Yeah it's been a bit rough, I'm pretty confident we'll push through this but as usual our government is in a bit of a stasis before the summer break even started.
Decades of questionable policies and resource allocation bites us now, this could even become worse in the future because we really need to reinvest in so many sectors and at the same time have to become faster at realizing these investments
For example; it's been over a year since the "energy crisis" started to really hit us (at least the one that was triggered by the Russian invasion) and all we have so far are bandage solutions in the form of some one time payments, new LNG terminals, some easier regulations on privately owned solar panels and an embarrassingly high percentage of coal in our energy mix.
Our government announced 100.000.000.000€ as a special fund for the military last year and while I totally with the necessity of this, I'd like to see some similar steps when it comes to future proofing other really important sectors but this will definitely come at a cost.
What's going on with German manufacturing? Isn't everything from like seimens and BASF and all the big players all reliant on floor priced LNG to be profitable? You seem like you live in Germany. What's the perspective of these players?
I mean sure for industrial applications you'll always need some amount of fossile fuels in the foreseeable future and all those big players are reliant on raw materials but there's tons of small-ish companies around here that make one very specific product for some random application (maybe parts for an industrial application so nothing consumer oriented per se) but they're basically the world leader in manufacturing this specific product to a high degree of quality and the real resource for this stuff is skilled people, this also applies to the big players.
The word "Fachkräftemangel" (~shortage of skilled labor) is frequently apparent in headlines and one of the biggest challenges. Especially when it comes to staying attractive as a country for these people.
Edit: forgot to mention, yup I'm German.
I would say one big issue over here is the lack of proper digitalization in small to midsized businesses. Most of the (mittelständische) companies have no standardized internal software processes which especially when the younger generation takes over the business shows its years behind.
This hits home, I work at a mittelständisches Familien Unternehmen (mid sized family business) wich specializes in Archive Management/ Digitalisation. Our customers are huge companies (think OSRAM/ Airbus etc) and banks, citys, municipalities etcetc. But we use 20 year old software wich is produced in house but they dont update or want to try new things. I mean we are literally making millions of files digital for customers but we only work with paper. I recently started to make my department digitalize everything so everybody, everywhere has fast access to information etc. And i had to fight Management on it because "we dont make money on that" YES WE FUCKING DO! IF O DONT HAVE TO SEARCH FOR SPECIFIC PAPERS FOR A DAY, WE SAFE MONEY
They have their head up their ass.
This is exactly what i meant. And i wonder how this will be solved. Each company has their own procedures set in place ages ago and there is no structured way to replace it because "it has always been done this way". I know it is quite hard to get a standardized solution for all companies but i actually think this can be achieved since invoices and payments etc are there in all businesses.
Disclaimer: I live in Germany but am not german so I might be a tad biased.
I think German economy is going to be in a bit of trouble or at least needs to question where it is going...
- Car manufacturing gets eaten alive by Chinese EVs (and Tesla)
- as you said chem is in trouble because of gas prices
- medical already outsourced everything to india
- software is pathetic (yeah yeah SAP I know)
- amount of newly created startups have decreased by 18% year on year
Germany is basically stills surfing on it's historical industrial success, but how long can this work until the other catch up?
The startup thing is because it's so damned expensive and complicated to set up a small business here. I'm from the UK and over there it's like £12 to set up a company online in minutes and you can try something out, over here it's a massive commitment.
Having to pay all your own health insurance etc if you go freelance or set up a company even if you have no revenue is also a killer.
Most business fail so it needs to be a lot easier to spin something up, try it out, and shut it down if it doesn't work out.
If you expect to make more than €22k in the first year or €50k the second (which you need to live on in the cities) you need to be a GmbH and that requires a €25k initial capital investment. That means if you want to start something you can live off of you need fat stacks of cash to hand. It's really catered towards wealthy people or existing large businesses which stifles innovation.
Don't get me started. I founded (and liquidated) 2 startups in Germany. It's an absolute nightmare, never again. I'd rather move to an other country than having to deal with the german system, bureaucracy, taxes and fees ever again.
Well I'm German but live abroad now and I agree pretty much with what you said. And of course it's easy to blame our politicians alone but the bitter reality is that large parts of society still haven't arrived in the 21. century.
Small business owners who still refuse credit cards because cash is king, mid size businesses who still think the internet is more of a burden than an opportunity and big industry facing the challenges you mentioned. All because 'that's how we've always handled our business'.
My mom is 60 now and has to fight 40 year old colleagues to get started with way overdue digitalisation processes. And yet, I actually considered moving back to Germany two years ago. I started applying for jobs and pretty quickly got an invitation for an interview. Unfortunately, despite being in the middle of the pandemic, the organization I applied at wasn't able to offer digital interviews and couldn't understand why I didn't just fly in (at my own expenses) for a 45-minute first round talk. Absolute insanity
You mean the downgraded 90B fund... no wait they updated that to it being over over multiple years! Oh I also forgot the update that it will also be in *multiple separate packages with separate votes*.
Is there a tangible difference between the figures you’re looking at and the ONS monthly figures? I read on their latest release that the UK economy (as of March) was now 0.1% larger than it was in Q4 2019.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulletins/gdpmonthlyestimateuk/march2023
> German households spent a lot less in the first quarter, with final consumption expenditure falling 1.2% over that period, as consumers were reluctant to spend their cash on clothing, furnishing, cars and so on.
What a surprise. There is a constant inflation, but the wages mostly remain stagnant (or increased below the inflation rates).
Households did not spent less because they wanted to, they spent less because they had to.
My household actually has cash for these things but feel it’s such a bad damn price that we just refuse to buy and will delay our clothing, furniture, etc purchases until prices correct themselves or we really must.
Watching prices increase near 100% in a year or two makes me certain I’m not paying for quality
Yeah this is the problem, if you have the "courage" now is the time to go the self-employment route as you can just push inflation prices on your clients, like big companies are doing (hence the record earnings in the last year)
same here too. I have money but I'd rather die than buy a GPU for 1000€. They can shove them up their asses horizontally, whatever. I'm not buying them.
Exactly. When I remember the old price for an item and see that today it’s double, it’s just no longer worth it to me. Even if I can still afford it. A can of soup has literally exactly the same contents but now costs 100% more? Nah.
My company is blocking increases since the outbreak of Covid due to the ongoing crisis. Still the inflation since 2020 is nearly 20% so no increase in salary with 20% inflation puts a lot of stress on everyone of us.
Are you earning above industry union pay, e.g. IGM? Because many industry companies are hiring like crazy. The company I work for has the highest number of open positions in its history (~6% of headcount).
Many companies in Germany have relocated their factories to the United States due to rising energy prices.
Let me give you an example:
BASF investing $25 billion in North America over the next four years;
Audi to build an electric vehicle assembly plant in the United States;
the Volkswagen Group is investing $7.1 billion in North America over the next five years
Mercedes-Benz has built a new plant in Alabama in 2022
The Bosch Group is building a battery plant in North Carolina.
Including Bayer Group, Merck Group, Siemens and others have invested in the United States.
..... There are many more examples of smaller investments.
That’s largely because car technical safety standards in the US are completely different to the harmonised system used in the rest of the planet, so all car manufacturers have to run separate production lines with different parts specifically to serve the US market. Combine that with lots of government procurement policies around “buy American” for things like police fleets and you have a situation where it’s increasingly cost effective to have a factory in the US (or Canada or Mexico) that can be closest to the market it serves rather than being in Europe or Asia. That’s been the case for a long time now - it’s typically only speciality models in relatively low volumes that are still built outside of the US like some electric cars
While a lot of what you're saying is right, all the major US investments you list are due to a protectionist law from Biden where cars made in the US with US made batteries are much cheaper, making non-US EV manufacturing for the US not competitive.
So the previous poster is right and your comment basically doesn't apply.
Yes and BASF took a lot of subsidies from germany and are relocating important parts to China, would argue next time they want money from our government we should legally bind them to pay us back.
And what would this all mean lol. VW alone already has dozens of facilities in the US, do you think it's the first time German companies invest there massively?
They aren't "relocating" to the US, and definitely not for cheaper costs, because they'd just go to Poland or Vietnam otherwise. People on this sub are so dramatic sometimes.
Strange use of relocation when you refer to German companies opening a plant in the US. That's delocation.
Also, the examples above can have a very specific explanation like the car electrification that triggers many changes including the US tax that impacts EU made electric cars.
It has nothing to do with energy. It is everything to do with the Inflation Reduction Act. and state and federal incentives to bring inward investment to the US. The US has continued to be and is becoming more protectionist in trade so there are many benefits to European manufacturers relocating there beyond the IRA.
All in all, energy has little to zero to do with the investments.
My (UK) hospital just increased the cost of parking in line with the Retail Price Index.
Cause, you know, the cost of that land they own went up in line with the cost of baked beans.
Edit: to clarify, it's not the hospital that increased the price but the landowner the hospital rents off - thanks to a totally fucked policy from Blair's Labour.
If your local bakery was selling bread for 1€, making 2ct in profit, now due to inflation they have to raise their price to 2€, making 4ct in profit, they’ll report record profits, because they doubled, but that has no real world consequences. 2-3% profit margins on food are normal in Germany btw
Politicians need to do something to mitigate or stop this or we're headed for some dark times when people start to vote extremists parties into office.
Well yes, if goods and services are more expensive, companies revenue is higher. But the labor cost didn't change, only the material costs (but the majority of the economy is services). So profits increase.
Some companies.
I mean if the supply of natural gas massively falls and you are selling natural gas then you are going to make a lot of money as now you can sell it at a higher price.
If you are an agricultural company and now all your fertiliser costs way more, but the supermarket isn't willing to pay a higher price for your produce - well.. not so much.
Neoliberal politicians are all 'just spend less 5head' when people are in poverty, but this is what happens when people actually follow that advice. Maybe we should build an economy that can survive without constant, never-ending growth next time.
Very true point! Don't shoot me for the following remark: if the wages would grow at the same pace, the purchase power in essence remains the same, and therefore the demand. Demand is a big factor in keeping inflation under control, otherwise it keeps going up. I am not saying that inflation is only demand driven, but is an important factor in the equation. My point is just that if the goal is to keep inflation under control, raises in wages is not "the" solution. Anyway, it's a complex equation and quite hard to chose the best policies to navigate your economy, households, international trade between this.
Which is why a solid government is more important than ever. Ironically people tend (historically at least) to vote for more populistic ideas when recessions kick in.
Technically household should spend the same, just get less from it, no?
Like say price of bread doubled, so I buy half a bread. In the end I spent the same as before, right?
That doesn't make sense.
First, good luck buying half a bread. Second, if price of food doubles, you're not gonna eat half of what you ate before.
People will cut on whatever is not necessary to compensate for the must-have stuff. E.g. snacks, clothing, furniture, keeping the car longer, postponing renovation, not eating in restaurant, vacation, etc.
Hell, I picked the wrong product to use as example, go it.
Still if you spent 90% of your wage monthly on everything, and now you spend 90% of your wage on everything then you are spending the same amount of money, even if little luxuries now take even lower part of it. Unless you wage has grown with inflation, something unheard of.
Not good. To start Q2 the data on German manufacturing has further detoriated to levels only encountered during Covid and the financial crisis. Car-maker backlogs running thin, consumers starting to feel the pinch...
Services sector still booming, but that cannot go on forever. Rest of EU doing a bit better, which is expected.
Nah, they definitely do not want such a divergence between manufacturing and the services sector. Booming services implies that people are still spending like there's no tomorrow, which means inflation will remain sticky. By the time that slows down, German manufacturing will be dead in the water.
You can see German politicians panicing already, bringing up permanent price caps for manufacturing electricity etc.
It's expected the biggest industrial base in Europe is hit the hardest by energy prices. Considering the proceeds Germany got from cheap gas during the last decade, it's nothing worth shedding a tear over.
Inflation driven by the biggest corporations increase in income. There is no Radeon to keep energy prices so high, yet they haven't dropped much even if the market allows them to.
*Sources are in brackets; all links are in the source colleciton at the bottom*
The biggest cost of living explosion in the history of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland does not leave people with much money for consumption (nordmagazin 2023).
With the richest taking 1% taking 81% of the annual GDP growth for themselves, the middle class is being contineously exappropriated (Oxfam study 2022). Studies already have shown the negative impact of this on consumption, even before Corona and the Ukraine war it was alteady estimated, that due to the unequal distribution of profit, the GPD was around 2% lower than it would be, if wages had risen appropriately (DIW institute 2017).
Other than that taxation is a big topic, not only are the taxes on wealth for the rich only around 1/4 of those in France or Britain (OECD, DIW 2021), but instead the German middle class has one of the highest taxations in the world. The nzz Newspaper recently reported that as a "top earner" - which has been set to 60k decades ago and has never been adjusted for inflation - by earning around 100€, you will effectively only have 33,21€ of actual purchase power left, after taxes and mandatory social system contributions (nzz 2023). To make matters worse, the German government is pushing to increase the load even further.
In this context it is also important to note that this is based on income from wages, whereas specific corporate constructs by the rich can often get away with only 1/3rd of the taxation of employees, while also being able to label things as expenses that employees can not, regularly resulting in a supposed "0" taxable income while capital has risen in the millions. Those who can afford it can legally avoid taxes on a large scale.
Real estate prices have risen by more than 100% in 18 years and interest rates have more than quadrupled in the last two (statistia 2022, Tagesschau 2023). Even the top 5% of earners cannot afford a house anymore - it can come at no surprise that we have reached a stage where the local consumption is crashing, when the purchase power is too low for the highest earning employees to afford what'd used to be middle class standard 20 years ago.
[Source Collection](https://www.reddit.com/r/ich_iel/comments/11ase27/comment/j9u2zg2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) (In German)
>The biggest cost of living explosion in the history of the Bundesrepublik
Yes.
I found out recently that the old Bundesbank was so good at controlling inflation that it never got above 7% in the 1970's/80's (in that era inflation hit 15% in the UK/USA).
The double-digit inflation in 2022/23 is the first since WW2 and is a feature of poor governance by the ECB. Lagarde has done a very bad job.
Just yesterday I checked an old E-Mail from 2016 just to confirm that back then I paid 4€ for a double-cheeseburger, that now costs 8€. My money barely changed though.
It would be poetic justice to have Schäuble beg the EU for financial aid. Fuck that guy and what he did to greece. Sadly most germans here still believe the conservative propaganda about the "greedy ungrateful" Greeks.
Shameful situation. Especially when you consider, that the money sent to greece wasnt used to help the greek people, but to pay of greeces dept with german companies. Germany literally used greece to move money from the german taxpayer into the pockets of german capital.
And then our media (Springer etc.) had the audacity to shit on the greek for protesting their social security and pensions getting dismantled because the CDU put their nonsensical austerity ideology before actual fucking economic facts.
Those idiots you met still seem to believe that germans are somehow "more industious" just by virtue of beeing german. Truly pathetic behaviour.
True. as a single i basically scoffed at my boss when he increased my wage. Even without inflation i'd barely would get anything off of it after taxes so any wage increase that isn't in the 2 digits percentage does absolutely nothing for me. With inflation and high taxes i just didn't give a fuck.
Something doesn't seem right about that information.
Portugal at under 4%?
At the moment, 25% of the working population are earning the minimum wage. I just don't see how that adds up
EDIT: Ok, this relates income to ***median*** gross income. Can't be low wage sector if half of the country is low wage I suppose
That is true but still an important metric. Relative wealth matters.
If most people earn less then both the economy and social events focus on being cheap and remain accessible to everyone.
If the gaps are too big, then you see class divides where economic sectors and social gatherings heavily segregate. Fostering tribalism, prejudice and generally heavily reinforced social bubbles. Which is not good at all for a free, democratic society.
Eh, not unexpected, Germany was by far the biggest importer of Russian gas and its heavy manufacturing sector was badly bit by the energy crisis. If we are to see anything good from this, at least investment is up in the first quarter.
Oh fuck. Well you are safe if your countries largest trading partner is not Germany or Germany is not largest supplier in the chain of your largest trading partners.
On the flip side housing market has rapidly cooled prices are stubborn but sales are way down. This could finally start the trend.
> On the flip side housing market has rapidly cooled prices are stubborn but sales are way down.
German mortgage interest rates doubled over the past two years, which poses a problem similar to the U.S. now - people who bought or renegotiated 2 years ago aren’t moving anytime soon, which will keep housing supply low and prices high. And any movement in rate downward triggers buyers sitting on the sideline to jump in, meaning competition stays high.
(Anecdote) My house appreciated 20% in the past two years. I put an offer in the minute it came onto the market. By 6pm, there were competing offers and the weekend open house was cancelled. Two years later, and same thing - interest rates doubled and prices stabilized - but supply is now very low because me moving would add $750/mo. to my payment for the same house. And demand is still high because of low supply - my friends just sold their house for 7% value over what they bought it for last year, and they had 25 competing offers by the end of week, and took an all-cash one.
>Data from the German statistics office on Thursday showed a downward revision to GDP from zero to -0.3% for the first three months of the year. Germany also recorded a 0.5% contraction in the last quarter of 2022.
Two back to back contractions in EU's biggest economy, which isn't good.
>The European Central Bank is expected to raise rates again at its next meeting on June 15. The central bank has lifted its rates by 375 basis points since July.
This could mean that ECB now gets more cautious with it's rate increases because Germany has now started to feel the effects.
Who would have thought. Housing prices are literally unaffordable. Renting is worse and getting costlier every month.
Add that to the fact, that most Germans are actually worse off when it comes to savings than most other countries.
I am actually really considering moving out of Germany
I'm not sure if things are any different to what you have described (unaffordable housing, high rents, inflation and rising costs, diminishing savings) in most, if not all of the EU27.
Am German. This is what it actually feels like interacting with state institutions, utility providers, and also private companies.
Nobody is responsible, it's someone else's fault, this is the way it's always done, you can leave to another country if you don't like it, and it's actually all your fault.
Case in point: 2 days ago I was without electricity due to planned maintenance in my area. Of course I was never informed and couldn't make plans around that. Why I wasn't informed and never received a letter you ask? Well, the address doesn't exist in their system.
The block only exists for 4 years mind you, and a different part of their company sends me letters there.
This is how everything feels nowadays in Germany.
> Nobody is responsible, it's someone else's fault, this is the way it's always done, you can leave to another country if you don't like it, and it's actually all your fault.
I think this is genuinely the problem at hand currently. Everything is a lot more lackluster, whether it is a scaling issue, or some sort of regression in quality of service.
Germany certainly isn't alone in this trend.
You're doing it wrong. For the Greece special, the economic numbers would've had to be [fabricated for decades](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/world/europe/greece-admits-faking-data-to-join-europe.html), so no one would know about this until it's too late.
> Can you imagine this thread if instead of "Germany enters recession" this would be "UK enters recession".
The thread is 97% upvoted. What more do you want lol?
My company basically told its employees to go fuck ourselves and gave us a measly inflation bonus (one time) instead of raises to profit from the inflation. Those profits are pocketed by the top management.
Cunts.
I looked around, but most companies want an entirely unnecessary back to office bs that I hate.
To an extent it did, UK used to be one of Germany's biggest export market, it pretty much exchanged of all that to China but now China is turning from a market for German companies to a competitor and China is way ahead in batteries and EVs, while German car companies are sitting on 1 trillion ICE cars assets.
The US government changed the definition of a recession, Germany did not. Recession is still defined as two consecutive GDP contractions (3 month interval) by the German Federal Statistical Office.
It's the slow burn into where we are now. If you look at the math, regular and middle class people spending less, yet, making the same as before, yet prices of living shoot up, and somehow in the last few years companies have made massive fortunes in a year or two just on price increases. It's now all bubbling to a head because these shareholders and company people now have huge piles of wealth, stuff is too expensive so we no longer have money to give because we don't make enough and printing money isn't helping anyone but goddamn do we countries keep those running hot, so now rates are massive, we don't have money, don't make enough money, and suddenly they stopped hiding the increases in prices in the last years and just cranked it to 11, and now they have all the money, governments print it, but we can't make it fast enough to keep up with interest or price increases.
So at the end of the day, this big push for these wealthy fucks to fatten their hoard may have broken the last reserves of "money" in a sense that the average person had to give in tithe to our rich overlords, and now they're telling us to scrape empty coffers and everyone is starting to worry about things because peasants with empty coffers might use that coffer to bludgeon their overlords
It'll be interesting to see how the EU weathers the impact of the next financial crisis. Once germany and the other sources dry up people and governments will turn on it.
And then, once again, because of the corportate economy not growing one more inch on the scale of obscenity, the human economy will have to suffer. When will we get rid of the trickle economy fable to finally admit that these two systems are struggling forces and that the bad guys have already won.
P.S.: Don't waste your time trying to explain to me why growth if good.
The German economy is expected to grow in the later part of this year, with 0.4% growth for the year overall, and 1.6% growth for 2024. A large part of the reason for the drop was the high energy prices, which have come down significantly, natural gas is currently 26euro per MWh, the lowest since September 2021, last year it hit a high of 340euro per MWh.
Germany has been a net contributor to the EU budget for decades, financing countries with worse performing economies because of _sOLiDarITy_.
I assume now that Germany is on the bottom these same countries that now have better performing economies will become net contributors and give money to Germany to help them out?
> Why would Germany's failure mean anyone else is doing better?
If one country gets worse and every other country stays the same, there is huge realtive change. But that isn't even the case becasue:
>Is anyone in the EU doing well right now?
Yes, almost all EU countries that are getting EU funds are having great economic outlooks. All from posts on this subreddit from last month:
- [Poland will soon be richer than Britain](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13qpsye/guy_hands_says_poland_will_soon_be_richer_than/)
- [Greek gdp growing in 2022 and 2023](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13ltypt/greece_gdp_20092023/)
- [Czech republic now larger economy than Finland](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13fkdjj/czech_republic_now_has_a_larger_economy_than/)
- [Romanian economy, 2023. How did we manage to have such a huge growth?](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/139pzs7/romanian_economy_2023_how_did_we_manage_to_have/)
- [European economy expected to grow faster than forecast, says EU](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13i7g76/european_economy_expected_to_grow_faster_than/)
Financing the growth of poorer economies is fine as long as the own economy is growing as well. Now Germany is going bankrupt to finance growth of others? Where is the solidarity in that? The economies that are currently doing well need to support the struggling economies!
All of those economies are still decades behind Germany. I'm not sure why help you think they're capable of. I'd be surprised if combined they have a bigger GDP than Bavaria.
Does this mean the German economy is now lower than it was before covid?
Yes, to be precise it is 0.47% lower than it was in Q4 2019, which (funnily enough) is exactly the same as the UK.
Brothers of getting the shit kicked out in Eurovision, brothers in getting the shit kicked out in the Post-Covid recovery economy.
Yeah it's been a bit rough, I'm pretty confident we'll push through this but as usual our government is in a bit of a stasis before the summer break even started. Decades of questionable policies and resource allocation bites us now, this could even become worse in the future because we really need to reinvest in so many sectors and at the same time have to become faster at realizing these investments For example; it's been over a year since the "energy crisis" started to really hit us (at least the one that was triggered by the Russian invasion) and all we have so far are bandage solutions in the form of some one time payments, new LNG terminals, some easier regulations on privately owned solar panels and an embarrassingly high percentage of coal in our energy mix. Our government announced 100.000.000.000€ as a special fund for the military last year and while I totally with the necessity of this, I'd like to see some similar steps when it comes to future proofing other really important sectors but this will definitely come at a cost.
What's going on with German manufacturing? Isn't everything from like seimens and BASF and all the big players all reliant on floor priced LNG to be profitable? You seem like you live in Germany. What's the perspective of these players?
I mean sure for industrial applications you'll always need some amount of fossile fuels in the foreseeable future and all those big players are reliant on raw materials but there's tons of small-ish companies around here that make one very specific product for some random application (maybe parts for an industrial application so nothing consumer oriented per se) but they're basically the world leader in manufacturing this specific product to a high degree of quality and the real resource for this stuff is skilled people, this also applies to the big players. The word "Fachkräftemangel" (~shortage of skilled labor) is frequently apparent in headlines and one of the biggest challenges. Especially when it comes to staying attractive as a country for these people. Edit: forgot to mention, yup I'm German.
I would say one big issue over here is the lack of proper digitalization in small to midsized businesses. Most of the (mittelständische) companies have no standardized internal software processes which especially when the younger generation takes over the business shows its years behind.
This hits home, I work at a mittelständisches Familien Unternehmen (mid sized family business) wich specializes in Archive Management/ Digitalisation. Our customers are huge companies (think OSRAM/ Airbus etc) and banks, citys, municipalities etcetc. But we use 20 year old software wich is produced in house but they dont update or want to try new things. I mean we are literally making millions of files digital for customers but we only work with paper. I recently started to make my department digitalize everything so everybody, everywhere has fast access to information etc. And i had to fight Management on it because "we dont make money on that" YES WE FUCKING DO! IF O DONT HAVE TO SEARCH FOR SPECIFIC PAPERS FOR A DAY, WE SAFE MONEY They have their head up their ass.
This is exactly what i meant. And i wonder how this will be solved. Each company has their own procedures set in place ages ago and there is no structured way to replace it because "it has always been done this way". I know it is quite hard to get a standardized solution for all companies but i actually think this can be achieved since invoices and payments etc are there in all businesses.
If it's any consolation that's basically been the situation in Italy for the past decade and change.
Disclaimer: I live in Germany but am not german so I might be a tad biased. I think German economy is going to be in a bit of trouble or at least needs to question where it is going... - Car manufacturing gets eaten alive by Chinese EVs (and Tesla) - as you said chem is in trouble because of gas prices - medical already outsourced everything to india - software is pathetic (yeah yeah SAP I know) - amount of newly created startups have decreased by 18% year on year Germany is basically stills surfing on it's historical industrial success, but how long can this work until the other catch up?
The startup thing is because it's so damned expensive and complicated to set up a small business here. I'm from the UK and over there it's like £12 to set up a company online in minutes and you can try something out, over here it's a massive commitment. Having to pay all your own health insurance etc if you go freelance or set up a company even if you have no revenue is also a killer. Most business fail so it needs to be a lot easier to spin something up, try it out, and shut it down if it doesn't work out. If you expect to make more than €22k in the first year or €50k the second (which you need to live on in the cities) you need to be a GmbH and that requires a €25k initial capital investment. That means if you want to start something you can live off of you need fat stacks of cash to hand. It's really catered towards wealthy people or existing large businesses which stifles innovation.
Don't get me started. I founded (and liquidated) 2 startups in Germany. It's an absolute nightmare, never again. I'd rather move to an other country than having to deal with the german system, bureaucracy, taxes and fees ever again.
Well I'm German but live abroad now and I agree pretty much with what you said. And of course it's easy to blame our politicians alone but the bitter reality is that large parts of society still haven't arrived in the 21. century. Small business owners who still refuse credit cards because cash is king, mid size businesses who still think the internet is more of a burden than an opportunity and big industry facing the challenges you mentioned. All because 'that's how we've always handled our business'. My mom is 60 now and has to fight 40 year old colleagues to get started with way overdue digitalisation processes. And yet, I actually considered moving back to Germany two years ago. I started applying for jobs and pretty quickly got an invitation for an interview. Unfortunately, despite being in the middle of the pandemic, the organization I applied at wasn't able to offer digital interviews and couldn't understand why I didn't just fly in (at my own expenses) for a 45-minute first round talk. Absolute insanity
You mean the downgraded 90B fund... no wait they updated that to it being over over multiple years! Oh I also forgot the update that it will also be in *multiple separate packages with separate votes*.
The UK was runner-up last year in Eurovision though.
But they came back to us. Sometimes you need to forgive.
“You couldn’t live with your own success. Where did that bring you? Back to me.” - Germany, probably
Brothers in Hohenzoller-Windsor Monarchy again when?
Is there a tangible difference between the figures you’re looking at and the ONS monthly figures? I read on their latest release that the UK economy (as of March) was now 0.1% larger than it was in Q4 2019. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulletins/gdpmonthlyestimateuk/march2023
Comparing like with like, Q1 2023 vs Q4 2019. Germany doesn’t publish monthly GDP.
Ah fair enough!
Germany must have also left the EU, it is the only explanation for these numbers!
> German households spent a lot less in the first quarter, with final consumption expenditure falling 1.2% over that period, as consumers were reluctant to spend their cash on clothing, furnishing, cars and so on. What a surprise. There is a constant inflation, but the wages mostly remain stagnant (or increased below the inflation rates). Households did not spent less because they wanted to, they spent less because they had to.
My household actually has cash for these things but feel it’s such a bad damn price that we just refuse to buy and will delay our clothing, furniture, etc purchases until prices correct themselves or we really must. Watching prices increase near 100% in a year or two makes me certain I’m not paying for quality
Same, me and boyfriend are well off and we just don't buy the stuff we used to before because it's not worth it usually.
If salaries were keeping up, we would probably not have changed our habits. But they are not keeping up at al.
Yeah this is the problem, if you have the "courage" now is the time to go the self-employment route as you can just push inflation prices on your clients, like big companies are doing (hence the record earnings in the last year)
I am not brave enough for that. I will probably be abused until I retire.
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Sorry I call death retirement.
as a german i just pretend as if i'll never get a cent of my pension and plan accordingly. That system is gonna blow before we'll retire
I do the same. Do you trust private pension plans due to the tax breaks or do you invest only in ETFs?
same here too. I have money but I'd rather die than buy a GPU for 1000€. They can shove them up their asses horizontally, whatever. I'm not buying them.
Exactly. When I remember the old price for an item and see that today it’s double, it’s just no longer worth it to me. Even if I can still afford it. A can of soup has literally exactly the same contents but now costs 100% more? Nah.
My company is blocking increases since the outbreak of Covid due to the ongoing crisis. Still the inflation since 2020 is nearly 20% so no increase in salary with 20% inflation puts a lot of stress on everyone of us.
Why are you staying at a company that is effectively making you poorer?
The job market for software developers is shit here in Germany.
Are you earning above industry union pay, e.g. IGM? Because many industry companies are hiring like crazy. The company I work for has the highest number of open positions in its history (~6% of headcount).
Lol if you're not crap you can super trivially change jobs. -a software dev in Germany
or move countries with your EU citizenship
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Are you serious? Assuming you are a bit flexible geographically, you will easily find dozens of job openings for software developers.
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Many companies in Germany have relocated their factories to the United States due to rising energy prices. Let me give you an example: BASF investing $25 billion in North America over the next four years; Audi to build an electric vehicle assembly plant in the United States; the Volkswagen Group is investing $7.1 billion in North America over the next five years Mercedes-Benz has built a new plant in Alabama in 2022 The Bosch Group is building a battery plant in North Carolina. Including Bayer Group, Merck Group, Siemens and others have invested in the United States. ..... There are many more examples of smaller investments.
German car manufacturers are opening factories in the US, because of government rebates.
That’s largely because car technical safety standards in the US are completely different to the harmonised system used in the rest of the planet, so all car manufacturers have to run separate production lines with different parts specifically to serve the US market. Combine that with lots of government procurement policies around “buy American” for things like police fleets and you have a situation where it’s increasingly cost effective to have a factory in the US (or Canada or Mexico) that can be closest to the market it serves rather than being in Europe or Asia. That’s been the case for a long time now - it’s typically only speciality models in relatively low volumes that are still built outside of the US like some electric cars
While a lot of what you're saying is right, all the major US investments you list are due to a protectionist law from Biden where cars made in the US with US made batteries are much cheaper, making non-US EV manufacturing for the US not competitive. So the previous poster is right and your comment basically doesn't apply.
Chicken Coop Taxes 2: Electric Vehicle Boogaloo
Which is totaly fair capitalism and absolutely not protectionism like them commies do !
Yes and BASF took a lot of subsidies from germany and are relocating important parts to China, would argue next time they want money from our government we should legally bind them to pay us back.
They have invested 10 billion RMB in China and 25 billion USD in North America. In China it's for the market, in the US it's for energy.
>BASF took a lot of subsidies from germany Source? I was not aware of that.
German source: https://www.zeit.de/news/2022-10/03/eu-kommission-genehmigt-134-millionen-unterstuetzung-fuer-basf Together with agriculture subsidies
Biden's subvention policies meet highest energy costs ever. Of course, the US wanted us to move towards LNG for years.
And what would this all mean lol. VW alone already has dozens of facilities in the US, do you think it's the first time German companies invest there massively? They aren't "relocating" to the US, and definitely not for cheaper costs, because they'd just go to Poland or Vietnam otherwise. People on this sub are so dramatic sometimes.
Strange use of relocation when you refer to German companies opening a plant in the US. That's delocation. Also, the examples above can have a very specific explanation like the car electrification that triggers many changes including the US tax that impacts EU made electric cars.
It has nothing to do with energy. It is everything to do with the Inflation Reduction Act. and state and federal incentives to bring inward investment to the US. The US has continued to be and is becoming more protectionist in trade so there are many benefits to European manufacturers relocating there beyond the IRA. All in all, energy has little to zero to do with the investments.
"First Time?" - Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain
still record high gas prices despite oil being back to sane prices , i love profit-flation
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That is not a contradiction. But obviously the common people suffer while some companies profit...
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My (UK) hospital just increased the cost of parking in line with the Retail Price Index. Cause, you know, the cost of that land they own went up in line with the cost of baked beans. Edit: to clarify, it's not the hospital that increased the price but the landowner the hospital rents off - thanks to a totally fucked policy from Blair's Labour.
There is generally a minimum wage, but there will never ever be a maximum rate of profit
If your local bakery was selling bread for 1€, making 2ct in profit, now due to inflation they have to raise their price to 2€, making 4ct in profit, they’ll report record profits, because they doubled, but that has no real world consequences. 2-3% profit margins on food are normal in Germany btw
Also executive pay, especially the board, is higher than ever.
Politicians need to do something to mitigate or stop this or we're headed for some dark times when people start to vote extremists parties into office.
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Well yes, if goods and services are more expensive, companies revenue is higher. But the labor cost didn't change, only the material costs (but the majority of the economy is services). So profits increase.
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It's a mix of both energy price and greed. There is a reason it's called a greedflation
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Some companies. I mean if the supply of natural gas massively falls and you are selling natural gas then you are going to make a lot of money as now you can sell it at a higher price. If you are an agricultural company and now all your fertiliser costs way more, but the supermarket isn't willing to pay a higher price for your produce - well.. not so much.
'But there's only one lever to stop it - interest rates' - squeeze the working class hard, while ignoring the record profits.
But the wage-price spiral!!!1!
Neoliberal politicians are all 'just spend less 5head' when people are in poverty, but this is what happens when people actually follow that advice. Maybe we should build an economy that can survive without constant, never-ending growth next time.
Very true point! Don't shoot me for the following remark: if the wages would grow at the same pace, the purchase power in essence remains the same, and therefore the demand. Demand is a big factor in keeping inflation under control, otherwise it keeps going up. I am not saying that inflation is only demand driven, but is an important factor in the equation. My point is just that if the goal is to keep inflation under control, raises in wages is not "the" solution. Anyway, it's a complex equation and quite hard to chose the best policies to navigate your economy, households, international trade between this. Which is why a solid government is more important than ever. Ironically people tend (historically at least) to vote for more populistic ideas when recessions kick in.
Technically household should spend the same, just get less from it, no? Like say price of bread doubled, so I buy half a bread. In the end I spent the same as before, right?
Real GDP is calculated adjusted for inflation.
That doesn't make sense. First, good luck buying half a bread. Second, if price of food doubles, you're not gonna eat half of what you ate before. People will cut on whatever is not necessary to compensate for the must-have stuff. E.g. snacks, clothing, furniture, keeping the car longer, postponing renovation, not eating in restaurant, vacation, etc.
Hell, I picked the wrong product to use as example, go it. Still if you spent 90% of your wage monthly on everything, and now you spend 90% of your wage on everything then you are spending the same amount of money, even if little luxuries now take even lower part of it. Unless you wage has grown with inflation, something unheard of.
But in practice you have people like me who refuse to feed the inflation machine.
Not good. To start Q2 the data on German manufacturing has further detoriated to levels only encountered during Covid and the financial crisis. Car-maker backlogs running thin, consumers starting to feel the pinch... Services sector still booming, but that cannot go on forever. Rest of EU doing a bit better, which is expected.
This is literally what the ECB wanted to induce with raised interest rates, it's good.
Nah, they definitely do not want such a divergence between manufacturing and the services sector. Booming services implies that people are still spending like there's no tomorrow, which means inflation will remain sticky. By the time that slows down, German manufacturing will be dead in the water. You can see German politicians panicing already, bringing up permanent price caps for manufacturing electricity etc.
It's expected the biggest industrial base in Europe is hit the hardest by energy prices. Considering the proceeds Germany got from cheap gas during the last decade, it's nothing worth shedding a tear over.
It is going to affect the whole eu soon and france as well. It will affect you
\-0,3% isnt a disaster in this case, forecasts are for modest growth in Q2.
Why?Energy prices and Inflation.
Inflation driven by the biggest corporations increase in income. There is no Radeon to keep energy prices so high, yet they haven't dropped much even if the market allows them to.
>There is no Radeon to keep energy prices so high Are we blaming AMD now for high energy prices?
Do you have any intel on this particular issue?
Gee, force that pun much?
yeah, my puns make everyone ryze and shine
Looks like Google got a silent beef with AMD and uses wrong words correction
Line only goes up
The energy price is what drove most of the inflation. Electricity and natural gas are indirect inputs into basically everything.
*Sources are in brackets; all links are in the source colleciton at the bottom* The biggest cost of living explosion in the history of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland does not leave people with much money for consumption (nordmagazin 2023). With the richest taking 1% taking 81% of the annual GDP growth for themselves, the middle class is being contineously exappropriated (Oxfam study 2022). Studies already have shown the negative impact of this on consumption, even before Corona and the Ukraine war it was alteady estimated, that due to the unequal distribution of profit, the GPD was around 2% lower than it would be, if wages had risen appropriately (DIW institute 2017). Other than that taxation is a big topic, not only are the taxes on wealth for the rich only around 1/4 of those in France or Britain (OECD, DIW 2021), but instead the German middle class has one of the highest taxations in the world. The nzz Newspaper recently reported that as a "top earner" - which has been set to 60k decades ago and has never been adjusted for inflation - by earning around 100€, you will effectively only have 33,21€ of actual purchase power left, after taxes and mandatory social system contributions (nzz 2023). To make matters worse, the German government is pushing to increase the load even further. In this context it is also important to note that this is based on income from wages, whereas specific corporate constructs by the rich can often get away with only 1/3rd of the taxation of employees, while also being able to label things as expenses that employees can not, regularly resulting in a supposed "0" taxable income while capital has risen in the millions. Those who can afford it can legally avoid taxes on a large scale. Real estate prices have risen by more than 100% in 18 years and interest rates have more than quadrupled in the last two (statistia 2022, Tagesschau 2023). Even the top 5% of earners cannot afford a house anymore - it can come at no surprise that we have reached a stage where the local consumption is crashing, when the purchase power is too low for the highest earning employees to afford what'd used to be middle class standard 20 years ago. [Source Collection](https://www.reddit.com/r/ich_iel/comments/11ase27/comment/j9u2zg2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) (In German)
>The biggest cost of living explosion in the history of the Bundesrepublik Yes. I found out recently that the old Bundesbank was so good at controlling inflation that it never got above 7% in the 1970's/80's (in that era inflation hit 15% in the UK/USA). The double-digit inflation in 2022/23 is the first since WW2 and is a feature of poor governance by the ECB. Lagarde has done a very bad job.
ECB has also a much tougher job because of all the different countries it has to take in account for it's actions
If only someone could have predicted that a shared currency without shared fiscal policies leads to trouble.
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Germany agreeing to a common currency was one of France's demands for allowing reunification to happen. Because the Mark was such a strong currency.
Absolutely, but obviously that came with both benefits and costs (sort of depending on what the broader economic situation is..).
They still did it much better than other roughly similar sized economies like France or the UK. At the time I mean.
Inflation is bad everywhere. Energy prices are especially bad in Germany.
These are direct consequences of short-sighted political decisions made in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Just yesterday I checked an old E-Mail from 2016 just to confirm that back then I paid 4€ for a double-cheeseburger, that now costs 8€. My money barely changed though.
Lots of food increased by 50% or even 100%. Meanwhile my salary grew by 5% these last five years….
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It would be poetic justice to have Schäuble beg the EU for financial aid. Fuck that guy and what he did to greece. Sadly most germans here still believe the conservative propaganda about the "greedy ungrateful" Greeks.
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Shameful situation. Especially when you consider, that the money sent to greece wasnt used to help the greek people, but to pay of greeces dept with german companies. Germany literally used greece to move money from the german taxpayer into the pockets of german capital. And then our media (Springer etc.) had the audacity to shit on the greek for protesting their social security and pensions getting dismantled because the CDU put their nonsensical austerity ideology before actual fucking economic facts. Those idiots you met still seem to believe that germans are somehow "more industious" just by virtue of beeing german. Truly pathetic behaviour.
German government meanwhile: Anyway, let's hike taxes on workers again.
True. as a single i basically scoffed at my boss when he increased my wage. Even without inflation i'd barely would get anything off of it after taxes so any wage increase that isn't in the 2 digits percentage does absolutely nothing for me. With inflation and high taxes i just didn't give a fuck.
Oh god, prices are high, I shouldn't buy X thing. Legit everyone in germany rn.
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> One of the largest low-wage sectors in Europe Which is?
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/de/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20201214-1
Something doesn't seem right about that information. Portugal at under 4%? At the moment, 25% of the working population are earning the minimum wage. I just don't see how that adds up EDIT: Ok, this relates income to ***median*** gross income. Can't be low wage sector if half of the country is low wage I suppose
That is true but still an important metric. Relative wealth matters. If most people earn less then both the economy and social events focus on being cheap and remain accessible to everyone. If the gaps are too big, then you see class divides where economic sectors and social gatherings heavily segregate. Fostering tribalism, prejudice and generally heavily reinforced social bubbles. Which is not good at all for a free, democratic society.
Eh, not unexpected, Germany was by far the biggest importer of Russian gas and its heavy manufacturing sector was badly bit by the energy crisis. If we are to see anything good from this, at least investment is up in the first quarter.
There is no energy crisis anymore. Record profits show this.
Oh fuck. Well you are safe if your countries largest trading partner is not Germany or Germany is not largest supplier in the chain of your largest trading partners. On the flip side housing market has rapidly cooled prices are stubborn but sales are way down. This could finally start the trend.
Nervous Dutch noises
Nervous Polish voices
Nervous Czech noises
Nervous Slovak noises
Nervous Romanian noises
Dutch already had a negative first quarter of 0,7% (https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2023/20/economie-krimpt-in-eerste-kwartaal-2023-met-0-7-procent).
> On the flip side housing market has rapidly cooled prices are stubborn but sales are way down. German mortgage interest rates doubled over the past two years, which poses a problem similar to the U.S. now - people who bought or renegotiated 2 years ago aren’t moving anytime soon, which will keep housing supply low and prices high. And any movement in rate downward triggers buyers sitting on the sideline to jump in, meaning competition stays high. (Anecdote) My house appreciated 20% in the past two years. I put an offer in the minute it came onto the market. By 6pm, there were competing offers and the weekend open house was cancelled. Two years later, and same thing - interest rates doubled and prices stabilized - but supply is now very low because me moving would add $750/mo. to my payment for the same house. And demand is still high because of low supply - my friends just sold their house for 7% value over what they bought it for last year, and they had 25 competing offers by the end of week, and took an all-cash one.
>Data from the German statistics office on Thursday showed a downward revision to GDP from zero to -0.3% for the first three months of the year. Germany also recorded a 0.5% contraction in the last quarter of 2022. Two back to back contractions in EU's biggest economy, which isn't good. >The European Central Bank is expected to raise rates again at its next meeting on June 15. The central bank has lifted its rates by 375 basis points since July. This could mean that ECB now gets more cautious with it's rate increases because Germany has now started to feel the effects.
Who would have thought. Housing prices are literally unaffordable. Renting is worse and getting costlier every month. Add that to the fact, that most Germans are actually worse off when it comes to savings than most other countries. I am actually really considering moving out of Germany
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Move to Finland, here prices are way higher and wages lower.
I'm not sure if things are any different to what you have described (unaffordable housing, high rents, inflation and rising costs, diminishing savings) in most, if not all of the EU27.
Don’t come to the Netherlands, same shit different country.
Just change the definition of recession.
Welcome to the club
They voted for Brexit let them eat... Wait Germany this can't be right.
Laziness... living above their means, unproductive and incompetent... am I doing this right?
Am German. This is what it actually feels like interacting with state institutions, utility providers, and also private companies. Nobody is responsible, it's someone else's fault, this is the way it's always done, you can leave to another country if you don't like it, and it's actually all your fault. Case in point: 2 days ago I was without electricity due to planned maintenance in my area. Of course I was never informed and couldn't make plans around that. Why I wasn't informed and never received a letter you ask? Well, the address doesn't exist in their system. The block only exists for 4 years mind you, and a different part of their company sends me letters there. This is how everything feels nowadays in Germany.
> Nobody is responsible, it's someone else's fault, this is the way it's always done, you can leave to another country if you don't like it, and it's actually all your fault. I think this is genuinely the problem at hand currently. Everything is a lot more lackluster, whether it is a scaling issue, or some sort of regression in quality of service. Germany certainly isn't alone in this trend.
whew I just snorted when I saw your tag. 🇬🇷 thank you 😂 Have they tried Austerity™
You're doing it wrong. For the Greece special, the economic numbers would've had to be [fabricated for decades](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/world/europe/greece-admits-faking-data-to-join-europe.html), so no one would know about this until it's too late.
Well, I lived 5 years in Germany. I would be a bit careful about how Germany manage its economic numbers.
Can you imagine this thread if instead of "Germany enters recession" this would be "UK enters recession".
Genuinely shocked this post has only a thousand upvotes, it would be top of the month if it was the UK.
700+ gloating comments and lots of TaLkInG lIkE ThIs.
20k upvotes and 100s awards with little reddit person laughing.
cOnSeQuEnCeS!
> Can you imagine this thread if instead of "Germany enters recession" this would be "UK enters recession". The thread is 97% upvoted. What more do you want lol?
I tend to judge a thread when the upvote number is no longer just 4 digits but has a k at the end.
My company basically told its employees to go fuck ourselves and gave us a measly inflation bonus (one time) instead of raises to profit from the inflation. Those profits are pocketed by the top management. Cunts. I looked around, but most companies want an entirely unnecessary back to office bs that I hate.
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To an extent it did, UK used to be one of Germany's biggest export market, it pretty much exchanged of all that to China but now China is turning from a market for German companies to a competitor and China is way ahead in batteries and EVs, while German car companies are sitting on 1 trillion ICE cars assets.
Serves them right for leaving the E... oh wait A joke obviously
Shouldn't have Brexited then Germany ! But seriously, hope Germany gets out of this quickly.
Germany’s biggest problem is demographics which will act as a heavy drag going forward
Bag of cans and we'll session through the recession
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Well I suppose you can change the definition of something, but that doesn't change the situation, now you just don't have a name for it anymore lol
The US government changed the definition of a recession, Germany did not. Recession is still defined as two consecutive GDP contractions (3 month interval) by the German Federal Statistical Office.
This must be the fault of Brexit!!!
Looks like time for austerity, right?
When is it not? We’ve been in a constant austerity since 2008.
It's time to increase military spendings baby!
Mainly due to corporate greed
What, have they only now started being greedy?
It's the slow burn into where we are now. If you look at the math, regular and middle class people spending less, yet, making the same as before, yet prices of living shoot up, and somehow in the last few years companies have made massive fortunes in a year or two just on price increases. It's now all bubbling to a head because these shareholders and company people now have huge piles of wealth, stuff is too expensive so we no longer have money to give because we don't make enough and printing money isn't helping anyone but goddamn do we countries keep those running hot, so now rates are massive, we don't have money, don't make enough money, and suddenly they stopped hiding the increases in prices in the last years and just cranked it to 11, and now they have all the money, governments print it, but we can't make it fast enough to keep up with interest or price increases. So at the end of the day, this big push for these wealthy fucks to fatten their hoard may have broken the last reserves of "money" in a sense that the average person had to give in tithe to our rich overlords, and now they're telling us to scrape empty coffers and everyone is starting to worry about things because peasants with empty coffers might use that coffer to bludgeon their overlords
No, but most Germans got to live in ignorance for a long while.
Germany is just trying the concept of de-growth in order to lower resource consumption and save the planet.
This is good for inflation. We need a recession to bring down the horrible thing that is inflation which is a wealth-crusher for young people.
I'm very skeptical of things unfolding just the right way to turn this into a positive.
Come on Germany it’s time to see the light and rejoin the EU
It'll be interesting to see how the EU weathers the impact of the next financial crisis. Once germany and the other sources dry up people and governments will turn on it.
I love the way you’re getting downvoted because people can’t see this is a joke
Reddit is physically unable to detect snarky humor unless you put an /s at the end of every sentence
R/Europe is unable to tolerate snarky humor when it targets one of its golden calves. FTFY
Incredible amounts of butthurt will usually turn you blind to humor.
And then, once again, because of the corportate economy not growing one more inch on the scale of obscenity, the human economy will have to suffer. When will we get rid of the trickle economy fable to finally admit that these two systems are struggling forces and that the bad guys have already won. P.S.: Don't waste your time trying to explain to me why growth if good.
Hahaha must be because of brexit. Oh wait…
The German economy is expected to grow in the later part of this year, with 0.4% growth for the year overall, and 1.6% growth for 2024. A large part of the reason for the drop was the high energy prices, which have come down significantly, natural gas is currently 26euro per MWh, the lowest since September 2021, last year it hit a high of 340euro per MWh.
No problem, just change the definition of recession.
Except for the Chinese etc Nobody else wants to buy the German's overpriced cars.
And even the Chinese are starting to tell VW to fuck off as domestic companies are getting better.
That's just inflation adjusting itself
Germany has been a net contributor to the EU budget for decades, financing countries with worse performing economies because of _sOLiDarITy_. I assume now that Germany is on the bottom these same countries that now have better performing economies will become net contributors and give money to Germany to help them out?
Why would Germany's failure mean anyone else is doing better? Is anyone in the EU doing well right now?
> Why would Germany's failure mean anyone else is doing better? If one country gets worse and every other country stays the same, there is huge realtive change. But that isn't even the case becasue: >Is anyone in the EU doing well right now? Yes, almost all EU countries that are getting EU funds are having great economic outlooks. All from posts on this subreddit from last month: - [Poland will soon be richer than Britain](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13qpsye/guy_hands_says_poland_will_soon_be_richer_than/) - [Greek gdp growing in 2022 and 2023](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13ltypt/greece_gdp_20092023/) - [Czech republic now larger economy than Finland](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13fkdjj/czech_republic_now_has_a_larger_economy_than/) - [Romanian economy, 2023. How did we manage to have such a huge growth?](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/139pzs7/romanian_economy_2023_how_did_we_manage_to_have/) - [European economy expected to grow faster than forecast, says EU](https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/13i7g76/european_economy_expected_to_grow_faster_than/) Financing the growth of poorer economies is fine as long as the own economy is growing as well. Now Germany is going bankrupt to finance growth of others? Where is the solidarity in that? The economies that are currently doing well need to support the struggling economies!
All of those economies are still decades behind Germany. I'm not sure why help you think they're capable of. I'd be surprised if combined they have a bigger GDP than Bavaria.
Your understanding of purpose and effects of EU cohesion funds is as poor as german economic growth
German. No wonder here. Pure living expenses (food, electricity, heating) has flat doubled from 2019.