The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal • Hacker News Board

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#11

Post by durnygbur » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:52 AM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #6

durnygbur wrote: post #3

The German anti-English sentiment is sometimes right. They're not afraid to point out omnipresent Anglosphere oligopolies - in payments (Visa, Mastercard), in social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn), in surveillance (Google, Facebook), in mobile (Google, Apple). While the rest of the Europe entirely submits to these oligopolies on a promise of receiving "investment". Funny though how Germans turn blind eye on their own…

> Funny though how Germans turn blind eye on their own oligopolies dominating and devastating European markets. Everybody wants sellers to compete when they're buying, nobody wants to compete when they're selling. > For them internet is whether "stupid websites", a medium serving copyrights violations, or legal compliance issue (see "Impressum" hysteria). The large corporations and media companies had issues with the…

> Larger companies didn't care at all -- they were generally compliant way before that law was introduced.

If you write anything on the internet you're publishing content, ie. media might start consider you a competition, certainly after achieving certain visibility. Why not create an easy way to shot someone down or to suck someone into an expensive time consuming legal swamp?

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#12

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:57 AM UTC

apples_oranges wrote: post #4

Germany has their share of scandals.. Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank, Sparkasse, other banks.. Wirecard.. but politicians of course had no idea.. afterwards they are all shocked and surprised.. sigh. Especially Wirecard.. is such a failure on so many levels. Lead me to the conclusion: 90% of people half ass everything. It's like "The Wire" all the way. I bet you even Google, Apple and Facebook half ass stuff.. it's just a…

[deleted]

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#13

Post by pintxo » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 8:58 AM UTC

Another aspect might be the often seen focus on the law, ignoring the policing aspect: "It's forbidden to do this by law, so we don't need to do X".

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#14

Post by allendoerfer » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:02 AM UTC

There are federal elections in September in Germany. CDU just fell behind the Green Party in recent polls and SPD (whose Olaf Scholz ultimatively was in charge of BaFin) is a shadow of it's former self anyway. I do not think the everything will turn for the better, but I am hopeful that some actions will be taken. The political style of Merkel - and Germany as a whole for that matter - of a steady hand and waiting for consensus to form to go with, will hopefully be ammended by some visionary ideas.

I feel the German inferiority complex described in the article. I think it is partly built on a misunderstanding: Silicon Valley was not funded by smart engineers thinking in their garages. It was funded by massive military grants. The garages came later. Last time Germany gave out massive military grants it was sadly very able to compete technologically. Everyone knows, who worked on the rockets that ultimatively won the space race.

German universities are indeed world-class. It's not like uneducated people can export this much. The university rankings do not take into account that research in Germany happens at Fraunhofer or Max Planck, which are door to door to their respective university and have shared staff. If all their papers would be taken into account, the rankings would change dramatically.

Germany is capable and cold start investing massively. I think the article exactly gets it: We are just too comfortable. Acting like a big Switzerland might not be glorious but in the end I take a socially relatively cohesive country, where an illness or going to university will not bankrupt you, where your kids can travel alone in public transportation, where police shootings per year are single digits, where the air is very breathable and the tap water is drinkable over world leadership any time.

We can always pump some billions into football or another sport once in a while and watch the nation win the world cup, if we really need to dominate something for no good reason, which is an obvious connection to national pride, the article missed out on.

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#15

Post by idownvoted » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:03 AM UTC

Actually pretty accurate.

> Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg

There are many more such impostors, that fake their international standing to cater to the local audience: Our Covid-Expert Lauterbach, presenting himself as an Medical Professor from Harvard, while all he achieved there was publishing anopinion piece, which somehow got him tenured here, although said piece was kept secret for over a decade.

> The spheres [of politics and business] are actually surprisingly separate

Another thing us Germans routinely pride ourselves while simoutlaniously lambasting the US with: Our politicians just can't buy their campaigns off inherited/donated wealth. The downside to this: German politicians are usually unemployable individuals, because you cannot rise inside your party's ranks, if you have a proper job.

They sport degrees in political science or law, with the latter one only used for law making not helping actual clients. Thus our leadership is prone for lobbying.

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#16

Post by ChuckNorris89 » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:14 AM UTC

michaelscott wrote: post #7

apples_oranges wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the feeling that separation of powers tends to be stronger in the US. But maybe it's false..

I don't know if it's intentional separation of powers. The American culture is very individualistic, especially compared to the German. This just naturally means that American companies tend to "go it alone" in relation to the public sector for longer than they would in Germany. Certainly when American companies get to the right size they seem to become much closer to the political bodies that matter to them and thei…

>The American culture is very individualistic, especially compared to the German.

I wouldn't rush to this conclusion. US billionaires usually run many charity funds whereas German billionaires rarely do anything like that.

Also, German businesses owners don't seem to mind exploiting people's health and the environment (VW emissions scandal) or foreign workers [1] if it makes them money, so I think the same issues that plague capitalism in the US (greed) affect Germany too.

Otherwise, the wealth gap between rich and poor wouldn't be rising so steeply in Germany [2][3] if they wouldn't be so individualistic.

[1]https://m.dw.com/en/germany-meat-industry-conditions/a-54033...

[2]https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/inherit...

[3]https://m.dw.com/en/study-shows-growing-wealth-inequality-in...

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#17

Post by stewbrew » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:19 AM UTC

Well, I don't think this article does a good job at explaining the scandal. It seems to me the author had a thesis and is mostly occupied with explaining that. What makes wirecard interesting are all these connections with politicians, oligarchs, secret services etc. Some day in the not so distant future, somebody will make a tv series out of this.

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#18

Post by andi999 » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

The article seems a bit weak on the origins of the wirecard scandal (and rambles more about the countries psychology)

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#19

Post by jahller » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:21 AM UTC

Why is it always Austrians?

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#20

Post by redis_mlc » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

allendoerfer wrote: post #14

There are federal elections in September in Germany. CDU just fell behind the Green Party in recent polls and SPD (whose Olaf Scholz ultimatively was in charge of BaFin) is a shadow of it's former self anyway. I do not think the everything will turn for the better, but I am hopeful that some actions will be taken. The political style of Merkel - and Germany as a whole for that matter - of a steady hand and waiting fo…

> Silicon Valley was not funded by smart engineers thinking in their garages. It was funded by massive military grants. The garages came later.

Well, not exactly:

- Stanford U. was the US West Coast US military communications lab

- but Shockley (1956) and HP Labs (1966) started in a storefront/lot and garage respectively. The military was just one customer, and both recruited researchers from Bell Labs.

> I take a socially relatively cohesive country ... over world leadership any time.

US hegemony allows the rest of the countries in its sphere to live in peace, while only paying half or less of their fair share in defense spending. You're welcome.

Another post that supports my suggestion to ban European IP addresses from HN - just pointless drivel from the Old World. You know exactly what Russia what do to your German family and friends without "US dominance."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shockley_Semiconductor_Laborat...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Labs