Germany on the way to becoming an emerging market
Hello people,
today will be about a market analysis on Germany. According to the vote, this topic has prevailed over electromobility etc., so today we will look at the German market using the DAX as an example, as well as some basic economic parameters. In particular, I will show the influence of environmental protection on the economy and why it is often not about proper preservation of our environment, but rather about conveying a lower standard of living to support existing structures.
Beforehand as always my DisclaimerThis is not an investment advice. It is also not an invitation to buy / sell financial products. I describe here only my opinion. Therefore, I assume no liability. You have your own responsibility towards your investments.
In order to understand a little better what this analysis on the German state and economy should be about, I suggest the following chapter selection:
Germany in 2023 - on the way to becoming an emerging market?
PART 1
Old-age poverty: Your name is female
PART 2
DAX fetish & green stock pension hatred: Lived delusion
Veganism & mealworm pizza: Environmental protection as a bogus argument
PART 3
E-mobility & inflation: Transport policy from the ivory tower
Old-age poverty: Your name is female
As many may know, I've been running a YouTube channel for a few months now and cover topics around the stock market, stock analysis on dividend stocks as well as sometimes my opinion on markets and trends like veganism, the tobacco sector and social developments within Germany. Feel free to follow me to never miss a video again.
What might be less known is my current viewer distribution. Since the channel was created, 67.1% of my viewers are women or logged in with an account that belongs to a woman. Even if we assume that only 2/3 of the 67.1% are really women, that's still 44.73%. Either way, the great importance of women for my channel cannot be explained away, which is why I would like to open the first article in this series explicitly with a typically female problem: poverty in old age and how little the German state is doing about it.
Subsequently, I will illustrate the distorted, almost paradoxical actions of the German state and its public broadcaster by means of trends such as veganism, e-mobility and a pronounced DAX fetish among various investors, in order to finally paint a picture of a better morning in my opinion.
Let us begin!
Part 1
Old-age poverty: Your name is female
Environmental protection is a topic that has been heard more and more often in the media in recent years. Since 1994, one of Germany's overriding goals has been to protect our natural environment and to take measures to ensure that future generations can also live "well and happily" in Germany. The quote comes in a somewhat modified form from the CDU and could be read on flyers in 2017. The only question is what exactly the priorities of the citizens are at the moment and where the state has to start in order to a) finance this "good and happy" life and b) communicate it to the citizens (see (1), (2), (3)).
If we look at the greatest concerns of the population as of 2012, we find the following among the top three concerns (see (1)):
- Fear of living a dependent life in old age, having become a care recipient (41% with major worries).
- Fear of limitations in advanced age (37% with great worries)
- Fear of the onset of an illness that restricts everyday life (28% with major worries).
These top 3 greatest worries, when viewed as a whole, allow for a clear abstraction in terms of the clusters of interests and greatest fears that drive the population around. Within this study, a point related to environmental protection is found only at position 11 - and not even directly. The relevant point does not refer directly to "I am afraid of the demise of our nature" but to the statement "I would not like to be affected by an earthquake, for example" (cf. ibid.).
Do you notice anything?
None of the 11 remaining points has an indirect reference to the topic of environmental protection - at best, environmental protection comes into play with a lot of imagination in the causes of too few points. Interest cluster number 1 runs through the top 5 of the survey and even point 6 with the fear of unemployment demonstrates it very precisely.
Germans are afraid of a) losing their jobs, b) losing their financial security both as employees and in old age, and c) the outlook for the future in particular is among the top 3 in the entire study with its 38% under "it already worries me a bit". In essence, then, the study indicates:
Germany is afraid of relegation
But is the phenomenon new?
No, because I used a little trick: All the data is correct according to the study - but it appeared back in 2012, so we know that the fear of losing social status has already been increasingly driving people around in this country for 10 years at the latest. It is not a new phenomenon and shows in particular where the focus of the policy at that time should have been. If we ask ourselves what today's figures look like, (4) will help us.
Source (4) shows us a graph with 6 different topics, from which the subjects could choose a maximum of 3 in descending importance. So the study is much simplified compared to (1) and wants to make a more general statement. Despite the changes of the last years, the medial constant bombardment with trends (to whose sensefulness I will come later) as well as a corona pandemic, neither the coronavirus nor the climate change wins here contrary to the expectation. The main focus is on inflation with 47%, while environmental protection remained more or less constant at 30% mentioning in the observed period. The coronavirus, on the other hand, was only mentioned by 21% of respondents and is no longer very relevant in the survey (see (4)).
Comparing these parameters and their behavior over time, poverty or social inequality in particular is also a financial issue. The issue of immigration is equally constant and reaches the 5th place. If we focus on this inflation, another study by R&V Versicherung provides us with two interesting figures: 50 and 67.
What could these mean? The French retirement age compared to ours?
No, it's a take on the question of whether or not inflation scares you. While it was 50% in 2021, it is now 67%. This is also reflected in the top 10 biggest worries of Germans from 2022. We see here in 1st place the aforementioned 67% with fear of rising living costs, but also a newcomer in 2nd place: unaffordable housing with 58%. Once again, the top 5 are all financial aspects and environmental protection can only have an impact in 6th place under the guise of "natural disaster". The actual climate change comes only on place 8 with 46%, whereby interestingly the most immanent point of all mentioned lies on the last place: The fear of incompetent politicians or their excessive demands. Apparently, 44% of those surveyed are afraid that the emerging challenges will place too great a demand on politics, and thus on the governing traffic light in particular, and that no suitable solutions will be found (cf. (5), (6)).
Against this background, we have thus understood that fear of financial ruin, lack of government support as well as the absence of a positive prognosis is what drives people around the most in general. Today as 10 years ago.
And the women isolated?
One might think that the problem is a problem for society as a whole and that it is perhaps not all that important. After all, the proportion of women with low age has fallen from 16.4% in 2008 to 13.6% in 2018, so old BASS-T shouldn't be wielding a club against our country's wonderful pension policy and....
Lie, because I got the numbers mixed up. Yes really. Read correctly. In a Germany in which we live "well and happy", old-age poverty among men increased by 2.8% between 2008 and 2018, from 9.9% to 12.7%. These are men who are affected by relative income poverty. In other words, they cannot participate in social life like the average (see (6), (7)).
For women, it only gets worse, because even with the increased values, men do not even reach the value of women in 2008 with 12.7% in 2018. This is very interesting and against the background of the old-age poverty of women, which also increased from 13.6% to 16.4%. At the same time, the study is not even perfect, because both population groups men and women are only recorded from 65 years plus. I take issue with this because in my perception there are two groups in particular on the labor market that experience discrimination:
- Career starters or retrained
- Older employees
A finding from (8) supports my thesis, because within 2014 to 2016, at least 49% percent of the respondents experienced discrimination because of their age. By the way, you can delete the "at least" - this means that age is unbeaten as a reason for discrimination and far ahead of hatred of men or women, religion or origin. It is interesting to note that 28% of this discrimination takes place in the workplace. This is also the reason why I mention this. The workplace as a place of enough stress and cognitive effort is not exactly improved by the award as the place with the most discrimination of ALL places asked (cf. (8), (9)).
Why is age discrimination important for age poverty?
(10) identifies explicit examples of age discrimination using several examples. All these examples with reference to older employees have one thing in common: non-employment, failure to apply or dismissal in the worst case (cf. (10)).
Now the prize question: Does it have a) good b) so-so or c) bad effect on my pension entitlement if my application is no longer even read and ends up in file P (trash)?
The answer is c). If you take a look at the percentage of older unemployed (at least 55 years old, but no more than 64.9 years old), you will see a straight line of almost 45° from 2008 to 2021, despite the alleged shortage of skilled workers.
Want to know the exact figures? In 2008, it was "only" 13.1% of 55-64.9 year olds who were unemployed. In 2021, however, we are at 23.4%, which is an increase of 78.62%. So unemployment is shifting backwards. This result is not much improved by the fact that the study authors only documented "registered" unemployed. Cases in which the pension was granted by early severance pay or early retirement with corresponding deductions are not found here. This improves the picture more than would actually be fair and realistic. Also (12) points out very clearly that especially the part 60 upwards of this category is often not statistically recorded. This works through a dishonest focus on men and women "released for placement" who do NOT meet the following parameters (cf. (11), (12)):
- One is in a training program specified by the office (if one has received it).
- One has not even registered with the office anymore
- One has accepted the pension at 63 with enormous deductions (-> old-age poverty)
- You have not yet reached your 60th birthday (because after this date the interest in further education on the part of the office dwindles, according to sources).
These issues around old age are indicators that may fuel old-age poverty. In particular, (13) shows a significant gap between individuals recorded by the Office and microcensus data. This only highlights the phenomenon.
What is exciting is that starting in 2023 (and thus this year), the boomer generation will enter the 55-65 age group and therefore this age structure will also massively increase in numbers shortly before retirement. Thus, more men and women will be faced with the problem of "Do I accept the deductions at 63 or do I continue to work part-time?" It is not made much better by the fact that unemployment figures from this older cohort tend to pick up positive trends more leisurely, so that figures from younger unemployed mostly benefit more (see (13), (14)).
Couldn't they just keep working when they realize that the pension is not enough?
Leaving aside the fact that a life after work should not consist of even more work and mMn enough of the paycheck already seeps into the pension schemes etc., the answer is: predominantly no. Those who do work after retirement are mostly men and do not work full time. Mostly, they are found in smaller jobs (cf. (14)).
Why is this relevant for women in particular? They work too, don't they?
Yes, and many of them work for more than 40 years. The problem: Approx. 38% of FULL-TIME EMPLOYED WOMEN in Germany will have less than 1,000€ net in their old age. According to (15), that's 2.7 million women in Germany and that allows the following statement:
More than every third woman in Germany working full time will be affected by poverty despite 40 years of work.
I find this development in a country "in which we live well and gladly" (yes, I like to repeat this misguided advertising slogan again) frightening and the question arises for me how we can reasonably solve old-age poverty of men and women. I have deliberately argued with current figures in order to avoid rhetoric à la "Yes, they had their pensions paid out, but we women today are much smarter".
This part serves as the opening of my series "Germany on its way to becoming a newly industrialized country".
Every week you have the opportunity to vote for the topic of the next week. Feel free to participate and follow me to never miss a post again :)
Your Bass-T
Sources
(1) https://www.bpb.de/themen/soziale-lage/rentenpolitik/288842/altersarmut/
(2) https://archiv.cdu.de/artikel/fuer-ein-deutschland-dem-wir-gut-und-gerne-leben
(3) https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/lexika/das-junge-politik-lexikon/321275/umwelt-umweltschutz/
(4) https://www.ipsos.com/de-de/inflation-weiter-mit-abstand-grosste-sorge-der-deutschen
(7) https://de.statista.com/infografik/19906/risiko-fuer-altersarmut-in-deutschland-nach-geschlecht/
(9) https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/4692.jpeg
(13) https://www.boeckler.de/data/impuls_grafik_2011_01_6_rgb_rdaxs.jpg
(15) https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/altersarmut-frauen-101.html
#dax
#deutschland
#altersarmut
#schwellenland
#emerging
