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Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

bloomberg.com

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Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#21

Post by zelphirkalt »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #5

The article lists a lot of things going bad for Germany. But was there some underlying reason? Like demographics, shrinking population? Or is it just the obvious , Russian gas, rising Energy costs, now their prices are too high, so exports are down.

Bad governments that actively hinder progress on many fronts (just look for example at Wissing as a transport minister being completely anti train service, destroying infrastructure for the people, while dancing to the tune of car manufacturers), lining their own pockets, corruption, unfettered lobbyism and bad policies for education system added their weight to this.

A country can only take so much incapability and corruption, before things go downhill.

As a German I warn, we better watch Germany very closely, if the likes of AfD get to power. Way too many people are either desperate enough or uninformed enough or disappointed enough to vote for the far right bordering illegal.

This has all been in the making for a long time, due to previous and current governments. A party like FDP is very far removed from its originally held values, and would love to jump in bed with the far right AfD, if that brought them into the government again after the Ampel coalition. They are traitors of democracy basically, just like CDU.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#22

Post by konschubert »

mamonster wrote: post #16
konschubert wrote: post #10

People are blaming energy prices but I don’t understand: As far as I can tell, wholesale prices for both gas and electricity are lower than before the start of the war.

Supply curve shifts left, demand curve shifts left -> price is the same.

That’s not how demand curves work.

If you hold the price fixed or your decrease it, demand will increase, not decrease.

If you reduce supply, price finds a new equilibrium at lower demand, but that price is always HIGER than before. The fact that prices are equal or lower prices they this cannot be it.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#24

Post by spqrr »

lagrange77 wrote: post #23
spqrr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My grandparents lived through this and were fine. It'll be ok I'm sure.

? Would you elaborate, just to be sure we're talking about the same movie?

If you are offended or amused you are interpreting it correctly.

EDIT: Maybe I got it wrong but as as I understand grandparent is referring to the increasingly Weimar-like conditions politically and economically.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#25

Post by mamonster »

konschubert wrote: post #22
mamonster wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supply curve shifts left, demand curve shifts left -> price is the same.

That’s not how demand curves work. If you hold the price fixed or your decrease it, demand will increase, not decrease. If you reduce supply, price finds a new equilibrium at lower demand, but that price is always HIGER than before. The fact that prices are equal or lower prices they this cannot be it.

That is exactly how they work if both demand and supply shift.

Example: P_d=100-Q P_s=Q

Solve P_d = P_s to get Q=50, P=50

Take a left shift like 80 - Q in demand, and take a left shift in supply like P=1.66Q. Solving now you get Q=30, P=50

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#26

Post by JPLeRouzic »

treprinum wrote: post #6
FrustratedMonky wrote: post #5

The article lists a lot of things going bad for Germany. But was there some underlying reason? Like demographics, shrinking population? Or is it just the obvious , Russian gas, rising Energy costs, now their prices are too high, so exports are down.

I'd say the main problem is "leadersh*t", incompetent captains of industry. It's so pervasive and prevalent that I really don't see any hope for them. People are also getting more and more unprofessional and expect high pay for subpar results. Devs on the other hand are hugely underpaid and the country operates in a two caste system of managers vs everybody else though not as badly as the UK. There is also a high ave…

> People are also getting more and more unprofessional

> the country operates in a two-caste system

I don't know for today but I remember in the 1980' some German engineers playing games on their computers during work at Deutsch Telecom.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#27

Post by throwaway4good »

konschubert wrote: post #10

People are blaming energy prices but I don’t understand: As far as I can tell, wholesale prices for both gas and electricity are lower than before the start of the war.

I think the problem is that German energy is expensive compared to other countries.

On top of that you have regulation and lack of subsidies making other places more attractive to produce in ie. the US, Eastern Europe or China.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#28

Post by tormeh »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #5

The article lists a lot of things going bad for Germany. But was there some underlying reason? Like demographics, shrinking population? Or is it just the obvious , Russian gas, rising Energy costs, now their prices are too high, so exports are down.

Demographics is the big one. Obviously fewer workers and more retirees, but also a gerontocracy where many parties primarily want to go back to some idealised version of the past. The CDU is basically the party of 1960s car adverts. The Greens are hippies, recent management notwithstanding. The SPD has an identity crisis, but before that was classic cold-war social democrats. The Left is fortunately going extinct, but was classic Warsaw Pact. There’s a bit of a trend here. The general population is generally looking backwards, and decision-makers and bureaucrats skew even older than the general population.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#29

Post by treprinum »

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #26
treprinum wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the main problem is "leadersh*t", incompetent captains of industry. It's so pervasive and prevalent that I really don't see any hope for them. People are also getting more and more unprofessional and expect high pay for subpar results. Devs on the other hand are hugely underpaid and the country operates in a two caste system of managers vs everybody else though not as badly as the UK. There is also a high ave…

> People are also getting more and more unprofessional > the country operates in a two-caste system I don't know for today but I remember in the 1980' some German engineers playing games on their computers during work at Deutsch Telecom.

An accounting professor of Turkish origin in my MBA program in the US was making fun of Germany after the Wirecard scandal that he could have imagined such crime in Turkey but never in Germany and then shrugged his shoulders.

Re: Germany's days as an industrial superpower are coming to an end

#30

Post by verticalscaler »

Patience. This is just a minor setback of demographics and energy supplies - Angela Merkel (a supremely skilled stateswoman who was in power for 17 years) saw this coming from a mile away and very competently bet the farm on Russian gas and importing millions of unskilled people from the far corners of the earth to solve these problems.

They will start turning it around any moment now. As Germans are famous for their rationality it is literally impossible for things to not go according to plan.

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