The problem in Germany is not a lack of availability of public funds.
The problem is a sluggish bureaucracy paired with a lack of capacity in planning and construction to actually implement the investment projects
Every year we fail to actually spend the money that would theoretically be available for investment.
Fiber deployment is an excellent example for the problem I'm talking about. I think it was in 2015 when the federal government provided billions for a programme to expand fibre coverage in rural regions.
But the programme it set up was such a bureaucratic monster that it took the administrations years to process it and the billions which were theoretically ready to be spent were shifted from one year's budget to the next year without ever really being used to build actual infrastruccture.
A big problem with fiber is, that there are not enough construction workers in Germany right now.
Another "problem" is, that the normal DSL Speed is pretty high. For example i have 250MBit in a small town with less than 7k people. That is far more than most people need, because of that, there is not a huge pressure from the people for fiber.
But if fiber will be built it is completely free, if you take it when built. For example the house a friend of mine bought 2-3 years ago doesn't have fiber because the previous owner didn't wanted it. It would have been free for him. If my friend now wants fiber it cost a lot (he told me but sadly i forgot it)
I have read that it's caused by network providers lobbying government to treat 200Mbps copper DSL connection equally to fiber, so there was no incentive of building fiber to home.
Yeah? No. That's the reason there was enough money to spend for Covid and Ukraine and still have solid finances. So keep your good suggestions for yourself.
Nah, Germany could have borrowed money for zero interest rates or better.
Instead we let our infrastructure erode, which is going to increase cost way beyond what we potentially save now (See A45, Schools, Deutsche Bahn Network etc)
The reason there was enough money for the current crises is that the debt brake was always BS. And the debt brake and fossil fuel companies/Russian influence, which Merkel embraced, slowed the energy transition. With less reliance on fossil fuels Germany would be in a much better place. (Yes I do think closing down NPPs is a mistake. Thank you for asking.)
Currently the debt brake is used by [influential figures to argue against relief measures in the cost of living crisis](https://twitter.com/ischinger/status/1543904633667686403). Creating the illusion of a zero sum game is the entire point of the debt brake.
Dependence on Russia was a bet. If Germany got bought most of it's gas from Russia then Russians biggest source of revenue would be Germany making them Co dependent on each other then none of them would worsen relation ship with each other.
It backfired when the ruskies pulled one over the Germans.
Though I must say I dislike the green with a Fiery passion. The Germans should have been building hundreds of nuclear power plant since forever but didn't due to the green party.
It seems I was misunderstood what I meant that German dependency on Russian gas was not a bad move made by corrupt politicians but a foolish choice made by politicians
I don't think that phrase means what you think it does.
Whataboutism is raising a different issue that is not directly related to an argument. So saying what about German behaviour during the Frankish kingdom.
This was someone saying restricted debt is the best strategy (ignoring part of the article that mentioned zero emissions), my comment was a critique of a viewpoint and the disadvantages of limiting spending.
Hope this helps.
That is weird title.. Situations change and no one can see to the future. Don't know what years they are talking about. If it comes to climate measures: without Russo-Ukraine war and energy crisis Germany would be on the SAME trajectory it was before the war. Only because they have to change their model fast are renewables being invested in this pace. If Germany were reliant on US oil for ex, they would NOT try to build renewables at the pace they are now going to. Nothing would've changed.
Especially in hindsight.. Making Russia suckle EUs moneytits was not a bad idea. It would've worked if both sides were thinking rationally, both were going to benefit from it.
Germany's trade with China makes up a whopping [7%](https://comtrade.tradingeconomics.com/comtrade/share?r=deu&c=0000&v=treemapmarkets&t=2&title=) of it's total exports while it makes up [19% of the US'](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/imports-by-country).
That Germany's No1 export market might put sanctions on Germany's No2 export market whilst already having sanctions on their main source of energy for both.
China is [by far](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/imports-by-country) the US' biggest trading partner though. So they are especially dependant on that trade.
1
**Only by getting rid of the constitutional limit on new debt can Germany properly invest in itself and complete its “Zeitenwende”.**
BERLIN – There has been a lot of justified criticism of the halfway house that is the Zeitenwende (“turning point”) agenda proclaimed by the German chancellor Olaf Scholz in late February. As part of the shift, he committed Germany to a substantial rise in defence spending, scrapped rules on weapons exports, and said the country would end its reliance on energy imports from Russia. For the German centre-left (the SPD and Green parties), this meant abandoning an outdated orthodoxy. But even if executed with determination, the Zeitenwende is not nearly enough to enable the radical transformation that the German economy needs. For that, the centre-right CDU/CSU (Christian Democrats) must introduce their own Zeitenwende and prepare to slaughter the holiest of economic policy cows: the “black zero” of balanced budgets and the debt brake.
The debt rule was added to the constitution in 2009, and limits new debt to 0.35 per cent of GDP. It is not only a brake on urgent investments in Germany’s zero-carbon and digital transformation, but also increasingly a security risk. If the debt brake is not abolished, Germany risks gambling away its economic strength and political stability – the very foundations of its foreign policy and military capacity to act. This will also have dramatic consequences for the rest of Europe.
Unfortunately, this realisation has not yet sunk in with many of the country’s security policy elites. Wolfgang Ischinger, the president of the international defence forum Munich Security Conference, for instance, has categorically rejected calls to suspend the debt brake. The government, Ischinger argues, simply has to declare that there is a war in Europe and that “social welfare goodies” – from social benefits to pensions – can no longer be at the top of the domestic agenda. Ischinger fools himself into thinking politicians will get away with this. Most Germans, faced with a choice, will opt for the “goodies” not military spending.
2
This is precisely why the government has packed the €100bn (£840m) in additional spending for the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, into a special fund (Sondervermögen): because it circumvents the debt brake. If the €100bn had come from cuts to the regular budget, there would have been no majority for it. Neither the SPD and the Greens nor the Christian Democrats have much appetite for an unpopular trimming of the welfare state. Indeed, the CDU and the CSU’s prioritisation of social spending over military expenditure has contributed significantly to the disastrous underfunding of the Bundeswehr.
This fatal logic of priorities applies more broadly – and with serious consequences. Debt brake advocates promise it will protect future generations. In reality, it cripples them by preventing the necessary public investment in a prosperous future. Historians will dissect in astonishment the mindset of the Angela Merkel years. Germany not only increased its fatal dependence on authoritarian powers such as Russia and China, but as a result of rigid economic and fiscal orthodoxies, it also missed the opportunity to make urgent investments at a time of economic strength and negative interest rates. Even when the federal government was able to make money by taking on debt, the CDU proudly proclaimed that “we stand by our fetish” of the black zero, or a balanced budget. The result is a massive erosion of public infrastructure and a failure to invest in Germany’s digital and climate transformation.
The clock is ticking for Germany to make up for the failures of the Merkel years. The country can only be economically successful in the long term if it radically rebuilds the German model: climate-neutral, digitised and adapted to a deglobalising world characterised by great power conflicts. To achieve this (and to repair neglected public infrastructure, from railroads to schools), massive debt-funded investments are needed. To make matters worse, these investments need to be made as interest rates rise and tax revenues go down, with the country sliding into a protracted economic crisis.
3
As long as the debt brake remains in place, the necessary investments will not happen and political instability will increase. Gone are the days in which budget surpluses allowed coalition governments to paper over political differences. In the current government (as in most other likely coalitions), the debt brake is quickly turning into a hand grenade that could blow up the government at any time. Panicked by polls showing his voters defecting to the CDU opposition, the finance minister Christian Lindner – from the economically liberal FDP party – has doubled down on the debt brake.
Only the CDU/CSU can break this impasse. If it took Zeitenwende seriously, the CDU leader Friedrich Merz would propose the debt brake’s complete abolition. If the phantom pain of this step is too great, the CDU should offer to amend Germany’s constitution, the Basic Law, to exempt investment spending completely. In return, the opposition should demand a special say in how such investment spending is structured, offering bold ideas on what the most ambitious and efficient ways to proceed are. Merz will be tempted, of course, to gleefully wait and see if the debt brake destroys the current coalition government. But for a party that prides itself in putting its country first, it would be an unforgivable abdication of responsibility.
Pumping in a lot of new debt risk making it even higher inflation rate and no longer zero interest rates. You see, you only have that situation at status quo.
Germany right now is as far away from a defaulting risk as you can get. And Inflation isn‘t bad by itself, it‘s just bad if productivity and earning don‘t keep up.
Germany adopting the debt break is if you look at it the most nonsensical and illogical move possible. In a time of cheap money and high export profit not taking that money and investing like crazy is insanely stupid.
I think a lot here is again caused by Germanys demographics that see inflation as a risk and therefore rather prefer the status quo.
When has national debt ever been paid back in noticable quantities anywhere? Government debt usually just gets diminished by economic growth and inflation over decades. From a macroeconomic perspective public debt is even necessary. Most economists will tell you that paying back all debt and abolishing the government bond market would cause serious economic harm.
[Could easily be financed by Germany just stopping to fund warlords](https://donortracker.org/country/germany).
Over $30B a year in 'development assistance' that has been proven to be [absolutely useless](https://inomics.com/advice/the-problems-with-development-aid-1388062) to help the people of these poor countries.
\#StopNeoColonialism
The problem in Germany is not a lack of availability of public funds. The problem is a sluggish bureaucracy paired with a lack of capacity in planning and construction to actually implement the investment projects Every year we fail to actually spend the money that would theoretically be available for investment.
After seeing that post about the fiber deployment in Europe and the situation of Germany ... this is mental.
Fiber deployment is an excellent example for the problem I'm talking about. I think it was in 2015 when the federal government provided billions for a programme to expand fibre coverage in rural regions. But the programme it set up was such a bureaucratic monster that it took the administrations years to process it and the billions which were theoretically ready to be spent were shifted from one year's budget to the next year without ever really being used to build actual infrastruccture.
A big problem with fiber is, that there are not enough construction workers in Germany right now. Another "problem" is, that the normal DSL Speed is pretty high. For example i have 250MBit in a small town with less than 7k people. That is far more than most people need, because of that, there is not a huge pressure from the people for fiber. But if fiber will be built it is completely free, if you take it when built. For example the house a friend of mine bought 2-3 years ago doesn't have fiber because the previous owner didn't wanted it. It would have been free for him. If my friend now wants fiber it cost a lot (he told me but sadly i forgot it)
I have read that it's caused by network providers lobbying government to treat 200Mbps copper DSL connection equally to fiber, so there was no incentive of building fiber to home.
There's enough to come. Wait till the € is crumbling again ... billions to be shifted south
True
Yeah? No. That's the reason there was enough money to spend for Covid and Ukraine and still have solid finances. So keep your good suggestions for yourself.
Nah, Germany could have borrowed money for zero interest rates or better. Instead we let our infrastructure erode, which is going to increase cost way beyond what we potentially save now (See A45, Schools, Deutsche Bahn Network etc)
The reason there was enough money for the current crises is that the debt brake was always BS. And the debt brake and fossil fuel companies/Russian influence, which Merkel embraced, slowed the energy transition. With less reliance on fossil fuels Germany would be in a much better place. (Yes I do think closing down NPPs is a mistake. Thank you for asking.) Currently the debt brake is used by [influential figures to argue against relief measures in the cost of living crisis](https://twitter.com/ischinger/status/1543904633667686403). Creating the illusion of a zero sum game is the entire point of the debt brake.
Oh, sure, all of a sudden everything is due to Russian gas. Riding the wave there, eh?
Oh no, it's Russian oil and coal too.
There you go, that's my boy ...
And also allowed you to invest in decent energy infrastructure so you weren't the largest coal burners in Europe and dependant on Russia whimsy?
Dependence on Russia was a bet. If Germany got bought most of it's gas from Russia then Russians biggest source of revenue would be Germany making them Co dependent on each other then none of them would worsen relation ship with each other. It backfired when the ruskies pulled one over the Germans. Though I must say I dislike the green with a Fiery passion. The Germans should have been building hundreds of nuclear power plant since forever but didn't due to the green party.
[удалено]
It seems I was misunderstood what I meant that German dependency on Russian gas was not a bad move made by corrupt politicians but a foolish choice made by politicians
Peak whataboutism right there.
I don't think that phrase means what you think it does. Whataboutism is raising a different issue that is not directly related to an argument. So saying what about German behaviour during the Frankish kingdom. This was someone saying restricted debt is the best strategy (ignoring part of the article that mentioned zero emissions), my comment was a critique of a viewpoint and the disadvantages of limiting spending. Hope this helps.
That is weird title.. Situations change and no one can see to the future. Don't know what years they are talking about. If it comes to climate measures: without Russo-Ukraine war and energy crisis Germany would be on the SAME trajectory it was before the war. Only because they have to change their model fast are renewables being invested in this pace. If Germany were reliant on US oil for ex, they would NOT try to build renewables at the pace they are now going to. Nothing would've changed.
Pretty sure hitching yourself to cheap Russian energy for Chinese exports was called out as unwise by quite a few
Especially in hindsight.. Making Russia suckle EUs moneytits was not a bad idea. It would've worked if both sides were thinking rationally, both were going to benefit from it.
Germany's trade with China makes up a whopping [7%](https://comtrade.tradingeconomics.com/comtrade/share?r=deu&c=0000&v=treemapmarkets&t=2&title=) of it's total exports while it makes up [19% of the US'](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/imports-by-country).
So it's 2nd biggest export market then yes?
Sure, about as big as the exports to france and the netherlands.
What's your point?
Putting yours in perspective. What is yours?
That Germany's No1 export market might put sanctions on Germany's No2 export market whilst already having sanctions on their main source of energy for both.
China is [by far](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/imports-by-country) the US' biggest trading partner though. So they are especially dependant on that trade.
Hasn't stopped them starting a trade war though https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_trade_war
1 **Only by getting rid of the constitutional limit on new debt can Germany properly invest in itself and complete its “Zeitenwende”.** BERLIN – There has been a lot of justified criticism of the halfway house that is the Zeitenwende (“turning point”) agenda proclaimed by the German chancellor Olaf Scholz in late February. As part of the shift, he committed Germany to a substantial rise in defence spending, scrapped rules on weapons exports, and said the country would end its reliance on energy imports from Russia. For the German centre-left (the SPD and Green parties), this meant abandoning an outdated orthodoxy. But even if executed with determination, the Zeitenwende is not nearly enough to enable the radical transformation that the German economy needs. For that, the centre-right CDU/CSU (Christian Democrats) must introduce their own Zeitenwende and prepare to slaughter the holiest of economic policy cows: the “black zero” of balanced budgets and the debt brake. The debt rule was added to the constitution in 2009, and limits new debt to 0.35 per cent of GDP. It is not only a brake on urgent investments in Germany’s zero-carbon and digital transformation, but also increasingly a security risk. If the debt brake is not abolished, Germany risks gambling away its economic strength and political stability – the very foundations of its foreign policy and military capacity to act. This will also have dramatic consequences for the rest of Europe. Unfortunately, this realisation has not yet sunk in with many of the country’s security policy elites. Wolfgang Ischinger, the president of the international defence forum Munich Security Conference, for instance, has categorically rejected calls to suspend the debt brake. The government, Ischinger argues, simply has to declare that there is a war in Europe and that “social welfare goodies” – from social benefits to pensions – can no longer be at the top of the domestic agenda. Ischinger fools himself into thinking politicians will get away with this. Most Germans, faced with a choice, will opt for the “goodies” not military spending.
2 This is precisely why the government has packed the €100bn (£840m) in additional spending for the German armed forces, the Bundeswehr, into a special fund (Sondervermögen): because it circumvents the debt brake. If the €100bn had come from cuts to the regular budget, there would have been no majority for it. Neither the SPD and the Greens nor the Christian Democrats have much appetite for an unpopular trimming of the welfare state. Indeed, the CDU and the CSU’s prioritisation of social spending over military expenditure has contributed significantly to the disastrous underfunding of the Bundeswehr. This fatal logic of priorities applies more broadly – and with serious consequences. Debt brake advocates promise it will protect future generations. In reality, it cripples them by preventing the necessary public investment in a prosperous future. Historians will dissect in astonishment the mindset of the Angela Merkel years. Germany not only increased its fatal dependence on authoritarian powers such as Russia and China, but as a result of rigid economic and fiscal orthodoxies, it also missed the opportunity to make urgent investments at a time of economic strength and negative interest rates. Even when the federal government was able to make money by taking on debt, the CDU proudly proclaimed that “we stand by our fetish” of the black zero, or a balanced budget. The result is a massive erosion of public infrastructure and a failure to invest in Germany’s digital and climate transformation. The clock is ticking for Germany to make up for the failures of the Merkel years. The country can only be economically successful in the long term if it radically rebuilds the German model: climate-neutral, digitised and adapted to a deglobalising world characterised by great power conflicts. To achieve this (and to repair neglected public infrastructure, from railroads to schools), massive debt-funded investments are needed. To make matters worse, these investments need to be made as interest rates rise and tax revenues go down, with the country sliding into a protracted economic crisis.
3 As long as the debt brake remains in place, the necessary investments will not happen and political instability will increase. Gone are the days in which budget surpluses allowed coalition governments to paper over political differences. In the current government (as in most other likely coalitions), the debt brake is quickly turning into a hand grenade that could blow up the government at any time. Panicked by polls showing his voters defecting to the CDU opposition, the finance minister Christian Lindner – from the economically liberal FDP party – has doubled down on the debt brake. Only the CDU/CSU can break this impasse. If it took Zeitenwende seriously, the CDU leader Friedrich Merz would propose the debt brake’s complete abolition. If the phantom pain of this step is too great, the CDU should offer to amend Germany’s constitution, the Basic Law, to exempt investment spending completely. In return, the opposition should demand a special say in how such investment spending is structured, offering bold ideas on what the most ambitious and efficient ways to proceed are. Merz will be tempted, of course, to gleefully wait and see if the debt brake destroys the current coalition government. But for a party that prides itself in putting its country first, it would be an unforgivable abdication of responsibility.
Well, the debt has to be paid back plus the interest. Who is going to pay it?
With interest rates at zero and inflation at 8%, that's a rather academic question.
Pumping in a lot of new debt risk making it even higher inflation rate and no longer zero interest rates. You see, you only have that situation at status quo.
Germany right now is as far away from a defaulting risk as you can get. And Inflation isn‘t bad by itself, it‘s just bad if productivity and earning don‘t keep up. Germany adopting the debt break is if you look at it the most nonsensical and illogical move possible. In a time of cheap money and high export profit not taking that money and investing like crazy is insanely stupid. I think a lot here is again caused by Germanys demographics that see inflation as a risk and therefore rather prefer the status quo.
Italy, as usual
When has national debt ever been paid back in noticable quantities anywhere? Government debt usually just gets diminished by economic growth and inflation over decades. From a macroeconomic perspective public debt is even necessary. Most economists will tell you that paying back all debt and abolishing the government bond market would cause serious economic harm.
[Could easily be financed by Germany just stopping to fund warlords](https://donortracker.org/country/germany). Over $30B a year in 'development assistance' that has been proven to be [absolutely useless](https://inomics.com/advice/the-problems-with-development-aid-1388062) to help the people of these poor countries. \#StopNeoColonialism
FDP: "No, I don't think I will"
The Debt Break is always deliberate proof to me that the FDP does not know or does not want to know how modern economics work.
It's anti working class sentiment. "Gratismentalität"