What matters is that the productivity measure is a similarly good proxy for true productivity over time. If so, then the trend change is likely real.

Undisciplined

Any insight how this productivity on the graph is measured? Nominal GDP is, of course measured in a fraudulent unit. "Real" GDP is not much better either, because people cannot agree what the actual inflation, that you should adjust by, is. Besides, it's still measured in a fraudulent unit.

Either way, I'm not surprised. Germany is a pristine modern example of how socialism can turn around a perfectly good economy and run it into the ground. (Slightly older examples are all over the South America.)

And don't get me wrong, I think the EU (and ECSC before it) was successful in rebuilding a continent ravaged by war (and later to uplift some post-Soviet states) through a weird combo of free markets, free trade but also targetted welfare. It has succeeded on a scale that few international programs do, but it has since outlived its usefulness.

econ

EU: The Destruction Of The Economic Hearr

GhostofTruth

Any insight how this productivity on the graph is measured? Nominal GDP is, of course measured in a fraudulent unit. "Real" GDP is not much better either, because people cannot agree what the actual inflation, that you should adjust by, is. Besides, it's still measured in a fraudulent unit.

Either way, I'm not surprised. Germany is a pristine modern example of how socialism can turn around a perfectly good economy and run it into the ground. (Slightly older examples are all over the South America.)

And don't get me wrong, I think the EU (and ECSC before it) was successful in rebuilding a continent ravaged by war (and later to uplift some post-Soviet states) through a weird combo of free markets, free trade but also targetted welfare. It has succeeded on a scale that few international programs do, but it has since outlived its usefulness.