Easy: political corruption masquerading as incompetence and bad luck, since our leaders have absolutely zero accountability, so they have no incentive to actually do anything right and can instead represent the interests of various businesses and interest groups using your tax money, and once their political career is over, they can get on the payroll as execs or consultants by the same business they helped get rich using taxpayer money.
Maybe technology, and a little behavioral modification, can help. For example, you can make an agreement with yourself: along with any online statement about endemic corruption, bad luck, lack of accountability, I will do something to reverse this trend I do not like. I will post the names of the politicians, businesses, consultants, responsible for a specific bad outcome. I think that would both strengthen your message and make you feel less helpless.
On a meta-level I'd also be very interested, how many people actually now about corruption of the smallest governing body where they live (and can name some members which got voted in). Given the fleeting lifestyle propagated here and by American laws (hey, there's another job, let's move), it's no wonder the government is captured by landed elites. It's the peoples job to change that and yes, settling down somewhere helps.
Yep. This is Germany, especially in the East, I've been dismayed to find. The destruction of the "sober and efficient" branding can't come soon enough.
I am not sure Germany really has represented that for a long time. I would never buy a German appliance, Vehicle or product made in the past 10 years. My impression of Germany can be summed up as: sold out to China, overpriced, stuffy, poor quality, and poor customer care. I’d rather buy Korean, Japanese, Swedish, but I’d even take American or Turkish over German these days.
