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Deflation always happens, when the population ages and declines, as demand falls and then the prices fall, until supply can be reduced and the factories shut down and etc. Deflation is happening everywhere, but some central banks are fighting it by devaluing their currency (printing money). Tends to not work very well, tho. The mountain of cash printed to "fight Covid" has been spread throughout the system and parked in people's savings' accounts, houses, crypto, etc. so the banks all have to start printing more to try to reinflate. But it never lasts long. Nobody has been born, that can buy all of this stuff they are making. 🤷🏻‍♀️ China is just the first...

This is exactly the same phenomenon we’re saying with AI and the data centers that are sprouting everywhere, creating fake demand just to keep a semblance of economical growth.

Yeah. They're the only thing keeping energy prices from collapsing and energy costs factor into all other prices.

Also, the real estate investors are buying up property and keeping it off the market, to prop up the remaining prices. Or sellers refuse to put empty buildings on the market, and let charities turn the empty commercial buildings into cheesy "social centers" or "fairtrade markets" or "quit smoking clubs" that nobody goes to, just so that they don't look empty. For a while, housing all of the refugees helped (that's actually why Germany wanted them: to prop up real estate prices), but they are already housed and the citizenry wants them to go home, so some of those houses will come back on the market, soon...

God I hope they send them back. France suffers from a similar issue where the municipalities buy entire buildings for a fraction of its market price to make social housing driving the price of remaining real estate. It’s a real problem especially in big cities like Paris where 1/3 of all real estate is social housing. It’s huge. Putting these properties back on the market would drive down the prices immediately.

It's like that here, too. That's why the cities have sky-high prices, but only the rich and the poor can afford to live there. The middle class has all moved out to the suburbs and rural areas, which means the cities have chronic staff shortages for skilled workers. Munich actually started a program to reserve living space for the middle class because they legit couldn't get any teachers, firemen, plumbers, engineers, mechanics, nothing.

Make it all stop