[WalterBright]

Germany's GDP is shrinking.

The regulations that make it hard to lay off someone have an equal and opposite effect of making companies very reluctant to hire. This impedes the efficient allocation of labor, resulting in a poorer GDP.

[monocasa]

It looks like Germany's GDP has increased every year in recent memory except 2009 and 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany#Data

[WalterBright]

google [german gdb growth] says: "-0.2% annual change (2024)"

[omnicognate]

The "GDP Growth (Real)" column in the wikipedia article GP linked agrees, but it doesn't tell a story that justifies "Germany's GDP is shrinking".

[WalterBright]

See the graph "G7 Real GDP % change compared to pre-Pandemic level":

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn02...

The US has 13.3% growth and Germany 0.1%.

[bojan]

Two points:

1) GDP is, while very important, not the only measure of country's prosperity

And

2) how much of those 13.3% is being hoarded by a single-digit amount of companies?

[WalterBright]

> hoarded

Productive companies do not hoard wealth. They invest it. GDP is not a measure of wealth, it is a measure of production.

[M95D]

Because of AI and it's indirect effects, such as electricity demand.

[mschuster91]

> The US has 13.3% growth

Without the incestous web of the AI bubble, the US would actually be in a recession, especially due to the tariffs.

[WalterBright]

Yes, if you overlook the productive companies, the economy is unproductive.

[_DeadFred_]

"The Stupidity of GDP per Capita"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiymTzsZfoA

How much of this years GDP growth in the USA went to average citizens? What does GDP growth matter if your citizens have zero access to healthcare, can't improve their conditions, can't innovate, can't try new ideas because they are tied to healthcare via their current job?

How much of American GDP growth goes to Billionaires and isn't a useful health metric?

See: Billionaires added record $2.2tn in wealth in 2025 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/dec/31/billionaires-ad...

[WalterBright]

Billionaires become billionaires by making and selling things people want. Obviously, a lot of people want what they are selling, and think it is worth buying.

[dTal]

That's such an excessively naive, childlike take that it's hard to know where to start. You don't become a billionaire by "making and selling things". That doesn't scale beyond the low millions. You become a billionaire by leveraging existing capital to rearrange bits of the economy in such a way that money flows towards you [note]. Productive output, be it goods or services (which you seem to have forgotten exist) is strictly optional. You think Warren Buffet sits in his garage cranking out widgets? What planet are you on?

[note] For example, you might contrive to purchase the entire supply of some valuable resource with inelastic demand, and then sell it back to people, perhaps at an inflated price.

[WalterBright]

> You don't become a billionaire by "making and selling things".

See Microsoft, Walmart, Amazon, Apple, Tesla, SpaceX, Pixar, Lego, and on and on.

> you might contrive to purchase the entire supply of some valuable resource with inelastic demand, and then sell it back to people, perhaps at an inflated price.

Example?

[hsbauauvhabzb]

I would 100% chose to live in Germany than the USA. GDP is one consideration, but QOL more important.

[WalterBright]

Live wherever you want to!

[hsbauauvhabzb]

That’s an odd response. My point was GDP alone is a poor way to measure a country.

[WalterBright]

It's a measure of the economy.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Or a measure of quality of life. But it sounds like you’re only interested in pro-American talking points.

[WalterBright]

It's nearly impossible to measure quality of life, because everybody has a different idea of what that means.

[spixy]

GDP PPP per capita is better measure of quality of life.

[mschuster91]

It's not a good one though, because weird effects like the AI bubble incest investment web artificially blow up the GDP, and because it doesn't reflect the economy "feeling" the population experiences.

To expand on the latter point - say you have automation enabling more economic growth. A significant amount of people lose their jobs, others are afraid they'll be the next ones on the chopping block, and people hold their money together as a result - if you ask general people on the street or in representative surveys, you'll get the feedback that the economy is going to the dogs, but "the numbers" don't reflect that.

[WalterBright]

Here in Washington state, they are heaping taxes on us in unprecedented amounts. That's not going to help affordability at all.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/washington-states-tax-blitz-497e...

[ghurtado]

Wouldn't that be awesome?

[WalterBright]

I enjoyed living in Germany for a while as an Air Force brat.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Good for you.