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Germany has its problems, but the critical issues are mostly down to 3 things: - energy policies of the past decades was a desaster, mostly ruined by the conse
by anonyfox 3y ago
Germany has its problems, but the critical issues are mostly down to 3 things:
- energy policies of the past decades was a desaster, mostly ruined by the conservatives. Germany was at some point a pioneer of solar tech, but it got crushed by economic policies favoring fossils, now china owns the majority of this rapidly growing market, and Russian pipelines are gone.
- extremely strong car manufacturer lobby that gets heavy subsidies and economic policies favoring car infrastructure. Public transport got defunded/privatized, transitioning to non-fossil transport options is fought tooth and nail, with heavy propaganda, so that many citizens even are aligned with that.
- heavy industry/manufacturing is a big chunk of BIP. Directly hit by the energy price hikes.
… all of which in general can be solved with cheap/abundant energy. Turning the expensive fossil dependency into green energy would be a literal multiplier for everything else in the country. We don’t have nuclear energy anymore (wrong decision imo) but lots of EU neighbors that do and help us in times of need.
It’s not even a technical problem anymore, and we have a shit ton of SME across the country that can engineer stuff. It’s purely a lobbyism/corruption problem with political will and media campaigns. Right now we have a Green Party in our government and they get an absurd amount of flak for trying to turn the ship around after decades of conservative corruption and mismanagement. Everything they do gets spinned into doomsday speech from the right to the point of blatant lying, and ordinary people just want to believe it.
I have no idea how to fix these hatestorms and misinformation amounts going around. But the point is: if we somehow manage to get into large scale renewable energy, BIP will skyrocket.
- blueflow 3y ago> Public transport got defunded/privatized Source? I haven't seen any of that. With the Deutschlandticket, stuff even got cheaper.
- anonyfox 3y agoPrivatization of deutsche Bahn comes to mind, and Deutschlandticket is actively being sabotaged by the neoliberals, so it might no longer exist next year for „fiscal reasons“ - even though it costs less than some miles of just another autobahn in berlin
- snowpid 3y agodb is not private. Check your facts.
- jotaen 3y agoThe facts are that Deutsche Bahn AG was privatised in the mid 90s, though all of the company’s shares are being held by the German government. Legally speaking, Deutsche Bahn AG is an independent commercial entity, whose exclusive owner is the German republic.
- snowpid 3y agoAn entity which does not earn money, is controlled by goverment, and gets heavily subsized by the goverment. Usually the stuff we assoziated with state - own companies and not very far away from a goverment office.
- r00fus 3y agoSound state owned to me.
- anonyfox 3y agoIts worst of both worlds tbh. You have the usual private corp management structure and siphoning of profits (not to the state shareholder, but to everythign else from consulting firms to "favorite" contractors) instead of longer term infrastructure investments being done. And you have the slowness of change, regulations/processes and non-hungry employees working for a public entity.
- codethief 3y agoI think GP is referring to Deutsche Bahn.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoThe new renewable policies they passed last year seem positive: https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/panorama/germany-approves-largest-renewable-energy-expansion-plan-20220708 https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/panorama/germany-app... As long as they don't get voted out and replaced by far right goons with conspiracy theories about heat pumps then Germany should do okay.
- anonyfox 3y agoThe problem is that it’s a real thread right now. Again rightwingers may ruin the show for everyone.