alt Hacker News>Access to capital, mostly.
German auto makers were wealthier than the US auto makers. Germany's GDP is now third in the world. There is capital.
>Germans don't want taxpayer money to be spent on risky adventures
But they wanted it to be spent on Russian gas pipelines, foreign aid, anti nuclear activism, and in the pockets of politically connected multinationals like T-systems to build another "government digitalization project" while their internet speed lacks behind developing nations?
>that might bring losses
If they hate losses, why do they keep losing? Germany decline in past 15 years seems like its a self fulfilling prophecy. The more risk averse they are to avoid change or losses, the more they keep losing to economies who embraced change, disruption and risk.
> German auto makers were wealthier than the US auto makers. Germany's GDP is now third in the world. There is capital.
The problem is, that capital is stuck in the bank accounts of the uber rich.
> But they wanted it to be spent on Russian gas pipelines, foreign aid, anti nuclear activism, and in the pockets of politically connected multinationals like T-systems to build another "government digitalization project" while their internet speed lacks behind developing nations?
- Nordstream was privately funded, half by Gazprom, half by a consortium of privately owned large utilities
- Germany has drastically cut back on foreign aid funding, which in return killed off a lot of the goodwill Germany enjoyed in the Global South, we all know that China and Russia filled the gap. The numbers go up in theory but that's only due to funding for Ukraine.
- Anti-nuclear activism never got significant amounts of funding, instead dealing with the nuclear waste costs 1.4 billion euros a year, only 400 million euros are actually going towards the environment [1].
The only point you actually got somewhat correct is
> in the pockets of politically connected multinationals like T-systems to build another "government digitalization project" while their internet speed lacks behind developing nations?
The problem is, again, risk avoidance. Public tenders are written to prefer established players like SAP, T-Systems et al that can prove decades of experience in government projects. Partially that is due to incompetence, partially it is to shrink the bidder pool and avoid the risk of getting entire projects held up for years by lawsuits of bidders who lost.
The lack of internet speed doesn't come from a lack of public investment. Telekom has been privatized for decades. The problem here is regulatory incompetence.
> Germany decline in past 15 years seems like its a self fulfilling prophecy. The more risk averse they are to avoid change or losses, the more they keep losing to economies who embraced change, disruption and risk.
Agreed. The b00mer brainrot runs heavy here.
[1] https://taz.de/Budget-des-Umweltministeriums/!6102402/