Germany’s birth rate fell to the lowest level in more than a decade last year, adding to concerns about how a shrinking workforce may dent the country’s economic prospects.
Figures released Wednesday by the Federal Institute for Population Research (BIB) showed that German women were having 1.36 children on average in fall 2023, compared with 1.57 in 2021.
God damn I’m so tired of the inclination to worry about the economy first and only then fucking EXTINCTION.
The economy should serve us, and the direction we choose to go, not the other god damn way around.
One of my most remembered quotes that just flew by but helped shock me into being political was our dear former chancellor merkel: “Wir sind eine marktkonforme Demokratie” (We are a market conforming democracy).
It unintentionally highlighted the truth to me, that we are capitalist first, democratic second.
It is time for a democracy conforming market.
Like they say: “it’s easier to image the end of the world than imagining the end of capitalism.”
You just discovered how capitalism works!
I know how capitalism works, which is the complaint. If we have to sacrifice a liveable world to make the economy work, then it doesn’t work.
True that. Now convince the rich ones in power that it does work for.
We live on the same planet, they don’t have a lifeboat. Also, as mentioned by someone earlier in the thread, it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. If we’re gonna live I imagine we’ll have to figuratively eat the rich. Literally if we don’t.
I agree. The priority implicit in the framing is backwards. It’s kind of fucked up to say “fueling the economy needs babies,” rather than “the economy needs to be adjusted to the falling birthrates.”
Sky rocketing rents, shrinking purchasing power, rampant inflation, increased tax burden on the middle class.
I wonder why the birth rate is shrinking? /s
We need our semi slave labor to make more semi slave labor or we’ll lose money
Surely that should be potential parents
