from Hacker News

German coalition government collapses

by gndk on 11/6/24, 9:25 PM with 148 comments

  • by probably_wrong on 11/6/24, 10:43 PM

    If the future German Chancellor is here, here's my proposal for your new campaign: "We choose to build one million affordable apartments in four years, not because it's easy but because it's hard".

    It may not solve all of Germany's problems but at least you'll energize the construction sector, alleviate the housing crisis, learn how to finish a construction project on time and you'll have to remove some bureaucracy to reach the deadline. Build them with EV chargers outside and you'll help VW too.

  • by the5avage on 11/6/24, 9:41 PM

    As a german imo the real problem is that we replaced reasoning with ideology.

    There are sometimes complex connections between cause and effect. It is not enough to just have the right intention.

  • by Phelinofist on 11/6/24, 9:36 PM

    As a German I'm quite happy with this, because the coalition was doomed to fail from the start.

    On that note, I read the paper of Lidner and IMHO he has good points. Germany does not have an issue with income but with spending. We spend way too much for social stuff, especially pensions. The idea proposed by the SDP would fuck every following generation over pretty hard.

    And to loose the debt break to funnel that money to the Ukraine is brain dead.

    Why does no one tackle overflowing spending for social stuff, insane bureaucracy, abysmal education.

    I'm a bit concerned about new elections. That will probably make the CxU the major party, with probably SPD as a junior partner. However, IMHo the whole German political landscape is just FUBAR.

    CDU/CSU=old guys sprinkled with new guys that are both corrupt. Scheuer, Spahn, Dobrindt et al. Merz as chancellor. Yeah fuck.

    SPU=Give money from the middle class so poor, so they don't have to work that match

    FDP=Unfortunately I do not own a Porsche, but generally speaking I find the ideas proposed by Lidner in his paper quite sound

    Grüne=Ivory tower and out of touch with working people

    AFD=Crude mix between Nazis and just braindead people

    BSW=???

    + all the other smaller parties that are just useless

    I pay the max amount possible for public healthcare (~1,1k€?) and pay about 1k+ in wage tax. That's just outright insane.

    In the meantime, my ex wife gets paid a flat + utilities + some other stuff.

    This is all fucked. The EU needs to get stronger, by having a Ungarn Exit and stopping the idiotic expansion to Moldova and the other states that will bring nothing to the table. Instead, they should be made partner, with some benefits, butno voting rights. Oh, and please no Schengen for all of them.

    With the shit also going on with the US election this is all just shit.

  • by solarkraft on 11/7/24, 6:15 AM

    What surprised me is not that it happened, but that it happened now. Since it didn’t happen years earlier, I expected the coalition to last until the next election to at least give some semblance of stability.

    The FDP has always had its finger on the self destruction button in this coalition and perhaps they wanted to get some especially, ehm, daring policy through with its politically quite different partners.

  • by killjoywashere on 11/6/24, 10:21 PM

    So, destabilized democracies seems to be the theme of the early 21st century: the UK (Brexit), the US (twice) and now rumbles from Germany. Great
  • by lakomen on 11/7/24, 12:56 AM

    Lindner was out of line, did a solo act and Scholz took it personally, his ego was insulted, so he fired him. Lindner did it on purpose. He either knows what he's doing (ace under the sleeve) or is a total idiot.
  • by 3np on 11/7/24, 11:39 AM

    > Political analyst Thu Nguyen, Deputy Director at the Berlin-based think tank Jacques Delors Centre, said it was not meant to be in a comment on social media.

    ?

  • by PeterStuer on 11/7/24, 10:33 AM

    As I understand Trump is more isolationist and less neo-con interventionist than Biden/Harris is. So why does the article state 'increased geo-political challanges' after a Trump win?
  • by ulfw on 11/7/24, 3:12 AM

    Funny how this discussion is allowed but I have not been able to read anything about the US election on here
  • by yallpendantools on 11/6/24, 11:31 PM

    I have a tangential question, especially to the native Germans in this thread.

    I've been living in Germany for a while now and have been trying to understand German politics in that time, including this whole concept of coalition governments and the crisis the Ampel is facing. Due to the latter, I came across this: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-could-face-snap-election/a-704...

    In this article are statements such as (emphasis mine):

    > Brandt called for a vote of confidence in the Bundestag with the aim of losing it, so that his chancellorship could be reconfirmed by voters in fresh elections.

    > [Kohl] called for a vote of confidence, which he, too, deliberately lost on December 17, 1982.

    > Schröder called for a vote of confidence, which he deliberately lost on July 1, 2005.

    I just can't wrap my head around these in so many levels. The easier of these questions would be, how can a chancellor deliberately lose a vote of confidence? What makes the action deliberate exactly?

    Brandt is a more complicated case to the point where I am, honestly, having a hard time putting my bewilderment into words. I'll try nonetheless: How can a chancellor expect voters in fresh elections to bolster their chancellorship, just right after losing a vote of confidence? I can only interpret this as some kind of political flex, basically telling the Bundestag that "I may not have your confidence but I still have mandate from the people".

    (If it is, then, well, weird flex but ok, as we used to say a few years ago. It is a reason after all, even if I find it a bit absurd.)

    Perhaps what adds to my confusion is, in Kohl's section we read: "Because Kohl's coalition of the CDU/CSU and FDP came to power through a vote of no confidence and not a general election, Kohl wished for additional legitimacy through a general election" which to me implies that Brandt's strategy would not have consolidated his position as strongly; indeed, the article notes his maneuver was fiercely criticized at the time.

    I know I'm an idiot when it comes to German politics so I'd be glad if someone can make sense of my bewilderment. I know there is a lot of subtlety and context I am missing here and I'm sure I'm confusing one thing for another. But I strongly feel like this would go a long way to helping me understand the current machinations of the Ampel.

  • by cryptica on 11/6/24, 10:31 PM

    It's frustrating to watch governments constantly argue over what they should do to help the economy when what they should be arguing about is what they should undo to stop hindering the economy.
  • by dlahoda on 11/6/24, 10:26 PM

    i once was working for bosch contractor. they have team of 2-3 people doing in half year less work than i am in one month, and yet payed 2x less.

    de lead of that 2-3 team was putting some integration tests ignored and unignored several times during that time as stabilisation effort, sure they were not stabilized.

    team we dependent on for car data lagged behind for month all time, and people were pieced off when i was going to sent prs to their code to speed up things.