1y ago

Germany now world's third largest economy as Japan loses its spot

www.euronews.com

Japan slips into recession, becoming the 4th-largest economy, behind the US, China and now Germany.

Japan’s economy is now the world’s fourth-largest after it contracted in the last quarter of 2023 and fell behind Germany.

The government reported the economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.4% in October to December, according to Cabinet Office data on real GDP, though it grew 1.9% for all of 2023.

It contracted 2.9% in July-September. Two straight quarters of contraction are considered an indicator an economy is in a technical recession.

Japan’s economy was the second largest until 2010, when it was overtaken by China’s. Japan’s nominal GDP totaled $4.2 trillion last year, while Germany’s was $4.4 trillion, or $4.5 trillion, depending on the currency conversion.

39 comments

And yet they complain that our economy is in shambles. It's never enough for these capitalist ghouls.
- My thoughts exactly. Why does this even matter?
  I bet being poor is a better life in Japan than being poor in any of the "top three" countries.
  
  excuse me? I'd argue that being poor in Germany is a better life than being "working class" in Japan
  
  Germany?
  
  Hi, hello, this is a culture that once committed suicide to prevent being seen as low or dishonorable. Much of that same social family pressure still exists.
  While I have no evidence is wager some poor people in Japan end their own lives rather than be a burden on their country, family, etc. Due to cultural norms.
  
  The Japanese have universal health care so the homeless get help including mental health help. They have housing programs for the homeless, job training for the homeless, direct food care, the government pays businesses to hire people so their wages are subsidized.
  https://www.studycountry.com/wiki/does-japan-have-a-homeless-problem
  
  That's actually a really tough call between US and JP. I lived out of my car in the US for a while. I've not been homeless in Japan, but they do tend to have it rather rough from what I've seen.
  
  It’s not
Truth is they are both going down at a different pace.
- Germany just passed a €72 billion defense budget. As they say: "When the economy is sore, join a war."
  
  Did you miss the developments in Eastern Europe that necessitate this increase in spending?
It still amazes me that a country that small with that little natural resource as Germany can have such a strong and big economy!
- Our resource used to be people, but we're in the process of completely fucking that up. Education going downhill quickly, rapidly aging population paired with a massive push against immigration, the most important jobs having some of the worst pay and working conditions...
  We're in a race to the bottom. Japan mas have overtaken us, but we're folfowing closely behind.
  
  One thing‘s for certain: Germans remain world champions at complaining. Even the brits got nothing on us.
  
  I can't tell if you're talking about Germany or the US. It's believable either way.
  
  I'm so sorry to hear that. I remember thinking that your education system sounded top notch, uh, quite a few years ago, when a German gentleman on a forum I was on was explaining why students were protesting against the introduction of a nominal fee for university studies, which had previously been free, right?
"We have declining birthrates and extremely strict immigration rules."
"Why is our economy failing?"
- You know not everything is a problem of too little or too much immigration....
  
  What? Yeah except I'm not talking about everything I'm talking about the economy. Dying countries have low immigration and Japan's self-imposed rules are pushing it into a recession because a lack of human workers leads to a weak workforce.
  But I'd love to hear your theory on why Japan has fallen behind Germany.
But their public transport sucks.
- Still much better than global average... Germany is probably in the top 10% of countries with the best public transport.
- I wish Canadian public transport sucked as much as Germany's
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The government reported the economy shrank at an annual rate of 0.4% in October to December, according to Cabinet Office data on real GDP, though it grew 1.9% for all of 2023.
"Japan’s top currency diplomat Masato Kanda communicated his displeasure around rapid yen moves which he says could have an adverse effect on the economy.
Mr Kanda even went as far as to suggest deploying FX intervention as a potential solution to the matter," Richard Snow, a market strategist at DailyFX, said.
"Japanese officials previously intervened in the FX market in September and October 2022 when it sold dollars and bought yen to strengthen the value of the local currency.
Cingari also noted that labour shortages represent a bottleneck to economic activity, while a trade-driven recovery is also unlikely amid stagnating export and import dynamics.
"On a more optimistic note, market financing conditions have eased recently, with expectations of continued relief facilitated by more accessible bank lending," he said.
The original article contains 474 words, the summary contains 159 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Shame it don't see anything of it, I just see a country falling into ruins and disrepair
- LOL, a little over dramatic, aren't you?
- Examples?
- What on Earth are you on about?

39 comments