this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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The region at the heart of Germany’s economic stagnation (www.ft.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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https://archive.ph/KOq8Z

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Factory owners who built their success on the back of fossil fuels whining about them missing the switch to relevant markets.

It's always the others who are at fault, never themselves. Those companies deserve to go bust. They deserved to go bust years ago, but the conservative government saved the car industry time and time again, until they could not save them anymore. In the meantime public infrastructure is rotting away. Schools are crumbling under the students asses, bridges are getting demolished so whole regions are cut off from the Autobahn network, trains are constantly broken because they don't get maintained properly, poor people can barely afford rent and the nazis are back in the parliament.

What a great country to live in.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What a great country to live in.

The worst thing is, this is not an outlier. A lot of countries are equally mismanaged and also focus on electing the worst people to fix that situation (populists usually) while hating those who are trying to improve things because they don't want things to change.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Glad we are not the only idiots in the world.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

“We’re talking to the government about artificial intelligence and in their offices they still all have fax machines,” says Dulger. “It just doesn’t fit.”

I have said this before, but I still feel like the degree of political attention digitalization gets in Germany is bonkers. It's like the NHS in the UK or something -- it gets dragged into all kinds of irrelevant issues. Just about every time I see any discussion about tech policy in Germany, whether it relates to investment capital for tech, unrelated technical issues, whatever, someone drags up digitalization.

If every fax in Germany were, tomorrow, an email, I doubt that it would alter German policy on AI much. It might be a good idea to digitalize some things that haven't been, but there isn't a greater impact on AI in Germany than any other efficiency improvement that affects industry might have.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (3 children)

but I still feel like the degree of political attention digitalization gets in Germany is bonkers.

That is probably because of two reasons.
First, Germany has a reputation for overboarding bureaucracy and a bloated administrative machinery in all parts of life. "Passierschein A38" isn't a running gag for nothing. Digitalization well done could trim this by a lot and make a lot of administrative errands more accessible to everyone.
Second, the term "digitalization" itself is a buzzword that can mean everything and nothing and everyone has their own conception of it, so you can easily demand more digitalization and have everyone on your side.

If every fax in Germany were, tomorrow, an email,

Here again, digitalization can mean everything and nothing. I am an IT person, this would not really be digitalization for me. There is a familiar quotation, „Wenn du einen Scheißprozess digitalisierst, hast du am Ende einen digitalen Scheißprozess“, meaning when you digitalize a bullshit process, you have a digital bullshit process. That's why to me and many of my colleagues it is important to always review any given process and see if you can't improve on the process itself.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yes, this!
Cutting down bureaucracy must first and foremost start by streamlining processes.

Unfortunately most efforts only consist of throwing in a computer into an already unnecessarily convoluted process or just abolishing sensible regulations.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

First, Germany has a reputation for overboarding bureaucracy and a bloated administrative machinery in all parts of life. “Passierschein A38” isn’t a running gag for nothing.

Incidently the A38 is from a French movie playing in ancient Rome. Digitalization will not resolve the issues of bureaucracy as the mindset is not changed. I have working experience in public entities. Even the ones that haven't seen a fax in the past decade the processes are slow ineffiecient and everyone hides from taking responsibility and making decisions like cockroaches, when the light is turned on.

I believe the mediocre digitalization to be a symptom of our cultural problems in Germany, not the other way around. And adressing those cultural problems becomes ever more difficult, as the older generations become more and more dominant in politics and businesses.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Also, strange if it comes from the industry based on outdated technology. The fax is more digital than an internal combustion engine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And much like the ICE without the government favouring it so heavily fax technology would never have become as successful as it has.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fax is being kept alive by the pharma sector. Fax is already deemed not secure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fax is being kept alive by the fact that they made it legally equivalent to sending in original documents when you sign some contract.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Hasnt been since 2019 or so. Not legally binding anymore.
We even made it a law. From 2022/01 legally binding conversation has to be digital.

[–] Brainsploosh 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Weird how an export economy is faring worse when clients' buying power is diminished.

Industrialists are whinier than I imagined...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

They are used to getting bailed out by the government, when they are about to fail. The automotive industry is now crying, that politics did not push them into electrical vehicles and that is why they overslept adapting to new technologies.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It is also internal consumptiom, which is dropping. The biggest reason for that are the liberals, who desperatly want to not make debt during a recession. This is especially stupid, since inflation means the German economy still has a lot of nominal growth. So debt to gdp is falling is likely to fall like crazy for Germany. In other words, the easy fix would be a large stimulus package and there are plenty of good ways of spending that money.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

A large stimulus package? For what? Maintaining roads, building railways, removing cracks from the walls of public schools? Who could possibly want that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Yes cutting government spending during a recession is dumb but also don't forget the decades of stagnating wages to remain "internationally competitive".
Can't have much domestic demand if you don't have domestic buying power.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Meanwhile the rise of electric vehicles — and China’s advances in the EV market in Europe — threaten an industry that was long a pillar of Germany’s economic success.

Welcome to the free market bitch, move it or lose it. Isn't this what you wanted??

Here is a view if the region at the heart of Germany's economic decline:

Panoramic view on the banking district of Frankfurt

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Is there a way to open a large version of this image?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I don't think there is, but it's a picture/panorama of Frankfurt from the top of one of the skyscrapers.