American regulatory practice requires agencies to weigh the costs of a rule against its benefits, both in dollars, before it can be issued. Even public safety is assessed as a ratio.
economics
Revenue and cost centers
American companies divide themselves into functions that generate revenue and functions that consume it, and the language is used openly in budget discussions. Being a cost center is a structural position, and everyone in one knows it.
The acquisition
Acquisition. The German word for a significant purchase, and it carries weight — eine Anschaffung fürs Leben, an acquisition for life. Buying is treated as an event with consequences, not as consumption.
The P&L
American organizations locate authority with whoever owns the profit and loss statement for a business unit. She owns the P&L is a complete statement about somebody’s standing. The number confers the power, and the number comes from the market.
The leased vehicle
A large share of new American vehicles are leased rather than bought, typically for two or three years. The buyer never owns the thing and never faces the question of how long it lasts.
The planned economy
Germany has an unusually loaded relationship with the word, given the twentieth century, and Planwirtschaft is used as a criticism of excessive central planning. The suspicion attaches to planning as an economic system. It does not attach to planning as professional practice, and Germans hold both views without difficulty.
Depreciation
American accounting and tax practice assigns a useful life to an asset and writes it down across that period, and the vocabulary carries into ordinary speech about cars and equipment. The decline in value is scheduled in advance.
The trade-in
American transactions routinely fold a second valuation into the first — the old car, the old phone, the old equipment. Two negotiations run at once and each can be used against the other, which both parties understand going in.
The 401(k)
American retirement saving is portable by design — the account belongs to the employee and moves with them between employers. The pension is detached from the job deliberately, so that leaving costs nothing in accrued benefit.
The retention department
American cable, telephone and internet providers maintain departments whose function is to offer a better price to a customer threatening to leave. The published rate and the rate available to somebody who asks are different rates, and the difference is staffed.