4 ms·

Shows what strong, competent leadership can do. And a society with fairly high trust in it.

api 6y ago
Competent is by far the most important thing. Trust is given in response to consistent demonstration of competence and integrity. Germany is a democracy, so it ultimately comes down to the quality of the leadership decisions made by the populace.
- DasIch 6y ago
  > Germany is a democracy, so it ultimately comes down to the quality of the leadership decisions made by the populace. This is not entirely true. Democracy is a broad term and different democracies work very differently. In Germany for example political parties are quite powerful, politicians have to be elected by party members, there are no primaries like in the US. Being a politician in parliament or becoming chancellor in Germany requires a political career that takes quite some time. This excludes people in ways that are both good and bad. On the good side someone like Trump would have no chance at all because he lacks the political track record and relationships. On the bad side politicians in Germany are not a very diverse group. There is a strong bias towards older people, people who've been in politics for their entire life and people in professions that allow for spending time as a politician in parliament for a couple of years and continuing in their regular job afterwards. In practice this means teachers and lawyers, at least in Germany.
  - Ididntdothis 6y ago
    German politicians seem to be younger than the ones in the US. It’s really sad to see that the best the US parties could come up with is people older than 70. I agree about the point with teachers and lawyers being predominant. Although it seems that worldwide politics is mainly run by lawyers which is a bad thing in my view.
    - jakeogh 6y ago
      Do you know more now than you did ten years ago?
      - Ididntdothis 6y ago
        I don't understand the question. Are you implying that the older people get the wiser they get?
        jakeogh 6y ago
        Perhaps you just dont want to answer it.
      - toast0 6y ago
        Yes, but if I'm honest, I'm also a lot less willing to consider new information.
        jakeogh 6y ago
        A lot? Why? My experience on new information summed up by the vid in my profile. I still find it astonishing.
klenwell 6y ago
There was a clip of Angela Merkel that circulated on Twitter this week. Worth watching: https://twitter.com/BenjAlvarez1/status/1250563198081740800 https://twitter.com/BenjAlvarez1/status/1250563198081740800 Night and day when compared with the grandstanding and gaslighting that we're seeing from Trump. It's what burnt me about the Marc Andreessen article that generated a lot of discussion on HN yesterday and opened with this premise: Many of us would like to pin the cause on one political party or another, on one government or another. But the harsh reality is that it all failed — no Western country, or state, or city was prepared — and despite hard work and often extraordinary sacrifice by many people within these institutions. So the problem runs deeper than your favorite political opponent or your home nation. The assumption that a Clinton, Kasich, or Obama administration would not have managed this more competently is stupefying. We can just look at how H1N1 was handled by Obama in 2009: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-wait-swine-flu-n1h1/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-wait-swine-flu-n1h1/ And here we have clear evidence of a Western country whose response to the present crisis has not been failure (ignoring all together South Korea, where the response appears to have been even more successful). How are we going to make radical systemic changes in society when we pretend like the people in charge make no difference?
amelius 6y ago
Angela Merkel has a Ph.D. in quantum physics, and an academic background is probably exactly what's needed in a situation like this (versus the more business oriented skills of e.g. Trump).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- clairity 6y ago
  trump is terrible at business, very likely to have grossly underperformed against putting his inheritance and loans into an index fund. he’s good at grabbing attention and being a reality tv actor/celebrity however.
  - Hoasi 6y ago
    > he’s good at grabbing attention and being a reality tv actor/celebrity however. He's good at marketing. Sadly he didn't put these skills to good use in the current crisis so far. Virology isn't his strongest suit. He performed a worse show than usual since it is not just about boasting about himself and branding other people with hilarious nicknames.
    - clairity 6y ago
      not really. he’s good at self-promotion, which you might argue is an overlapping skillset with promotion, a component of marketing dealing with sales, advertising, and the like. but he’s most certainly not good at any other aspect of marketing (product, price, distribution, etc.), which is why he’s terrible at business and why he’s been losing credibility to state leaders.
      - Hoasi 6y ago
        Completely in agreement with you here. Replace marketing with marketing himself in my above comment.
- Ididntdothis 6y ago

api 6y ago

Competent is by far the most important thing. Trust is given in response to consistent demonstration of competence and integrity. Germany is a democracy, so it ultimately comes down to the quality of the leadership decisions made by the populace.

DasIch 6y ago
> Germany is a democracy, so it ultimately comes down to the quality of the leadership decisions made by the populace. This is not entirely true. Democracy is a broad term and different democracies work very differently. In Germany for example political parties are quite powerful, politicians have to be elected by party members, there are no primaries like in the US. Being a politician in parliament or becoming chancellor in Germany requires a political career that takes quite some time. This excludes people in ways that are both good and bad. On the good side someone like Trump would have no chance at all because he lacks the political track record and relationships. On the bad side politicians in Germany are not a very diverse group. There is a strong bias towards older people, people who've been in politics for their entire life and people in professions that allow for spending time as a politician in parliament for a couple of years and continuing in their regular job afterwards. In practice this means teachers and lawyers, at least in Germany.
- Ididntdothis 6y ago
  German politicians seem to be younger than the ones in the US. It’s really sad to see that the best the US parties could come up with is people older than 70. I agree about the point with teachers and lawyers being predominant. Although it seems that worldwide politics is mainly run by lawyers which is a bad thing in my view.
  - jakeogh 6y ago
    Do you know more now than you did ten years ago?
    - Ididntdothis 6y ago
      I don't understand the question. Are you implying that the older people get the wiser they get?
      - jakeogh 6y ago
        Perhaps you just dont want to answer it.
    - toast0 6y ago
      Yes, but if I'm honest, I'm also a lot less willing to consider new information.
      - jakeogh 6y ago
        A lot? Why? My experience on new information summed up by the vid in my profile. I still find it astonishing.

klenwell 6y ago

There was a clip of Angela Merkel that circulated on Twitter this week. Worth watching: https://twitter.com/BenjAlvarez1/status/1250563198081740800 https://twitter.com/BenjAlvarez1/status/1250563198081740800 Night and day when compared with the grandstanding and gaslighting that we're seeing from Trump. It's what burnt me about the Marc Andreessen article that generated a lot of discussion on HN yesterday and opened with this premise: Many of us would like to pin the cause on one political party or another, on one government or another. But the harsh reality is that it all failed — no Western country, or state, or city was prepared — and despite hard work and often extraordinary sacrifice by many people within these institutions. So the problem runs deeper than your favorite political opponent or your home nation. The assumption that a Clinton, Kasich, or Obama administration would not have managed this more competently is stupefying. We can just look at how H1N1 was handled by Obama in 2009: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-wait-swine-flu-n1h1/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-wait-swine-flu-n1h1/ And here we have clear evidence of a Western country whose response to the present crisis has not been failure (ignoring all together South Korea, where the response appears to have been even more successful). How are we going to make radical systemic changes in society when we pretend like the people in charge make no difference?

amelius 6y ago

Angela Merkel has a Ph.D. in quantum physics, and an academic background is probably exactly what's needed in a situation like this (versus the more business oriented skills of e.g. Trump).

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
clairity 6y ago
trump is terrible at business, very likely to have grossly underperformed against putting his inheritance and loans into an index fund. he’s good at grabbing attention and being a reality tv actor/celebrity however.
- Hoasi 6y ago
  > he’s good at grabbing attention and being a reality tv actor/celebrity however. He's good at marketing. Sadly he didn't put these skills to good use in the current crisis so far. Virology isn't his strongest suit. He performed a worse show than usual since it is not just about boasting about himself and branding other people with hilarious nicknames.
  - clairity 6y ago
    not really. he’s good at self-promotion, which you might argue is an overlapping skillset with promotion, a component of marketing dealing with sales, advertising, and the like. but he’s most certainly not good at any other aspect of marketing (product, price, distribution, etc.), which is why he’s terrible at business and why he’s been losing credibility to state leaders.
    - Hoasi 6y ago
      Completely in agreement with you here. Replace marketing with marketing himself in my above comment.
Ididntdothis 6y ago