German International Business

International and domestic business confidence in the German economy has plummeted over past week due to new projections predicting a steep recession in Germany's near future. In March, Germany's recession probability was at just 6.9%, but it is now projected to be 32.4% between April and June 2018. The momentum of business growth in Germany has slowed significantly for the past five months, signaling the fact that Germany's economy is slowing, and has been greatly affected by nationalist and protectionist policies in Europe and the US. As Europe's top economic power, a recession in Germany would cause a significant ripple effect throughout the continent and around the globe, especially considering how active they are in international business practices. Some blame Trump's new implementation of import duties for steel and aluminum as a contributor to the economic downturn. Overall, a recession for Germany would have negative implications for Europe, the US, and

Police Storm German Porsche Manufacturer              Stuttgart Germany police raid the offices of the Porsche manufacturer based on widening inquiry into diesel emissions cheating centered on the parent company, Volkswagen. The article that I found states that police have started investigating whether the newly appointed chief executive of the company is going to be cleaning out the employees who have been hiding the facts that they have been overloading the diesel emissions into the environment. This is not a new thing, I can think of quite a few companies who have been in this same dilemma, and it is mainly tied to the profits of the company. It is sad to me that people would be willingly killing the environment just to make the company more money. However, it is good to see that the police are cracking down on enforcing the rules against these crimes.

As a country determined to avoid repeating past mistakes, the German government has taken a strong stance against hate speech of any kind. This initiative toward a more tolerant society extends to social media. Beginning January 1st, 2018, Germany imposed a law requiring social media companies to remove content containing "hate speech" within 24 hrs or face significant fines, up to 50 million euros ($62 million). Media companies like Twitter and Facebook have employed thousands of people to screen, moderate, and remove content that falls under the law's parameters of hateful speech.  The goals of this law has been to prevent the spread of pro-Nazi ideology and other discriminatory hate schemes. Critics of the law, however, argue that media companies are being urged to remove more content than necessary, in fear of incurring massive fines. Government officials have made amendments to the law to allowing incorrectly deleted posts to be restored, but many are still conc