4 ms·

This is a court ruling I would have expected to see in America, not western Europe. WTF is going on over there?

by magduf 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lima 7y ago
Money rules everywhere. Courts in the German state of Baden-Württemberg also recently forcibly privatized the State Forestry Service's logging operations because they were considered a monopoly (the "Forstkartell") and the sawmill industry sued in hope of lower timber prices. This forced the regional Forestry Service departments to split into two organizations - the logging operations and the government authority, now regulating its former self. Government and state forestry services are now supposed compete with each other on prices. Of course, this ended up increasing timber prices due to the resulting mountains of paperwork, the organizational chaos that would be expected from splitting up a hundreds of years old government organization, and the extra personnel/training required. Lawyers got paid and tax payer money was burnt, and the main purpose of the Forestry Service - environmental protection and research - suffers from the overhead. Oh, and the state-ran broadcasting organizations need to delete productions - paid for by everyone's broadcast tax money - from their online media libraries after a few weeks because private media organizations sued because it supposedly competes with their for-profit streaming services.
- dmix 7y ago
  Germany also killed Walmart there via existing entrenched shops simply complaining about the price competition. That seems far more German to me than something the US would tolerate. They rank below the US in economic freedom, but not by much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom As you mentioned it might be a regional thing. But maybe I'm being idealistic considering the US's general shift away from markets and the cronyism in certain pet industries.
  - toohotatopic 7y ago
    >Germany also killed Walmart there via existing entrenched shops simply complaining about the price competition. Do you have a source for that? My impression was that Walmart couldn't beat the already low prices of the German market.
    - Faark 7y ago
      Seems like they sold products below cost to drive out competition, with this apparently not being allowed in some US states / Germany, at least for staple food. https://ilsr.org/walmart-charged-predatory-pricing/ https://ilsr.org/walmart-charged-predatory-pricing/
  - iforgotpassword 7y ago
    > Germany also killed Walmart there via existing entrenched shops simply complaining about the price competition. First time I heard that. The generally accepted explanation over here is that they couldn't match prices of established chains that had well optimized supply chains, and that they absolutely failed to account for cultural differences regarding how to deal with customers and employees. Edit: https://youtube.com/watch?v=58_BZjnbMyw https://youtube.com/watch?v=58_BZjnbMyw
    - sitkack 7y ago
      Grocery stores in Germany are 1/2-1/3 the price of the US. I could see Walmart botching a German operation.
XaspR8d 7y ago
It reminded me precisely of the situation in the US with the tax prep and filing process. A service the government could provide for free (which, by many estimates, would cost them less to do than maintaining the current system) but is instead propped up by an industry that has no reason to exist and makes life worse for most individuals.
lumberjack 7y ago
Neoliberalism is the order of the day, in Europe, just as much as it is in the US and UK and Australia and elsewhere. The only reason you might think we are any different is because we have some grandfathered social-welfare programs that are just too popular to be quickly (!) dismantled. But even those are being eroded slowly.
- magduf 7y ago
  Not disagreeing, but in your view what countries aren't going down that road, which aren't also authoritarian?
sdoering 7y ago
This sucks. Basically it comes down to the data being collected and processed with tax payers money. Providing data payed by the tax payers to said tax payers for free is considered an unfair advantage in a free market because the other market participants have to invest money to collect the data and need therefore another business model (advertising, paid app, and so on). As the state isn't allowed to unfairly treat one market participant better, the taxpayers loose.

This is a court ruling I would have expected to see in America, not western Europe. WTF is going on over there?

by magduf 7y ago

This is a court ruling I would have expected to see in America, not western Europe. WTF is going on over there?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lima 7y ago

Money rules everywhere. Courts in the German state of Baden-Württemberg also recently forcibly privatized the State Forestry Service's logging operations because they were considered a monopoly (the "Forstkartell") and the sawmill industry sued in hope of lower timber prices. This forced the regional Forestry Service departments to split into two organizations - the logging operations and the government authority, now regulating its former self. Government and state forestry services are now supposed compete with each other on prices. Of course, this ended up increasing timber prices due to the resulting mountains of paperwork, the organizational chaos that would be expected from splitting up a hundreds of years old government organization, and the extra personnel/training required. Lawyers got paid and tax payer money was burnt, and the main purpose of the Forestry Service - environmental protection and research - suffers from the overhead. Oh, and the state-ran broadcasting organizations need to delete productions - paid for by everyone's broadcast tax money - from their online media libraries after a few weeks because private media organizations sued because it supposedly competes with their for-profit streaming services.

dmix 7y ago
Germany also killed Walmart there via existing entrenched shops simply complaining about the price competition. That seems far more German to me than something the US would tolerate. They rank below the US in economic freedom, but not by much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom As you mentioned it might be a regional thing. But maybe I'm being idealistic considering the US's general shift away from markets and the cronyism in certain pet industries.
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  >Germany also killed Walmart there via existing entrenched shops simply complaining about the price competition. Do you have a source for that? My impression was that Walmart couldn't beat the already low prices of the German market.
  - Faark 7y ago
    Seems like they sold products below cost to drive out competition, with this apparently not being allowed in some US states / Germany, at least for staple food. https://ilsr.org/walmart-charged-predatory-pricing/ https://ilsr.org/walmart-charged-predatory-pricing/
- iforgotpassword 7y ago
  > Germany also killed Walmart there via existing entrenched shops simply complaining about the price competition. First time I heard that. The generally accepted explanation over here is that they couldn't match prices of established chains that had well optimized supply chains, and that they absolutely failed to account for cultural differences regarding how to deal with customers and employees. Edit: https://youtube.com/watch?v=58_BZjnbMyw https://youtube.com/watch?v=58_BZjnbMyw
  - sitkack 7y ago
    Grocery stores in Germany are 1/2-1/3 the price of the US. I could see Walmart botching a German operation.

XaspR8d 7y ago

It reminded me precisely of the situation in the US with the tax prep and filing process. A service the government could provide for free (which, by many estimates, would cost them less to do than maintaining the current system) but is instead propped up by an industry that has no reason to exist and makes life worse for most individuals.

lumberjack 7y ago

Neoliberalism is the order of the day, in Europe, just as much as it is in the US and UK and Australia and elsewhere. The only reason you might think we are any different is because we have some grandfathered social-welfare programs that are just too popular to be quickly (!) dismantled. But even those are being eroded slowly.

magduf 7y ago
Not disagreeing, but in your view what countries aren't going down that road, which aren't also authoritarian?

sdoering 7y ago

This sucks. Basically it comes down to the data being collected and processed with tax payers money. Providing data payed by the tax payers to said tax payers for free is considered an unfair advantage in a free market because the other market participants have to invest money to collect the data and need therefore another business model (advertising, paid app, and so on). As the state isn't allowed to unfairly treat one market participant better, the taxpayers loose.