Deutsche Bahn’s once-admired service has descended into chaos. Whether decades of poor investment or the company’s unusual structure is to blame, it’s a huge headache for a coalition trying to meet climate goals
15 years ago I thought the Germans were the smartest people in the world because they understood the importance of investing in public services and had a central european style of capitalism that focused on fundamentals over financialization. since then they’ve slowly been adopting more neoliberal policies and making really stupid foreign policy decisions. I’ve lost a lot of respect for them as a world leader.
The DB was supposed to be privatized in 1994, that failed. So now we have a stock based company (AG), lead like a profit oriented company, but owned 100% by the state.
Since 1994, the entire company was (due to incompentence and wrong incentives) driven on attrition. The best example: if a bridge needs repair, that’s DB’s expense, but if the bridge has to be rebuilt, the state pays. So what would any smart CEO do? Stop maintenance, wait for the bridge to fail and then have it repaired on the state’s bill.
Yes, but they did at the start of the war and were quite dependent on it, especially in industry. They, and the rest of Europe have made huge efforts to transition away.
Their import dependence and others played a part in Putin’s calculus for war. Energy was specifically excluded from sanctions as to cut it off would have been disruptive.
Lol, no. The invasion of ukraine in Russias fault. However, Germany placed itself in a state of high dependence on a state that used that dependence as a tool of control rather than trade. It was a grave error of judgement.
I’m German and have been in France quite often in recent years. It’s fascinating to hear their opinions on Germany. Outside our country is still imaged as having great engineering, efficiency - that Trains run on time. It’s quite puzzling to me.
I came to the conclusion that the only real innovation in the last 30 years has been accounting. largely driven by neoliberalism. So every neo liberal country has kind of become more similar. Germany is not special, but has the advantage of having a lot of old successful companies that only slowly get sold of to international conglomerates. (Like Kuka etc). We behave as shitty as the rest, but our downward trajectory started higher up.
Modern computers and software made it possible to account for basically every item in a company with little cost. Before you’d have needed so many people and hours of work to judge profitability of small things that it wouldn’t have been sensible to do so. CAD-Software also enables a special kind of accounting - simulating hardware components enables engineers to judge which parts are necessary and how much thickness is really needed. This is a huge and complicated process of optimization.
Accounting made it possible to turn a mostly opaque company structure that ran inefficient (but mostly on par with the competition) and judge every employee, every item. That’s why supermarkets have outsourced the job of restuffing the shelves to a different company (that has to somehow make it work with the shitty pay that get).
But it’s also the reason why appliances seem to hold just slightly over the warranty period. CAD-simulations made it possible for the accountants to change the products (make them shittier) so that people would need to buy new ones often.
The Deutsche Bahn is the same. Has made it possible to invest the smallest amount possible, because they realized they can just work with the deterioration infrastructure as well - most people don’t have a choice and have to take the late train anyways.
It’s the same with telecommunications here btw. With only few companys owning most Internet services they realized they don’t have to invest a lot into fiber. People need Internet and will have to pay anyways. It’s more profit to just raise prices.
Optimization feels a lot less optimal when it leads to enshittification. I have worked on the tech side of accounting systems in the US for the last 10 years and can say that American companies have largely embraced this category of innovation as well.
Hating to break it to you, but Attributing ANY group as a whole with positive/negative traits is racism. But keep mincing words - probably the only thing you are capable of?
Incorrect. Racism is the prejudice or discrimination of a person or people due to their racial or ethnic group. Not just any group. So no - attributing something to Germans isn’t racist.
That’s bullshit, there is no german ethnicity. We are all mixed up in Europe since ages, that comes from constant migration and redrawing oft boarders with every war.
Beeing German is when you are born in between the corresponding borders.
And, like stated before, there is still only one human race.
Man read your own source: “Owing to their long history of political fragmentation, Germans are culturally diverse and often have strong regional identities.”
No. I just leave this here, from German Wikipedia. Translate it yourself.
„Unabhängig von seiner Herkunft oder Nationalität kann jeder Mensch von Rassismus betroffen sein. Das Internationale Übereinkommen zur Beseitigung jeder Form von Rassendiskriminierung unterscheidet nicht zwischen rassistischer und ethnischer Diskriminierung.“
15 years ago I thought the Germans were the smartest people in the world because they understood the importance of investing in public services and had a central european style of capitalism that focused on fundamentals over financialization. since then they’ve slowly been adopting more neoliberal policies and making really stupid foreign policy decisions. I’ve lost a lot of respect for them as a world leader.
Oh no, that actually started way earlier!
The DB was supposed to be privatized in 1994, that failed. So now we have a stock based company (AG), lead like a profit oriented company, but owned 100% by the state.
Since 1994, the entire company was (due to incompentence and wrong incentives) driven on attrition. The best example: if a bridge needs repair, that’s DB’s expense, but if the bridge has to be rebuilt, the state pays. So what would any smart CEO do? Stop maintenance, wait for the bridge to fail and then have it repaired on the state’s bill.
Don’t forget turning off all their nuclear plants to become reliant on brown coal and russian (now american) gas.
Can’t go one thread about about Germany without that shit being spouted.
Well, it is a big fuck up that is leading to wars today. Putin wouldn’t have dared invade if he didn’t have guaranteed customers for resources.
Germany does not import gas from Russia anymore. Please explain.
Yes, but they did at the start of the war and were quite dependent on it, especially in industry. They, and the rest of Europe have made huge efforts to transition away.
Their import dependence and others played a part in Putin’s calculus for war. Energy was specifically excluded from sanctions as to cut it off would have been disruptive.
https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/natural-gas-imports-from-russia#:~:text=Natural Gas Imports from Russia in Germany averaged 132491.07 Terajoule,Natural Gas Imports From Russia.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is Germany’s fault because they were buying gas? Is that right?
Lol, no. The invasion of ukraine in Russias fault. However, Germany placed itself in a state of high dependence on a state that used that dependence as a tool of control rather than trade. It was a grave error of judgement.
It is straight from the neoliberal privatisation playbook. Defund public infrastructure until the public complains, then “fix it” by privatising it
I’m German and have been in France quite often in recent years. It’s fascinating to hear their opinions on Germany. Outside our country is still imaged as having great engineering, efficiency - that Trains run on time. It’s quite puzzling to me.
I came to the conclusion that the only real innovation in the last 30 years has been accounting. largely driven by neoliberalism. So every neo liberal country has kind of become more similar. Germany is not special, but has the advantage of having a lot of old successful companies that only slowly get sold of to international conglomerates. (Like Kuka etc). We behave as shitty as the rest, but our downward trajectory started higher up.
Modern computers and software made it possible to account for basically every item in a company with little cost. Before you’d have needed so many people and hours of work to judge profitability of small things that it wouldn’t have been sensible to do so. CAD-Software also enables a special kind of accounting - simulating hardware components enables engineers to judge which parts are necessary and how much thickness is really needed. This is a huge and complicated process of optimization.
Accounting made it possible to turn a mostly opaque company structure that ran inefficient (but mostly on par with the competition) and judge every employee, every item. That’s why supermarkets have outsourced the job of restuffing the shelves to a different company (that has to somehow make it work with the shitty pay that get). But it’s also the reason why appliances seem to hold just slightly over the warranty period. CAD-simulations made it possible for the accountants to change the products (make them shittier) so that people would need to buy new ones often.
The Deutsche Bahn is the same. Has made it possible to invest the smallest amount possible, because they realized they can just work with the deterioration infrastructure as well - most people don’t have a choice and have to take the late train anyways.
It’s the same with telecommunications here btw. With only few companys owning most Internet services they realized they don’t have to invest a lot into fiber. People need Internet and will have to pay anyways. It’s more profit to just raise prices.
Optimization feels a lot less optimal when it leads to enshittification. I have worked on the tech side of accounting systems in the US for the last 10 years and can say that American companies have largely embraced this category of innovation as well.
Interesting point of view - your accounting thing.
However, that doesn’t really fit to Deutsche Bahn, I think. Your point is rather about a Monopoly but an accounting exercise.
What you are describing is racism - positive racism but racism none the less.
German is not a race
There is only one human race (Racialization)
Racism is still a problem.
Hating to break it to you, but Attributing ANY group as a whole with positive/negative traits is racism. But keep mincing words - probably the only thing you are capable of?
Incorrect. Racism is the prejudice or discrimination of a person or people due to their racial or ethnic group. Not just any group. So no - attributing something to Germans isn’t racist.
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That’s bullshit, there is no german ethnicity. We are all mixed up in Europe since ages, that comes from constant migration and redrawing oft boarders with every war. Beeing German is when you are born in between the corresponding borders. And, like stated before, there is still only one human race.
deleted by creator
Man read your own source: “Owing to their long history of political fragmentation, Germans are culturally diverse and often have strong regional identities.”
Of course there is a German ethnicity… maybe get your facts straight first?
No. I just leave this here, from German Wikipedia. Translate it yourself.
„Unabhängig von seiner Herkunft oder Nationalität kann jeder Mensch von Rassismus betroffen sein. Das Internationale Übereinkommen zur Beseitigung jeder Form von Rassendiskriminierung unterscheidet nicht zwischen rassistischer und ethnischer Diskriminierung.“
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rassismus