German supremacy slowing?

Germany was one of the least affected countries in the world at the height of the financial crisis. It's economy managed to hold up, and even had enough spare cash to bail out every barista in Spain. 

However is their supremacy at the beginning of the end?   

German growth has been higher than the euro-zone average every quarter apart from one, throughout the whole of the financial crisis, however now faces falling into recession, as it anticipates the 3rd quarter growth data. 

Manufacturing is down nearly 5%, the first time it has done this since the height of the financial crisis. A whole 3x bigger than what analysts anticipated. 

Germany is the pin up boy for the euro-zone project, and was the leading economy politically and economically in the project.
However could this now be coming to an end? 

The euro-zone currently faces a deflation and growth problem, and with fears of a German recession, contagion could kick in with FDI flight from the euro-zone, and could see the euro-zone back to square one. 

Germans rely heavily upon exports, with their strong export business with the likes of BMW, Audi and Mercedes at the forefront of that. With global growth being sluggish, and one of their main export partners China experiencing a stuttering of their economy, this could see exports fall dramatically for the Germans in the future.  

However despite these fears, Chancellor Merkel could look for a supply side policy to shift GDP upwards. Germans often complain about the state of their infrastructure such as their roads, railways, water ways and their airports. Thus you could see some investment coming into them soon to try and ramp up their economy, and stump a recession and contagion before it's too late. 

The flash that will cost you a lot of cash: New financed cars

Financed cars are becoming ever more alluring to young people who have recently got on the job market, a chance to drive around in a brand new car, looking cool amongst friends etc... You regularly see adverts on the TV or on billboards saying 'Buy now for only £75 per week'

On the surface this can look like a reasonable purchase, especially in a £15-£20k starting salary job with no outgoings. However I would argue the exact opposite.

I have done a bit of light research and looked at the figures and was shocked by how mad of an investment financed cars are.

I looked at a BMW 116 d as I regularly see people driving around in these around my home town who can't be any older than 22.

An initial deposit on the vehicle was £299 with monthly payments of £348 (Inc interest) over the course of 47 months. On a car that is worth £22,359.39, that works out at a total price over the 4 years of £25,379.95 (With a one off payment of £8707.50). Already a loss of £3,020.56 on interest payments.

Of course the argument you could say is that after the whopping £25,379.95 price tag, you still retain the car at the end of it which is an asset and has a resale value. I then looked at the equivalent model but 4 years old, to come up with a rough estimate of how much the car would be worth after the 4 years. I found the model up for £7,595.00, which would mean the buyer of the car would have lost £17,784.95 by the end of the 4 years due to interest payments and depreciation.

Which is probably around a years salary for the young buyer after tax.

My advice: buy a second hand car, go travelling with some of the savings and stop wasting your hard earned money on materialistic products.

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The figures break down: 

BMW 1 SERIES 116d

£300 deposit
Loan payments £16,373.45

Baloon payment at end £8707.50

Total payable: £25,378.95
47 months of £348.37

Value of 4 year old equivalent model: £7,595 with 37,000 miles on the clock.

Total cost of car = £25,379.95

Depreciation loss = £14,764.39
Interest payments loss = £3,020.56

Total loss of capital = £17,784.95 @ end of 4 year term.