Comment by dgellow
4 days ago
> were living in a world were state debt was seen as the devil's spawn.
You’re not kidding, it’s literally set in the German constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_balanced_budget_amendme...
4 days ago
> were living in a world were state debt was seen as the devil's spawn.
You’re not kidding, it’s literally set in the German constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_balanced_budget_amendme...
Yes, correct, and thanks for the addition. To illustrate this quite emotional approach to state finances, the policy of not increasing the the debt was nicknamed "the black zero" ("die Schwarze Null") which got so infamous that the employees of the German Federal Ministry of Finances posed as a "black zero" in this photo: https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/Bilderstre...
Remember, this was at a time when German government bonds were sold with _negative_ interest. So, Germany was refusing to take on any further debt at the time to invest (i.E. in social capital like workers, better immigration, in infrastructure etc. etc.) and is now trying to rectify this partially, at a time where interest rates are close to 3%. Personally, to me as a non-economist, this feels like a missed opportunity of a lifetime.
Yeah, I like to live in Germany but the leadership is extremely good at missing lifetime opportunities…
They have a real negative view of humanity. All lazy and corrupt. And that in a country with over 600M unpaid overtime hours and lots of things done based on voluntary work. Maybe some kind of projection.
Pretty ironic that the Christian party doesn’t act christian and the social party doesn’t act social.