Well, until around 2003, Germany was the world market leader in photovoltaic systems. Unfortunately, various conservative governments failed to provide the necessary support for research, development, or manufacturing—they did quite the contrary, in fact—with the result that there are now almost no relevant manufacturers left in Germany and the country plays virtually no role in this industry anymore.
Unfortunately, it’s the same as with many other things: lobbying and corruption among politicians are reliably ensuring that the country continues to decline—added to this is excessive bureaucracy and outdated administrative structures, which make innovation extremely difficult.
In short: it’s really no surprise that we now find ourselves in a pretty dire situation.
They could have had fiber optic internet already back in the 80ies (not at the speeds we have today of course, but still) but Kohl’s buddies were big in copper and cable TV so that’s what they got. Good ol’ CDU/CSU corruption. Nothing ever changes.
Yes, unfortunately, but one thing is certain: the goddamned Nazis of the AfD, who already have the support of a quarter of the population because they falsely portray themselves as saviors, will ruin the country for good if they ever come to power. You only have to look at the US to see how disastrous a fascist government is and where its priorities actually lie.
It’s kind of amazing to have this flipped to where Germany is pointing the to US on the dangers of giving in to fascism. We never learn the right lessons from history.
Oh noo, who could have seen this coming? Its almost like there is no such thing as infinite growth…
When it comes to GDP, growth IS supposed to be infinite because inflation pushes the numbers up.
Until the entire economy and or governance system collapses which happens every couple generations.
Not sure what the relevance is? I’m pointing out that even if the economy is 100% static with 0 growth, the numbers should go up because of inflation. Also, unlike companies that are in a fixed field of business, economies increase in value as the countries move up the value chain (which should happen to all countries as technology progresses).
Is that how inflation works? Cause I don’t think it is. Inflation is caused by creating more money than you’re removing from the system - having no effect on actual resources in an ideal setting. So they’re completely decoupled. You could have no growth and no inflation or no growth and tons of inflation, depending entirely on how much money is in the system (which is not the same thing as more houses or food, etc).
IANAE, so I might be wrong. My understanding is that GDP represents how much a country produced, in a year, in both services and physical goods. Assuming a normal inflation rate of a few %, if a country produced just as much this year as it did last year, it should see a GDP increase as the number value of those goods and services has increased due to inflation. Hence, infinite GDP growth.
I think you’re right, I just think you’re tying together two concepts under an a assumption of forced inflation - which again is correct because we do force it every year but I think the distinction is important. We could reduce or increase inflation at the government level because it’s inherently controlled by the government.
But maybe this isn’t as helpful of a distinction as I think it is.
Yes, I do assume forced inflation, because under our current economic system that’s a given. Zero inflation or deflation would lead to huge economic instability and no govt in their right mind (ignoring Japan) would choose not to inflate the currency routinely. It just wasn’t very relevant to my original comment.
Your original response was responding to someone saying infinite growth isn’t possible. You were stating it’s 100% supposed to be infinite. I was saying that it’s neither tied to actual resources (not GDP) nor is it 100% necessary. It’s inherently forced and “number go up” is not necessarily good economic policy - which is pretty obvious to see given the state of the world as GDP and the stock markets are increasingly detached from the majority of human metrics and therefore reality.
So I think it’s very relevant to your original comment, especially when considering we’re talking about economic policy on a website that doesn’t assume a massive degree of financial literacy because saying things here out of context become truths to people who don’t know better. This propagates a poor understanding of how our financial system works imo so accuracy is hopefully appreciated.
This is terrible. We could never survive with 0.3% less.
Merz taking a leading role in the de-growth movement, I see
I doubt this government lasts half as long as the last and I fear for what may come next.
Oh noes, those poor billionaires.
There is a strong well developed social safety net for billionaires.
