Just a small note, a decrease in the rate of increase in government spending is not “crushing austerity”. The only question to be answered is where the money actually goes.
That depends.
The German government spending more now is the result of them starving public services and defense for decades so that trains began derailing, bridges collapsing, school toilets molding, internet speeds never advanced beyond a crawl, and the soldiers were being trained to go to the front line and dance the silly dance, to see if the other side will fall dead of laughter.
They were thrifty, but they were also eating the seed corn and selling off the public goods. And wealth inequality increased over the same time. Where was that wealth taken from, why, where did it go, and how do we now claw it back?
The German government spending more now is the result of them starving public services and defense for decades so that trains began derailing, bridges collapsing, school toilets molding, internet speeds never advanced beyond a crawl, and the soldiers were being trained to go to the front line and dance the silly dance, to see if the other side will fall dead of laughter.
They were thrifty, but they were also eating the seed corn and selling off the public goods. And wealth inequality increased over the same time. Where was that wealth taken from, why, where did it go, and how do we now claw it back?
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