India seems to be the exact opposite of Germany.

"How Germany became the world's best economy", was analysed in an article by Prof Noah Smith. "In the late 2000s, even as the US economy boomed, Germany's unemployment rate exceeded 10%. But almost a decade after the global financial crisis, the country has found its legs. Unemployment is down. Labour force participation has risen steadily. Wages have gone up as well, outpacing the US since the 1990s and looking healthy in recent years." On top of that "Its fertility rate is low -- just 1.38 children per woman, even lower than Japan.""That means that a smaller base of German workers has to support a growing number of retirees." So why is the economy growing? One reason is that its exports are booming. Exports climbed 1.2% last year to 1.2 trillion Euros, generating a trade surplus of 253 billion Euros. The reason for that is that its currency, the Euro, is very weak which was pointed out by the previous Chair of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke in 2015. But Germany is not responsible for a weak Euro and cannot be labeled a 'currency manipulator' because the Euro is used by 19 countries and the European Central Bank sets interest rates. But Germany exports a lot to European countries as well, which also use the Euro. How? The reason is that the Euro operates as a handcuff preventing other countries from devaluing their currencies. Which means that German goods are the same price in Greece as they are in Germany whereas the Greek economy has been in recession for 8 years. The rupee, on the other hand, is getting stronger decimating whatever little exports we have. But it keeps inflation under control by reducing the price of imports, especially oil, so politicians love it. Bernanke also pointed out that Germany maintains a tight control on fiscal spending which reduces its imports and contributes to the trade surplus. Trade unions are another big factor in Germany's success. "The country has a very large state sector, generous welfare payments and a trade unionization rate almost twice that of the US." Besides robots are a big threat to jobs, but unemployment is low and wages are rising fast. Strangely, it is because German unions agree to keep wage increases down. This was negotiated by the previous Chancellor of Germany, Gerhard Schroder as Agenda 2010, to reduce unemployment, and has been very successful. Compare that to India where wages rise by an average of around 10% every year even though retail inflation is below 5%. Rising wage costs will naturally cause a rise in prices. Germany has low fertility, low wage inflation, very high exports and a trade surplus, while we have high fertility, high wage inflation, low exports and very high trade deficit. Germany is rich, we are poor. What a surprise!