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Germany Falls into Recession

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Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#201
post #100

China is outcompeting Germany as a manufacturer of high value goods, particularly cars [1][2]. Last year it overtook Germany as the second biggest car exporter. In the first three months of this year, China has surpassed Japan to become the world's top car exporter for the first time. This is due to its strength in EVs (while Germany's strength is in ICEs). Volkswagen holds a 2% share of the Chinese EV market while t…

> the shut down of nuclear power thanks to the Greens The decision to shut down our nuclear reactors came from a conservative government, where the greens were in the opposition. The prices have not been rising due to the shutdown of our nuclear plants, but due to price gauging by electrical companies, and due to russia falling away as a cheap gas supplier. Nuclear only made up 5% of our energy production 2023 and 11…

> Replacing our entire nuclear capacity with renewables within a single year

This seems irrelevant to nuclear decommissioning (and pricing). Both can be true. More importantly, since you seem to think that renewables are a cheap replacement for existing nuclear (i think both can easily coexist), do you have any numbers that manufacturing, installing and operating brand new renewables capacity is cheaper than the old nuclear that has already been built? (where most of its cost comes from, already paid decades ago)

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median real wage in Germany grew until the 90s, stagnated for a while, then started declining in the early noughts[0], with the effect worse for new entrants to the employment marketplace (i.e. young people and immigrants). The latter is predictable in a developed country (meaning past peak GDP growth) with high social safety nets and employee protection (meaning an additional burden for newer entrants to clear).…

Looking only at workers earnings is misleading in both Germany and the United States because it ignores monetary transfers through the government, which is a huge component of GDP. I can't speak for Germany, but for the US, worker earnings continue to climb if you count government mediated benefits. Similarly, it's impossible for worker income to grow at the rate of GDP while taxes grow faster than GDP

Looking at government benefits has its own set of shortcomings - it hides the struggle of “the middle class” where “middle class” is defined as starting at the point where one no longer qualifies for the most substantial government wealth transfer programs.
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