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Comment by dinkblam | Hacker News Reader

everything in germany's economy is going downhill, the troubles in their car industry is just one symptom (but not the cause)

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Where did you get that opinion? Germany is not doing great but OK in the group of Western countries, and its car industry is both very imporant and in trouble, so it's not an unreasonable opinion that things would be better without that trouble.

Germany has a great layer of "consultants" that fudge the books and make everything look profitable and rosy. It's the land of "Arbeitsgruppen" and "Berater" - folks that ensure things get buried and forgotten.

But there is no investment in the future, no investment in infrastructure and no investment in anything creative, in fact, that's were cuts are made, in the arts and culture.

Once a society can no longer afford the arts, you know there is something going wrong and Germany is going wrong. Perhaps "klagen auf hohem Niveau" (complaining from up on high) but the higher they are, the further they fall.

It's not. It's more like a cancer patient with an Überweisung for their first cancer screening but dragging their feet to go and do it. They know is it bad and will get worse but they're afraid of facing it.

Imho, the german mentality just doesn't fit today's economy. Too risk averse, too conservative. Creativity is not really embraced.

The state of the german IT sector also shows that.

Most startups have nearly no moat at all and purely live off marketing with some sprinkles of corporate identity.

In Switzerland, we use a lot of German and Switzerland born products, and they mostly suck.

I'm not saying there are no good products. Hetzner Cloud come into my mind for example. It's executed really well.

I'm saying that the number of good software offerings is too low, to have a significant impact on the country's economy.

One of the advantages Germany had though, was a somewhat good and accessible higher education system in regards of computer science.

Now, with software development becoming a commodity, this advantage vanishes.

What is the cause?

imho there are multiple, starting with the pension and healthcare system which are not sustainable with the current demography trend, which pushed them into going all in with immigration, which fractured whatever was left of german identity (which was arguably already wiped out after ww2 and the cold war). Taxes are going up, retirement age is increasing, pensions are decreasing, public services are getting worse year after year, there is nothing young people can focus on, nothing they can expect to have better than their parents or grand parents, most will never own their place. The self sabotage of the energy sector certainly didn't help. No long term vision + no clear way to improvement + no sense of appartenance = game over, and this is hitting most of the west at once, it's all about individualism and consumption, you can't build societies on these principles.

You wrote my thoughts. Add one more thing: Germany is federation with insanely complex administration. With many different (outdated) education systems, too many public healthcare insurers. It’s too much of regulation of everything decreasing real efficiency to zero.

Latest example (I am electrical engineer AND electrician): from this year on my buddy heating system specialist can’t help me with photovoltaic system installation on the roof. Last year he was qualified, this year not anymore. He can however install air conditioning unit on the roof this year too. But not the solar panels… Every year some shady lobby group writes some special law crippling last pieces of working system.

There should be some deregulation and centralization institution in Germany with a real short time efficiency increase plan. Otherwise it will stay there as a country of Oktoberfest and Cologne Carnival.

> it's all about individualism and consumption, you can't build societies on these principles

Lots of real problems listed, but such a non-sequitur conclusion. US is built on these principles, China seems to be more individualistic and consumerist than Germany too. If anything, a big problem in Germany is low ambition as the societal norm. A bit of consumerism could actually help with that, as to consume you need to earn, and to earn, you need some ambition.

Tax system and IG Metall salary tables will kill ambition very quickly. The highest salary groups do not guarantee comfy lifestyle for the corresponding areas anymore. Giving away half of salary as mandatory insurance and paying 19% value added tax from the rest is just insulting. Don’t forget the rents in 2026. It’s again new all time high. It does not pay off to work anymore.

Yeah, to me it seems that instead of fighting individualism, Germany needs to make sure that it pays off. Higher taxes for ownership, lower taxes for income from one's work for example.

> US is built on these principles,

And it's a complete clown show rewarding moral bankruptcy that ended up fabricating and promoting uneducated degenerates such as Trump, Hegseth, Miller, &co to the highest positions.

Thanks for making my point really...

These are very different problems from what Germany has though. And it's a recent issue, while individualism is a core tenet of American culture since independence.

If anything, _more_ individualism and personal responsibility would help, not less.

What is the "current demography trend", when did it become current, how does it compare to 35 years ago?

Uh oh

Do not worry, the army is going downhill too

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