For most of this century, Germany racked up one economic success after another, dominating global markets for high-end products like luxury cars and industrial machinery, selling so much to the rest of the world that half the economy ran on exports.
Jobs were plentiful, the government’s financial coffers grew as other European countries drowned in debt, and books were written about what other countries could learn from Germany.
No longer. Now, Germany is the world’s worst-performing major developed economy, with both the International Monetary Fund and European Union expecting it to shrink this year.
It might be overstating some things, but I’ve heard quite a few hardware startups fail the past years due to parts shortage, rising parts costs, energy costs, etc.
On the large industry scale the machine is ticking away just fine, but I’ve experienced first hand how those factors have decimated any reserves small players have over the past few years. And large companies don’t innovate nearly as much as small ones can - competitive advantages for the future are definitely lost here. While that may not be a problem today, that does mean Germany will be behind on innovation in 5 - 10 years.
And other countries didn’t have parts shortage etc?