tab for a multi-billion euro bailout.

This week the German government in Berlin is stepping in to the mess and requesting that the IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG - one of the insolvent state-owned institutions - sue Deutsche Bank for deliberate fraud:

FRANKFURT, Mar. 10, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- The German government wants IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG to sue Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) AG for selling it 'badly' collateralized US mortgage loans at a point in time when their values were already deteriorating,

Here is the report from the German news channel n-tv:

Die Bundesregierung erwägt offenbar eine Klage gegen die Deutsche Bank wegen des Verkaufs von US-Hypothekenkrediten. "Wir ermuntern KfW und IKB, entsprechende Klagen gegen die Deutsche Bank sowie die anderen Verkäufer von Subprime-Anleihen anzustreben", zitierte der "Spiegel" in einem Vorabbericht vom Samstag einen namentlich nicht genannten Vertrauten von Bundeswirtschaftsminister Michael Glos (CSU).

And the crisis is getting worse thanks to the continuing deterioration of the credit markets.  Robert von Heusinger warns of a liquidity crisis in Die Zeit:

Die Banken werden kräftige Verluste erleiden. Denn nichts passt mehr in einer Welt, die Staatsanleihen illiquide werden lässt. Kein Hedge, kein Swap, erst recht kein Credit Default Swap (CDS)...Der Staat muss wohl ran, um die gesunden Nicht-Banken-Teile der Volkswirtschaft zu retten. Große Konjunkturprogramme werden schon bald vonnöten sein, sollte die Krise nicht bald halt machen.

It is above all the Landesbanken in Germany that have been badly damaged by this global financial meltdown.  Their viability is now being questioned, but political considerations may well prevent comprehensive banking reform in Germany.  Die Zeit also has an excellent article that examines the current precarious state of Germany's Landesbanken. I agree with Wolfgang Münchau of Eurointelligence on the German Landesbanken:

Through their subprime adventures, these insitutions now stand discredited. It is time to reduce the public sector involvement in the financial industry, and to allow these institutions to merge and regroup within the private sector. With the strictures of monetary union and the single European market, such a concentration process should not happen at national level, but across Europe. Here I see German banks not as predators, but as prey. The best thing the German public entities could do now is to extract the highest possible price for the badly managed banks they own.

Poor, Misunderstood Managers

Germans are in an angry mood just now, which explains the recent "shift to the left" among the electorate.  They were told that neo-liberal reforms would lead to new prosperity, that dismantling the social economy (Sozialwirtschaft) would benefit all Germans and make the economy competitive in the globalized markets.  And, in fact, big companies such as BMW and Bayer AG are achieving record profits just now, and are ....laying off thousands of workers.  Meanwhile the top managers are cashing in huge windfall bonuses and stock options, which they hide in Liechtenstein bank accounts to avoid paying taxes in Germany.  The gap between the rich and poor is growing much larger, while the German middle class (Mittelschicht) is rapidly vanishing.  Is Germany's managerial class even aware of what is going on in the country?

Apparently not.  "We are not monsters!" says Deutsche Bank's CEO Josef Ackermann in a hilarious interview in Der Spiegel. Managers are simply misunderstood.  They work hard - not for money - but for the success of their companies. Money is secondary, but managers deserve every cent, since it is their effort that has created enormous wealth in Germany.  They are unjustly criticized.

In the same interview, Ackermann boasts about how Deutsche Bank saw the subprime mortgage crisis developing in the US earlier than other banks, and was able to react sooner - minimizing its losses.  In an earlier post I wrote about how Deutsche Bank dumped its portfolios of mortgage-backed securities on German state-owned banks, forcing taxpayers finance a costly bailout.

Are Germany's top managers sociopaths? Have they lost all connection to ordinary people?  It would seem so, says the editor of Capital magazine.  He has a very good recommendation:

"Es mag verstörend klingen, aber warum sollte der Chef eines Dax-Konzerns nicht verpflichtet werden, mehrere Tage im Jahr im Krankenhaus die Bettpfannen auszuleeren, in der Suppenküche für Obdachlose zu helfen oder einsame Menschen zu besuchen? Unsere Top-Manager würden sich dort an etwas erinnern, das den meisten wohl verloren gegangen ist: Demut." (It may sound extreme, but why shouldn't the CEO of a Dax-listed corporation be required to spend several days every year emptying bedpans in a hospital? Our top-managers would thereby be forced to remember what most have evidently completely forgotten: humility.)

What's your answer to that, Herr Ackermann?

Did Deutsche Bank Defraud the German Taxpayers?

In an earlier post I pointed out that Deutsche Bank is deeply involved in the US subprime mortgage crises, and as trustee for the mortgage investment conduits is now foreclosing on thousands of homes across America.  Now, it seems, that while the leading German banking institution is forcing Americans out of their homes it is also sticking the German taxpayers with the losses it sustained in portfolio of mortgage-backed securities.  Deutsche Bank has been selling these worthless securities to the German state-owned banks IKB, WestLB, SachsenLB etc... at a huge profit.   Now these state-owned institutions are insolvent, and the German taxpayer is once again forced to pay the price for the unbelievable mismanagement. 

It was actually a Focus article from last month which pointed out that the "experts" in the supervisory board (Aufsichtsrat) of the IKB watched passively as the bank collapsed from its poor management.  But perhaps they were not all so passive?  Board member Ulrich Hartmann sits on both the IKB and the Deutsche Bank supervisory boards:

"Hartmann sitzt übrigens auch im Aufsichtsrat der Deutschen Bank – einem der Institute, die der IKB lange Jahre mit guten Gewinnen verbriefte Ramschhypotheken verkauft hat."

This article caught the attention of the economist and blogger Albrecht Müller, whose NachDenkSeiten is always worth reading closely.  Müller asked the blogosphere to help in researching the connection between Deutsche Bank and the collapse of the state-owned Landesbanken. 

Müller and his fellow blogger Wolfgang Lieb see this situation as part of the pattern in Germany of "privatizing profits and socializing losses". 

Mit insgesamt wohl 12 Milliarden musste inzwischen der Steuerzahler für die Fehlspekulationen dieser staatlichen Banken und der IKB gerade stehen, während die privaten Banken bei der Rettung vor der Insolvenz nur einen Bruchteil beitrugen.

Dass die Deutsche Bank jedenfalls besser und viel früher als viele andere Banken und vor allem auch als die Landesbanken wusste, was sich hinter den „Forderungsbesicherten Wertpapieren“ (ABS) verbarg, kann man daran ablesen, dass die Deutsche Bank Trust Company in vorderster Front als Treuhänder der Kreditverträge aktiv war.

(Now the taxpayers must come up with 12 billion (euros) to compensate for the bad gamble of the state banks and the IKB, while the private banks contribute a mere fraction to ensure their solvency. It is obvious that the Deutsche Bank knew far earlier and had better information on the true value of these asset-backed securities by virtue of its position as trustee for the mortgages.)

Finally Müller is getting some help in looking into this matter from an unexpected source: Bavarian CSU member of the Bundestag Peter Gauweiler has written a letter to German finance minister Peer Steinbrück demanding an investigation into the matter.

Deutsche Bank: America's Foreclosure King

There is no question that the subprime mortgage crisis has been devastating for communities across the US.  Entire neighborhoods have been virtually abandoned as homeowners are forced to walk away from properties they can longer afford. For many Americans, the dream of owning one's home has become a nightmare. Many cities are now pleading to Washington for emergency aid:

“We’re the ones left boarding up these places, cutting their grass, doing demolition on the abandoned structures, picking up the trash, making sure no one breaks in,” said Mayor Frank Jackson of Cleveland.
Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland, has more than 16,800 homes that have been abandoned because of foreclosures.

Cleveland is the first major city to file lawsuits against banks for their predatory lending practices that created this crisis in the first place.  At the top of the list  is Deutsche Bank, which foreclosed on more the 5,000 homes in the area so far. In another part of Ohio, Deutsche Bank has earned the ire of a community activist - Pete Witte - who is trying to preserve a section of Cincinnati from the widening epidemic of foreclosures:

The community activist, a Republican, reserves most of his anger for big banks, particularly Deutsche Bank, which serves as a large trustee for foreclosed homes in Ohio. An analysis by the local newspaper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, last November found that Deutsche Bank National Trust "owned" 188 homes in Hamilton County, more than anyone except for the federal government, and was taking on nine or 10 newly foreclosed properties a week. "Deutsche Bank doesn't show up, the city can't even find them. They almost act as if they don't own the property," Mr Witte says.

Nor are Deutsche Bank's foreclosure activities limited to Ohio.  A community activist organization in Boston - City Life/Vida Urbana - as been staging protests throughout the city to prevent the foreclosure eviction of homeowners.  The group has been putting up flyers around town warning against Deutsche Bank's business practices: Deutsche Bank Facts.

Facebook Comes to Germany

The Samwer Brothers in Germany continue to have their fingers on the pulse of Web 2.0:

Three German Internet entrepreneurs, the Samwer brothers, have taken a stake in the social networking site Facebook, Alexander Samwer said. Mr. Samwer, who declined to reveal the size of the stake, said the brothers would now become Facebook’s strategic partners in Europe. “We are going to support the expansion of Facebook in Europe,” he said. Alexander, alongside brothers Oliver and Marc, made their name in 1999 when they sold the German Internet auction site Alando.de to eBay for $50 million in stock.

Heise Online has a few more details on the transaction:

Die Höhe des Investments beträgt nach internen Informationen, auf die sich das Wall Street Journal beruft, bis zu 15 Millionen US-Dollar. Bisher hatten sich Microsoft mit 240 Millionen und der Hutchison-Chef Li Ka-shing mit 60 Millionen US-Dollar an Facebook beteiligt.

Based on the Microsoft investment, the imputed valuation of Facebook is ca. $15 billion, so the Samwer Brothers' investment has more of a symbolic meaning. It does signal that StudiVZ probably does not have much of a future. The Samwers had an equity stake in StudiVZ before it was acquired by Holtzbrinck.  In an interview today with Der Spiegel, Alexander Samwer explains why Facebook will soon surpass StudiVZ in terms of market position:

Samwer: StudiVZ gehört jetzt zum Holtzbrinck-Verlag, nicht mehr zu uns. Das ist ein offener Wettbewerb der besten Ideen - das beste Unternehmen wird gewinnen. Facebook hat eine sehr starke technische Plattform und ein starkes Wachstums-Momentum.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: StudiVZ ist in Deutschland unbestrittener Marktführer. Hat Facebook überhaupt noch eine Chance, wo doch ein Plattformwechsel für den Nutzer hohe soziale Kosten bedeutet?

Samwer: Wir sehen das sehr langfristig. Soziale Netzwerke sind keine Mode, sondern so etwas wie die Fernsehsender der Zukunft. Leute verbringen dort sehr viel Zeit, finden interessante Inhalte, die Freunde und Bekannte generieren. Wir spüren jetzt schon den Sog durch die Facebook-Öffnung für externe Entwickler: Es gibt mehr als 7000 Anwendungen, manche haben Millionen Nutzer, sind für sich eine Attraktion. Dieses System wird sich in allen Kernmärkten durchsetzen. Das ist ein bisschen wie mit Microsoft Windows: Wenn auf einem Betriebssystem die meiste Software läuft, wird es sich durchsetzen. Wenn auf Facebook eine riesige Entwicklergemeinschaft Anwendungen programmiert, so kreativ, dass keiner damit konkurrieren kann – dann ist das fast unschlagbar.

That is key to Facebook's dominance: there are a slew of start-ups in Silicon Valley that are doing nothing but developing Facebook applications; there are even venture capital groups that only fund Facebook application developers. In supporting this mushrooming ecosystem of developers, Facebook is mirroring the success of Google.  Google now dominates search in Germany, with over 26 million Germans using Google each week. It is now estimated that Google had about €1 billion turnover in Germany last year. 

American dominance in Web 2.0 continues.....