It’s generally a bad idea to compare different quarters (Q4 2019 and Q1 2024). Your point probably stands anyway, but it would have been a much better idea to avoid the problem and just compare with Q1 2019.
The strongest population bracket was 50 – 59 in 2019. Now it’s 55 – 64.
I believe that when looking at real GDP per capita, the stagnation is even longer, but I can’t find it right now.
I bet this has a LOT to do with German economy being the most-dependent on Russian gas in EU. The center-right parties that have been in power for the better part of the last two decades, made sure that German economy almost entirely relied on Russian gas as its primary source of energy. How the turn tables! Germany is undergoing a costly switch to other forms of energy now and it will be another decade plus before things get back to normal.
Now show the cumulative deficit for the period.
Germany has taken the orthodox approach to taming inflation and cut public spending. Every other economy on this list has run >5% deficits in the period, and all of the growth is from uncovered public spending.
It’s incredible to me that people can’t connect the dots.
At this point whole of Europe is becoming a sick man of the world.
German here: That’s because our stupid government sticks to hardcore neoliberalism and austerity instead of investment. It’s becoming so stupid at this point, that even neoliberal thinktanks suggest they should loosen the debt limit. It’s a clown show.
the level of copium ITT is too damn high
If you add today’s German GDP data, they are at minus already.
The precedent is that when you call Germany the sick man of Europe, the government is about to do something stupid that will have massive longterm negative consequences for the Eurozone, so I don’t like that framing.
What Schuldenbremse does to an economy
GDP growth is a shit way of measuring quality of life. I trust research regarding happiness more and as long as we (Europe) do it better there I’m fine. Yes we can work 4 more hours per week to let gdp grow but that way we are too much defined by our work. I don’t want to!
Why is the UK a different colour?
Finland did not make it to the list
Why are we talking about a sick man when there is still growth? I can’t wrap my head around it. The fact that Germany is the third largest economy atm is just bonkers. There are just 80 million Germans and still they doing pretty well.
It’s a bit of a useless chart without proper context.
1. Germany has been hit particularly hard by the combined effects of the energy crisis, the war in Ukraine, the slowdown of China, and its aging demographics.
2. Germany’s budget is a lot better than Italy’s or the US’. Additionally, Germany cannot just print money like there’s no tomorrow, which is what the US has been doing since 2020.
3. Population growth is much higher in the US or in France. So all else being equal, US’ total GDP would grow more.
4. 5 years of shocks and global turmoil are not the best time frame to evaluate an economic performance. Now that said, Germany’s performance has still been subpar, but it doesn’t mean that it’ll keep sliding long term. E.g. Greece’s economic growth since 2019 has been IIRC higher than the US, but I’d wager it means very little for the long term.
German economical model was based on: 1. growing export to China 2. cheap workforce in Eastern Europe 3. cheap energy from Russia 4. outsource of security to US tax payers 5. qualify and competent workforce 6. industry tradition 7. automotive
Points 1-4 are gone now, point 7 will decline soon. I believe that Germany will update and modernize economical model, but it will be painful.
Not great, but far from terrible considering the circumstances… having a full-blown war on your border, cutting ties with your largest supplier of energy, sanctioning entities associated with the invading country, having another war/conflict affect naval trade by forcing cargo ships to go around Africa, and to top it all off, the US becoming more protectionist and China trying to flood our economies with cheap goods in an attempt to destroy our industries.
We need more EU regulations and taxes!
[deleted]
Isnt russia part of the g7?
Honestly Germany would do well to build up a defense industry but it’s still controversial for Rheinmetal to be a minor sponsor on a sports team…I would love to see Germany embrace nuclear power at scale and reengineer their growth engine
I learned that Germany achieved a pretty remarkable fall of their domestic GHG emissions last year. I don’t know how it looks like nowadays in terms of social inequalities, public security or air quality, compared to some other industrialized countries.
But we don’t care about all that, GDP not high, that’s bad.
Italian deficit blew up during this period while Germany is practicing austerity. This is all enabled by ECB that artificially caps the borrowing cost of high-debt countries by buying their debt.
The key to success in losing economic power is austerity. We are religious about debt.
“Das beste Deutschland aller Zeiten.”
The question is also who is benefitting from that growth. In the USA not sure how much the percentage of that growth is actually going to middle-class people.
I can only repeat myself, this is what happens if you insist on doing pro-cyclical austerity policy against all economic evidence.
Useless metric, look at real income (not average income)
You should pull out of germany while you can.
We are doomed. Our politicians only care about the “black zero”, meaning no new debt, despite the fact that the country is run down and desperately in need of investments, at the cost of deficit.
If I didn’t have family here, I would probably move to another country.
The Deutschland-Bashing sucks.
The German problem lies in the bureaucratization of almost all processes. Investments and innovations are crushed by regulations and documentation requirements. In addition, there is a shortage of skilled workers and too much welfare state. A toxic mixture.
And many people in USA want Trump back?!
And they’ll still believe in austerity and “balanced budgets” 😉
Time for the European Union to create recovery fund for Germany.
Maybe(!) it has to do with the fact that the German economy DURING Corona has not crashed in the first place and therefore does not need the same recovery phase. And in the case of Italy, it has to be said that Italy’s growth is largely due to the gigantic EU aid. The Italians are using it to renovate their houses (completely free of charge, cool!) and even get 10% of the costs as a payout for themselves (not bad!). Superbonus is the name of this economic stimulus program, which of course benefits the local construction industry (and the mafia).
Meanwhile the Germans have to pay for heat pumps, photovoltaics and all the other technical blessings themselves at their own expense. 🙂
40 comments
[Source](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02784/)
It’s generally a bad idea to compare different quarters (Q4 2019 and Q1 2024). Your point probably stands anyway, but it would have been a much better idea to avoid the problem and just compare with Q1 2019.
The strongest population bracket was 50 – 59 in 2019. Now it’s 55 – 64.
[https://www.populationpyramid.net/germany/2023/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/germany/2023/)
Those people now work less and require more health care. It will continue down hill for at least 15 years before it gets better.
And somehow the Americans still find a way to complain about their economy.
Not only that, but projected growth in 2024 and 2024 is the weakest too.
If you look at real GDP in Germany, it is basically at the same level as in 2019:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLVMNACSCAB1GQDE
I believe that when looking at real GDP per capita, the stagnation is even longer, but I can’t find it right now.
I bet this has a LOT to do with German economy being the most-dependent on Russian gas in EU. The center-right parties that have been in power for the better part of the last two decades, made sure that German economy almost entirely relied on Russian gas as its primary source of energy. How the turn tables! Germany is undergoing a costly switch to other forms of energy now and it will be another decade plus before things get back to normal.
Now show the cumulative deficit for the period.
Germany has taken the orthodox approach to taming inflation and cut public spending. Every other economy on this list has run >5% deficits in the period, and all of the growth is from uncovered public spending.
It’s incredible to me that people can’t connect the dots.
At this point whole of Europe is becoming a sick man of the world.
German here: That’s because our stupid government sticks to hardcore neoliberalism and austerity instead of investment. It’s becoming so stupid at this point, that even neoliberal thinktanks suggest they should loosen the debt limit. It’s a clown show.
the level of copium ITT is too damn high
If you add today’s German GDP data, they are at minus already.
The precedent is that when you call Germany the sick man of Europe, the government is about to do something stupid that will have massive longterm negative consequences for the Eurozone, so I don’t like that framing.
What Schuldenbremse does to an economy
GDP growth is a shit way of measuring quality of life. I trust research regarding happiness more and as long as we (Europe) do it better there I’m fine. Yes we can work 4 more hours per week to let gdp grow but that way we are too much defined by our work. I don’t want to!
Why is the UK a different colour?
Finland did not make it to the list
Why are we talking about a sick man when there is still growth? I can’t wrap my head around it. The fact that Germany is the third largest economy atm is just bonkers. There are just 80 million Germans and still they doing pretty well.
It’s a bit of a useless chart without proper context.
1. Germany has been hit particularly hard by the combined effects of the energy crisis, the war in Ukraine, the slowdown of China, and its aging demographics.
2. Germany’s budget is a lot better than Italy’s or the US’. Additionally, Germany cannot just print money like there’s no tomorrow, which is what the US has been doing since 2020.
3. Population growth is much higher in the US or in France. So all else being equal, US’ total GDP would grow more.
4. 5 years of shocks and global turmoil are not the best time frame to evaluate an economic performance. Now that said, Germany’s performance has still been subpar, but it doesn’t mean that it’ll keep sliding long term. E.g. Greece’s economic growth since 2019 has been IIRC higher than the US, but I’d wager it means very little for the long term.
German economical model was based on:
1. growing export to China
2. cheap workforce in Eastern Europe
3. cheap energy from Russia
4. outsource of security to US tax payers
5. qualify and competent workforce
6. industry tradition
7. automotive
Points 1-4 are gone now, point 7 will decline soon. I believe that Germany will update and modernize economical model, but it will be painful.
Not great, but far from terrible considering the circumstances… having a full-blown war on your border, cutting ties with your largest supplier of energy, sanctioning entities associated with the invading country, having another war/conflict affect naval trade by forcing cargo ships to go around Africa, and to top it all off, the US becoming more protectionist and China trying to flood our economies with cheap goods in an attempt to destroy our industries.
We need more EU regulations and taxes!
[deleted]
Isnt russia part of the g7?
Honestly Germany would do well to build up a defense industry but it’s still controversial for Rheinmetal to be a minor sponsor on a sports team…I would love to see Germany embrace nuclear power at scale and reengineer their growth engine
I learned that Germany achieved a pretty remarkable fall of their domestic GHG emissions last year. I don’t know how it looks like nowadays in terms of social inequalities, public security or air quality, compared to some other industrialized countries.
But we don’t care about all that, GDP not high, that’s bad.
Italian deficit blew up during this period while Germany is practicing austerity. This is all enabled by ECB that artificially caps the borrowing cost of high-debt countries by buying their debt.
The key to success in losing economic power is austerity.
We are religious about debt.
“Das beste Deutschland aller Zeiten.”
The question is also who is benefitting from that growth. In the USA not sure how much the percentage of that growth is actually going to middle-class people.
I can only repeat myself, this is what happens if you insist on doing pro-cyclical austerity policy against all economic evidence.
Useless metric, look at real income (not average income)
You should pull out of germany while you can.
We are doomed. Our politicians only care about the “black zero”, meaning no new debt, despite the fact that the country is run down and desperately in need of investments, at the cost of deficit.
If I didn’t have family here, I would probably move to another country.
The Deutschland-Bashing sucks.
The German problem lies in the bureaucratization of almost all processes. Investments and innovations are crushed by regulations and documentation requirements. In addition, there is a shortage of skilled workers and too much welfare state. A toxic mixture.
And many people in USA want Trump back?!
And they’ll still believe in austerity and “balanced budgets” 😉
Time for the European Union to create recovery fund for Germany.
Maybe(!) it has to do with the fact that the German economy DURING Corona has not crashed in the first place and therefore does not need the same recovery phase. And in the case of Italy, it has to be said that Italy’s growth is largely due to the gigantic EU aid. The Italians are using it to renovate their houses (completely free of charge, cool!) and even get 10% of the costs as a payout for themselves (not bad!). Superbonus is the name of this economic stimulus program, which of course benefits the local construction industry (and the mafia).
Meanwhile the Germans have to pay for heat pumps, photovoltaics and all the other technical blessings themselves at their own expense. 🙂
Sick man your butt…
Interesting, would you share the link?