The Eurozone has seen zero net economic growth for about 8 years, and has 11% unemployment (13% without Germany). GDP has just finally started to get back to where it was in 2007/2008.
Germany's GDP is where it was in 2008; France is where it was in 2007, with France having ~10.5% unemployment.
Finland has been in an eight year recession/stagnation combination, with zero growth. Their unemployment rate has gone from 7.5% three years ago, to 9.5% today. Their household income to debt ratio has doubled since 2000, to 120%.
Italy has seen three recessions in seven years, with an unemployment rate of 12%.
Greece has collapsed.
Spain has 23% unemployment, Portugal is 14% (and those aren't the U6 equivalent numbers, just the headline).
The Netherlands economy hasn't gotten any bigger since 2007, and they now have one of the highest household debt levels on earth, which will continue to crimp their economic growth prospects severely.
Ireland's household debt ratio is one of the five worst in the world. Their unemployment rate is nearly 10%, which is a six year low.
Austria, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia have seen zero growth since 2007/2008.
Simultaneously most of the Eurozone countries have seen a significant expansion of household debt over 10 to 15 years, as they try to prop up their standard of living with debt.
The only bump the region has seen economically since 2007, has been via currency devaluation and debt monetization, which has chopped down the Eurozone standard of living by perhaps 20% in exchange for a brief burst of low growth.
I'm not sure by what basis one would judge that it's working well at all.
Is that because of the euro, or because the policies of austerities that were chosen at that time?
The problem with the euro is that it is considered as an economic issue, whereas it should be a political one (and it was when it was created, as the first step in an "ever tighter union"). If we European citizens want to keep the euro, we need to deepen the Union.
If they went with inflation instead of austerity, all you'd see accomplished is the nominal numbers would climb, while the real numbers would not. That's what we're seeing right now with the QE devaluation of the Euro; pretend growth via dropping the value of the Euro (if you have to drop your currency by 20% to get 2% growth, what you have is not growth).
Austerity and inflation accomplish the exact same outcome, the only difference between the two depends on how they're implemented, and the lies that the politicians get to spin to pretend one is better than the other (politicians in weak economies almost universally prefer inflation, because they can lie and show nominal growth, and tell their citizens that their wages and pensions aren't falling, when in fact they are in real terms).
Take Greece for example. They could exit the Euro and meet all of their domestic obligations - in a debased new currency, that wouldn't actually be meeting the obligations in real terms as the currency tumbled. They'd get to pretend everything was fine nominally.
Inflation instead of austerity is used to devalue the amount of debt held, which is a form of defaulting on creditors. It drops the standard of living, as it steals wealth from citizens by devaluing their real incomes and assets.
The 1.6% positive is actually negative if you account for even very low level inflation over those years. Also, the Euro just lost a ton of value due to QE, which will ultimately drop every Eurozone member's GDP by at least 20% in real terms. In dollar terms, Germany's economy has plunged since 2008 due to this effect.
It's the same effect the US suffered as US budget deficits hammered the dollar from 2001-2009 or so. If you look at any country's GDP priced in dollars, they all universally skyrocket at the exact same time, all courtesy of the devalued dollar (the US lost a lot of ground to the rest of the world over that time due to the dollar devaluation).
Population growth is not a requirement for GDP growth. It also doesn't always help, plenty of countries have historically shown vast population growth with mediocre economic growth.
Germany's population has hardly budged since 1970. Their economy has increased several fold in that time. Productivity / output gains are far more important than population gains.
> Population growth is not a requirement for GDP growth. It also doesn't always help, plenty of countries have historically shown vast population growth with mediocre economic growth.
In developed countries most GDP growth is linked to population growth. See the US. Not taking into account that the US has an artificial inflated GDP.
> Their economy has increased several fold in that time
Long ago, different situation.
Besides that, the limits of using the GDP as a useful number have long been shown. The Iraq war with its trillion dollar cost helped the GDP a lot...
Germany's GDP is where it was in 2008; France is where it was in 2007, with France having ~10.5% unemployment.
Finland has been in an eight year recession/stagnation combination, with zero growth. Their unemployment rate has gone from 7.5% three years ago, to 9.5% today. Their household income to debt ratio has doubled since 2000, to 120%.
Italy has seen three recessions in seven years, with an unemployment rate of 12%.
Greece has collapsed.
Spain has 23% unemployment, Portugal is 14% (and those aren't the U6 equivalent numbers, just the headline).
The Netherlands economy hasn't gotten any bigger since 2007, and they now have one of the highest household debt levels on earth, which will continue to crimp their economic growth prospects severely.
Ireland's household debt ratio is one of the five worst in the world. Their unemployment rate is nearly 10%, which is a six year low.
Austria, Estonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia have seen zero growth since 2007/2008.
Simultaneously most of the Eurozone countries have seen a significant expansion of household debt over 10 to 15 years, as they try to prop up their standard of living with debt.
The only bump the region has seen economically since 2007, has been via currency devaluation and debt monetization, which has chopped down the Eurozone standard of living by perhaps 20% in exchange for a brief burst of low growth.
I'm not sure by what basis one would judge that it's working well at all.