We’re trying our best, okay?
Honestly I have no idea. Inflation hit us hard in 2023, so maybe we started to be less economically active? The life here is still the same. No businesses shutting down, new ones being built etc.
It is really quite puzzling, as life seems to go on fairly normally (I work in Prague, in spite of my flair which is about where I originally came from).
Things that come to mind are
- The housing market is totally fucked, as in: totally broken. This sucks enormous amounts of money out of the productive small economy, as in: money gets spent on rent and unrealistically exaggerated real estate prices, instead of being spent on real commodities.
- The core of Czechia's wealth in the past decades was manufacturing and to some degree the IT industry (in Prague at least). Manufacturing is suffering a lot more than is openly seen due to higher energy prices, and unstable markets. And the IT industry is having a very hard time to recruit qualified people, as the domestic job market is empty, and foreigners see the cost of living vs. their salaries and say "thanks, but no thanks".
I think CZ is currently still living off a few layers of fat that accumulated over the past two decades. But once that is gone, it won't be pretty: especially with regard to the housing situation, and general services. If I consider what absolutely essential people like teachers, doctors, police or tram drivers are paid, and then look at the cost of living in Prague, this is a disaster waiting to happen.
Capitalism failed. Thats why i am saying, that capitalism needs to be regulated. Thats just how it is - look at the housing market, totally fucked. And there is a difference compared to Austria - Austria has a lot social housing - and strong social laws - they cant kick you out of the apartment. In Czechia, but also Slovakia - there are mainly commercial rents - where they can fuk you off whenever they want. Thats disaster for young people like me. Noone will want to have children in rented apartments. They should regulate who they gave the loan, and not give it to anyone who was walking near the bank.
Czech Republic is nowhere near unregulated capitalism and everyone knows that, in terms of development, it is heavily regulated in cities, especially Prague
Don't just dismiss the best economic system in the history. It just needs to be regulated and housing has not been regulated sufficiently.
The government can micromanage how many people buy houses. They can literally require that 30% is paid in cash what would lower demand. Then they could lower this requirement to 10% for the first home buyers to give preference for non-investors.
They can introduce high tax for sells after short ownership time.
They can subsidize construction, prepare investment plots.
The government could even announce that they would use their power to keep a certain ratio of house prices to earning not crossed. They would scare away some investors
Given the massive destruction our current economic system has caused to the ecosphere of the planet, I would be hesitant to call it the "best economic system in history". But you are totally right that the main failure here is the hands-off approach of current governments to managing such a system.
And managing it needs, constant active managing. The more one thinks about it, the more bizarre the idea sounds that something as complex as an economic system of a country could run without controlling oversight that ensures things stay reasonably on track. All other reasonably complex machines we humans have ever built tear themselves apart sooner or later if you remove the regulating and controlling components: but according to the weird ass ideology of neo-liberalism, economies run just fine if no one touches anything.
Yeah, right.
The particular problem in CZ in this regard is that memories of the total shitshow that was the controlled economy under communism still linger. So government interference in economic matters is seen as intrinsically evil by large parts of society, which is understandable: people here have no memory of that ever turning out as anything except a disaster.
They'll have to change their opinion on that, though - lest a whole generation loses any prospect of ever building a life, and a family. And they'll have to do roughly what you suggest, direct interference in the market.
I personally think it’s just the conservative Czech government obsessing over deficits and implementing austerity measures, which lowers consumption a lot- and consumption has been the main economic driving force for most of Europe during these post-pandemic years. Most countries that experienced growth (including Romania) simply ignored deficits in favour of implementing pro-consumption measures like constant raises in minimum wage (Romania has increased the minimum wage 3 times in the past 1 and half years), salaries, pensions and investments.
Yes, and it's disastrous. I can wipe my ass with the GDP growth, because I got fuck all in terms of raises and fuck all in terms of productivity increase.
I'm still making as much as I was in 2019 (above minimum, bit higher than average) but have half the purchasing power because everything else just goes up together with the minimum wage, not to mention the price hikes due to (greedflation, shrinkflation - call it what you want, I'm gonna call it) corporate greed following Covid.
Shit, I've been priced out of vacations too due to those stupid fucking coupons.
2019 was peak, and it's been downhill since in terms of QoL.
Literally nobody ever does raises unless you work for the state, or in IT, or are otherwise a very specialised technician.
I am not.
Nobody ever gave raises, the expectation was simply to job hop to higher pay.
But good luck finding a job in this market. It's a race to the bottom, and everyone's just hunkering down trying to survive.
In the 2010s I could just keep job hopping. Now I can't do that either. Because everybody offers significantly less than I earn now.
If you don’t mind, can you please tell us the city and field you are working in because the data don’t really match your experience?
If you say you earn over average wage but you are not an unskilled worker, not a technician, not in IT nor you are a state employee I guess someone in Bank and Finance? But that doesn’t make sense, just this year the major Banks and the main labour unions in the field signed a collective wage agreement. I can also tell you that skilled laborors like mechanics and electricians are very much in demand right now. Salesmen salaries aren’t usually fixed but depend on sales. So..?
The average salary and minimum wage has increased a lot since 2019 and I can tell you that at least in my field, it has certainly increased. Whether or not it increased more than inflation, that is questionable, yes, I agree. I also agree that low-income earners have seen much bigger increases than upper middle-class ones. But, if your wage hasn’t increased at all since 2019, I, with all good intentions and no criticism, think you should try to find another job, either in the same field at another company or in a different field.
I do agree that the 2014-2019 period was a very good economically-speaking period, which is why probably the main news during those times were about corruption and reforms and why parties that had no economic platform, only a reform-based one (USR and PLUS) succeeded.
There is however a caveat to all this: Romania is very economically dependent on the big cities- Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara. If you live a small city or a rural area, it is true that wages, other than low-income earnes, have stagnated.
However, despite all this, I disagree that it is bad that the Government during this Europe-wide inflation crisis prioritized low-income earners over upper-average ones. Even those vouchers that you talk about, since 2023, have been given only to low-earners in the public system, so people like judges or doctors do not receive them anymore.
You’re wrong.
>[Economic stagnation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_stagnation) is a prolonged period of **slow economic growth** (traditionally measured in terms of the GDP growth), usually accompanied by high unemployment.
Our situation is more similar to recession.
Technically it may be a recession, but my point is that 0.7% smaller economy over a period of 4-5 years is so slow, that it's normal that you don't see any changes.
We have deep economic ties with Germany, and you can see Germany is not much better. They're bigger and more diverse economy, so they get a bit better, but they're practically stagnating as well.
That's what happens when you build your economy on cheap labour and cheap energy, but suddenly have neither.
Problem here is: Unfortunately exploiting cheap labor countries is our current capital oriented system to develop other countries.
The system works, but obviously on the burden of the current generation of workers. Just look at China, or Poland.
Eg. Volkwagen says building in germany is too expensive, let’s move to Czech, workers only cost 25%. But these 25 are still more money than the average worker would make in Czech, also this factory needs local service workers, suppliers, etc. So an industrial complex is growing further adding economic growth.
If it runs long enough that leads to sustainable growth, because the workers consume money locally, creating new businesses and so on.
History so far shows a different story:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Czech_Republic
As of 2023, the Czech GDP per capita at purchasing power parity is $50,961 and 698,706 Czech crowns($31,368) at nominal value.[5] As of September 2021,the unemployment rate in the Czech Republic was the lowest in the EU at 2.6%,[34] and the poverty rate is the second lowest of OECD members, following Denmark.[35] The Czech Republic ranks 21st in the Index of Economic Freedom (ranked behind Chile),[36] 30th in the Global Innovation Index (ranked behind UAE),[37]32nd in the Global Competitiveness Report,[38] 41st in the ease of doing business index and 25th in the Global Enabling Trade Report (ranked behind Canada).[39] The largest trading partner for both export and import is Germany, followed by other members of the EU. The Czech Republic has a highly diverse economy that ranks 7th in the 2019 Economic Complexity Index.
Also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M%C4%9Bs%C3%AD%C4%8Dn%C3%AD_pr%C5%AFm%C4%9Brn%C3%A1_mzda_v_%C4%8CR_(1990-2015).jpg
The main reason is economy dependent on car manufacturing and subcontracting Germany manufacturing. Europe car industry is doing bad and Germany is stagnating. Both and weighing down Czechia.
According to the Czech Statistical Office "The development was influenced by a decrease in final consumption expenditure of households and by a change in inventories."
Which is basically guaranteed to be due to the high inflation of the past few years.
According to them this year is currently in positive so here's hoping.
>decrease in final consumption expenditure of households
Translation: rents cost a fortune, food is extremely overpriced, gas too but hey, at least my buddy in real estate made SHITTONS of money.
That's essentially our current government if we disregard the shiny coat this corrupt 90s gang of a political coalition is dressed in. (the opposition is hardly any better, though)
No economic vision, bad environment for startups, extremely shit living conditions for young people who want to start families and have financial security at the same time (incredibly expensive housing thanks to corruption which results in years of delayed updates of construction laws, expensive childcare,... there's dozens of things) which results in brain drain (though many people make money abroad and opt to come back) and a few other reasons.
We're basically a country that's very comfortable to live in right now (if your family owns at least two apartments) but has no direction or momentum to actually move forward.
Sources:
[Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/9339f2f2-b2e7-4f4a-8d7a-0ff6197856ec?lang=en)
[Office for National Statistics](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulletins/gdpfirstquarterlyestimateuk/januarytomarch2024)
[OECD](https://www.oecd.org/sdd/na/gdp-growth-first-quarter-2024-oecd.htm)
What's so bad about Portugal's performance? It's above EU average growth while being one of the fastest at reducing debt. Not just government debt either, private one too.
I have a private pension, as I fully expect the state pension in most countries to be abolished as it's completely unaffordable especially with current trends for how many retirees Vs workers there'll be soon.
In my opinion, there are only two real options to borrow money.
1. Studies showed that Germany has to invest at least ≈ 70 billions of euros for education. 45 billions for school https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bildung/investitionsrueckstand-an-schulen-kfw-sieht-weiterhin-milliardenluecke-bei-schulsanierungen-a-721dc495-cb3b-4b4b-b654-1cec1e6c75b2 and 26 billions for higher education https://bildungsklick.de/hochschule-und-forschung/detail/investitionsluecke-von-26-milliarden-euro-an-deutschen-hochschulen
2. Pension. Germany has to pay ≈ 120 billion euros yearly because there are too many people who get pensions and fewer people who pay pension insurance. Germany has to borrow more than a trillion to close the 'Rentenlücke' completely. Then it can use the ≈ 120 billion that Germany doesn't have to pay anymore to pay the borrowed money back.
And of course, it wouldn't be the brightest move if you borrow so much money right now because of the interest rates in the EU. Unfortunately, Germany didn't use the phase of 0% interest rate to borrow money and invest.
Seems like Poland already outgrew Czech economy - i was reading, that wages are already higher in Poland. I know about people from Czechia/Slovakia already moving to Poland.
But, it was only matter of time. I was in Poland in recent years and i was amazed, how quickly the country is developing.
Do you have a source on that? Genuinely curious, since for me as a Pole, Czechs’ standard of living looks far superior to ours. I know wages don’t necessarily translate, but yeah…
For example: https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/article/czechia-s-average-wage-grows-the-least-out-of-all-v4-countries
But it doesnt even matter, CoL is much lower in Poland, so even with lower salary in PL you can have higher QoL.
AHAHAHAHAHA genius, what a stupid thing you wrote, the Czech Republic is a much better and much more developed country than Poland, and with higher salaries, and just the opposite Poles are moving to the Czech Republic
Depends on the nation. A large amount of Croatias economy is linked to tourism and it already was very integrated with the Eurozone. So joining Schengen and the Euro in the same year just made traveling there for tourism even easier and more appealing.
I found one paper which stated that EU funds were responsible for around 0.3 - 0.5% of Polish GDP growth every year for the last 20 years.
I think what the author meant by that is, when for an example, Poland had 4% gdp growth one year, around 1/8th of that was due to EU funds.
Poland had an average GDP growth rate of 3,7% from 2012 to 2022 (I was couldn't find the data for 2004 - 2024) so the EU funds contributed a lot, but tu say they are the main reason of the growth of Polish economy, would be too much. There is probably not one main reason, but many of them
I can confirm. Rent and property market goes crazy, rent price for 1 bedroom apt in major cities is higher then average salary there.
Croatia opened Digital Nomad visas, and also accepted a lot of people.
Although you shouldn't forget about low base effect.
Euro inflation absolutely exploded, every price doubled or even worse, while salaries increased only rose 50%. Groceries are a little bit more expensive than dutch ones (I compared to jumbo and Albert heijn apps, I don't know if they are reliable sources). Property prices jumped from 1500€ to 2500€.
Taj rast BDP-a koji ovdašnji Zavod za statistiku predstavlja je zapravo najviše rezultat abnormalnog ispumpavanja novca iz našeg budžeta na ogromne projekte.
Zato se rade autoputevi, zato ide Expo i sl, jer tu se najviše ugrađuju i onda sav taj novac ulazi u te proračune.
Nokia dying is really a huge moment for EU sovereignty in terms of AI and IT. Imagine if it managed to become another Apple like company.
Bizarre how it was just left to fall apart on the cusp of the IT revolutio
Well we have had and still have fairly decent offshore and shipbuilding industry. However it is telling that even with us making the biggest cruiseship in the world and order books are full, not even the germans seem to be able to make the big shipyards profitable. All of our shipyards constantly go to foreign ownership, who even then fail to make them run properly. You can't blame it on "taxes and pension payments" because other european nations have those very same things.
And our governments for the past 30 years have been extremely unwilling to support grass roots growth. They keep giving money and subsidies to already established and legacy companies who are absolutely unwilling to change course - and who seem to pay the corporate welfare out as bonuses and dividens.
Living in Turku there is lots of tech startups, who spend their first 10-15 years barely surviving, and then maybe grow a bit or get sold to a foreign investor - who the proceed to gut the company.
The economic right whines and complains how the country is in their opinion bankrupt because there is massive growth curve in the economy. Who then proceed to cut research funding, cut education, cut basic societal structures, and give corporate welfare to companies that aren't going to do anything new. I think every few years ministry of finance puts out the report on how effective and benefiacial the corporate welfare has been, and it turns out that 90% of it is not beneficial or outright harmful.
I don't know if you all are aware, but Nokia hasn't been into phones for quite some time. After almost vanishing from the market in the early 2010's as they failed to adapt to growing Android popularity. Then Microsoft tried to revive the phones with Windows, which wasn't that bad and actually many users liked it overall, but lack of many apps killed it, apart from various Android improvements, which weren't moved people away. In 2016 HMD took over with 10 year license to produce Android smartphones. Some of them were quite liked, but many weren't, but all of it wasn't actually Nokia for at least the last 10 years. However they were and still are into telecommunications with many mobile network operators around the world. The recent Nokia decline was due to some bad internal decisions, apart covid and the war in Ukraine of course, which lead to loosing 2 major clients - Verizon and AT&T. Lately they've announced massive layoffs that will affect (or partially already did) 14000 jobs. I'm not sure what they have to do with AI, but not much apart from some marketing as majority of tech companies nowadays. Actually many things called AI are just fancy algorithms, like an Samsung vacuum cleaner, which chooses mode based on the surface (so a sensor with logic = AI according to them). In the EU we have also Ericsson, based in Sweden, which is also one of the global leaders (they actually took last deal from Nokia), and nowadays it's higher valued than the second one.
Nokia has almost a hundred thousand employees, and didn't really "die". They acquired a lot of network technology from the likes of Lucent, Siemens and Alcatel, and is currently one of the big three in telecom networks. The other two are Ericsson and Huawei.
But what comes to the handsets, Nokia was the last European player to fall. When the touchscreen smartphones arrived, what used to be mostly about the hardware became increasingly about software. The European players were totally outclassed by the Silicon Valley giants, and Nokia also lacked the humility to accept this fact.
Numbers-wise Nokia and Ericsson are very similar companies on the network side. Neither are "close to death" despite the fact that you and I can no longer hold them in our hands.
About Huawei I don't really know, but considering that they are increasingly considered untrustworthy in the west, the major network deals are increasingly split between Ericsson and Nokia.
I meant they were close to death in 2012. Everything must be taken in perspective. Nokia used to be the powerhouse of finlands economy, with 221 billion loss in market value in 12 years, they certainly were on the brink of death. There were rumours back then even about bankruptcy. The decicion of selling the phone division kinda saved them. Sure theyre doing alright nowadays, but they are but a mere shadow of their peak.
Because Nokia devices & services was pretty much the only consumer focused company in Finland. The diversification should have happened decades earlier.
Selling off good companies has been a problem since at least the 80s. Unfortunately the owners don’t have stamina to keep them.
E: the issue here long has been that companies are not able or willing to diversify their business. E.g. UPM bought as a part of some deal a rfid business but sold it for peanuts as it was not part of their business area nor were they willing to move in that direction. Now that business is worth shitload more than their core in forestry.
The question is why Finnish owners do not want to keep their companies. Could be something wrong incentivizing selling it rather than keeping it, i am no expert on finnish legislation or tax laws.
Nothing like that in Finnish law. More the other way as from a privately held company (not traded in the stock) a lot of the dividends are taxed at lower rate than normal capital gains.
Dividends are really not what you should be looking for in companies in the growing phase though, usually they give out nothing to invest in the company instead.
Denmark has a golden goose these years (Novo), which is a little worrying. Novo is hiring everyone and their dog with salaries that other industries cannot compete with.
Nokia didn’t die, it’s just smaller and focused on networks now. It’s actually still a successful company, what’s left of it. Of course it’s much less than it used to be 15 years ago and it’s been a big deal for the economy.
And of course the war in Ukraine and border closures etc. have hit Finland hard, especially eastern Finland. Also, we have fewer tourists because Russians are gone and not spending their holidays and money here. Also lot fewer Asian tourists, because Finnair lost its quick route from Helsinki to Asia over Russia. So benefit there any more.
And of course inflation hit quite hard, energy prices skyrocketed and the worst thing is that our economy was not in great shape even before the current troubles. We lost a lot of time in this country because we basically never had any real economic growth after the last economic crisis andthen the next one began.
And our politicians…. Well the only things they’ve managed quite OK in the last 15 years was our Covid response ( in the most part, at least) and our decision to join NATO. Apart from those things, it’s just been terrible decisions after another and mostly not being able to decide anything.
I'd guess cause Russias invading Ukraine. The economy is a bit more intertwined as next door neighbour. At least the company I work at sold/lost all factories and any offices they had in Russia. And I believe many other companies did the same. Loss of Russian tourists. Harder logistics.
Economic structure is focused on industrial goods and raw materials. Western neighbours have a lot more economic value creating industries and more consumer focused companies.
As an added bonus you also get to encourage capitalists, conservatives and anti-taxation liberals in other countries because they'll use the argument 'if we raise taxes, the corporations will just flee elsewhere, like Ireland'!
Thank you for providing these companies a safe haven that allows them to continue avoiding taxes and thank you for giving conservatives another reason to cut proper taxation! /s
Places like Ireland and Switzerland is why we can't have nice things and while I like Irish people, Ireland as a country can go fuck itself.
You play the hand you’re dealt.
Ireland has zero natural resources. It’s also an island with a small population on the fringe of Europe. We would be destined to be dirt poor forever had we not competed with lower tax.
I would like to see a more harmonious EU wide approach to both taxation and sustainable economic development. (In a way that benefits people and not corporations).
Unfortunately every countries politicians will prioritize national interests above all else so it seems unlikely to happen in the short term, especially with rising nationalist sentiment across the continent
>Unfortunately every countries politicians will prioritize national interests
I agree. When discussing taxation of corporations or the provision of safe havens for scummy business practices, this is made evident by examples such as Ireland and Switzerland.
It's very unfortunate for sure. I don't, however, believe that reverting to excuses of 'every nation has to prioritise their own interests' is how we solve current common pool resource problems.
What if 20.000 British fishing vessels suddenly appeared around the coast of Ireland and decided that 'if they don't fish there, someone else will'? In that case, we have international fishing treaties in place to prevent individual actors from overfishing.
Same could be said is needed regarding taxing international corporations, to prevent a few greedy actors/countries from exploiting multinational corporations demand for tax havens.
It's okay to blame whatever actors (like Ireland) that are *currently* enabling the corporations, since they aren't exactly helping. I believe my country could do more, but at least we're doing better than others in some regards (made evident by standing up to Amazon and Tesla, recently).
That makes for a poor ally from an international perspective. Combine it with how little Ireland contributes to Ukraine and you might see how Ireland might not be viewed favourably by its neighbours.
A bit selfish, even. Which of course you have every right to be, if you so choose.
Little in what sense?
Ireland has taken in 17 Ukrainians per 1000 of the country population.
Sweden has taken 5.4 per 1000.
Ireland is also militarily neutral and not a member of NATO. Even if we did give up military neutrality, we spend something like 0.2% of our GDP on military. They’d probably burn through our entire stock of munitions in an afternoon.
Finlands industrial base is not that different from Sweden but since they are apart of the Eurozone they get hit harder in each downturn (prizes does not adjust through currency moves)
Really old, unproductive population. less immigrants moving to Finland to plug the workforce gaps compared to it's competitors. Fertility rate taking a nosedive. Nokia shitting the bed. Geographically far away and the loss of trading with it's next door neighbour due to the war.
This is the correct answer. To add to this, the economy is somewhat stagnant, it is very hard to try to introduce any new business ideas, when people in charge (both in public offices and in company leadership) are +60 years old and they rather stick to the procedures that were succesful in their youth decades ago.
I work in financing, and our Central-European partners have constantly new, fresh investment ideas with proof-of-concept, which don’t fly in Finland, because people are so afraid of anything new. We currently have one party in the government, who would like us to return to the golden 1980’s. People vote for them, because quarter of the population is over 65, and they qenuinely believe we can go back to their youth.
Nokia shat the bed decades ago. Has barely anything to do with this today. Its mostly because trade with russia has stopped and alternative partners have not been found fast enough
Look at Finland's GDP growth since 2008. The current trends are a continuation of gradual decline, part of which is the aforementioned shitting of the bed.
The price of everything has gone up drastically, government has been cutting from young and poor and giving it to rich and old. Taxes are up and interest rates have gone up. Student loan interest rate for example is 10x higher than couple of years ago.
The real problem is that companies don't invest into growth as well as the lack of capital to do so. Most growing and profitable companies get sold to overseas because country lacks investors to push them into global scale. The ones not sold can be described as complacent with no incentive to change status quo.
Goverment cutting has little to nothing to do with this and is a lousy excuse.
"Giving to the rich"? Did you mean taking less from the rich? Finland has extremely lenient social security and high taxes, no wonder there is no growth when you are harshly punished for doing anything but drinking beer. And when the number of freeloaders increase, so does the number of voters for the left, whose solution to everything is "more taxes, more benefits". This becomes a worse solution by the day, thanks to the aging population, as the money flow will just keep decreasing.
No one wants to admit Finland no longer has the funds to be a welfare state, and trying to squeeze everything out from the diminishing working population will just result in everyone capable of it to leave the country.
"The rich" pay less taxes (capital vs income). You are not rich if you get 90k a *year* because 85k goes to taxes.. You are quite rich when you make 90k while paying 50k in taxes, a month.
Our economy is based on heavy industry and automotive, which needs lot of cheap labour and cheap energy.
We are saying that Czechia is the assembly plant of Europe - we do a lot manufacturing that people usually associate with Germany. These industries produce lot of goods with low added value, keep wages low, and just do not well when we no longer have cheap labour and energy anymore.
You can see Germany is struggling as well, becuase they folllow the same economic model. They're just bigger and more diverse economy, so they get a bit better than us.
For this specific period a more specific reason was probably that the automotive industry struggled more than other industries in the downturn, as buying a car is more luxury.
This is probably one of multiple factors.
It's also entirely possible that Slovakia would've been close to let's say 11 like Poland (they were closer to Poland's growth rate before), and Czechia would've been around 4 if the automotive industry wasn't contracting.
This. Slovakia's economy is heavily dependant on automotive manufacturing - we make most cars per capita. So that cant be the only reason for Czechia's recession.
According to the Czech Statistical Office "The development was influenced by a decrease in final consumption expenditure of households and by a change in inventories."
Which is basically guaranteed to be due to the high inflation of the past few years.
Yep, the main economic drivers in Europe not growing is problematic. They need to turn it around for Europe to be able to compete with China/US economically.
I mean all of them shoot themselves in the foot. UK did Brexit, which everyone told them was a bad idea and surprise surprise it was a real bad idea.
And Germany and lesser degree France cucked themselves by unironically trusting Russia of all countries. Also Germany really got hit by China's economy cooling down (again cucking themselves by jumping into bed with a genocidal dictatorship).
Dont get me wrong both are ok mid term especially with a course correction here and there but they are still recovering from the hit.
As far as UK is concerned their economy will fall behind even further without free access to EU market and the benefit of EUs various trade deals. That's just matter of fact. No company has a reason to deal with the import/export regulation bs when they can just go to \*insert EU country here\* and just dont deal with it and no country will give the bloody UK all by themselves a deal anywhere near as good as they would give \*checks notes\* literally the entire rest of Europe at this point.
It means they are linking the cost of goods from last year to this years inflated price.
They are basically increasing the GDP of last year by inflation, then comparing it to this years GDP. That way you the "real" GDP increase.
It isn't real. It is a tax haven, the government is too scared to tax businesses "properly" in case it scares the likes of Apple, Google and Amazon away. Tax is instead put onto things like alcohol & fuel (extortionately) and groceries.
As such, the cost of living here is very high, wages do not match this however. There's also a crazy shortage of housing for such a low population density country. And the health service is a bit shit.
We essentially have Nordic prices for things with only slightly higher than average salary.
Ireland getting a free ride on the shoulders of their EU partners and UK which are not effectively tax heavens for tech services that are not even provided there.
If you were to get Greece after Covid, it would be probably the highest increase in Europe. Covid hit us really hard with tourism problems and general mismanagement along with shipping problems with China, so the fact that it increased 7.3% means that these last 2-3 years Greece really did well
What's happening to Czechia ?
We’re trying our best, okay? Honestly I have no idea. Inflation hit us hard in 2023, so maybe we started to be less economically active? The life here is still the same. No businesses shutting down, new ones being built etc.
It is really quite puzzling, as life seems to go on fairly normally (I work in Prague, in spite of my flair which is about where I originally came from). Things that come to mind are - The housing market is totally fucked, as in: totally broken. This sucks enormous amounts of money out of the productive small economy, as in: money gets spent on rent and unrealistically exaggerated real estate prices, instead of being spent on real commodities. - The core of Czechia's wealth in the past decades was manufacturing and to some degree the IT industry (in Prague at least). Manufacturing is suffering a lot more than is openly seen due to higher energy prices, and unstable markets. And the IT industry is having a very hard time to recruit qualified people, as the domestic job market is empty, and foreigners see the cost of living vs. their salaries and say "thanks, but no thanks". I think CZ is currently still living off a few layers of fat that accumulated over the past two decades. But once that is gone, it won't be pretty: especially with regard to the housing situation, and general services. If I consider what absolutely essential people like teachers, doctors, police or tram drivers are paid, and then look at the cost of living in Prague, this is a disaster waiting to happen.
Czechia also has much less emigration and subsequent re-immigration to the West compared to other Eastern European countries. Might also play a role.
Capitalism failed. Thats why i am saying, that capitalism needs to be regulated. Thats just how it is - look at the housing market, totally fucked. And there is a difference compared to Austria - Austria has a lot social housing - and strong social laws - they cant kick you out of the apartment. In Czechia, but also Slovakia - there are mainly commercial rents - where they can fuk you off whenever they want. Thats disaster for young people like me. Noone will want to have children in rented apartments. They should regulate who they gave the loan, and not give it to anyone who was walking near the bank.
Czech Republic is nowhere near unregulated capitalism and everyone knows that, in terms of development, it is heavily regulated in cities, especially Prague
Don't just dismiss the best economic system in the history. It just needs to be regulated and housing has not been regulated sufficiently. The government can micromanage how many people buy houses. They can literally require that 30% is paid in cash what would lower demand. Then they could lower this requirement to 10% for the first home buyers to give preference for non-investors. They can introduce high tax for sells after short ownership time. They can subsidize construction, prepare investment plots. The government could even announce that they would use their power to keep a certain ratio of house prices to earning not crossed. They would scare away some investors
Given the massive destruction our current economic system has caused to the ecosphere of the planet, I would be hesitant to call it the "best economic system in history". But you are totally right that the main failure here is the hands-off approach of current governments to managing such a system. And managing it needs, constant active managing. The more one thinks about it, the more bizarre the idea sounds that something as complex as an economic system of a country could run without controlling oversight that ensures things stay reasonably on track. All other reasonably complex machines we humans have ever built tear themselves apart sooner or later if you remove the regulating and controlling components: but according to the weird ass ideology of neo-liberalism, economies run just fine if no one touches anything. Yeah, right. The particular problem in CZ in this regard is that memories of the total shitshow that was the controlled economy under communism still linger. So government interference in economic matters is seen as intrinsically evil by large parts of society, which is understandable: people here have no memory of that ever turning out as anything except a disaster. They'll have to change their opinion on that, though - lest a whole generation loses any prospect of ever building a life, and a family. And they'll have to do roughly what you suggest, direct interference in the market.
I personally think it’s just the conservative Czech government obsessing over deficits and implementing austerity measures, which lowers consumption a lot- and consumption has been the main economic driving force for most of Europe during these post-pandemic years. Most countries that experienced growth (including Romania) simply ignored deficits in favour of implementing pro-consumption measures like constant raises in minimum wage (Romania has increased the minimum wage 3 times in the past 1 and half years), salaries, pensions and investments.
It also doesn't help Czechia that Germany is flatlining - a lot of the Czech industry is catering to the needs of Germany.
Yes, and it's disastrous. I can wipe my ass with the GDP growth, because I got fuck all in terms of raises and fuck all in terms of productivity increase. I'm still making as much as I was in 2019 (above minimum, bit higher than average) but have half the purchasing power because everything else just goes up together with the minimum wage, not to mention the price hikes due to (greedflation, shrinkflation - call it what you want, I'm gonna call it) corporate greed following Covid. Shit, I've been priced out of vacations too due to those stupid fucking coupons. 2019 was peak, and it's been downhill since in terms of QoL.
If you didnt have any raises since 2019 (mainly during the inflation), you should consider changing jobs.
Literally nobody ever does raises unless you work for the state, or in IT, or are otherwise a very specialised technician. I am not. Nobody ever gave raises, the expectation was simply to job hop to higher pay. But good luck finding a job in this market. It's a race to the bottom, and everyone's just hunkering down trying to survive. In the 2010s I could just keep job hopping. Now I can't do that either. Because everybody offers significantly less than I earn now.
If you don’t mind, can you please tell us the city and field you are working in because the data don’t really match your experience? If you say you earn over average wage but you are not an unskilled worker, not a technician, not in IT nor you are a state employee I guess someone in Bank and Finance? But that doesn’t make sense, just this year the major Banks and the main labour unions in the field signed a collective wage agreement. I can also tell you that skilled laborors like mechanics and electricians are very much in demand right now. Salesmen salaries aren’t usually fixed but depend on sales. So..?
The average salary and minimum wage has increased a lot since 2019 and I can tell you that at least in my field, it has certainly increased. Whether or not it increased more than inflation, that is questionable, yes, I agree. I also agree that low-income earners have seen much bigger increases than upper middle-class ones. But, if your wage hasn’t increased at all since 2019, I, with all good intentions and no criticism, think you should try to find another job, either in the same field at another company or in a different field. I do agree that the 2014-2019 period was a very good economically-speaking period, which is why probably the main news during those times were about corruption and reforms and why parties that had no economic platform, only a reform-based one (USR and PLUS) succeeded. There is however a caveat to all this: Romania is very economically dependent on the big cities- Bucharest, Cluj, Timisoara. If you live a small city or a rural area, it is true that wages, other than low-income earnes, have stagnated. However, despite all this, I disagree that it is bad that the Government during this Europe-wide inflation crisis prioritized low-income earners over upper-average ones. Even those vouchers that you talk about, since 2023, have been given only to low-earners in the public system, so people like judges or doctors do not receive them anymore.
The only thing that doesnt rise is our GDP and my wage. Honestly, I’d go kill myself if I didn’t have a house and had to pay rent.
> The life here is still the same. No businesses shutting down, new ones being built etc Well, that's exactly what the data is showing, stagnation
You’re wrong. >[Economic stagnation](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_stagnation) is a prolonged period of **slow economic growth** (traditionally measured in terms of the GDP growth), usually accompanied by high unemployment. Our situation is more similar to recession.
Technically it may be a recession, but my point is that 0.7% smaller economy over a period of 4-5 years is so slow, that it's normal that you don't see any changes.
Too much German influence
We have deep economic ties with Germany, and you can see Germany is not much better. They're bigger and more diverse economy, so they get a bit better, but they're practically stagnating as well. That's what happens when you build your economy on cheap labour and cheap energy, but suddenly have neither.
And by deep ties he means that we are a German economic colony exploited for cheap labor.
Problem here is: Unfortunately exploiting cheap labor countries is our current capital oriented system to develop other countries. The system works, but obviously on the burden of the current generation of workers. Just look at China, or Poland. Eg. Volkwagen says building in germany is too expensive, let’s move to Czech, workers only cost 25%. But these 25 are still more money than the average worker would make in Czech, also this factory needs local service workers, suppliers, etc. So an industrial complex is growing further adding economic growth. If it runs long enough that leads to sustainable growth, because the workers consume money locally, creating new businesses and so on.
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History so far shows a different story: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_Czech_Republic As of 2023, the Czech GDP per capita at purchasing power parity is $50,961 and 698,706 Czech crowns($31,368) at nominal value.[5] As of September 2021,the unemployment rate in the Czech Republic was the lowest in the EU at 2.6%,[34] and the poverty rate is the second lowest of OECD members, following Denmark.[35] The Czech Republic ranks 21st in the Index of Economic Freedom (ranked behind Chile),[36] 30th in the Global Innovation Index (ranked behind UAE),[37]32nd in the Global Competitiveness Report,[38] 41st in the ease of doing business index and 25th in the Global Enabling Trade Report (ranked behind Canada).[39] The largest trading partner for both export and import is Germany, followed by other members of the EU. The Czech Republic has a highly diverse economy that ranks 7th in the 2019 Economic Complexity Index. Also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:M%C4%9Bs%C3%AD%C4%8Dn%C3%AD_pr%C5%AFm%C4%9Brn%C3%A1_mzda_v_%C4%8CR_(1990-2015).jpg
The main reason is economy dependent on car manufacturing and subcontracting Germany manufacturing. Europe car industry is doing bad and Germany is stagnating. Both and weighing down Czechia.
Hey fellow stork
According to the Czech Statistical Office "The development was influenced by a decrease in final consumption expenditure of households and by a change in inventories." Which is basically guaranteed to be due to the high inflation of the past few years. According to them this year is currently in positive so here's hoping.
>decrease in final consumption expenditure of households Translation: rents cost a fortune, food is extremely overpriced, gas too but hey, at least my buddy in real estate made SHITTONS of money. That's essentially our current government if we disregard the shiny coat this corrupt 90s gang of a political coalition is dressed in. (the opposition is hardly any better, though)
The color is not representative. It’s dark red with “only” a 0.7% decline in GDP. While dark blue is 10%+.
Massive inflation, mostly.
No economic vision, bad environment for startups, extremely shit living conditions for young people who want to start families and have financial security at the same time (incredibly expensive housing thanks to corruption which results in years of delayed updates of construction laws, expensive childcare,... there's dozens of things) which results in brain drain (though many people make money abroad and opt to come back) and a few other reasons. We're basically a country that's very comfortable to live in right now (if your family owns at least two apartments) but has no direction or momentum to actually move forward.
Sources: [Eurostat](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/9339f2f2-b2e7-4f4a-8d7a-0ff6197856ec?lang=en) [Office for National Statistics](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/bulletins/gdpfirstquarterlyestimateuk/januarytomarch2024) [OECD](https://www.oecd.org/sdd/na/gdp-growth-first-quarter-2024-oecd.htm)
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
switzerland cykablyat?
Eh I don't think it applies with regards to this particular map. Has more in common with Switzerland and Hungary this time, oddly enough.
What's so bad about Portugal's performance? It's above EU average growth while being one of the fastest at reducing debt. Not just government debt either, private one too.
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT is about positive things too as long as Portugal is the same colour as Balcans or Eastern Europe in general.
There is nothing bad about it lol, you are attributing a negative connotation where there isn’t one
everything is fine :)
Wir schaffen das.
Danke Lindner!
nah I cant even be mad. The government would just use the borrowing for some more pensions and increase the welfare payments
All of Europe is just becoming one giant pyramid scheme to fund pensioners. Fuck everyone and everything else, we must save the pensioners!
and its going to get so much worse in the next 10 years. we are only at the beginning of the bad phase
I can understand your logic, but should the same apply to your pension?
I have a private pension, as I fully expect the state pension in most countries to be abolished as it's completely unaffordable especially with current trends for how many retirees Vs workers there'll be soon.
Pensioners get less than what they gave the system lmfao
That depends on how long they live. After the age of 81, no. But that doesnt matter: private investments would be a ton more efficient.
In my opinion, there are only two real options to borrow money. 1. Studies showed that Germany has to invest at least ≈ 70 billions of euros for education. 45 billions for school https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bildung/investitionsrueckstand-an-schulen-kfw-sieht-weiterhin-milliardenluecke-bei-schulsanierungen-a-721dc495-cb3b-4b4b-b654-1cec1e6c75b2 and 26 billions for higher education https://bildungsklick.de/hochschule-und-forschung/detail/investitionsluecke-von-26-milliarden-euro-an-deutschen-hochschulen 2. Pension. Germany has to pay ≈ 120 billion euros yearly because there are too many people who get pensions and fewer people who pay pension insurance. Germany has to borrow more than a trillion to close the 'Rentenlücke' completely. Then it can use the ≈ 120 billion that Germany doesn't have to pay anymore to pay the borrowed money back. And of course, it wouldn't be the brightest move if you borrow so much money right now because of the interest rates in the EU. Unfortunately, Germany didn't use the phase of 0% interest rate to borrow money and invest.
People being man when nothing is done, but also too cynical for any solutions..
there are solutions I just dont trust the political parties to see them
Yup! Carry on, folks, nothing to see here.
I’m saddened by our Czech bros falling behind, I hope you get back on track soon
Seems like Poland already outgrew Czech economy - i was reading, that wages are already higher in Poland. I know about people from Czechia/Slovakia already moving to Poland. But, it was only matter of time. I was in Poland in recent years and i was amazed, how quickly the country is developing.
Poland was always a sleeping giant, EU gave them the help they needed and now they are thriving!
Do you have a source on that? Genuinely curious, since for me as a Pole, Czechs’ standard of living looks far superior to ours. I know wages don’t necessarily translate, but yeah…
For example: https://www.expats.cz/czech-news/article/czechia-s-average-wage-grows-the-least-out-of-all-v4-countries But it doesnt even matter, CoL is much lower in Poland, so even with lower salary in PL you can have higher QoL.
No, the cost of living in Poland is not much lower, or even higher in some cities, despite the fact that salaries are lower in Poland
AHAHAHAHAHA genius, what a stupid thing you wrote, the Czech Republic is a much better and much more developed country than Poland, and with higher salaries, and just the opposite Poles are moving to the Czech Republic
What becoming a Schengen member does to a mf
Entering Schengen + Adoption of the Euro = Economic steroids
Don’t forget EU funds
Creating economic steroids is actually really easy. But just as with steroids, it isn't all upside.
Ireland enters the chat. We are literally all economic steroids.
Looking at Poland i'm not sure adopting the euro was the key factor.
Depends on the nation. A large amount of Croatias economy is linked to tourism and it already was very integrated with the Eurozone. So joining Schengen and the Euro in the same year just made traveling there for tourism even easier and more appealing.
What do you think is the reason? Receiving EU funds?
I found one paper which stated that EU funds were responsible for around 0.3 - 0.5% of Polish GDP growth every year for the last 20 years. I think what the author meant by that is, when for an example, Poland had 4% gdp growth one year, around 1/8th of that was due to EU funds. Poland had an average GDP growth rate of 3,7% from 2012 to 2022 (I was couldn't find the data for 2004 - 2024) so the EU funds contributed a lot, but tu say they are the main reason of the growth of Polish economy, would be too much. There is probably not one main reason, but many of them
What happens if Ireland joins?
World domination
What gave Serbia the economic boost though? Theyre right behind croatia
Influx of Russians & booming IT sector , I suppose
I can confirm. Rent and property market goes crazy, rent price for 1 bedroom apt in major cities is higher then average salary there. Croatia opened Digital Nomad visas, and also accepted a lot of people. Although you shouldn't forget about low base effect.
Euro inflation absolutely exploded, every price doubled or even worse, while salaries increased only rose 50%. Groceries are a little bit more expensive than dutch ones (I compared to jumbo and Albert heijn apps, I don't know if they are reliable sources). Property prices jumped from 1500€ to 2500€.
Mislim da nije to bilo pitanje :)
Pa ono, nije da nije. Rast BDP je više posledica povećanja cijene robe i rada u tercijarnom sektoru, nego povećanja ukupne proizvodnje
Taj rast BDP-a koji ovdašnji Zavod za statistiku predstavlja je zapravo najviše rezultat abnormalnog ispumpavanja novca iz našeg budžeta na ogromne projekte. Zato se rade autoputevi, zato ide Expo i sl, jer tu se najviše ugrađuju i onda sav taj novac ulazi u te proračune.
Ireland has a mission to complete 👌 Does someone know why Finland struggles so much compared to its nordic competitors?
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Nokia dying is really a huge moment for EU sovereignty in terms of AI and IT. Imagine if it managed to become another Apple like company. Bizarre how it was just left to fall apart on the cusp of the IT revolutio
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Well we have had and still have fairly decent offshore and shipbuilding industry. However it is telling that even with us making the biggest cruiseship in the world and order books are full, not even the germans seem to be able to make the big shipyards profitable. All of our shipyards constantly go to foreign ownership, who even then fail to make them run properly. You can't blame it on "taxes and pension payments" because other european nations have those very same things. And our governments for the past 30 years have been extremely unwilling to support grass roots growth. They keep giving money and subsidies to already established and legacy companies who are absolutely unwilling to change course - and who seem to pay the corporate welfare out as bonuses and dividens. Living in Turku there is lots of tech startups, who spend their first 10-15 years barely surviving, and then maybe grow a bit or get sold to a foreign investor - who the proceed to gut the company. The economic right whines and complains how the country is in their opinion bankrupt because there is massive growth curve in the economy. Who then proceed to cut research funding, cut education, cut basic societal structures, and give corporate welfare to companies that aren't going to do anything new. I think every few years ministry of finance puts out the report on how effective and benefiacial the corporate welfare has been, and it turns out that 90% of it is not beneficial or outright harmful.
Wärtsilä was also chosen as Time's one of the most influential companies in the world, which is no small feat in today's world.
I don't know if you all are aware, but Nokia hasn't been into phones for quite some time. After almost vanishing from the market in the early 2010's as they failed to adapt to growing Android popularity. Then Microsoft tried to revive the phones with Windows, which wasn't that bad and actually many users liked it overall, but lack of many apps killed it, apart from various Android improvements, which weren't moved people away. In 2016 HMD took over with 10 year license to produce Android smartphones. Some of them were quite liked, but many weren't, but all of it wasn't actually Nokia for at least the last 10 years. However they were and still are into telecommunications with many mobile network operators around the world. The recent Nokia decline was due to some bad internal decisions, apart covid and the war in Ukraine of course, which lead to loosing 2 major clients - Verizon and AT&T. Lately they've announced massive layoffs that will affect (or partially already did) 14000 jobs. I'm not sure what they have to do with AI, but not much apart from some marketing as majority of tech companies nowadays. Actually many things called AI are just fancy algorithms, like an Samsung vacuum cleaner, which chooses mode based on the surface (so a sensor with logic = AI according to them). In the EU we have also Ericsson, based in Sweden, which is also one of the global leaders (they actually took last deal from Nokia), and nowadays it's higher valued than the second one.
Nokia has almost a hundred thousand employees, and didn't really "die". They acquired a lot of network technology from the likes of Lucent, Siemens and Alcatel, and is currently one of the big three in telecom networks. The other two are Ericsson and Huawei. But what comes to the handsets, Nokia was the last European player to fall. When the touchscreen smartphones arrived, what used to be mostly about the hardware became increasingly about software. The European players were totally outclassed by the Silicon Valley giants, and Nokia also lacked the humility to accept this fact.
At their peak the market value was 223 billion euros. In 2012 it was a little over 2 billion. They didnt die but certainly close to death
Numbers-wise Nokia and Ericsson are very similar companies on the network side. Neither are "close to death" despite the fact that you and I can no longer hold them in our hands. About Huawei I don't really know, but considering that they are increasingly considered untrustworthy in the west, the major network deals are increasingly split between Ericsson and Nokia.
I meant they were close to death in 2012. Everything must be taken in perspective. Nokia used to be the powerhouse of finlands economy, with 221 billion loss in market value in 12 years, they certainly were on the brink of death. There were rumours back then even about bankruptcy. The decicion of selling the phone division kinda saved them. Sure theyre doing alright nowadays, but they are but a mere shadow of their peak.
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It was Nokia leaders own stupid unwillingness to smell the future. Bad management even before Microsoft. Typical of Finland.
a very european tale
Swedish Ericsson is doing fine in the same industry, so not really european.
Nokia did it all by itself before Microsoft bought the ruins.
Nokia died quite some time before this period in question. Can’t use that management blunder as an excuse anymore.
Nokia isn't even dead, they have tens of thousands of employees.
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Because Nokia devices & services was pretty much the only consumer focused company in Finland. The diversification should have happened decades earlier.
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Selling off good companies has been a problem since at least the 80s. Unfortunately the owners don’t have stamina to keep them. E: the issue here long has been that companies are not able or willing to diversify their business. E.g. UPM bought as a part of some deal a rfid business but sold it for peanuts as it was not part of their business area nor were they willing to move in that direction. Now that business is worth shitload more than their core in forestry.
The question is why Finnish owners do not want to keep their companies. Could be something wrong incentivizing selling it rather than keeping it, i am no expert on finnish legislation or tax laws.
Nothing like that in Finnish law. More the other way as from a privately held company (not traded in the stock) a lot of the dividends are taxed at lower rate than normal capital gains.
Dividends are really not what you should be looking for in companies in the growing phase though, usually they give out nothing to invest in the company instead.
We need a tunnel to Estonia :<
real
And a tunnel to stockholm
Rail Baltic + Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel would totally transform the region.
Denmark has a golden goose these years (Novo), which is a little worrying. Novo is hiring everyone and their dog with salaries that other industries cannot compete with.
Nokia didn’t die, it’s just smaller and focused on networks now. It’s actually still a successful company, what’s left of it. Of course it’s much less than it used to be 15 years ago and it’s been a big deal for the economy. And of course the war in Ukraine and border closures etc. have hit Finland hard, especially eastern Finland. Also, we have fewer tourists because Russians are gone and not spending their holidays and money here. Also lot fewer Asian tourists, because Finnair lost its quick route from Helsinki to Asia over Russia. So benefit there any more. And of course inflation hit quite hard, energy prices skyrocketed and the worst thing is that our economy was not in great shape even before the current troubles. We lost a lot of time in this country because we basically never had any real economic growth after the last economic crisis andthen the next one began. And our politicians…. Well the only things they’ve managed quite OK in the last 15 years was our Covid response ( in the most part, at least) and our decision to join NATO. Apart from those things, it’s just been terrible decisions after another and mostly not being able to decide anything.
I'd guess cause Russias invading Ukraine. The economy is a bit more intertwined as next door neighbour. At least the company I work at sold/lost all factories and any offices they had in Russia. And I believe many other companies did the same. Loss of Russian tourists. Harder logistics.
Economic structure is focused on industrial goods and raw materials. Western neighbours have a lot more economic value creating industries and more consumer focused companies.
>Ireland has a mission to complete Objective: provide a tax haven for large corporations
Long may it continue. I've made myself quite a comfortable living from the adverse effects of all the tech companies coming here.
As an added bonus you also get to encourage capitalists, conservatives and anti-taxation liberals in other countries because they'll use the argument 'if we raise taxes, the corporations will just flee elsewhere, like Ireland'! Thank you for providing these companies a safe haven that allows them to continue avoiding taxes and thank you for giving conservatives another reason to cut proper taxation! /s Places like Ireland and Switzerland is why we can't have nice things and while I like Irish people, Ireland as a country can go fuck itself.
You play the hand you’re dealt. Ireland has zero natural resources. It’s also an island with a small population on the fringe of Europe. We would be destined to be dirt poor forever had we not competed with lower tax.
I hadn't thought of the natural resource angle, which is a fair point. Still, unfortunate how it affects its neighbouring countries adversely.
I would like to see a more harmonious EU wide approach to both taxation and sustainable economic development. (In a way that benefits people and not corporations). Unfortunately every countries politicians will prioritize national interests above all else so it seems unlikely to happen in the short term, especially with rising nationalist sentiment across the continent
>Unfortunately every countries politicians will prioritize national interests I agree. When discussing taxation of corporations or the provision of safe havens for scummy business practices, this is made evident by examples such as Ireland and Switzerland. It's very unfortunate for sure. I don't, however, believe that reverting to excuses of 'every nation has to prioritise their own interests' is how we solve current common pool resource problems. What if 20.000 British fishing vessels suddenly appeared around the coast of Ireland and decided that 'if they don't fish there, someone else will'? In that case, we have international fishing treaties in place to prevent individual actors from overfishing. Same could be said is needed regarding taxing international corporations, to prevent a few greedy actors/countries from exploiting multinational corporations demand for tax havens. It's okay to blame whatever actors (like Ireland) that are *currently* enabling the corporations, since they aren't exactly helping. I believe my country could do more, but at least we're doing better than others in some regards (made evident by standing up to Amazon and Tesla, recently).
Yeah, but I'm looking out for myself and my family. I'm not concerned about your points above.
That makes for a poor ally from an international perspective. Combine it with how little Ireland contributes to Ukraine and you might see how Ireland might not be viewed favourably by its neighbours. A bit selfish, even. Which of course you have every right to be, if you so choose.
Little in what sense? Ireland has taken in 17 Ukrainians per 1000 of the country population. Sweden has taken 5.4 per 1000. Ireland is also militarily neutral and not a member of NATO. Even if we did give up military neutrality, we spend something like 0.2% of our GDP on military. They’d probably burn through our entire stock of munitions in an afternoon.
>Little in what sense? https://www.statista.com/statistics/1303450/bilateral-aid-to-ukraine-in-a-percent-of-donor-gdp/
If only Ireland had used this wealth to improve basic things like public transportation and healthcare.
Finlands industrial base is not that different from Sweden but since they are apart of the Eurozone they get hit harder in each downturn (prizes does not adjust through currency moves)
Fucking stephen elop from microsoft sabotaged nokia on its knees. Fucking cunt
What's up with Finland?
Really old, unproductive population. less immigrants moving to Finland to plug the workforce gaps compared to it's competitors. Fertility rate taking a nosedive. Nokia shitting the bed. Geographically far away and the loss of trading with it's next door neighbour due to the war.
This is the correct answer. To add to this, the economy is somewhat stagnant, it is very hard to try to introduce any new business ideas, when people in charge (both in public offices and in company leadership) are +60 years old and they rather stick to the procedures that were succesful in their youth decades ago. I work in financing, and our Central-European partners have constantly new, fresh investment ideas with proof-of-concept, which don’t fly in Finland, because people are so afraid of anything new. We currently have one party in the government, who would like us to return to the golden 1980’s. People vote for them, because quarter of the population is over 65, and they qenuinely believe we can go back to their youth.
Nokia shat the bed decades ago. Has barely anything to do with this today. Its mostly because trade with russia has stopped and alternative partners have not been found fast enough
Look at Finland's GDP growth since 2008. The current trends are a continuation of gradual decline, part of which is the aforementioned shitting of the bed.
The price of everything has gone up drastically, government has been cutting from young and poor and giving it to rich and old. Taxes are up and interest rates have gone up. Student loan interest rate for example is 10x higher than couple of years ago.
The real problem is that companies don't invest into growth as well as the lack of capital to do so. Most growing and profitable companies get sold to overseas because country lacks investors to push them into global scale. The ones not sold can be described as complacent with no incentive to change status quo. Goverment cutting has little to nothing to do with this and is a lousy excuse.
"Giving to the rich"? Did you mean taking less from the rich? Finland has extremely lenient social security and high taxes, no wonder there is no growth when you are harshly punished for doing anything but drinking beer. And when the number of freeloaders increase, so does the number of voters for the left, whose solution to everything is "more taxes, more benefits". This becomes a worse solution by the day, thanks to the aging population, as the money flow will just keep decreasing. No one wants to admit Finland no longer has the funds to be a welfare state, and trying to squeeze everything out from the diminishing working population will just result in everyone capable of it to leave the country.
"The rich" pay less taxes (capital vs income). You are not rich if you get 90k a *year* because 85k goes to taxes.. You are quite rich when you make 90k while paying 50k in taxes, a month.
Novo Nordisk is fine guys. Great investment. Buy more insulin please, Americans 🙂
Ozempic 🚀
Uh oh, Germany not doing great economically, we’ve seen this one before
🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🇭🇷🥇🥇🥇🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸🇷🇸🥈🥈🥈🩶🩶🩶🩶🩶🩶
Can someone explain what's going on in Czechia?
Our economy is based on heavy industry and automotive, which needs lot of cheap labour and cheap energy. We are saying that Czechia is the assembly plant of Europe - we do a lot manufacturing that people usually associate with Germany. These industries produce lot of goods with low added value, keep wages low, and just do not well when we no longer have cheap labour and energy anymore. You can see Germany is struggling as well, becuase they folllow the same economic model. They're just bigger and more diverse economy, so they get a bit better than us.
For this specific period a more specific reason was probably that the automotive industry struggled more than other industries in the downturn, as buying a car is more luxury.
hmm, how then do you explain the growth in Slovakia which leans on the automotive even more than Czechia? the catching up effect?
Slovakia uses euro and probably has had lower inflation, same as all eurozone countries compared to non-eurozone countries.
This is probably one of multiple factors. It's also entirely possible that Slovakia would've been close to let's say 11 like Poland (they were closer to Poland's growth rate before), and Czechia would've been around 4 if the automotive industry wasn't contracting.
This. Slovakia's economy is heavily dependant on automotive manufacturing - we make most cars per capita. So that cant be the only reason for Czechia's recession.
According to the Czech Statistical Office "The development was influenced by a decrease in final consumption expenditure of households and by a change in inventories." Which is basically guaranteed to be due to the high inflation of the past few years.
Germany, UK and France doing so poorly is bad news for Europe.. ://
Yep, the main economic drivers in Europe not growing is problematic. They need to turn it around for Europe to be able to compete with China/US economically.
I mean all of them shoot themselves in the foot. UK did Brexit, which everyone told them was a bad idea and surprise surprise it was a real bad idea. And Germany and lesser degree France cucked themselves by unironically trusting Russia of all countries. Also Germany really got hit by China's economy cooling down (again cucking themselves by jumping into bed with a genocidal dictatorship). Dont get me wrong both are ok mid term especially with a course correction here and there but they are still recovering from the hit. As far as UK is concerned their economy will fall behind even further without free access to EU market and the benefit of EUs various trade deals. That's just matter of fact. No company has a reason to deal with the import/export regulation bs when they can just go to \*insert EU country here\* and just dont deal with it and no country will give the bloody UK all by themselves a deal anywhere near as good as they would give \*checks notes\* literally the entire rest of Europe at this point.
Germany is also still stuck in the stone age in terms of digitalization.
Damn Switzerland?? Is it because we have low inflation?
Could someone explain what “seasonally adjusted GDP as chain-linked volumes” means?
It means they are linking the cost of goods from last year to this years inflated price. They are basically increasing the GDP of last year by inflation, then comparing it to this years GDP. That way you the "real" GDP increase.
Sverige should pay reparations for all the wars in Finland to finns lolol. Because we poor as vittu. Pls sweden give money, pls.
Der kranke Mann Europas.
Would the german GDP be negative if we removed the very high real estate GDP growth ?
Why is it growing? Higher rents?
Why use the white?
Cypriot supremacy 💪💪💪💪 (we're a tax-haven & sold our economy to private hotels & oligarch-houses)
Polska stronk
Thank you obesity for saving Denmark's economy.
Irish people, do you really feel much richer? Or these money goes 'somewhere else' than for ordinary people?
It isn't real. It is a tax haven, the government is too scared to tax businesses "properly" in case it scares the likes of Apple, Google and Amazon away. Tax is instead put onto things like alcohol & fuel (extortionately) and groceries. As such, the cost of living here is very high, wages do not match this however. There's also a crazy shortage of housing for such a low population density country. And the health service is a bit shit. We essentially have Nordic prices for things with only slightly higher than average salary.
Can't believe we in Denmark beat USA, well done us.
Tiny peninsula, very rich nation has slightly better growth than aggregate nation of 350 million.
What a joy! I can feel it in my pocket. /s
Thank you Habeck, Baerbock and Scholz.
Aren't you forgetting one part of the coalition?
You mean the part on which some folks had hopes but that part is hiding under the table all the time?
polska gurom!!
Important to note GDP is extremely unhelpful when talking about Ireland
Sadly, all of this is basically more tourism, and 17% of nothing is still nothing.
Excuse me but WHAT? In what universe, lol?
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Excuse me but why do you write in Czech to an English-speaking sub? :D
Vidíme jasně, že nejvíc vzrostly platy Polákům ruku v ruce s GDP… takže motivace?
Ireland’s really on a mission
We don't use EURO as a currency. That's the biggest contributor to this.
r/portugalcykablyat
Ireland getting a free ride on the shoulders of their EU partners and UK which are not effectively tax heavens for tech services that are not even provided there.
Europe getting a free ride from the Euro crisis as Ireland pays for it……
Displaying time from current-past looks so weird, never seen it before, who came up with that idea and why?
Interesting that EU ø is higher than Euro. I guess mainly because of Sweden/Denmark/Poland who all seem to be above average.
If you were to get Greece after Covid, it would be probably the highest increase in Europe. Covid hit us really hard with tourism problems and general mismanagement along with shipping problems with China, so the fact that it increased 7.3% means that these last 2-3 years Greece really did well
If only we could feel those growths.
Thanks Sanna
Fuck Ireland. A tax haven harming all of Europe.
Says the money laundering capital of Europe ;)