The economy shrank last year and is not predicted to grow much in 2024. Farmers are angry, industrial output is falling and the government is bickering.
Germany started the year with Berlin’s streets choked with tractors and farmers blaring horns in furious protest of proposed budget cuts. Then train engineers walked off the job to demand better pay, stranding commuters and carloads of freight and leaving the country angry and gridlocked.
The same could be said for the state of the German economy. Last year it contracted 0.3 percent, official figures showed this week, making it not only the largest economy but also the slowest growing among the 20 countries using the euro. Industrial production has fallen five months in a row.
“The economy is at a standstill in Germany,” said Siegfried Russwurm, the president of the Federation of German Industries. “We don’t see any chance of a rapid recovery in 2024.”
Since it was rebuilt after World War II, Germany has been Europe’s main driver of economic growth, becoming an industrial powerhouse known for vast factories and fine-tuned engineering.
But now its automakers must compete with relatively cheap electric cars from China, and it vies with the United States to attract tech giants. There is a growing realization that Germany has not been successful updating its industry with sufficient flexibility and digital know-how to remain competitive.
Difference is that steel is a nonevolving raw material, and cars are a dynamic high-tech industry. Two different worlds.
Steel is a complex manufactured intermediate good, not just a raw material that you dig out of the ground. Steel products and production methods evolved rapidly over the course of the 20th century, and the downfall of British steel was because they couldn’t/wouldn’t upgrade their tech and how their industry was organized.
Nah, two very different products. One you can’t change or develop, the other you can.