4 ms·

Funny, Germany just now has the world's third largest economy (GDP), an achievement with slightly over 80 million people... https://i.redd.it/uxeq0v67ketb1.jpg

• adventured 3y ago
  It's definitely not funny. Germany's GDP is estimated at $4.4 trillion for 2023. In 2008, the high before the crash, it was $3.7 trillion. Inflation adjusted that should be $5.4 trillion just to be even with 2008. They have never recovered. During the good years of the 1990s for the global economy, 1995 was the peak for Germany, and that high was $2.6 trillion. That is $5.3 trillion today. You can pick most years from the 1990s though and it's a bad outcome inflation adjusted to today. 28 years later and the economy needs to increase by 20% just to catch up to where they were in the mid 1990s. The reason Germany has passed Japan is because they have been suffering from an even worse economic stagnation the past two decades. How long can Germany pretend things are fine?
  • hutzlibu 3y ago
    "How long can Germany pretend things are fine? " We don't. But having the 3. largest economy still kind of negates that point: "Germany doesn't have the resources to take on anything."
    • f1shy 3y ago
      Being 3rd first or 28th gives no information about the possibility to start a space endeavor. You can see Ger. is way behind China and USA, which are in a much better position. I’ve been following very near the development of the 3 german companies trying to do rockets. Let me tell you: I do not think they are going nowhere. They are just doing requirement management in Doors for the last year. Nothing useful is coming out. The SW industry in Germany is really struggling, finding a decent developer is near impossible (ask me how I know!)
      • hutzlibu 3y ago
        "Being 3rd" while only having a fraction of the populace of 1. and 2. still should give some opportunity for ressources. But sure, I am also not really optimistic that anything big is coming out of germanys space adventures anytime soon - but there would be ressources.
        • fooker 3y ago
          The population does not matter for the aerospace industry, you're not making roads or railway tracks, or manufacturing millions of the same thing.
          • hutzlibu 3y ago
            What matters to do anything big, is mainly to have ressources avaiable. Then you can buy things you need and pay people to work on that. And I think we still have lots of enthusiastic space nerds as well - we just don't have any big company or project to draw them together, like Space-X or NASA did. All of the german/european projects are pretty fragmented.
            • f1shy 3y ago
              Even if you put the 3 companies trying to make rockets in Germany you get nothing. Just too few people with enough know how. Not even the whole EU could undertake it. Is not about money only, is Human Resources and know how.
              • hutzlibu 3y ago
                Know how is mostly avaiable and what is not avaiable, could be bought or developed. What we don't have, is the dedication or the will to focus on space. And granted, there are quite some other problems waiting for solutions.
        • f1shy 3y ago
          This would mean it is more efficient in some way. If you insist in looking at positions in some ranking, and are interested in that kind of efficiency, then look at GDP per Capita, Germany is 20.
  • FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    To be fair, most of Europe has economically stagnated post 2008. Only Eastern Europe grew because they were far behind.
• f1shy 3y ago
  Waaaay behind USA and China, and comparable with the next 5 countries in the list.
• fooker 3y ago
  It'll keep being funny until it's not. The modern debt based economic systems tend to have that characteristic. https://youtu.be/xmEhTFjQB1g?si=f2hdl8JkqBIox495 https://youtu.be/xmEhTFjQB1g?si=f2hdl8JkqBIox495