Live data from Hacker News

Germany Falls into Recession

cnn.com

71–80 of 203 posts

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not going to happen, salaries are depressed and are not keeping up with inflation by a large margin.

The balance on an existing loan doesn’t increase with inflation, though.

Yes, but the interest payments on mortgages with variable rates had doubled. Now some people basically are paying interest only without paying off their principal amount.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#72
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a brief interaction with a real estate agent a few months back and he told me they really have trouble selling houses now at those interest rates. The run on housing apparently has dialed back significantly. He also mentioned that he thinks in around 5 and 10 years time the market might be flooded with houses people bought at low interest rates because they will not be able to pay their mortgage at these new in…

How the f can you have such a big mortgage, with a variable interest rate, and sleep at night ? I'm french, and everyone I know has a fixed interest rate. dont know if it is mandatory, but God, I am so glad that my interest rate will never spike.

In 5 years you should have large portion of principal paid off so this would not matter.

Average 30 year mortgage is paid off in 11 years.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#73
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energy cost might be the cause of that interest rate though.

Not from what I know. The high energy costs are due to a effective and possible felt scarcity which occured at the beginning of the war in Ucraine. The energy companies are now planing to reduce the costs with as much as 25% from next month, since the marked is now flooded with gas and renewables ( a lof of new wind parks and solar installation will go online the next month ). I honestly I do not know why the interes…

There is a correlation. Germany has the reputation of being very concerned with inflation, which happens when the amount of money in circulation grows relative to the supply of goods to buy. When there is a supply shock (such as this energy conflict), inflation is the natural result, but a concerned government can respond by increasing interest rates to reduce the amount of money in circulation. That way they get less inflation than they would have otherwise, at the cost of slowing down the economy.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but every system has flaws. For the most part the Euro and ECB has been a benefit for every country in it. Even a country like Greece. As bad as the single currency was for Greece, outside the EU and Eurozone, Greece could very likely have been closer to Venezuela with even fewer resource wealth to benefit from.

Other way around. The euro has been a net loss for all but 2 countries

Then why are a lot of countries trying to get in it? Why didn't Greece go out when it had the chance?

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#75
post #18

Actually the biggest blow was not the energy costs, but the interest rates. They went from 1-2% now at 4-5, even 6% for real-estate ( new building and old ) while the prices are still at last year level. For other types of financing, I had a "good" offer which went to 12% interest. I felt like in a 3rd world country. With such expensive money, nothing will be done. The construction economy is really going dow from mi…

Most countries raised interest rates to the same level but they are not in recessesion. I don't know what does it says about Germany's economy... At least in Canada I believe the recession was averted by increasing immigration.

I guess the reasons are more than just the interest rates. Interest rates kill off longer-term investments like building homes.

But there was also a rather steep hike in (mostly greed-caused) inflation of everyday goods and energy prices, official overall rate was slightly above 10%, but for foodstuffs it went above 20% inflation. At the same time, wages didn't keep up, raises were below 10%, often below 5%. Inflation-corrected disposable income went down roughly 10%. So consumers also have less money to spend on their day-to-day needs and of course reallocated all the spending on "extras" (like luxury items, organic foods, leisure), to the basics (energy and less expensive basic nutrition). Which can be seen e.g. at energy providers raking in the profits while e.g. gastronomy is in a bad place.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#76
post #18

Actually the biggest blow was not the energy costs, but the interest rates. They went from 1-2% now at 4-5, even 6% for real-estate ( new building and old ) while the prices are still at last year level. For other types of financing, I had a "good" offer which went to 12% interest. I felt like in a 3rd world country. With such expensive money, nothing will be done. The construction economy is really going dow from mi…

I had a brief interaction with a real estate agent a few months back and he told me they really have trouble selling houses now at those interest rates. The run on housing apparently has dialed back significantly. He also mentioned that he thinks in around 5 and 10 years time the market might be flooded with houses people bought at low interest rates because they will not be able to pay their mortgage at these new in…

10 years is a long time. This prediction requires two things to happen: interest rates never decline in that period and wages of the owners stay the same. Given the inverse relationship between the two, I don't see that happening. Even modest 3% wage growth over 10 years is an increase of 34%, 4% pushes that to 50%.

Since the mortgage is fixed, these wage gains don't even need to be "real" (positive when inflation adjusted).

> I also wonder if people who are in a position to sell our build houses will try (and maybe even succeed?) to sit this out or whether we will see a downward trend in prices again.

You can't time the market. It's so difficult to predict what is going to happen in the future with any degree of certainty. Also, where are you going to live in the mean time?

Lots of people were burned in 2014-now by assuming the housing market was going to "collapse any minute now" then watching the exact opposite happen. It's as if they thought 2008 was some kind of regular occurrence and not a black swan event.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#77

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…

who can realistically challenge the chinese EV market in terms of efficiency / cost? simplicity of EV motors + established industry + possible commodity imports from russia

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#78

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…

Agreed that Europe & US manufacturers will lose Chinese domestic market. Any data to show Chinese EVs taking over Europe though? Haven’t seen that happening.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#79

They shouldn't be shutting down nuclear. Build more nuclear reactors. That will provide more clean energy and a lot of jobs. Modernize the grid. Make it a smarter grid that is more resilient to harm. These projects pay for themselves quickly and are easy to finance with how much wealth Germany has.

There's no way that's gonna happen unfortunately. The greens have absolutely dropped the ball in terms of big picture goals. We've been brainwashed into thinking nuclear power is dangerous and the problem of waste is bigger than the problem of having non renewable, oil based, energy. In hindsight I wouldn't be surprised if the oil lobby had a hand in that.

The greens haven't been part of the national government for decades until 2021. I disagree with their decision to not keep the nuclear reactors running, but if you want to point fingers at people it's not them that unilaterally decided to stop building new reactors.

Re: Germany Falls into Recession

#80
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not getting poorer nor is inflation still out of control

> The US is not getting poorer then why am I being asked to bail out a generation's college loans? then why is food bank use at an all time high? then why are more six-figure earners reporting to be living paycheck-to-paycheck? then why is personal credit card debt at an all time high?

[flagged]
Post reply on HN