The Origins of the Wirecard Scandal
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&#x27;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.<p>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.<p>German universities are indeed world-class. It&#x27;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.<p>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.<p>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.