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The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

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Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#41

Post by pas »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #25
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…

>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 You're obviously entitled to your oppinion, but can we please stop pushing this cherry picked cliché nar…

> Why not pump some billions in local unskilled wages

Because there's not consensus about this as OP mentioned.

And it's not hard to see that this is the case. AfD is making sure of this.

Is the consensus about ignoring AfD and neonazis? Sometimes. :|

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#42

Post by lnsru »

allendoerfer wrote: post #30
lnsru wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many wishful thinking. I bet there will be no changes after election. Why should it be? Germany will continue slowly declining with whole Europe. This pandemic management was/is real shitshow. The universities are other funny thing. They have no future with heavily underpaid staff and work contracts for 6-12 month working contracts. Max Planck and Fraunhofer are sweatshops for industrial partners. They do the task…

> Germany will continue slowly declining with whole Europe. If what's currently happening to Germany (uninterrupted boom since > 10 years) is decline, then let there be more of it. It's great, that you are living in the moment, but I take a step back once in a while. The other side of the fence is probably not greener. Germany is by no means perfect. Administration is a shit-show. But stuff is indeed improving (very…

Real estate prices tripled or even quadrupled during last 10 years while salaries haven’t changed a lot. The rents in the cities are not really affordable anymore. Look at the problems in Berlin when the city tried to control the rental prices and failed.

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#43

Post by FabHK »

jacquesm wrote: post #28

A couple of observations: - this isn't the authoritative article on the origins of the wirecard scandal that the title would have you believe. It would be nice to read such an article but this isn't it. - BaFin, the German regulator has historically been the one to trust but failed to verify. This to a large extent because they didn't have the budget or the staff to do their work properly, traits it shares with many…

> - Another problem is that regulators tend to have a two-way revolving door with the industry they are supposed to regulate. It is pretty rare to see a regulator that really takes such an industry to task.

Though the article specifically claims that this rarely happens in Germany, with the boundary between the political and commercial sphere being less porous than elsewhere.

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#44

Post by raverbashing »

allendoerfer wrote: post #31
Mashimo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This pandemic management was/is real shitshow. Why was the pandemic management a real shitshow?

BioNTech (a German company) invents the vaccine known as Pfizer. German (and EU) administration then fails to roll it out. Also weekly meetings changing (symbolic) measures, making everyone tired of the whole show.

There are over 100Mi doses of Pfizer/Biontech deployed in the EU as of today.

Sure, you can question the delays (which given the time between application and approval wasn't too different from the FDA)

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#45

Post by allendoerfer »

Mashimo wrote: post #37
allendoerfer wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BioNTech (a German company) invents the vaccine known as Pfizer. German (and EU) administration then fails to roll it out. Also weekly meetings changing (symbolic) measures, making everyone tired of the whole show.

> German (and EU) administration then fails to roll it out Do you mean they have the vaccine but can't give it to people? I thought we did not secure enough of them. > Also weekly meetings changing (symbolic) measures, Yeah, that is not good. You call that "a real shit show"? Edit: Oh nevermind. You where not the person I asked. Sorry.

> Do you mean they have the vaccine but can't give it to people? I thought we did not secure enough of them.

All of the above. Finally they are just giving it to doctors and now numbers are finally ramping up. Leave us some drinks at the opening party, Germany will be a few months late.

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#46

Post by idownvoted »

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…

> CDU just fell behind the Green Party

Obviously people are confused why to vote "conservative" if Merkel has more support from the Green base than her from her own party. [1]

> German universities are indeed world-class.

I have never seen less ambitous places than the universities of my home country. This includes most of the instructors. Actual science is a different thing. But most of the stuff German universities deal with is supplying the academic titles that more than 50% of German school graduates demand (that's what the Abitur is for).

> I think it is quite the opposite and the article exactly gets it: We are just too comfortable.

I think the author's depiction is pretty accurate. This comfortability you write about is reflected in our universities.

People here who mostly talk about social cohesiveness at the same time demand academic titles for free (payed for by the rest of society) while keeping the perks of better pay than your peers. They despise the american system, but while Americans are envying our vocational education system, the outspoken fans of cohesiveness would never consider the low status of being an Azubi.

[1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/875530/umfrag...

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#47

Post by raverbashing »

Glawen wrote: post #38
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…

don't forget the big infrastructure project like BER which entertained me a lot. A story I like particularly is the Phantom of Heilbronn (related to another big scandal: the NSU) which I think explain what is happening: Germans have a great confidence in them and other germans. They are very suspicious when something comes from outside Germany / Austria (like France, Italy, or UK), but if it is german it must be good…

I'd argue that Germans don't do it half-assed, but they do worry about the irrelevant details, over-complicate things and try to shift responsibility as much as possible.

BER is a great example of course.

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#48

Post by allendoerfer »

lnsru wrote: post #42
allendoerfer wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Germany will continue slowly declining with whole Europe. If what's currently happening to Germany (uninterrupted boom since > 10 years) is decline, then let there be more of it. It's great, that you are living in the moment, but I take a step back once in a while. The other side of the fence is probably not greener. Germany is by no means perfect. Administration is a shit-show. But stuff is indeed improving (very…

Real estate prices tripled or even quadrupled during last 10 years while salaries haven’t changed a lot. The rents in the cities are not really affordable anymore. Look at the problems in Berlin when the city tried to control the rental prices and failed.

Compare Berlin rents to any European capital. Man, reading all those replies, Germans do live in a bubble and do not know how privileged they are. Take a step back, look at London, realize how good you have it, just rent an apartment instead of buying one, put your money in the stock market and wait for the population to decline and the bubble to burst.

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#49

Post by FabHK »

allendoerfer wrote: post #40
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If what's currently happening to Germany (uninterrupted boom since > 10 years) is decline, then let there be more of it. If by boom you mean the boom of big business profits that don't trickle down to the workers, boom of wealth inequality, asset prices, property prices and rents then yes, but that's nothing to be proud of. Average wages of workers in Germany have not kept up with this boom but cost of living has ri…

Average real wages in the last ten years have steadily increased after being stagnant before. Inequality is lower in Germany than in China or the US. I am not argueing that Germany is some kind of utopia. I am just saying: Find a better place to live. It will not be one of the dominant countries. It will be Switzerland etc.

Agreed that it is not too bad in Germany, but the trend is pointing in the wrong direction. It is unclear whether there are political parties that have a reasonable response to the current challenges - some are complacent about it, and some go a bit overboard (Die Linke advocates a wealth tax of 5% a year for wealth above EUR 1m).

Re: The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal

#50

Post by Glawen »

raverbashing wrote: post #47
Glawen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

don't forget the big infrastructure project like BER which entertained me a lot. A story I like particularly is the Phantom of Heilbronn (related to another big scandal: the NSU) which I think explain what is happening: Germans have a great confidence in them and other germans. They are very suspicious when something comes from outside Germany / Austria (like France, Italy, or UK), but if it is german it must be good…

I'd argue that Germans don't do it half-assed, but they do worry about the irrelevant details, over-complicate things and try to shift responsibility as much as possible. BER is a great example of course.

It's true that they tend to miss the big picture, but their attention to details is their strength. In my line of work we take german stuff because they took care of the annoying little details that competitors just ignored.

On the other side when they finally accept to take responsibility over something, you can count on them to do the job! Unfortunately you already lost months negotiating it, you would have been better off doing it yourself.

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