Not sure what your definition of "privatized" is... fully state-owned means it isn't privatised at all.
The issue is one of legal status. In most countries you can be a commercial company or essentially a branch of the government (leaving aside coops and charities).
So in general you have companies (legal status) but they are fully owned by the state, hence "state-owned company". "Privatized" means the government decided to sell most or all the shares to the public.
Counter example is the USPS in the US, which is an agency of the Federal government.
Its still a private company, well 245 of them, billing each other while trying to cooperate.
This company structure was the result of the neoliberal thinking of having as much free market as possible, with the beneficial side effect of creating many highly payed board chairs for former politicians.
Today, the problems, mainly caused by cutting cost on maintenance, are so close to the surface, that even the most head-in-the-cloud establishment politicians cant spin it anymore, so the new DB ceo (Palla), tasked with "fixing it", came up with a long term plan. For decades, from every side, DB/german governments was critized for not having an articulated goal of the minimum public service that should be provided. The german governments were not directing, so 100% state _owned_ is technically true but obscures the complexity. The former ceo Mehdorn, that started this down trend did exatcly what any short-term-gain ceo would do and is, despite this blatantly failing infrastructure, still well regarded.
Today, one primary goal of this plan to fix it all, is to "reduce delays". Cuting schedules and lines will make this number up too! And so the next round of ceo bonus payments are secured and the shit show continues.
What else could you expect? A solution to fix vital infrastructure and strengthen trust in politicians and governments to cost money?! Haha.
Non-German here. What’s the point of this setup? I guess in some ways this isn’t too different than USPS, which is self-sufficient and doesn’t face tax dollars nor give its profits to the Treasury, but in our case they didn’t bother going as far to separate it as it sounds like DB did.
ketzu|4 months ago
> Sie [DB AG] befindet sich zu 100 Prozent im Eigentum des Bundes
https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/Standardar...
mytailorisrich|4 months ago
The issue is one of legal status. In most countries you can be a commercial company or essentially a branch of the government (leaving aside coops and charities).
So in general you have companies (legal status) but they are fully owned by the state, hence "state-owned company". "Privatized" means the government decided to sell most or all the shares to the public.
Counter example is the USPS in the US, which is an agency of the Federal government.
throwawayqqq11|4 months ago
This company structure was the result of the neoliberal thinking of having as much free market as possible, with the beneficial side effect of creating many highly payed board chairs for former politicians.
Today, the problems, mainly caused by cutting cost on maintenance, are so close to the surface, that even the most head-in-the-cloud establishment politicians cant spin it anymore, so the new DB ceo (Palla), tasked with "fixing it", came up with a long term plan. For decades, from every side, DB/german governments was critized for not having an articulated goal of the minimum public service that should be provided. The german governments were not directing, so 100% state _owned_ is technically true but obscures the complexity. The former ceo Mehdorn, that started this down trend did exatcly what any short-term-gain ceo would do and is, despite this blatantly failing infrastructure, still well regarded.
Today, one primary goal of this plan to fix it all, is to "reduce delays". Cuting schedules and lines will make this number up too! And so the next round of ceo bonus payments are secured and the shit show continues.
What else could you expect? A solution to fix vital infrastructure and strengthen trust in politicians and governments to cost money?! Haha.
xp84|4 months ago