| ▲ | WalterBright 6 days ago |
| When businesses are fleeing, you're doing something very wrong. |
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| ▲ | weinzierl 6 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| As a German I couldn't agree more. I am your age and even I consider leaving. If I was still young I wouldn't be here anymore. I think the combination of capital and skilled labour fleeing is very concerning and a trend that could end up self-reinforcing and hard to stop. |
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| ▲ | cpursley 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Don’t forget the energy suicide Germany has committed. Cheap energy was the backbone of Germanys rich industrial economy, and that rug has been (allowed and even encouraged) to be pulled by none other than the country now offering them a “very good price” on LNG… | | |
| ▲ | trallnag 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Did you miss the Russo-Ukrainian war? Or are you suggesting that we (Europeans) should have continued pumping cash into Russia for a bunch of gas? | | |
| ▲ | cpursley 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You still are, and more than you've sent to help Ukraine. I was mostly talking nuclear power shutdowns btw. Meanwhile, vital German heavy industry has already started shutting down. | | |
| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > I was mostly talking nuclear power shutdowns btw. There is some confusion here: the issue is not necessarily about pure electrical power alone. You need oil and oil based products for most of the things (plastics, fabrics etc.). |
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| ▲ | properpopper 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, but I think that diplomacy layer did a horrible job in stopping that conflict early. They signed the Minsk agreements just to ignore them later | |
| ▲ | bhelkey 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think what they were referring to Germany phasing out nuclear power. In 2011 Germany had 17 active nuclear power plants. They closed their last one in 2023. | |
| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Or are you suggesting that we (Europeans) should have continued pumping cash into Russia for a bunch of gas? Unpopular opinion these days, but yes. A government's duty is first and foremost to its citizens. Anyone else comes last. |
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| ▲ | MaKey 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why do you consider leaving? Where would you rather live? | | |
| ▲ | weinzierl 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Lack of confidence in future economic improvement. A place where I could blend in which rules out the kind of obvious and otherwise excellent choices in Asia. | | |
| ▲ | MaKey 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > Lack of confidence in future economic improvement. Germany is still the 3rd biggest economy worldwide. If you want to stay in Europe (as per your other comment) and future economic improvement is your biggest concern, I don't see a benefit in moving anywhere else. | | |
| ▲ | ExoticPearTree 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Europe currently runs on inertia. The EC is killing pretty much everything with over-regulation. We don't have AI in Europe (don't get me started about Mistral) but we have AI regulation. | |
| ▲ | weinzierl 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | "still" is the keyword. No intention to walk into disaster with eyes wide open. | | |
| ▲ | MaKey 5 days ago | parent [-] | | How do you intend to avoid this disaster you see on the horizon? |
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| ▲ | oulipo 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | weinzierl 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | US as destination is so unrealistic that I'd never really considered it. Also this was about leaving Germany, not necessarily leaving Europe. | |
| ▲ | ExpertAdvisor01 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I would rather live/work in the US than Germany .
I lived almost my whole life in Germany | |
| ▲ | zgk7iqea 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | maybe better in terms of overall living standards but not in terms of innovation or the state being friendly to someone running a business | | |
| ▲ | oulipo 5 days ago | parent [-] | | well what matters in the end is living standard. Innovation is cool, but it's pointless if it is to serve a stupid fascist society | | |
| ▲ | zgk7iqea 5 days ago | parent [-] | | the OP is about the difficulty of running a business in germany, not living standards. And what matters is always subjective |
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| ▲ | hasnd 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | v5v3 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Not necessarily. As USA is the main destination for IPO, wouldn't many German companies naturally leave? Also once you are successful you can afford to pay the costs to arrange the companies affairs in a tax efficient manner e.g. utilise low tax regions with the EU such as Luxembourg and wider world. |
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| ▲ | WalterBright 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > As USA is the main destination for IPO Why do you think that might be? Perhaps the Germans could make their IPOs more business friendly, so they have no reason to flee. | | |
| ▲ | pyrale 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Why do you think that might be? This kind of rethorical question is annoying. If you have an opinion, state it. > Perhaps the Germans could make their IPOs more business friendly The main reason companies tend to get listed in the US (or, in the case of many large existing companies, to get listed there on top of their existing listing in their home country) is that the US stock market is the largest in the world, and listing there means easier access to more would-be buyers, and therefore better market capitalization. I suspect your advice to German policymakers wasn't "somehow make Frankfurt the largest trading place in the world", but that's litterally what it would take. | | |
| ▲ | WalterBright 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > If you have an opinion, state it. My opinion is obvious. Not as business friendly as the US. Make Germany a more attractive place for business than the US. |
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| ▲ | v5v3 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Germany is a smaller country with 70 million people or so. USA has multiples of that at 300million people or so. Many companies will float in New York but also have secondary listings in their home country. If they created a single EU wide stock market it would compete much better. | | |
| ▲ | WalterBright 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Germany has been an enormous economic powerhouse in the past. It can be so again. | | |
| ▲ | tonyhart7 6 days ago | parent [-] | | why you acting like its not true now??? it still economic powerhouse (at least best on continent) | | |
| ▲ | WalterBright 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | In the 80s, I traveled in Germany and visited with friends. I was running my own company, and they asked me how hard it was to set up a business. I replied that it required filling out a one page form and sending $30 to the state. They were shocked at how easy it was. I'm not terribly familiar with the business environment in Germany, but I hear things like it's really hard to fire someone. | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | All major German companies have been bleeding money and announcing layoffs like crazy in last years. | | |
| ▲ | bawana 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Not just Germany…it’s a worldwide contraction. The real economy is shrinking. The financial economy is the only one growing.1% of the world owns 43% of the assets. All the growth numbers you hear have nothing to do w real people. Here in the USA salaries adjusted for inflation have not risen. | | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 5 days ago | parent [-] | | True. The economic/GDP growth politicians love to keep bringing up has little to do with people's actual prosperity as most of that economic growth gets captured in the pockets of the top 1-10% with little trickle down. That's why working class people are angry and feel broke despite the constant "line goes up" narrative. |
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| ▲ | oaiey 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | German companies are reorganizing themselves to compete in a new world order. Thanks to Trump and Putin. The German industry is build for a peaceful and globalized western world order which was established by the US after WWII and was demolished in the last years. So change is necessary. This will cost for a while and then work again. | | |
| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 5 days ago | parent [-] | | >Thanks to Trump and Putin. Nope, it's thanks to loosing competitiveness in some key sectors. Trump and Putin are the convenient scapegoats but it's not Trump and Putin's fault the Xiaomi SU7 is faster and cheaper than a Porsche. It's not Trump and Putin's fault that Germany doesn't have a strong software/service industry. Germany's lack of innovation in new tech is finally catching up with them. Also Trump and Putin didn't force Germany to tie it's economy to Russian gas and invest in copper Internet instead of fiber, that was Schröder, a German. Trump was actually warning Germany about this being a risk and they laughed in his face. Who's laughing now? Germany's economy is built on outdated businesses models around selling expensively manufactured niche products by expensive unionized workers protected by paperwork and bureaucracy that don't work in 2020s anymore when US owns the software industry and China, Korea and Taiwan the hardware industry who aren't bogged down by unions. They've been outcompeted and now are looking for outsider to blame for their own short sighted mistakes where they chased a quick buck at all cost at the expense of the future. |
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| ▲ | ExpertAdvisor01 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Keyword: BEPS.
Won't work as easily as you describe it. |
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| ▲ | libraryatnight 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Or they're doing it right and someone else is doing it wrong, often the wrong thing appeals to business as the wrong thing is quicker and higher profits. Not saying that's the case with Germany, but it sure doesn't feel like you're default doing something 'wrong' if you're scaring people who already seem to hate paying their taxes. |
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| ▲ | oulipo 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The business owners are doing something very wrong. They are failing to recognize that their business is successful in large part because of the infrastructure in their country, the educated people they can hire, the healthcare, etc So when you get money out of this, you pay your fair share of taxes, like everyone. |
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| ▲ | kmlx 6 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > their business is successful in large part because of the infrastructure in their country, the educated people they can hire, the healthcare Germany has Europe’s lowest share of entrepreneurs to workforce. So i guess the infrastructure, education and healthcare are not really factors. > So when you get money out of this, you pay your fair share of taxes, like everyone. this is already happening. people are paying their taxes. but Germany wants more than it’s fair. cherry on top: Germany has been in recession for… 3 years now? | | |
| ▲ | tcfhgj 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > cherry on top: Germany has been in recession for… 3 years now? no? | | |
| ▲ | u_sama 6 days ago | parent [-] | | Idk what world you live in, but Germany has clearly been in recession, unemplyment rose over the last few years and the rest of the Eurozone is in a similar condition | | |
| ▲ | tcfhgj 6 days ago | parent [-] | | stagnation != recession | | |
| ▲ | u_sama 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Contraction in 2023, 2024 and stagnation in this year. It is still has the effects of a recession even if the official data doesnt reflect it. |
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| ▲ | logicchains 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | >They are failing to recognize that their business is successful in large part because of the infrastructure in their country, the educated people they can hire, the healthcare, etc Empirically that seems to be false, given the number of successful businesses created in Europe in the past couple decades is way way less than in the US or China, even though Europe has better infrastructure, education and public healthcare. | | |
| ▲ | Strix97 6 days ago | parent [-] | | > Empirically that seems to be false Could you tell me on what data you are basing this argument on? I see this sentiment pop up in every related conversation but haven't seen the source of these claims. Could you help me out? | | |
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| ▲ | amai 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Many business are just fleeing to avoid paying taxes. |
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| ▲ | WalterBright 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Then the taxes are too high. Businesses are also fleeing California, New York, etc., because of high taxes. |
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| ▲ | 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | littlestymaar 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Yes, it means you have opened the capital, goods and service market way too much and businesses are now abusing that to avoid their basis civil duties. |
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| ▲ | WalterBright 6 days ago | parent [-] | | The best civic thing a business can do is provide a valuable service and thereby make money. Just look at all the wonderful things we have as a result - airplanes, internet phones, air conditioning, cars, agriculture, movies, AI - the list is endless. | | |
| ▲ | probably_wrong 6 days ago | parent [-] | | The Internet evolved from Arpanet, a network established by DARPA. Given that was created by a government agency, and therefore funded by the same taxes companies are trying to avoid, I'd argue that it's a great example for why companies should indeed follow their civic duties and pay their taxes. It's also worth pointing out that many of those "wonderful things" had to be regulated by governments due to how bad their business practices and environmental effects are when pursuing making money. Sure, we have cars, but that's coming from the same industry that brought us leaded fuel and global warming. | | |
| ▲ | WalterBright 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The internet evolved from the telegraphy network, which was not created by the government. Besides, I've listed several times a number of other networks that sprang up. If it wasn't Arpanet, one of the others would have become dominant. The reason is simple - anyone with two or more computers tried to connect them together. The notion that we'd still not have any interconnections between them if it wasn't for Arpanet is just silly. As for bad environmental effects, socialism has a much worse track record. Free markets produce enough surplus that costly mitigations become practical. | | |
| ▲ | littlestymaar 5 days ago | parent [-] | | > The internet evolved from the telegraphy network, which was not created by the government. Claining that the internet evolved from telegraph is very much bad faith, but the worse part about this argument is that it's wrong: the first country-scale telegraph network was indeed funded by the French government[1]. > As for bad environmental effects, socialism has a much worse track record Why are you guys obsessed so much with socialism? There is no mention of socialism anywhere in this thread. Government funding stuff has nothing to do with socialism in the first place, otherwise it would mean that every developed country is a socialist one, with the only non-socialist countries being failed states like Somalia which really isn't the argument you want to make. > Free markets produce enough surplus that costly mitigations become practical. “Free market” doesn't exist, it's a propaganda phrase with no basis on reality. The government always and everywhere has a key role to play in the economy, by counteracting all kinds of negative outcomes that arise from markets (mitigating crashes or maintaining consumer trust through regulations to name a few). [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappe_telegraph |
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| ▲ | gopher_space 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | tomhow 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Nobody’s that jejune. Edit out swipes like this from comments on HN please, no matter what you're referring to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | | |
| ▲ | gopher_space 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I don't think there's a way for me to edit old posts, but I swear and/or affirm I will not feed the trolls moving forward. | | |
| ▲ | tomhow 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I think this is also a swipe isn't it? | | |
| ▲ | gnabgib 4 days ago | parent [-] | | I'm not sure I'm seeing what you see (but then, you stare into the mod abyss) | | |
| ▲ | tomhow 4 days ago | parent [-] | | It seems to characterize WalterBright as a troll. | | |
| ▲ | gnabgib 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Recent comment history supports this characterization (44849578 44849563 44849504 44847469) | | |
| ▲ | tomhow 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Those comments seem to me to be a combination of Dad jokes and “home truths” from someone who has lived long enough, witnessed enough, and whose career achievements are objectively impressive enough, that their perspective should be at least a little food for thought. Of the “home truths”, of course people can disagree and debate them, but we should ask ourselves what we know that they don't know before dismissing them out of hand. All that aside, we still don't call people we disagree with trolls on HN; that's a term reserved for consistently-bad actors who should be banned. | | |
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| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | littlestymaar 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm afraid he's not (that was pretty much Milton Friedman's position as well as all of his UChicago fellow, which is the reason why we're back to the gilded age with robber barons all around) | | |
| ▲ | WalterBright 6 days ago | parent [-] | | I actually read the book "The Robber Barons". The author's conclusions do not match the facts he presents. | | |
| ▲ | littlestymaar 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Not familiar with any particular book called that way. The “Robber barons” is a phrase that have been used since the late 19th century, and the fact that the American economy had become toxically concentrated in the hands of a few back then really isn't something contentious. |
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| ▲ | 6 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
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