131–140 of 350 posts
There is also an element of hubris where Germany and the EU so badly wanted to have a tech champion emerge that was competitive on a global level, where they looked the other way anytime someone raised concerns. The FT has been criticizing Wirecard for yrs..
You’ll be silenced too.
HN is complicit!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't disagree that the investment in copper was the wrong decision, but according to that article the minister actually sold his shares to Nixdorf (now Siemens?) immediately before becoming a minister. So I'm not quite sure if this is actually a case of corruption or just a case of being too conservative and incompetent (which is also quite widespread in politics).
He sold his shares hours(!) before being signed on as minister and he sold them to the company that benefited the most from the copper cabling that he pushed for. How you can mistake this obvious corruption for incompetence is beyond me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> He sold his shares hours(!) before being signed on as minister This is normal procedure. There is a rather short timeframe between appointment and becoming a minister. Of course did he sold it only after he know it would be a problem. > How you can mistake this obvious corruption for incompetence is beyond me. He had no benefits personally, so it's not corruption. This is just a nice story you tell the kids to give…
Except you're ignoring the part where the copper cable policy he pushed against the advice of his experts made the company he sold his share to obscenely rich. Is that also not corruption but incompetence?
And experts are also no argument, as there are always experts saying this and that which you can call on later for eny kind of complain.
Neither you nor me are informend enough to say whether it was corruption, biasment, incompetence or something else. We don't even know whether it was good or bad for history. 30-40 years are a long time for technology and infrastructure.
Also, under Helmut Kohl, despite advice from experts to use fiber, the German government wired the whole country with copper instead because the ministry of infrastructure at the time had stocks in the copper business leaving the country's internet behind Ukraine or Belarus.[1] If you're on the DAX or a politician, you're untouchable in Germany and lots of people inside and outside of Germany have no idea of how insa…
> Sure, it's not like Russia or the CCP and you're not in danger of being suicided if you uncover some high level dirt but nobody really ever gets punished when obvious corruption gets proven so I have no idea how they always manage to looks so good in the corruption statistics.
That's the thing. The statistics are not untouched either. It's a rather pervasive thing, this corruption.
I also agree with the sentiment, that they do not really get punished. When have I read the last time, that some politician with hundreds of thousands of € of unregistered side-income is put in jail, like any merely normal citizen would for such a hefty sum? Oh wait, never.
Sadly can't read the article as I don't have a subscription but have followed this in the FT. Germany has an ultra-protectionist political culture for pet German companies. Wirecard was one such pet company but there are many others who have benefited from implicit state support in the form of lowered standards and private favouritism: Deutsche, VW, Siemens, etc. Wirecard even holds a banking license so should be sub…
Sadly can't read the article as I don't have a subscription but have followed this in the FT. Germany has an ultra-protectionist political culture for pet German companies. Wirecard was one such pet company but there are many others who have benefited from implicit state support in the form of lowered standards and private favouritism: Deutsche, VW, Siemens, etc. Wirecard even holds a banking license so should be sub…
Look around you.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is people are just not aware on the corruption in Germany because there's no "personal" and "everyday" corruption in a daily life. But if you look "up" the amount of corruption rise to the astonishing levels. Just remember Stuttgart 21 or the Berlin Airport, Hamburg Elb Philharmonic, Battleship Gorch Fock. Germany is full of such corrupt projects, it's obvious and everyone knows about it, but nobody yet wen…
>Stuttgart 21 or the Berlin Airport, Hamburg Elb Philharmonic, Battleship Gorch Fock None of those are examples of corruption, unless you have an almost unlimited understanding of what constitutes corruption.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The state government of lower Saxony (the state where VW is based) owns 25% of VW. I don't think that's a coincidence. Edit: looks like it's 20%
how can a company be both owned by, but also regulated by "the same" entity? that is a conflict of interest aint it?
Even worse, the german treasury secretary Olaf Scholz apparently was already informed about the suspicions the BaFin had back in February 2019. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/scholz-wirecard-101.html
To be fair, so was literally everybody else since FT published its story about this in January 2019 and Singapore raided Wirecard offices in February 2019: https://www.ft.com/content/284fb1ad-ddc0-45df-a075-0709b3686... So this seems like a complete non-story.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it unique? Didn't Gustl Mollath [0] also end up in a psychiatric facility and it started with him claiming that a bank was evading taxes? He was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility. After years in there it turned out that his claim about the tax evasion was reasonable. From what I can tell, he spent ~6 years locked up in a psychiatric facility and got €600,000 in damages. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org…
Based on your "also": According to the spiegel article the investigators didn't end up in a psychiatric facility, but got a diagnosis of inability-to-work and pensioned. The case for Mr. Mollath was much worse.