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Comment by supermatt | Hacker News Reader

What a stupid article. Their benchmark for digital relevance? The number of AI startups... Sure, Germany has had less recent growth than any other G7 member - but it is also among the highest GDP per capita of the G7, highest GDP in Europe, and 3rd highest in the world.

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Where are you getting that Germany has the third highest GDP per capita in the world? IMF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... puts it at 18th in nominal GDP per capita and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... puts it at 21st in purchasing-power-adjusted GDP per capita. And in Europe, Luxemburg, Austria, The Netherlands and Ireland have higher GDP per capita according to those lists, as do Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Denmark if you consider them part of Europe.

You may want to read my comment again:

> highest GDP per capita of the G7, highest GDP in Europe, and 3rd highest in the world.

i only compare GDP per capita to the g7 (because that is what they mention in the article). The rest is just GDP (not per capita)

Well non-per-capita GDP is useless as a measure of living standards because it's primarily determined by population size. China has the second highest GDP in the world but the GDP per capita is less than half of most European countries and the average person's standard of living is significantly worse.

Why on earth would you not consider Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries part of Europe? Sweden and Denmark are even in the EU.

Germany's GDP per capita is notably lower compared to the USA: $85,373 vs $54,291. Additionally, the USA has experienced real growth, while Germany’s growth has been around 0% for the last four years. Even Russia, despite facing significant challenges, has seen 3.5% growth compared to Germany's 0.1%. It’s concerning that Germany's economic performance lags behind a country under such heavy sanctions.

russia has massive natural resources. No, to rephrase it - absolutely MASSIVE resources, even on stuff west desperately need for advanced tech like aerospace. Even if they have to sell it under the price, they can be ineffective with mining and still keep finding it all over their massive country.

Plus they switched to war economy last year showing some long term dedication to fuhrer's plan to conquer as much of Europe as possible - remember what happened to US economy during WWII?

The article compares it to others in the g7. In the g7, Germany has the 2nd highest GDP per capita.

Its not really fair to just measure the last 4 years. Thats penalising germany for preserving their economy throughout covid. It has done no worse than the other (non-usa) g7 members since 2019, despite its energy crisis.

Im not sure why you are comparing to germany to russia - a country with less than a quarter of Germanys GDP per capita. If thats the game, just look at how the USA compared to Niger - a low HDI nation.

Absolute numbers matter but growth m, or lack thereof, also matters for the future. If the economy isn’t growing it’s actually shrinking due to inflation.

Do most AI startups produce something of sustainable, lasting value ?

Sure, but you cant take a SINGLE YEAR and extrapolate that for the future.

If you look at the previous year Germany had 20% more growth than the UK - which they tout as having more than 2.5x the AI startups.

If you look at growth since pre-covid times the German economy has grown at the same rate as the UK - even accounting for the Russian energy crisis, on which Germany was HIGHLY dependent. Germany has been mostly stable throughout, while the UK was hit hard through COVID and has simply recovered.

The whole article is just a load of hot air.

GDP per capita is more telling, IMHO.

Major European countries are encouraging high immigration to boost overall GDP numbers but the result is higher population growth than GDP growth. Ie. GDP per capita is decreasing and hence, in reality people are getting poorer.

For instance, it seems that Germany's population grew by more than 0.4% in 2023 (between 0.5 and 0.8% from what I can find online)... Certainly, in the UK's case the GDP growth is only due to the frantic influx of people but GDP per capita is going down.

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