France and Germany are out of recession

Bob Z

Well thats what it says on the BBC website anyway

So what are they doing that everybody else isnt?

Dotsie~tmp

I believe they didn't have a massive speculative bubble like many others.

Daftendirekt

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8198766.stm

Yup, looks like it's official.

The BBC wrote:

The French and German economies both grew by 0.3% between April and June, bringing to an end year-long recessions in Europe's largest economies.

Ponster

Bob Z wrote: »

So what are they doing that everybody else isnt?

It's what they don't do really. France at least never really went into recession really so no surprise that they are now 'out'.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055649770

Show_me_Safety

i wonder how this will affect ECB rates...

AlekSmart

Yet another good reason for encouraging one`s enfant`s to learn a bloody Foreign Language and be prepared to get out of this place as fast as possible.

Another lesson might just be understanding WHY every French or German person upon reaching puberty was NOT emotionally blackmailed into buying unnecessary and vastly overvalued "Property".

Dead money my arsss.....:eek:

Yixian

Hmm, maybe if they're out of the recession... Ireland should follow their example... instead of the Brits who are.. still in recession.. Hmm..

Confusing, I just don't know which model to plump for!

gurramok

Ireland was the first EU country going into recession, FR & Ger was after us and now they are first out while we..well...just have to wait until the housing crash is fully over.

Anyone got patience of a few years? :mad:

kevteljeur

gurramok wrote: »

Ireland was the first EU country going into recession, FR & Ger was after us and now they are first out while we..well...just have to wait until the housing crash is fully over.

Anyone got patience of a few years? :mad:

What bothers me is that there are some clear and obvious lessons to be learned from this episode, but it's unlikely that we'll see someone at the wheel who has learnt them. And even with that, it will as you say take many years before those lessons can be put into practice.

At the least the 'self-sufficient Ireland, to hell with the EU' crowd are very quiet recently in these parts, so The Lesson might be taking with some people, at least.


.

tlev

I think it is too early to organise any parades. I know it is great that there has been growth but we should wait for a period of sustained growth before we can say oh, everything is okay and there is no recession.

Like this quote says

"To draw a medical analogy, we've got the patient waking from a coma and talking to medical staff," he said. "They're not necessarily going to be running any marathons soon."

mike65

Quite so, the next figures might say different, also the Germans have been pumping gizzillions into the economy and there is a general election in the offing, so the ruling party will have been keen to prime the consumer (should sound familiar).

Also if it is a proper turnaround the ECB will be jacking up rates by Christmas, thats the last thing we need.

Stark

Germany's a mature economy and the German government is prudent with the finances so it's so surprise that they had a soft landing. The stimulus package is probably creating some artificial growth though as Mike65 has said.

France's economy was fairly static before the EU recession hit as far as I recall so the economy didn't have far to fall. Jobs for new entrants to the jobs market were practically impossible to come by.

speaktofrank

I don't remember France being in recession either, work here has always been easy to come by.

Rosita

Show_me_Safety wrote: »

i wonder how this will affect ECB rates...

Not a lot I'd say. They won't want to stifle recovery at birth.

tlev

Rosita wrote: »

Not a lot I'd say. They won't want to stifle recovery at birth.

I agree. At the same time I don't believe the French and the Germans will be breaking out the Champagne and Beer respectively just yet. They will be happy to see this growth but obviously cautious moving forward, oh and of course laughing at Brian Cowan.

Stark

From what I recall, their attitude towards Brian Cowen is one of disgust rather than amusement. They have remarked in the past about how Irish government officials get paid far more than their German counterparts, yet it may come to the Germans having to bail us out so we don't drag the rest of the Eurozone down if our economy collapses.

gurramok

Portugal is supposed to be out of recession too but I'm not sure if they were really in a recession at all

worldrepublic

I think the whole world is looking to see what will happen to the United States: when the US gets a cold, the rest of the world gets pneumonia. If Obama's popularity continues to fall... if history does indeed repeat itself, then they will go to war, or several wars.

The first thing that is hard to accept is that this is not a recession, it is a depression. The Irish mindset coming out of the boom/bubble, is that good news must be just around the corner... right? I think that the idea of us following "models" as adopted by France, or Germany etc. is flawed. It cannot take account of the global context -and global it is. I think change will have to occur on a global scale, before any one country can feel secure. It is like the global economy is the foundation, upon which any local or national improvement rests -and it could get better, or worse. There will probable be a pattern of ups and downs, conflicting economic speculations, but the overall pattern is likely to be negative for a sustained period.

For most people posting in this forum, all that they have experience of is the period of c. 1980-present. We now seem to be reverting to a period that could approximate c. 1930-1950? What would that be like? What was that like? Do we really believe that society has progressed that much? That the current generation is culturally, socially and economically advanced... as compared to the previous period? It seems like there is even more inequality, debt, and also more in the way of sustained military conflict (and technology does add to this problem?).

Just some ideas so as to focus on the international dilemma and the scale of the problems surrounding us, but which is so hard to grasp, especially for the younger generation.

It's not all doom and gloom though (sort of): two growth areas will be (i) medicine (aging population) and warfare/peace-keeping (due to the fact of economic instability and the absence of any quick fixes).

So, aim at becoming a nurse, or a soldier -the days of soft jobs are to become memories?

Rosita

Stark wrote: »

From what I recall, their attitude towards Brian Cowen is one of disgust rather than amusement. They have remarked in the past about how Irish government officials get paid far more than their German counterparts, yet it may come to the Germans having to bail us out so we don't drag the rest of the Eurozone down if our economy collapses.

Well, we had to put up with incredibly unsuitable low interest rates in the eurozone for years when our economy was booming in order to prop up the basket case economy that was Germany at the time, so perhaps what goes around comes around.