[timmy-turner]

Well, comparing these two countries infrastructure-wise to a software project, then China is a greenfield project which is able to pick whatever is the hippest technology at the moment because its still growing whereas Germany is the years old legacy Java project on its fourth partial rewrite that everyone relies on every day. And by everyone I mean people from those living on welfare to the billionaires at the top, not just upper class members or those belonging to the ruling party.

I'll bet that those failed projects would not have been called a failure in China.

[dnomad]

There's really nothing in China could be called a "greenfield project." Germany doesn't grow because it doesn't want to grow. You're talking about a country with an absolutely unprecedented budget surplus and the lowest investment spending in the developed world [1]. China grows because it is just the opposite; it's willing to take on unprecedented deficits and invest those in the country's future.

Germany and much of the West as a whole has largely stopped investing in anything but tax cuts and entirely pointless military spending. The neoliberal gamble is that private actors can produce growth if government just gets out the way. At this point, given the last forty years of so-so growth and massive inequality, it's not looking too good.

It's probably for the best since Germany is only going to get older and older [2]. They can use all the savings to build hospital beds etc while economic growth continues in Asia and Africa.

[1] https://www.economist.com/europe/2017/06/17/germanys-low-inv...

[2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/01/germany-will-hit-a-si...

[icebraining]

Germany and much of the West as a whole has largely stopped investing in anything but tax cuts and entirely pointless military spending.

I don't understand this claim; Germany and many EU countries top the lists of tax-to-GDP and effective tax rates in the world, while its military expenditure (as % of GDP) is lower than China's.