Germany racked up one economic success after another for most of this century. But the loss of Russian natural gas due to the war in Ukraine has dealt a severe blow to its industry through higher energy costs.
Can you still bathe in as much or temporarily less amount of water?
The whole world will have a GDP slump in a couple of decades when the reduced child mortality rates in the global south hit the fertility rate and overall population drops and manufacturers will have to face the fact that fewer people don’t use more washing machines.
Heck without exports the German economy would already have shrunk the last decades, the only reason we didn’t is because other countries developed, buying vehicles, factories and plants, electronics, whatnot. We wouldn’t be able to even begin to consume all that stuff ourselves. “Hey, Germans, buy three million cars to make up for the shortfall!” – nah that’s going to happen what am I supposed to do with a car and the Poles already all drive German cars.
Or, differently put: With the automation tech of ten years ago the whole world could have 70% unemployment and still produce western middle-class living standards for everyone (modulo cars which are a bad idea anyway use public transport). I don’t have exact numbers but Germany on its own, only exporting enough to have a net zero on the balance sheet, should be able to hit around 40% or so, and that’s with the incentives for capital to actually automate still being terribly low (high ROI but also long-term meanwhile in five years it’ll be cheaper). Thus, meanwhile, our unemployment.
Can you still bathe in as much or temporarily less amount of water?
The whole world will have a GDP slump in a couple of decades when the reduced child mortality rates in the global south hit the fertility rate and overall population drops and manufacturers will have to face the fact that fewer people don’t use more washing machines.
Heck without exports the German economy would already have shrunk the last decades, the only reason we didn’t is because other countries developed, buying vehicles, factories and plants, electronics, whatnot. We wouldn’t be able to even begin to consume all that stuff ourselves. “Hey, Germans, buy three million cars to make up for the shortfall!” – nah that’s going to happen what am I supposed to do with a car and the Poles already all drive German cars.
Or, differently put: With the automation tech of ten years ago the whole world could have 70% unemployment and still produce western middle-class living standards for everyone (modulo cars which are a bad idea anyway use public transport). I don’t have exact numbers but Germany on its own, only exporting enough to have a net zero on the balance sheet, should be able to hit around 40% or so, and that’s with the incentives for capital to actually automate still being terribly low (high ROI but also long-term meanwhile in five years it’ll be cheaper). Thus, meanwhile, our unemployment.