Why Germany is considering punishing future generations by taking on more debt | DW News 

Ask the UK how well austerity has worked out since 2010.

I am one of the "future generation". The only thing I feel punished by is the fact that we didn't take debt to invest when the money was cheap. I want the state to invest in maintaining our infrastructure, not building it new after full decay. We got no resources. We have to stay attractive.

Germans going for Starlink internet instead of German companies just shows how far behind this country is in terms of infrastructure.

No growth, the need of a rapid buildup of military strength while financing the defeat of Russia and the need to achieve the energy transition quickly, not getting into debt in this situation to get things done is just pure madness.

Germany does not has a debt problem.

Because people under 30 are finding it so easy right now.

I always geht a Crisis when I see this kind of Video. 1. A Country cannot have too little Debt. Because the Best would be if the Country did not have Debt at all. Having no Debt would mean all of Your Budget could be Spend on actual things rather than Interest. 2. Wether a Country should go into Debt or make Cuts to Spending. Depends on wether this Debt makes Sense. Good Reasons to go into Debt are Projects which are highly Likely to Increase Tax Revenue in the Future and therefore Improve the Budgets for Future Generations. Because if the Future Generation has a better and more Solid Budget despite the additional Debt Repayments. Then there is simply no Reason to not take on Additional Debts. Bad Reasons to go into Debt is to Fulfill Ideological or Prestige Projects. Or to maintain Systems which Run a Negative Balance. Because this means adding Debt and Repayments to Future Generations which will only keep Rising higher and higher. And here is the thing. The Current German Government right now should take on Debts to make Investments into the Future. Infrastructure and Industrial Investments would Generally have a higher Return than they would cost the Country.

One issue that ought to be prioritised is energy independence and become a net exporter of energy. Energy prices have made Russia a mint and the EU has been playing catch up trying to source energy, oil, natural gas etc etc

If Germany should invest in infrastructure, education and defense to stimulate its economy and decrease its high level of poverty - even though debt? That should be glaringly obvious, unless you prefer fiction over facts when you make decisions

Interesting!

Keynesianism has its limits. You can't keep borrowing your way to reach fiscal responsibility

Debt bondage? Starting your life with a 6 figure debt. Working 40 years to pay it off? After it's paid off you think you can relax, but then you realize you've lost your health?

The debt is not the problem in Germany. The beurocracy is.

The *hidden debt is estimated as high as 12.000.000.000.000* if you ask Prof. Raffelhüschen. So Germoneys total debt might amount to 14.500.000.000.000. I do not even want to know what the "hidden debt" is in southern Europe.

Spend. You have to accelerate over the fiscal cliff in order to clear the canyon. First rule of Evel Knievel school of economics.

A country in debt is not a free country.

6:13 the comment about Portugal is false. The Portuguese government did not cast off austerity measures, they simply “hid” them by not fully executing their budgets and increasing indirect taxes (on petrol for example). If you compare the % of public investment during the last 8 years with the period when the country was under rescue, it was lower, not higher. Austerity didn’t disappear, so much so that even a socialist government has made reducing its debt below 100% of GDP it’s utmost priority.

To little debt, German is successful in economic, not like in Philippines corruptions is most, debt is 16 Trillion? waaaaaaaaa

Economic investigator Frank G Melbourne Australia is following this very informative content cheers Frank

You can start this, borrowing back to your country or any if they like to borrow from outside people or a special place :)

No!

USA: hold my beer

Should have mentioned who owns Germany's debt. Is it Germans or a foreign entity.

My little household doesn't first question whether I should increase the debts' rate but rather identifiès on what and how the spending is done - with a small foresight. That is how I think the bigger budgets should work as well. Analysing what is needed, checking what can be reduced or cut. Somehow internationally, Germany is seen as a rich country which easy can give. That perspective needs an image change. Germany needs to learn to say No. Therefore, I rather start shuffling the existing budget to the needs. By the way, pensioner's well being is a need.

Germanys doing better than the U.S. were done for here

I really like this host, his Intonation and way of speaking makes following along really easy

It should. This world built around debt where poor people working for money bags having more and more debt under rule of accountants-governments who's job is to keep that intact by working 8 hours per day.

Since you have the printer always you can print more like our great United States of America. 34 Trillions in debt and we add 1 trillion every 100 days.

State debt does not work like private debt. As long as a State does not go bankrupt, taking debts is a bad thing because that money does not go into development. Which results in the state lacking behind others. At least that is how our worldwide system works.

Defence is an absolute priority. EIB loans should be issued for defence expenditure and should be kept out of the debt numbers!

Oops I forgot Hungary Slovakia Slovenia Cyprus Malta🎉😂

What is a states debts in its own currency? Correct, the wealth of its inhabitants. Does Germany has high nominal “debts”, yes. Well, than the money is highly unequally distributed. Do we need to redistribute the money before solving our problems? No, we just can invest money where investment is needed: schools, infrastructure, social welfare, kindergardens,… we just need to start seeing state debts (in the own currency) as what it is, our wealth.

Ask a US citizen!

Comparing German economic problems to those of the Chinese is like comparing a cup of water with the Great Lakes LOL

only for infrastructure

US debt 34.6 trillion dollars. How is the dollar worth anything?

As pensions increase as a % of government spending maintaining a surplus will come at an unprecedented cut in all other areas. The government would have to exist for the sole purpose of paying pensions. A deficit is all but inevitable for Germany

Germany 🇩🇪 is going to overcome crisis

I'll happily take on the burden. I recently started paying income tax and will do so for at least another 40 years. We need investments into the future right now. But we need to make sure that these investments go to German companies to stimulate the economy. We already made a huge mistake a few years ago when we let the German solar industry die. Now we're spending money abroad to import solar panels which we could have built ourselves. The German military is currently making similar mistakes by importing equipment from abroad. Instead, we should heavily invest into German arms manufacturers such that the German military can buy from them.

Question is ill posed: ECB has forced Germany´s central bank to take on unlimited capital account deficits with Eurozone member countries. This amounts at over 1´000 BN Euros of interest free loans that they shall never pay back. ECB keeps on buying bonds of Southern Eurozone members at large scale to artificially keep their their interest rate low. Here we speak of about the same amount. Thirdly, Germany accepted joint liability for EU debt. This amount to about 800 BN Euros and is rapidly increasing if France and the South get their way. Again, they shall never pay back any of that. Both debts are not included in Germany´s official debt rate, which anyway is far below its real value.

Sorry but debt to gdp is low in Germany

Don't worry. Even if Germany were to face a financial crisis, the other countries in EU would help Germany as they have no choice but to do so, like Germany had done to other countries before, and Germany could also rebuild its finances under the control of IMF. Germany's GDP has overtaken Japan to become the third largest in the world, so Germany is obligated to increase its contributions to international organizations more, even if it has to increase the state debt. The total amount of Japanese government debt is approximately 1,000 trillion yen! municipal debt is about 200 trillion yen! and the budgeted amount of government debt issuance in 2024 is 34.949 trillion yen! but we are fine lol The fiscal austerity will stagnate the economy and increase social unrest. Stop Germany's traditional habit of pushing toward wrong strategies, such as energy dependence on Russia, abolishing nuclear power plants despite the lack of stable power sources, and relying on China which has become an one individual dictatorship and its economy has begun to stagnate. Instead, adopt more flexible political and economic strategies!

No debt please

Germany is strong country. They won't face with such problems.

There has absolutely no need for taking more debt. Germany has a spending and bureaucracy problem, this can be fixed, anything else would be craziness.

German debt is nowhere near the Chinese debt. China 🇨🇳 has been a money-printing machine on overdrive. During the years 1990-2021, the US printed 6.5 times more money while China printed 147 times. - It has printed more money than the US and Japan combined, while its economy is only half of them. - Current Chinese debt-to-gdp is already *highest in the world, at 300%,* according to Bloomberg. - With stimulus and measures, China's debt will be at 400% to 500% of its GDP in the next decade, according to Reuters.

The problem of the austerity theory in Germany is that i making not only itself lag behind but all Europe.

Watch how a snow ball turns into a avalanche

debt is good for expansion, not regular operation. if you need debt for regular work like maintaining infra. and funding defense forces; you are either taxing less, spending too much on social welfare (known as freebies in India), or have a trash bureacracy that don't know how much to pay for things and when to pay.

Reducing the debt still doesn't really make sense, since those cuts in budget will impact the economy negatively. Countries should take on debt to finance infrastructure since things like investing in education, broadband, etc., will allow for more educated/skilled workers, who pay higher tax, which will help cover that debt and help the entire country to improve. As long as the debt is used for something that finances a higher growth than the cost, then it should be taken. Bots in the comments keep mentioning US debt, the debt there is not really an issue as they're growing faster than the cost to service that debt, and interest rates will lower again, so cost to service will go down again.

The dept will also be own by future generation and will create growth. This generations has less capital than generations before because lack of mantainace of important government services.

They should try reviving Germany's economy by doing what H$tler did to revive Germany's economy prior to ww2 - increase military spending significantly. This policy is called "Military Keynesianism" - increase military spending to spur economic activity. It will boost employment and boost many industries but especially manufacturing which is key for Germany. Also has the added benefit of increasing Europe's military ability and being less dependent on outsiders like USA. It would benefit Germany both economically and geopolitically.

It's good to hear about the german debts

Well when you waste money on unnecessary stuff what do you expect?

There is nothing like adding debt to secure your future. This is what they teach in all economics courses.

Why not print more money? It worked well in the past. Oh wait nevermind.

Germany is more worried to people who belong to other's continents than it's one citizens

Educate and give some work to Ukrainians. Canada did so a hundred years ago. They are highly adaptive. 😊 Economy itself doesn't do the GDP, but people do through the work. And there is the leverage. I heard a lot about the complex beurocracy problem for an integration, so it's could be a huge bottleneck.

Bonjour

Isn't Germany making money exporting weapons

Deliberately blowing up your own gas pipeline didn't help matters either. It's hard to feel sorry for Germany nowadays.

The German economy has been in trouble since 1990s. It has been "saved" by joining the Euro at to low exchange rate. (Some observers states this was one reason to the Euro crisis at the end if 00s.) The reality will catch up if Germany does not investing more and accept wages rise higher than the average of the Euro zone.

The news anchor is so handsome 😊

What a horrible title… Punishing future generations would be not investing in the country, on digitalisation, public infrastructure, attracting companies and skilled workers. Thats would be what would really punish the future generations.

Infrastructure yes, cut to social and public sector. Less government

Germany loves Fax machines. Bureaucracy has been their undoing.

Your Portuguese example proves the government should not be using debt to fuel up infrastructure bubbles. Market prices are reality debt is unsustainable and extremely risky.

short dax

Even big enconomics are in debt... Wtf happend. When you dont have monay just not sped. 😂

3rd largest Economy in the World Baby!!!🎉🎉🎉

"Punishing future generations" - ridiculous, clickbait headline.

Germany is so dismissive of EU debt sharing, but not a peep or damn given when Ireland paid off 42% of France and Germany's banking debt. Every bailout from Ireland to Greece, Portugal and Italy were shadow bailouts for Europe's two largest banks, who owed money to Wall street banks

All countries are the same. Brazilian roads are like Camel trophy. Have awesome transport system, heath care. and still spend lot money to Amazon forest to Germans work here like a turist, spend money with Ucraine for nothing. Usa citizen are diyng because dont have a health care and poor jobs to yongers. China dont have jobs, Brazil, uk, and others. WTF is this? DW has a journalist in rio de janeiro make romantic movires on favelas. Matrix are gettings jobs... all partss are the same... Internacional investment....

Germany has debt to GDP ratio of ~65% whereas other developed countries like Japan, USA and France have way higher debt 200%, 130% and 100% respectively…GDP growth with a bit more debt won’t hurt Germany much…!

Thank you, Boomers.

Greece mocks you....

Isn't Germany making money donating weapons to others

old france army guy said german is weak and german is fallin apart(he said france will take over german(love for UKRAINE

The Credit Card bill comes due every month🤬

I'm German and a management consultant. This policy is totally wrong! We should szrengthen our economy! 😂😂😂😂

China will soon be teaching Germany how to make cars.

naw, i'm going to give them 486 million stipend in unions housing for tuition.

Karma is a bytx...

DW, your job should be to criticize the government and not pointing the blame on everything else.

)))) funny

I was in Mettlach, Germany I could not believes that Technology speaking are so behind, and what is paying with only cash? I am not implying to be up to the level of Australia, but the receipt was done on a piece of paper !!!!!!!!Tax department should be on top of it that happened in Munchen, Heidelberg ....... Are people ripping off their Taxation system?

"Should Germany get into more debt?" Of course they should! No question about it! Didn't Ursula von der Liar and Scholts, both say, that Russian victory in Ukraine is "unacceptable" to them?

We need more public debt 🙏🏻🇩🇪

Germany has a monetary policy problem. It could be solved by taking up debt however.

"punishing future generations" 🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️🥱

Yankee talking.

Last year, the EU approved 12 sanction packages against Russia and the Russian economy grew 3%. Meanwhile, the German economy is in "tatters". The EU sanctioned itself.

It's so funny! The commenter managed to keep the straight face while asking the most absurd question: what is better, a big debt or a small debt! Every person with a speck of common sense knows that being in debt is worse than being free of any debts!

😂😂😂😂 Mediocre infrastructure

Yes , pay Isreal , German people work , and there government pay it for free for Israeli ????

when we get rid of Trudeau Canada will help German energy needs.

Noch mehr schulden bitte.

Yes please take more debt and give to Ukraine. Ukraine will love your money 🤣🤣🤣

Hahaha pay the debt with Putin's Money 😂😂😂😂

fortunately Germany has a lot of engineers from africa and middle east. that is why is a matter of time when they'll solve the economic problem