Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Would be interesting to see if the subsidy is covered by additional economic activity to cover the shortfall. If not it won’t last long, money doesn’t grow on trees


Someone in the comments mentioned this costs 3B per year when in comparison Germany spends 20B per year on Oil/Gas subsidies/tax benefits.

Arguably if more people are using rail it can become palatable to shift that money away from the tax benefits and subsidies for Oil which (equally) artificially lower fuel prices from real market prices (and which people seem to have no problem with).


It does when maintaining roads, apparently.


On the other hand the Bundeswehr burns through 50 billion a year to do fuck all, so apparently it does indeed grow on trees.


Military spending is a bit of an odd one. It's basically expensive by design and ideally doesn't have any real effect.

It's not far off from a proof-of-work system. Especially given how there are many cheaper options to get rid of an enemy, but those have been outlawed such that the only options remaining are costly in people, money and goods.


> there are many cheaper options to get rid of an enemy, but those have been outlawe

I'm curious. What are these options?


Nukes, I think they mean nukes. Though "cheaper" is kind of debatable there, a fleet of SSBNs isn't cheap by any measure.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: