For most of this century, Germany racked up one economic success after another, dominating global markets for high-end products like luxury cars and industrial machinery, selling so much to the rest of the world that half the economy ran on exports.
Jobs were plentiful, the government’s financial coffers grew as other European countries drowned in debt, and books were written about what other countries could learn from Germany.
No longer. Now, Germany is the world’s worst-performing major developed economy, with both the International Monetary Fund and European Union expecting it to shrink this year.
No more cheap russian gas and oil, internal combustion engine expertise and all the associated pieces and submarkets being phased out in favour of simpler electric cars…it’s going to be a few hard years until they find a new export industry to perfect. I’d expect hydrogen-based aviation or pharma, maybe even semiconductors, they’ll figure it out.
Well if Mercedes and BMW could stop making electric cars as ugly as humanly possible we would quickly see them take that market back. Lucid makes an INCREDIBLY gorgeous car and if I was in the market for an 80k plus dollar EV it would certainly be that over the ugly EQS sedan and the i7 EV with its buck teeth. The German automakers are stuck in a loop right now and I hope they’ll soon get out. As for Germany’s other economic sectors; much like the rest of the world everyone is still recovering from Covid economy shock. Especially when we went from producing nothing for 1-6 months, then slowly starting, then ramping up like crazy and now coming back down to reality. It’s going to be a rough couple years of Capitalism having to learn that businesses and economies staying flat isn’t a bad thing. No progress, but no loss either. Germany isn’t alone in this.
Ugly? Why do people fetishize their cars? I want it to work efficiently, be safe and cheap to maintain…if it looks like a gherkin, so be it 😄 The problem with German electric cars is not that, it’s that atm they can’t compete with China in price and they have no tech edge in supply chains anymore. Also, newer generations in Europe aren’t as obsessed with owning a car anymore (I think).
Not everyone is poor.
What kind of propaganda non-sense article is that? I live in Germany. We’re doing absolutely fine.
You don’t do business in Germany then because I’ve been hearing otherwise of late.
Like most other countries, we’ve had to deal with COVID, inflation+countermeasures and climate troubles. And as an export nation, we’ve likely even been hit relatively badly by such global issues.
So, of course, not everything is entirely rosy. And of course, you’ll find people complaining.But this article makes it sound like we’ve entered a massive crisis. As if the Germany of today looks like a poor nation compared to the Germany five years ago. And that’s just not the case. We’re still filthy rich compared to most countries. Our current government is pushing the country forward again (after 16 years of stagnation before the pandemic). The fruition of these measures will obviously take some years to kick in, and we will now have to deal with climate change, whether we like it or not, but ultimately, it feels like our economy (+ the things that actually matter) are on an upward trend again.
I’m fucking American and if you want the bottom spot you’ll have to fucking fight us for it!
Imagine believing for a second America is fighting for bottom ranks in wealth, even among the poor.
The imaginary world you people live in must be fantastic.
People in developed countries like US don’t even understand what actual poverty is, give them some slack.
Tell that to all the homeless here. I’m sure theyd love to hear what “actual” poverty is like.
How about eating 4 slices of bread per day for months? Yeah, I have some “great” memories.
- low birth rate. Having children is expensive, we have a lack of affordable housing and childcare for families. There should be a major focus to support families, especially academic families. The most successful people don’t reproduce, leading to a massive desrease in intelligence.
- mass immigration from Africa and Arab countries which don’t contribute a lot to the society but cost a lot of money and bring violence to Germany. The government does nothing against this and the people are unhappy about this, leading to increasing social tensions. Also increasing the housing problem massively
- not enough immigration of actual educated people from Asia or america for example. Germany is becoming more and more unattractive for those people
- too many uneducated people living from welfare. If you have a low paying job you may as well live from welfare. Because pay is a joke. Even for educated people, sometimes it is financially just better to live from welfare then to work in some situations.
- in the light of COVID, a war in Europe, mass immigration and inflation, our politics here do a lot to make life for working people even more expensive, and increase welfare instead of pressuring the people to educate themselves. Green ideology is leading the country to it’s grave. Germany thinks it can save the world climate alone by destroying its own industry, and by making everyone poor. No, we don’t need heat pumps, at least not RIGHT NOW when everyone is struggling. Cost of everything are increasing, taxes are getting more expensive, health care is more expensive, having a car to get to work is getting more expensive, energy is getting more expensive. You work and almost all the money flows towards those things. Might as well live from welfare where the state pays for energy, housing and gas
- not enough people in STEM, too many people study something that leads to no innovation. Innovation is essential for Germany.
