It turns out that Germany's economic problems are not just temporary, said Aleksandra Fedorska, an economic analyst who is particularly looking at the situation in Germany, in an interview with Lukasz Jankowski on WNET Radio. The starting point of the conversation was the International Monetary Fund forecasts, which show that our neighbor is not in a good position.
Germany is in crisis
Fedorska pointed out that Germany was able to some extent to solve the energy crisis by replacing raw materials coming from Russia with products from other countries, but they have major problems in the labor market. Germany has boomed economically in recent years, but that has ended. At the same time, Germany became accustomed to very high prosperity, and people wanted to work less. Germans are working less and less, and not only are they working fewer hours, they are also less productive […] She said that German worker productivity increases only slightly compared to other countries where increases are higher.
Fedorska gave the example of Poland, where this increase in 2019 reached 5 percent, while in Germany it ranged from 1 to 1.6 percent. In China, by contrast, there were years when employee productivity increased by 10 percent, and now it is about 4 percent.
In this context, the analyst pointed out the weakness of technological innovation in Germany compared to the United States of America. – Germany is losing significantly to the United States. In today's new economic world, we increasingly need highly qualified and motivated employees. In the current economic environment, Germany is experiencing a motivational and mental crisis and every German politician will have to tell his or her voters that they have to work harder, which is of course unpopular and the politician who says so first will lose. Fedorska said Germany is in a trap and will soon have to make very unpopular decisions.
The United States of America leaves Europe
At the end of March, Tomasz Wroblowski spoke about the growing advantage of the US economy over the European economy, citing several interesting actions on the channel “Igor Yankee – Open System”.
– In 2008, the EU's GDP represented 90%. GDP of the United States. Today it represents 50 percent. GDP of the United States. If we take disposable income, that is, what is left for each European or American after paying taxes, rent and all basic fees, then in the United States it is on average PLN 52,000. Dollars annually per head. The head of the Warsaw Institute of Enterprise noted that this is the amount remaining for the average American citizen. As for Europe, in the richest country – Luxembourg, an average citizen is left with 45,000 Polish zlotys. dollar. The average in the European Union is 32,000 dollars, in Poland it is 16 thousand. Dollar – he added.
-This shows the scale. Basically, whatever indicator we use – technological growth, innovation, robotics, employment, labor productivity – America dominates Europe – Wroblewski emphasized. – It is a dynamically developing country, with rapid economic growth and a very low unemployment rate – practically anyone who wants to find a job can find it now. The problems are social and America must deal with this issue. “He must also decide how he wants to build his relations with China, which is also developing very rapidly, but is undoubtedly a different world from Europe in terms of wealth,” Tomasz Wroblewski added.
Wróblewski cited the reasons for the competitive advantage of the USA over Europe, among others: social redistribution, excessive regulation and bureaucracy in the EU. All of this means that Europe has not only failed to catch up with America, but has begun to fall further and further behind.
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