this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024
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Europe

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[โ€“] Imperor@lemmy.world 133 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (20 children)

Anyone who might be surprised that Germany is so low here, Germans are always surprised people think it would be very high.

There is a simple reason, too: Auto-Lobby. Our car manufacturers are very powerful in politics and public infrastructure is heavily underfunded.

Funnily enough, highways and other roads are also crumbling, so good luck to the car makers when there is less and less road to drive those precious machines on.

[โ€“] poVoq@slrpnk.net 73 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (8 children)

I would say the root cause of the DB issues is rather the failed attempt to privatise it, which caused ~~years~~ decades of infrastructure underinvestment to cook the books to make it look more attractive to private investors.

But of course the strong car lobby also played a role in that.

[โ€“] daw 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

There are no private investors. Its 100% owned by the state...

[โ€“] poVoq@slrpnk.net 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Yes, hence me saying "failed". They cooked the books because they wanted to put it up for sale on the stock market, but in the end that never happend for a lot of different reasons.

[โ€“] daw 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They cooked the books, but not for potential investors. At least not in the last two decades.

[โ€“] poVoq@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 month ago

If I recall correctly the last serious attempt to privatise it was shortly before the 2008 financial crisis, so I guess you are almost correct with two decades. Time flies...

[โ€“] trollercoaster@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But they are organised as and run like a private company and driven purely by short term profits and will pay big time bonuses to their executives (usually ex polititians) every year.

[โ€“] daw 2 points 1 month ago

Yes, the point I was trying to make was not that being owned by the state makes it work better: in fact I think it is absurd that it is a "for profit" company which has no incentive to make profit as it's owner will never hold them accountable by letting them go bankrupt, as that is not an option. We have the worst of both worlds, almost as if public necessities ("Daseinsvorsorge") and natural monopolies do not make sense to run "privately"....

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