Germany is talked about far too badly! 7 facts speak against prophets of doom

News38 Germany is talked about far too badly! 7 facts speak against prophets of doom Article by Marcel Görmann • 6 hours One can complain a lot about Germany's problems. In international comparison, we are lagging behind in digitalization, we have a huge investment backlog in infrastructure (railways, bridges, etc.), a massive shortage of skilled workers and our traffic light government is in permanent crisis mode. But in this article we'll do it differently! Here we look at what is still going well in this country, what gives us hope for 2024. Maybe it is also typically German to talk about the downfall, to paint everything in (still) gloomy colors. Germany is doing better than many people claim Or as the Norwegian Bjørn Gulden, CEO of adidas, puts it to “Bild”: “I don’t think that prosperity in Germany is in danger. We will all have to tackle things a little more, politicians will have to decide things a little faster, and you, the media, can't just focus on the negative. In Germany we need more focus on the positive. As a Norwegian, I can say it: Not everything is so bad in Germany!” So let’s take a positive look at the situation in Germany! We have been the third strongest economy in the world since 2023 It's crazy: Any other country except the USA and China would burst with pride at this news! What's going on in Germany? When we overtook Japan in the IMF ranking, it was immediately explained that we had now only moved up to position 3 because the Japanese currency, the yen, had lost a lot of value against the US dollar and the euro. Yes and?! The fact that we, as a medium-sized country with around 80 million people, are ranked third among economic nations is an outstanding achievement. Especially in times of the Ukraine war, which is a catastrophe for Germany's economy due to its previous energy dependence on Russia. Dax climbed to an all-time high in 2023 Everything is just going downhill with the German economy? This is the widespread mood in the country. If you look at the DAX, the leading German index, you had to rub your eyes in 2023. It reached an all-time high in December of just over 17,000 points! Many stock market analysts expect a further increase to 17,500 to 18,000 points in 2024. Never before have so many people worked in Germany Despite the recession, energy crisis, after-effects of the Corona crisis and inflation: in the summer of 2023, over 46 million people were employed in Germany for the first time. A historic high! This is also good for the social security systems, especially for pensions. Due to the many contributors to the system, the statutory pension system is holding up even better than many predicted years ago, despite demographic change. Germany also has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the entire EU. According to current Eurostat figures, only Malta, the Czech Republic and Poland have fewer people unemployed. Inflation in Germany has almost returned to normal Inflation has been particularly noticeable in supermarkets since the Ukraine war. Prices skyrocketed. This was particularly frightening for people with low wages and poverty pensioners! But now the situation seems to be normalizing more and more. In November 2023, inflation was still at 3.2 percent, but economists expect that in the medium term it will be back within the European Central Bank's target range of 2 to 2.5 percent. We would have overcome the inflation shock quite quickly and Germany would have significantly more stability in prices again - as we are used to here! Strong collective agreements and higher social benefits Despite the additional burdens caused by the increased CO2 tax, many Germans are likely to have more net money in 2024. On the one hand, there have recently been strong collective bargaining agreements in many sectors and there are tax reliefs at the turn of the year (higher basic allowance and child tax allowance). The minimum wage increases by 41 cents per hour and citizens' benefits by 12 percent. Pensioners can also look forward to a decent plus in the summer (an expert estimates this). One can criticize that all of this hardly compensates for the inflation of the past - but the forecasts a year ago looked even bleaker. World Cup title for Germany: sensational successes in sport Aside from economics, what about sport? The low performance of the German men's national soccer team further dampened the mood in the country in 2023. Even under coach Julian Nagelsmann, the team is a shadow of previous world champion years. But last year there were also a lot of surprising and beautiful sporting successes. Germany became men's world champion in basketball for the first time and also runner-up in ice hockey.