Yes and No. It’s a stupid privatization they did.

They privatized the railroad, but never sold some stocks. Now, it’s a private company owned by the state and subsidized by tax payers.

Indeed there are worse countries. I think of Cuba for example, where it’s more about „the train arrives this day.“

However, in German culture the notion of timeliness and efficiency is very strong. Our expectations to our railroad is high as it was quite on time the last decades. And it perfectly fits into our recent feeling of become mediocre as a country. There‘re so many challenges that where Germany falls behind other countries and isn’t in the top 10 anymore.

Part of the real causes of this trouble is that the railroad was privatized 30 years ago. Together with Deutsche Post (now DHL) and Deutsche Telekom. All those three went international. Two with success. Deutsche Bahn expanded into road freight quite heavily as there was opportunity to grow and money to make. They took the money granted for the rails and invested it into trucks. The German government is now in discussions to unbundle the company and split it into small „tasks“ so they focus on their main business. The Bahn deserved to be cut down into pieces. Not well managed.

Nice. Just received my parcels today for this fun. Can’t wait for tomorrow and toy around.

Oha, Feddiverse becomes important. Good sign

No retail banks create money while they grant a loan - it’s called book money creation https://www.geld-und-geldpolitik.de/en/banks-and-book-money-chapter-3.html#nav-vier If you wanna get rich, start a bank

High tax on humans, low tax on companies and property

Because it doesn’t matter the company. A bank creates money if you apply for credit. It just have to have a fraction - say 3% - real money to store at a central bank account. Then they literally type the numbers on your account. Money created!

So, for a bank, it doesn’t matter if you apply for 5.10.20 years. They get the interests anyway. May be there is some weird financial acrobatic behind the 5 years target. However, here in Germany it’s pretty common to get a 20 years credit.

Yes and No. Yes, it’s not only corporations and we must act ourselves.

No, it’s the rules that set the game. Corporations play within the rules. Politics is owning and can change the rules. The society and corporations will follow accordingly. If we really want to change we can. Look what happened during Covid. In retrospect, some insane rules (eg Germany kids not allowed to enter playgrounds. Kids couldn’t play to save the elderly). However, society obeyed to those rules.

It’s not us, it’s the rules that must change. In my view this should be the priority.