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Comment by hans1729 | Hacker News Reader

To anyone familiar with the matter, l this was long overdue, now the government just has a reason to greenlight >€1200 per citizen for badly needed investments, this wouldn’t have been a popular move before. Obviously the calculus changed. The Bundeswehr is not even close to what I’d consider the minimal requirements as it stands right now, but I still don’t like that we increase our annual spending on the military now. We need the money elsewhere, NATO should have enough guns already, this is just going down the industry-drain instead of funding much needed help in the care- and education sectors. We need elementary school teachers, psychologists, and systemic change for the people who care for the old, sick and weak. Instead we’re playing war games. That’s just not right

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I think you're too harsh? The war games were not started by Germany, they are just reacting. It is only prudent to shore up your defenses when a country in your region starts a war, especially if that aggressor occupied part of your country until moderately recently.

>>It is only prudent to shore up your defenses when a country in your region starts a war

I'd actually say it is much more prudent to shore up your defenses BEFORE you need it, not after. Playing catch up is hard to do when the tanks start rolling in.

I find your rationale too simple. It is reasonable to assume that it would have been at the same time unacceptable for the population and perceived as a threat by other nations, should that have been done proactively.

What exactly is 'too simple' about planning for the future? Do you also start shopping for homeowners insurance once the house catches on fire?

Last few decades have been 'relatively' peaceful for many parts of Europe, but given the almost 2 thousand year history of on and off warfare in Europe, nobody should have been surprised for the need for a country to defend itself or its neighbors.

What is 'simple' is assuming that because it is peaceful today, it will always be peaceful.

Since you're comparing a house to a country, resp. a fire to war, and resp. an insurance to diplomatic relationships, then I stand strongly by my initial comment.

Your comment is overly simplistic as it ignores a ton of the signals that nations and leaders emit by doing one thing or the other.

Think of the nuclear treaties: they're here to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, actually adding to the global security.

Si, yes, not beefing up your military can be beneficial to everyone.

> BEFORE you need it

Sure but, you can't change past. So NOW, is the best option left on the table.

Yes, better late then never - but hopefully a lesson to remember down the road when it also doesn't seem important.

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.

One can reason that engaging in an arms race is not a good idea neither. It may, on a systemic level accelerate things, and you may end up creating the world you wanted to prevent.

Moreover, everything seems obvious afterwards. But what if Putin had not started rampaging? The opportunity cost of spending 100B on defense if it wasn't needed, is huge. Integrated over decades, that sort of money is (part of) the difference between having a German economy and a Russian economy.

Also, investments age. It may make sense to make upgrades only when you need them.

Those are all maybes. I don't have the answer. But I think it'd good to have in mind that the world is more complex than that.

> shore up your defenses BEFORE you need it, not after

This needs to be balanced against the public opinion, which is not (AFAIK) very favourable to war-related business in Germany. It is also complicated by the fact that nobody knows when they will be needed, so war spending can be practically increased as a matter of principle, not because war is expected in X years; this makes it more difficult to accept.

This is like the old saying that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

No one can change the past, so shoring up defenses now is better than waiting until later, especially when the need might be more acute and it is actually too late.

It is only like a 3% increase. Does that even cover inflation in Europe? lol

> We need the money elsewhere, NATO should have enough guns already, this is just going down the industry-drain instead of funding much needed help in the care- and education sectors. We need elementary school teachers, psychologists, and systemic change for the people who care for the old, sick and weak.

At long last, it would appear that German politicians understand what you still fail to grasp: You can ignore your defense budget, refuse to pull your (contractually defined) weight in a defense pact, and invest your ill-gotten savings elsewhere – but ultimately these investments will have been all for naught if you are unable to defend their returns when push comes to shove.

I think it shows quite a disconnect on your behalf to call it ‘war games’, it’s real people out there dying as you write this comment. A country sticking its head in the ground ignoring this to focus on internal matters is not a solid long term strategy.

Also NATO is not some kind of puppet Germany can use however it sees fit. It’s a group, where each member has its own interests and views and one day they might diverge from Germany’s.

While all the things you mentioned are very much needed, so is the power that ensures their security.

> it’s real people out there dying as you write this comment. A country sticking its head in the ground ignoring this to focus on internal matters is not a solid long term strategy.

ppl die every day, it's the quantity and reasons that should inform a strategy. (saying this as about 60 ppl died in a mining accident the other day)

>NATO should have enough guns already

NATO may or may not have enough guns, but some members aren't paying their share, and this has (as we've seen) bad consequences for everyone.

Because a non-nato member has been invaded? Or are you referring to something else than the current ukraine crisis?

I get your point but “elementary school teachers, psychologists, and systemic change for the people who care for the old, sick and weak” won’t mean much when Russia takes Poland and has troops at the Eastern border of Germany.

We do have the psychologists. What we are lacking off are the „kassenärztliche Zulassungen“.

The personnel is there, they are just not getting the license to open an office.

Can somebody please explain this? :) (details are welcome!)

The national healthcare system in Germany to a large extent is based on a command economy.

The number of licenses for psychotherapists - in fact, for any kind of physician - allowed to bill through the national healthcare system is artificially constrained (not unlike the taxi medallion system in New York, for example) by regional authorities for statutory health insurance physicians ("Kassenärztliche Vereinigungen").

This can create artificial scarcity for specific kinds of medical professions, such as psychotherapists in this case.

The association of public insurance providers in Germany provides a limited set of licenses that make psychotherapy reimbursable, everyone else practices in private. These licenses can also be transferred, making them a commodity among therapists.

It's a horribly outdated stance that has pushed waiting lists far beyond the stated legal maximum wait time. This means you can technically get private therapy reimbursed, but the bureaucracy in between (proof you have attempted to get therapy at 3+ places that get reimbursement, filing and often fighting over specific charges) is designed to stall people already fed up with life into simply giving up.

> These licenses can also be transferred, making them a commodity among therapists.

sure? i was under the impression that the licensing also serves as a vetting process and are bound to a person.

Unfortunately, yes. They sometimes go for 6 digit sums.

https://www.therapie.de/aktuell/artikel/handelsware-kassensi...

They're not exactly trades, but those who retire are able to declare a successor - and they're not forbidden from making such deals.

And let's not forget the additional money spent over the last two years on pandemic-related measures, that will already burden the tax payer for years.

There is a way out: tax the rich. Lindner will have to see reason eventually.

Lindner? No way. He rather kills social security than tax the rich accordingly

We are already taxing the rich though?

Some think taxing the rich is some eternal well of a problem solve.

This well can be run dry very fast, when one talks about state level spending. And once dry, and once shown that all efforts lead to naught, is stays dry.

An example? I just work less, rather than pay more tax, and lose certain tax breaks.

Why would I toil more, only to make less per hour?

one just has to identify how society determines the "rich", and how much to require. both of these are very difficult questions.

i want to tax the rich! yes, i do. lets take a reasonable share and deal with societies ill's.

let's not take all their money; just the excess that there is no reasonable chance that an individual could use it.

for example, you could raise my takes $100 a month and it would not be missed, or noticed. in Elon's case, $10M a month would be nothing.

You can't just dump all his shares into the market and expect it to absorb it.

He still pays capital gains tax when he is realizing profits though.

If you earn a wage, or otherwise rely on an earned income to live or sustain yourself, you’re not rich in the same sense that you’re using the word. Wealth and income are not the same.

The "rich" people you generally want to tax do not toil, their income is all generated by capital (aka "passive income"), not labor.

We are not. The amount of the wealth of billionaires and their number has exploded since the "golden 80s" era, and the corporate and individual tax rate has plummeted correspondingly since then.

We had so much tax money that we used to build and maintain swimming pools even in tiny villages. These days, after they had to close for lack of tax base, we have record numbers of children drowning because they have no nearby and affordable place where they can learn to swim.

We're very bad at doing it in any way that'd matter to them.

https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.57576...

sure we do, the question is of course "how".

afaik income tax is "progressive" in most nations but practically hyperbolic aka progressive in a way that is just barely true to the meaning of the word.

Yields on many German bonds are negative:

* https://www.investing.com/rates-bonds/germany-government-bon...

10Y bonds have been negative since April 2019, before the pandemic:

* https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IRLTLT01DEM156N

By borrowing money Germany can actually make a 'profit'.

That's just because all the bonds are bought by the government's themselves using printed money. It doesn't actually mean Europe is in a good position financially. Inflation is rising fast and had the potential to cause ruin. Of all times it is blue that Europe is financially wrap and unable to respond, thanks to our society being unable to detect academic pseudoscience.

Printed money is also cheap as long as inflation is low.

For example it took trillions in unexpected spending to bump US inflation above the target 2%.

And yields are going to remain low because of the aging population of the "west" put their pension into stable assets, and pension funds will buy gov. bonds.

https://fullstackeconomics.com/sorry-deficit-hawks/

Negative real rates are negative real rates. The yield has been dropping in the Euro area for twenty years:

* https://www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/financial_markets_and_intere...

For a while you could get mortgages with negative rates:

* https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/aug/13/danish-bank-la...

Too much spending has generally not been Europe's problem.

Germany has money for all of that, it doesn't have to neglect healthcare to afford a working military.

Merkel has starved the Bundeswehr of resources relying on assumptions that have revealed themselves to be false. Historical alliances can be unreliable (Trump) and historical rivalries can be reignited (Russia). I fully support this move by Scholz.

It is now very popular to see the good ol' times of alliances as dead.

The lack of reliability regarding the relationships between nations is truly the most significant sign of a changing (changed?), unstable, world.

It's a long overdue correction. Alliances were not just big promises and handshakes and expectations of blind loyalty (and doing the right thing).

They were power structures forged in quid pro quo deals that continuously benefited the parties.

As the cold war, uh, thawed to room temperature and China became the new focus the old alliance deals started to make no sense. Now that suddenly the kleptocratic gas station attendant feels insecure the old alliance starts to make sense again, but the underlying deals might need a bit of tweaking.

While we do have money, I don’t agree with this move. In the end, the german tax payer will need to pay more for gas, since we are importing very expensive fracking gas from the US now, instead of getting cheap gas via nordstream 2.

Germany has so many social issues, we honestly should spend more money to get people off the street and have affordable housing. Not spending another 100bn on weapons and destructive activities.

Germany already has the money to do that, but it doesn't want to.

Thus, spending money on the military has no relation, as to why other things aren't being done.

Therefore, complaining about those other things, in reference to this thing, is not logical.

They are separate.

Now take a step back. Look at history. Don't be fooled into thinking humans have somehow inexplicably changed in a few decades.

Now, should a country be able to defend itself? Should it prepare?

If not, why?

> Germany already has the money to do that, but it doesn't want to.

We are taking on debt to do this.

Which changes nothing I said in the logic tree above. In fact almost every modern state runs a debt laden budget.

Germans have to pay more for gas because of Putin, not because of this investment. And I'm not saying there are no other issues, I'm saying that this should be a high priority right now.

Germany is a very rich country. It can walk and chew gum at the same time.

100B is more than 2% of Germany's economic output.

And no. Our leaders (especially Olaf Scholz) decided to put Nordstream 2 on hold, Putin didn't change anything regarding Russia's gas export.

I see it like this: Russia gets the eastern Ukraine, the US gets to export more expensive fracking gas, and the Europeans are on the losing side in both cases.

While you are exercising your whataboutism, people are fighting in the streets of Kyiv. If Russia succeeds they are probably going to put their weapons on the Polish and Romania's border. Germany now has to run against the clock and everything done without planning, is more expensive.

Right now NATO is the United States. Tucker Carlson has a point when he claims that this conflict doesn't concern the US, it really doesn't. It concerns Europe. And with 450m people and that GDP, the EU shouldn't be a third wheel in this conflict, and it is the EU, not Biden, who should have detered Russia. It is time that Europe takes its defense seriously, starting with Germany.

International treaties are only worth the will of the signing parties to enforce them. Just like the Budapest Memorandum. And NATO is just another treaty.

The problem is political, it is not shortage of planes, tanks and missiles. Europe has more and better military hardware than Russia in every category except SAMs.

The challange is EU governments and armies don't act in unison.

I agree with your point on the political challenges, but not with your point on military hardware. There was a recent report on the French military by the rand corporation that stated that France wouldn't be able to sustain a long conflict [1], and the Franco-British intervention in Libya was critically dependent on US logistics and intelligence. I don't think that it is the european armies that provide the Baltic states any comfort right now.

[1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA231-1.html

Thank you for the link, haven't had a chance to read it yet, but this seems to talk about opearting in a distant theater while the scenario here is 'home turf' and we would be adding up 27 countries that make up Europe?

I think the report is explicitly assessing France’s readiness for a large conventional war in eastern europe.

Totally agree.

Europe's deterrent is basically "We're really good friends with the USA."

What does the USA gain from this setup?

And also given Biden's performance so far, it is not impossible the US gets run by Trump or a Trump-like soon. What will NATO assurances be worth then?

> What does the USA gain from this setup?

The deal used to be that we soak up the refugees created in their wars, while also providing the military bases (think Rammstein etc) that cement their power, etc. When media figures in the US make it look like the US were the generous gifters of freedom and security, and their allies are effectively parasites, that’s just populism/right-wing agitation.

I disagree. Education and other funding is irrelevant if they are teaching Russian at your local school. My personal take on this is the Western world must show force in order to avoid further conflicts. I believe NATO has a leadership and strategy crisis at the moment, British secretary of defense talking about "kicking the backside" underlines this. A sane strategist talks like this? Definitely no Kissingers today. Other than that, EU needs to have a strong army that's independent of USA. Why? Putin already demanded NATO to return to pre-1997 membership, that means excluding Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland etc. Russia will want to extend its influence over the ex-COMECON countries, Poland, Hungary, Romania, etc. Russia was always a superpower ever since its existence, it had only a small dip the past 20 years because of the bad economy. I know this might read like a pro-Russian view, but it's not, it's just the reality. Regarding Ukraine, it is not a surprise to those who read History books, Kyev is where present-day Russia was originated along with its language and culture. In Russian eyes, it cannot be another country. The bear must not be cornered. My view is that we should return to the status quo of the Yalta agreement, otherwise we'll head straight into WW3.

The Roman empire was a superpower. Do we need to give most of western Europe back to Italy?

Same with Britain, and any number of other examples throughout history.

Times change, there is no right for Russia to control Ukraine (or to be a "superpower") just because that's how it used to be.

The world may be returning to a state of “might is right”, if we ever left it.

Of course, I agree fully. But that's not how superpowers think.

Russia's economy is a bit smaller than Italy's. No offense to Italians, but Russia hasn't been a super power for decades. They're barely in the top five EU economies (and falling)

Do they have a button that can destroy you and everyone you know, making your land uninhabitable for the next thousand years? Yes. So they are a superpower. How many Big Macs they can buy with an hour of salary is irrelevant.

There are at least half a dozen countries other than the Russians that could say as much. For sustainable military might and to wield influence, you need economic strength. Without that, you're left with terracotta soldiers like we're seeing today in Ukraine.

This is tragic shift in European foreign policy. Will lead nowhere good.

Totally agree. If we have enough elementary school teachers and psychologists, they can transform Putin and Xi into nice people and we will have a peaceful world forever. /s

it can be argued that more education would reduce the number of ppl that go along with "suboptimal" leadership and hence would make the world a better place, no?

True, but it’s more of a long term solution, isn’t it?

yes, why do you ask?

This was merely a rhetoric question: It's not going to help with out current problem.

Yeah of course you don't want that. Because my country will pay to defend your country while the poor people in the U.S. need schools, teachers, and access to healthcare more than Germany does. Thanks for nothing.

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