* East Germany is poor. Ruhrgebiet is poor. * German manufacturing is struggling because of their reliance on cheap Russian gas. * German car industry is stru

* East Germany is poor. Ruhrgebiet is poor. * German manufacturing is struggling because of their reliance on cheap Russian gas. * German car industry is struggling because they can't compete with Chinese imports. * Germany is still in a recession. Germany is not wealthy today because of some remarkable labor productivity (as the tweet suggests). It's because Germany was a manufacturing powerhouse in second half of the 20th century.