> that includes part of their beloved NHS
A more severe problem is that the NHS was debt funded (mostly through off balance sheet debt) in the 2000s. The government kept their promise not to increase national debt by disguising running up disguised debt in the NHS
Its also worth noting that a large chuck of NHS services, GP services in particular, were always subcontracted to private providers.
But at the end of the day the point remains that if you want to have a world-beating economy you need to have access to relatively cheap inputs (which includes energy), in large enough amounts, otherwise your economy will just not make it. The Americans have that (people forget how much of an economic boom gas fracking brought with it), the Chinese have that (thanks to its very large population and access to natural resources that is reasonable enough, they're no 1930s Japan), India has that (thanks to its very large and young population), even Russia has that (thanks to its natural resources), meanwhile Europe has almost no demographic advantage and almost no natural resources left to exploit. "Innovation" (which is also lacking) and financialization alone can get you only so far.
The real problem is a completely botched "energy transition", which deprecated very important energy sectors, which were still absolutely needed.
To be clear, I am in favor of renewables. One benefit is that they create independence from the whims of the US and Russia. Nevertheless the transition has been completely botched, driving up energy costs and making certain industries essentially non-viable.
The government focused on two things, increasing renewable peak production and deprecating nuclear. What they completely neglected is how to actually have a sustainable grid, which can cheaply deliver energy even with little sunshine and little wind. What was needed was easily regulated power (e.g. nuclear) and sufficient storage. Nuclear was completely abandoned and most government incentives were focused on increasing peak production, neglecting the storage of energy.
This is obviously harmful to the German industry, which is electricity heavy. This problem has also been consistently ignored and actively made worse in recent years, by continuing to shut down nuclear plants, even if it was clear that more energy production was needed.
In the long term, the level of wealth transfer in these countries is not sustainable, and each year it incentivizes those who produce to seek greener pastures where they get more rewards.
Look at these population histograms:
https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-kingdom/2024/
https://www.populationpyramid.net/germany/2024/
https://www.populationpyramid.net/france/2024/
I made some comments elsewhere about the long term. It is delusional to think that it is possible to continually have jobs that pay significantly more than identical jobs elsewhere in the world.
Germany's progressive tax system also directly incentivizes working fewer hours, as the more you work the smaller your hourly wage becomes.
But that can only work for so long and is beneficial in the medium to long-term for a very limited number of people (basically the owners of said financial capital), at some point you have to produce some real wealth, wealth produced from real stuff via resources of the Earth + human ingenuity and, yes, + human work.