9 ms·

I had no idea the economy was like that in Germany. I’ve recently been considering moving there from the US so it’s kind of a bummer to learn this.

peer2pay 3y ago
It’s hard not to be pessimistic in Germany these days. Population is aging and paying for the retirement money for all existing retirees is already taking up over 25% of government spending. There’s barely money for anything else so taxes and social security payments are poised to go up while already being close to ~50% for most earners. There’s a strong and growing far-right movement full of populist and even neo-nazi ideologies. Infrastructure is still top notch internationally but funding has been cut over the last decades and it’s starting to show. I could go on but I think you get the picture. Many people in my social circle want to leave the country so I would really think twice about moving here.
- andersa 3y ago
  > Many people in my social circle want to leave the country And go where?
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    France? Belgium? US? UK? Ireland? Austria? Switzerland? Poland? Czechia? Luxembourg? Netherlands? Norway? Sweden? Denmark? There's no perfect country, just one where you have the least amount of compromises. Or where your family unit is.
    - tejinderss 3y ago
      > Ireland Good luck with finding housing here.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        You can say the same thing about Berlin. Every livable tech hub is full.
    - jabradoodle 3y ago
      I wouldn't suggest putting the UK in that list, absolutely crumbling and showing no signs of stopping.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        If you work in tech you'll be fine there.
        alphager 3y ago
        And you'd be fine in Germany. HN paints an overly gloomy picture of Germany. All points mentioned contain a kernel of truth but also a pessimistic linear regression concerning the outlook of the future. We've got a very minor recession going on, that's all. The economy will turn around next year. The energy crisis is of the higher price than usual variety (and is already way past its peak; look at the 5y chart: https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_price https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_pr...). The greenefication of our electrical grid is ongoing and will cost us a ton of money over the next 5-10 years, but will pay off after that (yes, it would have been better to keep the atomic power plants running until then; that's one of the few irrational decision done by the previous conservative government and confirmed by the current government). We had a large immigration spike in 2015 and another one in 2022 (Syria and Ukraine), overfilling the immigration centers. Aging population is a thing, as in any other western country. Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! And we're currently (and for the next decade) in serious need of unskilled labor, so even the 40% of syrian refugees that haven't gotten work yet (many of those because of the slow bureaucracy...) will be needed. It's certainly not all sunshine and rainbows, but it's also certainly not a crumbling country without a future.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! But where will they live? Germany has a housing shortage it refuses to fix, but is constantly importing more economic cannon fodder.
    - Gud 3y ago
      I live in Switzerland since a few years back. I love Switzerland, it is the best country in the world I've ever been, by far. Unless you want to live in a mega city or on the coast. The only drawback is you must speak either French, Italian or learn Swiss-Deutch, a very difficult German dialect to learn. I'd scratch France, Belgium, Sweden and the UK off that list. I've worked 6+ months in all those countries and well, they're not great. What's worse is they're going in the wrong direction. I'm from Sweden and it is rapidly deteriorating. It saddens me greatly to say this, but I don't think my home country has a very bright future. When you hear the politicians talk it seems they finally realize that they have fucked up the country. But not to what extent, and their solutions are a joke. It will only get worse, and it will never be the same. Before you consider Belgium, I suggest you spend some time in Brussels. You will know what I mean. Maybe Flanders... I really like Antwerp, actually it's one of my favorite cities. If you like beer, you will love Antwerp. I was working in Antwerp for a long time. But why bother with Belgium when Netherlands is right there? The UK is dirty and the cities are full of homeless and it has a byzantine bureaucracy on top of everything. I'm currently working in Liverpool(not by choice, posted by my company) but I have been pretty much all over the U.K. Some places are better than others, the country side is all right, but still. Don't go there. The U.K. truly is a dying empire.
      - TMWNN 3y ago
        >I'm from Sweden and it is rapidly deteriorating. It saddens me greatly to say this, but I don't think my home country has a very bright future. When you hear the politicians talk it seems they finally realize that they have fucked up the country. But not to what extent, and their solutions are a joke. It will only get worse, and it will never be the same. Context for others: Sweden has no language, income, employment, or skills requirement <https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/Becoming-a-Swedish-citizen/Apply-for-citizenship/Citizenship-for-adults.html https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/...> for obtaining citizenship. In completely unrelated news, Arabic is now the second most spoken language in Sweden <https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_popover.aspx?guid=7047637a-c5f5-4297-9afa-a273dd443a9a https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_po...>.
  - peer2pay 3y ago
    I think that’s a fair question. The grass is always greener but most are thinking about Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands. For me, climate change should also factor into this. While Germany will probably be fine temperature wise, I’m not sure if I’d considered moving to Southern Europe anymore.
    - angra_mainyu 3y ago
      Really? Having been in those places that's like going from bad to worse.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        Where is it going from bad to worse?
  - usrusr 3y ago
    One person I know went to the United States. Ten to Switzerland. Zero anywhere else on the planet. Not sure the US guy counts though, quite possible that it's only a temporary assignment from his home employer. If you wonder what the Swiss do, when all those Germans take their jobs: my observation, utterly anecdotal of course, is that they commute to Liechtenstein.
    - dgellow 3y ago
      Seeing that we are at the level of anecdotes, as a Swiss I went to Germany and don’t plan to ever go back. Other friends went to the UK, Japan, the US, Canada. So there is that. And not because foreigners take our jobs, that’s an utterly absurd concept, Switzerland wouldn’t be the country it is without cross border workers and people immigrating. Our dumb isolationist and social conservative politics are costing the country and community a lot.
  - mharig 3y ago
    I would say 'South America'. But I do not want more Germans (or other decadent Konsumvieh from industrialised nation states) here.
- protortyp 3y ago
  I strongly agree. Much of my social circle went to Amsterdam in hopes of better salaries and the tax benefit for the first few years.
- lnsru 3y ago
  Well when a refugee with 2 kids gets 1890€ in cash, Kindergeld on top, free health insurance and free housing… I am also becoming very quickly populist and even neo-nazi follower. That’s income level of white collar worker after university studies and few years work experience. This nonsense with uncontrolled immigration must be over asap. Get the people some warm shelter and warm food, don’t throw money at them!
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    > I am also becoming very quickly populist and even neo-nazi follower Yikes. Go read a history book before you end up like your predecessors from the 30s and 40s.
  - killdozer 3y ago
    "Look, you're just FORCING me to become a 'neo-nazi follower' by helping these people too much!"
    - zuzu89 3y ago
      This is what happens when the established parties refuse to do anything about it and don't even address the issue seriously, instead immediately labeling people who see the problem as "Nazis." The obvious conclusion from this is that these people are inevitably supporting parties that see this is an issue.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      It’s a very poor tasteful way of saying anti-immigrant sentiment doesn’t appear in a vacuum. That some auto label such people with this sentiment as neo Nazis is another issue.
    - Gud 3y ago
      A more apt description would be, taking money from Insrus pocket and giving it to someone else. Someone who deliberately broke the rules and exploited a system designed to help people in need. I'd be pissed too if that were to happen to me.
    - 3y ago
- sneed_chucker 3y ago
  The far-right movements are a completely predictable and preventable result of the immigration policy of the last 2 decades.
- nicbou 3y ago
  The same is true everywhere else, and there a mix of unrest and despondency grows from it. Society has failed this generation the world over.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>I had no idea the economy was like that in Germany. Addiction to Russian gas, over-bureaucratic system that's super inefficient with tax-money meaning most goes to waste, an ageing population hoarding all the wealth and burdening the welfare system, uncontrolled unskilled immigration further burdening the welfare system and pushing rents up, clueless boomer leaders not investing in innovation and capturing new areas of the economy, refusing to build more real-estate because environment further pushing housing up, politics based on ideology not reality, a clueless and arrogant voter base thinking everything is perfect and none of the issues above need addressing, will do that to you. Though, that's most of Europe, not just Germany.
- vkou 3y ago
  Why is an aging population an issue? Labour participation and productivity is up over the decades, society can produce more than enough widgets to keep everyone comfortable, despite the aging population causing a regression-to-historic-mean in labour participation.
  - flutas 3y ago
    I've done no research and don't have a stake in the game, so I'm blindly just copy/pasting another comment on here. But if it's accurate I could see it being an issue. > Population is aging and paying for the retirement money for all existing retirees is already taking up over 25% of government spending. There’s barely money for anything else so taxes and social security payments are poised to go up while already being close to ~50% for most earners.
    - pgeorgi 3y ago
      The tax/social contributions stuff can be cherry picked to become very high and very low to support any point people want to make. There are employer contributions in Germany that are recently counted in such calculations to prove a point, while leaving costs for "benefits" in US companies off the table when doing the comparison. Some like to add the VAT to the "what life costs here", which is a 19% (except for necessities, which are at 7%). If you refuse to accept such calculations that mix up tax brackets (popular error in that space), that immediately filters out 90% of them.
angra_mainyu 3y ago
I'd wait a bit, at least until end of Q1 2024 to see which place makes the most sense socioeconomically. That said, I strongly recommend the Balkans (e.g: Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, etc.) if you have a remote source of income: very safe, great people, fantastic culture, in the big cities English is widely spoken, low cost-of-living, active tech communities, and you're usually surrounded by tons of beautiful nature and again, some of the best people ever. Not to mention, setting up your own company usually allows you to operate in a low tax/tax-optimized fashion. For what it's worth, I've lived all over Europe (including Germany) and the Balkans really must be the best place in Europe - as long as you're earning remotely, local wages are unfortunately ridiculously low.
- konschubert 3y ago
  Serbia is preparing to invade Kosovo: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/30/europe/kosovo-tensions-military-buid-up-explainer-intl/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/30/europe/kosovo-tensions-mi...
  - angra_mainyu 3y ago
    I follow the news closely as I'm in the area, nothing's going to happen aside from the usual posturing, Serbia's in no rush to be once again on the sharp end of NATO's pointy stick. Even Vucic made it clear: https://www.koha.net/en/arboretum/393870/Serbia-will-not-bring-military-forces-to-Kosovo/ https://www.koha.net/en/arboretum/393870/Serbia-will-not-bri...
- qwytw 3y ago
  > you're usually surrounded by tons of beautiful nature and again Also very high pollutions levels: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Horalek/publication/281092107/figure/fig1/AS:284602586419200@1444865952557/European-map-showing-the-interpolation-result-for-the-Delta-values-of-PM-10-annual.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Horalek/publication...
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
amelius 3y ago
There was some discussion about it a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172818
ivix 3y ago
Why on earth would you live your life by a sub single digit percentage swing in an abstrusely calculated macroeconomic statistic?
tbeiwhsj 3y ago
[flagged]
eigenspace 3y ago
Honestly, the gloom over Germany’s economy is fairly overblown. Germany is facing challenges, but they're by no means as apocalyptic as people make them out to be. It’s not really a German recession, but instead a global manufacturing recession. Germany’s economy is highly exposed to manufacturing, and so it shows up more in the country-wide economic stats. If you look at almost any major manufacturing country right now, their manufacturing sector is also in recession. Many other economic sectors of Germany are doing just fine, especially services. Unemployment is also very very low, so the country is well positioned to re-absorb any jobs that may be lost if some manufacturing companies go under, and those jobs may end up going into more productive companies or sectors anyways. I moved here from Canada two months ago and I’m really liking it so far.
Barrin92 3y ago
We're currently in a war, a complete energy transition, global supply chain disruptions all hitting an export driven economy at the same time, and yet we're talking about GDP stagnation or decline of a fraction of a percent. People are truly dramatic these days, if you had asked me five years ago what the toll of something like this would be I'd have guessed it'd be ten times as bad. Give it a few years and don't base your long term decisions on stuff like this, Germany has always been resilient and able to adapt, if a little slowly at times. The 'sick man of Europe' debate is not new and the cup gets passed around every once in a while.

peer2pay 3y ago

It’s hard not to be pessimistic in Germany these days. Population is aging and paying for the retirement money for all existing retirees is already taking up over 25% of government spending. There’s barely money for anything else so taxes and social security payments are poised to go up while already being close to ~50% for most earners. There’s a strong and growing far-right movement full of populist and even neo-nazi ideologies. Infrastructure is still top notch internationally but funding has been cut over the last decades and it’s starting to show. I could go on but I think you get the picture. Many people in my social circle want to leave the country so I would really think twice about moving here.

andersa 3y ago
> Many people in my social circle want to leave the country And go where?
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  France? Belgium? US? UK? Ireland? Austria? Switzerland? Poland? Czechia? Luxembourg? Netherlands? Norway? Sweden? Denmark? There's no perfect country, just one where you have the least amount of compromises. Or where your family unit is.
  - tejinderss 3y ago
    > Ireland Good luck with finding housing here.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      You can say the same thing about Berlin. Every livable tech hub is full.
  - jabradoodle 3y ago
    I wouldn't suggest putting the UK in that list, absolutely crumbling and showing no signs of stopping.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      If you work in tech you'll be fine there.
      - alphager 3y ago
        And you'd be fine in Germany. HN paints an overly gloomy picture of Germany. All points mentioned contain a kernel of truth but also a pessimistic linear regression concerning the outlook of the future. We've got a very minor recession going on, that's all. The economy will turn around next year. The energy crisis is of the higher price than usual variety (and is already way past its peak; look at the 5y chart: https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_price https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_pr...). The greenefication of our electrical grid is ongoing and will cost us a ton of money over the next 5-10 years, but will pay off after that (yes, it would have been better to keep the atomic power plants running until then; that's one of the few irrational decision done by the previous conservative government and confirmed by the current government). We had a large immigration spike in 2015 and another one in 2022 (Syria and Ukraine), overfilling the immigration centers. Aging population is a thing, as in any other western country. Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! And we're currently (and for the next decade) in serious need of unskilled labor, so even the 40% of syrian refugees that haven't gotten work yet (many of those because of the slow bureaucracy...) will be needed. It's certainly not all sunshine and rainbows, but it's also certainly not a crumbling country without a future.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        >Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! But where will they live? Germany has a housing shortage it refuses to fix, but is constantly importing more economic cannon fodder.
  - Gud 3y ago
    I live in Switzerland since a few years back. I love Switzerland, it is the best country in the world I've ever been, by far. Unless you want to live in a mega city or on the coast. The only drawback is you must speak either French, Italian or learn Swiss-Deutch, a very difficult German dialect to learn. I'd scratch France, Belgium, Sweden and the UK off that list. I've worked 6+ months in all those countries and well, they're not great. What's worse is they're going in the wrong direction. I'm from Sweden and it is rapidly deteriorating. It saddens me greatly to say this, but I don't think my home country has a very bright future. When you hear the politicians talk it seems they finally realize that they have fucked up the country. But not to what extent, and their solutions are a joke. It will only get worse, and it will never be the same. Before you consider Belgium, I suggest you spend some time in Brussels. You will know what I mean. Maybe Flanders... I really like Antwerp, actually it's one of my favorite cities. If you like beer, you will love Antwerp. I was working in Antwerp for a long time. But why bother with Belgium when Netherlands is right there? The UK is dirty and the cities are full of homeless and it has a byzantine bureaucracy on top of everything. I'm currently working in Liverpool(not by choice, posted by my company) but I have been pretty much all over the U.K. Some places are better than others, the country side is all right, but still. Don't go there. The U.K. truly is a dying empire.
    - TMWNN 3y ago
      >I'm from Sweden and it is rapidly deteriorating. It saddens me greatly to say this, but I don't think my home country has a very bright future. When you hear the politicians talk it seems they finally realize that they have fucked up the country. But not to what extent, and their solutions are a joke. It will only get worse, and it will never be the same. Context for others: Sweden has no language, income, employment, or skills requirement <https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/Becoming-a-Swedish-citizen/Apply-for-citizenship/Citizenship-for-adults.html https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/...> for obtaining citizenship. In completely unrelated news, Arabic is now the second most spoken language in Sweden <https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_popover.aspx?guid=7047637a-c5f5-4297-9afa-a273dd443a9a https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_po...>.
- peer2pay 3y ago
  I think that’s a fair question. The grass is always greener but most are thinking about Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands. For me, climate change should also factor into this. While Germany will probably be fine temperature wise, I’m not sure if I’d considered moving to Southern Europe anymore.
  - angra_mainyu 3y ago
    Really? Having been in those places that's like going from bad to worse.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      Where is it going from bad to worse?
- usrusr 3y ago
  One person I know went to the United States. Ten to Switzerland. Zero anywhere else on the planet. Not sure the US guy counts though, quite possible that it's only a temporary assignment from his home employer. If you wonder what the Swiss do, when all those Germans take their jobs: my observation, utterly anecdotal of course, is that they commute to Liechtenstein.
  - dgellow 3y ago
    Seeing that we are at the level of anecdotes, as a Swiss I went to Germany and don’t plan to ever go back. Other friends went to the UK, Japan, the US, Canada. So there is that. And not because foreigners take our jobs, that’s an utterly absurd concept, Switzerland wouldn’t be the country it is without cross border workers and people immigrating. Our dumb isolationist and social conservative politics are costing the country and community a lot.
- mharig 3y ago
  I would say 'South America'. But I do not want more Germans (or other decadent Konsumvieh from industrialised nation states) here.
protortyp 3y ago
I strongly agree. Much of my social circle went to Amsterdam in hopes of better salaries and the tax benefit for the first few years.
lnsru 3y ago
Well when a refugee with 2 kids gets 1890€ in cash, Kindergeld on top, free health insurance and free housing… I am also becoming very quickly populist and even neo-nazi follower. That’s income level of white collar worker after university studies and few years work experience. This nonsense with uncontrolled immigration must be over asap. Get the people some warm shelter and warm food, don’t throw money at them!
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  > I am also becoming very quickly populist and even neo-nazi follower Yikes. Go read a history book before you end up like your predecessors from the 30s and 40s.
- killdozer 3y ago
  "Look, you're just FORCING me to become a 'neo-nazi follower' by helping these people too much!"
  - zuzu89 3y ago
    This is what happens when the established parties refuse to do anything about it and don't even address the issue seriously, instead immediately labeling people who see the problem as "Nazis." The obvious conclusion from this is that these people are inevitably supporting parties that see this is an issue.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    It’s a very poor tasteful way of saying anti-immigrant sentiment doesn’t appear in a vacuum. That some auto label such people with this sentiment as neo Nazis is another issue.
  - Gud 3y ago
    A more apt description would be, taking money from Insrus pocket and giving it to someone else. Someone who deliberately broke the rules and exploited a system designed to help people in need. I'd be pissed too if that were to happen to me.
  - 3y ago
sneed_chucker 3y ago
The far-right movements are a completely predictable and preventable result of the immigration policy of the last 2 decades.
nicbou 3y ago
The same is true everywhere else, and there a mix of unrest and despondency grows from it. Society has failed this generation the world over.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago

>I had no idea the economy was like that in Germany. Addiction to Russian gas, over-bureaucratic system that's super inefficient with tax-money meaning most goes to waste, an ageing population hoarding all the wealth and burdening the welfare system, uncontrolled unskilled immigration further burdening the welfare system and pushing rents up, clueless boomer leaders not investing in innovation and capturing new areas of the economy, refusing to build more real-estate because environment further pushing housing up, politics based on ideology not reality, a clueless and arrogant voter base thinking everything is perfect and none of the issues above need addressing, will do that to you. Though, that's most of Europe, not just Germany.

vkou 3y ago
Why is an aging population an issue? Labour participation and productivity is up over the decades, society can produce more than enough widgets to keep everyone comfortable, despite the aging population causing a regression-to-historic-mean in labour participation.
- flutas 3y ago
  I've done no research and don't have a stake in the game, so I'm blindly just copy/pasting another comment on here. But if it's accurate I could see it being an issue. > Population is aging and paying for the retirement money for all existing retirees is already taking up over 25% of government spending. There’s barely money for anything else so taxes and social security payments are poised to go up while already being close to ~50% for most earners.
  - pgeorgi 3y ago
    The tax/social contributions stuff can be cherry picked to become very high and very low to support any point people want to make. There are employer contributions in Germany that are recently counted in such calculations to prove a point, while leaving costs for "benefits" in US companies off the table when doing the comparison. Some like to add the VAT to the "what life costs here", which is a 19% (except for necessities, which are at 7%). If you refuse to accept such calculations that mix up tax brackets (popular error in that space), that immediately filters out 90% of them.

angra_mainyu 3y ago

I'd wait a bit, at least until end of Q1 2024 to see which place makes the most sense socioeconomically. That said, I strongly recommend the Balkans (e.g: Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, etc.) if you have a remote source of income: very safe, great people, fantastic culture, in the big cities English is widely spoken, low cost-of-living, active tech communities, and you're usually surrounded by tons of beautiful nature and again, some of the best people ever. Not to mention, setting up your own company usually allows you to operate in a low tax/tax-optimized fashion. For what it's worth, I've lived all over Europe (including Germany) and the Balkans really must be the best place in Europe - as long as you're earning remotely, local wages are unfortunately ridiculously low.

konschubert 3y ago
Serbia is preparing to invade Kosovo: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/30/europe/kosovo-tensions-military-buid-up-explainer-intl/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/30/europe/kosovo-tensions-mi...
- angra_mainyu 3y ago
  I follow the news closely as I'm in the area, nothing's going to happen aside from the usual posturing, Serbia's in no rush to be once again on the sharp end of NATO's pointy stick. Even Vucic made it clear: https://www.koha.net/en/arboretum/393870/Serbia-will-not-bring-military-forces-to-Kosovo/ https://www.koha.net/en/arboretum/393870/Serbia-will-not-bri...
qwytw 3y ago
> you're usually surrounded by tons of beautiful nature and again Also very high pollutions levels: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Horalek/publication/281092107/figure/fig1/AS:284602586419200@1444865952557/European-map-showing-the-interpolation-result-for-the-Delta-values-of-PM-10-annual.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Horalek/publication...
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago

amelius 3y ago

There was some discussion about it a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172818

ivix 3y ago

Why on earth would you live your life by a sub single digit percentage swing in an abstrusely calculated macroeconomic statistic?

tbeiwhsj 3y ago

[flagged]

eigenspace 3y ago

Honestly, the gloom over Germany’s economy is fairly overblown. Germany is facing challenges, but they're by no means as apocalyptic as people make them out to be. It’s not really a German recession, but instead a global manufacturing recession. Germany’s economy is highly exposed to manufacturing, and so it shows up more in the country-wide economic stats. If you look at almost any major manufacturing country right now, their manufacturing sector is also in recession. Many other economic sectors of Germany are doing just fine, especially services. Unemployment is also very very low, so the country is well positioned to re-absorb any jobs that may be lost if some manufacturing companies go under, and those jobs may end up going into more productive companies or sectors anyways. I moved here from Canada two months ago and I’m really liking it so far.

Barrin92 3y ago

We're currently in a war, a complete energy transition, global supply chain disruptions all hitting an export driven economy at the same time, and yet we're talking about GDP stagnation or decline of a fraction of a percent. People are truly dramatic these days, if you had asked me five years ago what the toll of something like this would be I'd have guessed it'd be ten times as bad. Give it a few years and don't base your long term decisions on stuff like this, Germany has always been resilient and able to adapt, if a little slowly at times. The 'sick man of Europe' debate is not new and the cup gets passed around every once in a while.