[graemep]

I agree, but my point is that the France, Germany, and other comparable European economies have the same or similar problems. The UK is not some exception, it is a typical western economy. The US is an outlier (doing better).

> that includes part of their beloved NHS

A more severe problem is that the NHS was debt funded (mostly through off balance sheet debt) in the 2000s. The government kept their promise not to increase national debt by disguising running up disguised debt in the NHS

Its also worth noting that a large chuck of NHS services, GP services in particular, were always subcontracted to private providers.

[paganel]

Germany was quite fine until a couple of years ago, mostly thanks to very cheap Russian gas. About France I agree, they have the same problems as the Brits do, maybe because they lost access to cheap African mineral resources as a result of Francafrique [1] ending? I couldn't tell, to be honest.

But at the end of the day the point remains that if you want to have a world-beating economy you need to have access to relatively cheap inputs (which includes energy), in large enough amounts, otherwise your economy will just not make it. The Americans have that (people forget how much of an economic boom gas fracking brought with it), the Chinese have that (thanks to its very large population and access to natural resources that is reasonable enough, they're no 1930s Japan), India has that (thanks to its very large and young population), even Russia has that (thanks to its natural resources), meanwhile Europe has almost no demographic advantage and almost no natural resources left to exploit. "Innovation" (which is also lacking) and financialization alone can get you only so far.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7afrique

[constantcrying]

Germany's number one economic problem is energy costs. Blaming the increase on Russian gas hits only a tiny slice of the problem.

The real problem is a completely botched "energy transition", which deprecated very important energy sectors, which were still absolutely needed.

To be clear, I am in favor of renewables. One benefit is that they create independence from the whims of the US and Russia. Nevertheless the transition has been completely botched, driving up energy costs and making certain industries essentially non-viable.

The government focused on two things, increasing renewable peak production and deprecating nuclear. What they completely neglected is how to actually have a sustainable grid, which can cheaply deliver energy even with little sunshine and little wind. What was needed was easily regulated power (e.g. nuclear) and sufficient storage. Nuclear was completely abandoned and most government incentives were focused on increasing peak production, neglecting the storage of energy.

This is obviously harmful to the German industry, which is electricity heavy. This problem has also been consistently ignored and actively made worse in recent years, by continuing to shut down nuclear plants, even if it was clear that more energy production was needed.

[lotsofpulp]

While legislation restricting innovation is a problem, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, all have the same bigger problem of expecting smaller and smaller working populations to support bigger and bigger non working populations.

In the long term, the level of wealth transfer in these countries is not sustainable, and each year it incentivizes those who produce to seek greener pastures where they get more rewards.

Look at these population histograms:

https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-kingdom/2024/

https://www.populationpyramid.net/germany/2024/

https://www.populationpyramid.net/france/2024/

https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2024/

https://www.populationpyramid.net/spain/2024/

[constantcrying]

You could outgrow the problem, by increasing individual productivity or you can stop the wealth transfer. It will stop sooner or later anyway.

I made some comments elsewhere about the long term. It is delusional to think that it is possible to continually have jobs that pay significantly more than identical jobs elsewhere in the world.

[lotsofpulp]

Yes, but the two are related because increasing earned income tax and other taxes to fund non workers on people who do work sap the incentive to work in a manner that increases productivity (either via working more hours or working on hard problems).

[constantcrying]

Absolutely, definitely those two problems can only be solved together. Although right now I see very little effort going in that direction. If anything social benefits and taxes are increasing.

Germany's progressive tax system also directly incentivizes working fewer hours, as the more you work the smaller your hourly wage becomes.

[turbojerry]

It's not a surprise that EU countries perform similarly as they have to abide by the same laws and therefore are all restricted in the same ways. For example EU drone regulations prohibit the flying of autonomous drones therefore killing innovation in that area.