No Mac, not just austerity programs, and the amounts that Deutsche Bank and others got from TARP was pretty minuscule compared to the German economy overall. Actually, it's funny that you mention unemployment, as Germany actually was on the decline around '08, and continued that trend from a peak of 11.4% in spring of '05, and was at 7% when the world collapsed. There was a brief uptick to 8 in the summer of '09, but then it just started ticking down. Also, during the boom times of the 80's/90's unemployment was around 6%, not over 9, except for a spike right around 9/11 when everyone's economy got shaky for a year or so.

What do they do differently? Lots. They reeducate workers like we never would dream of doing. They didn't bail out their industries like we did. I was in automotive bearings for FAG at the time, and we were hit HARD by the automotive collapse, but the German government told Frau Schäffler that it wouldn't give her a cent until she invested a large part of HER own private fortune (she was #76 in the world for total net worth) into saving FAG and INA Bearings (also LuK and a few other heavy hitters in the automotive & bearing world). There were no massive layoffs though, but there were pay reductions, furloughs, and so on. But no real cuts to social benefits programs. Another thing that they do differently, is during good times AND bad times, they manage their money MUCH more conservatively than we do, and operate on a much more strategic scale with regard to investment compared to our model on Wall St of maximizing short term profits at the expense of long-term growth. At my first employer, Bosch, they funded every single new plant, product launch, etc... with internal funds, no investors, no shareholders, no banks. Even with the hit that they took in 2008 (as #2 OEM auto parts supplier in the world),they are still on that model, and didn't seek any bailout funds. Many German companies are like that from what I have seen in my extensive dealings with them. The French, Italians and so on, not so much, and hence their problems (and perhaps that explains why the Germans run monetary policy for the EU for the most part as well as the European Central Bank)