Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

Re:Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab by throwaway2037 on Tuesday June 07, 2022 @10:17PM (#31662443)

I assume you are talking about a parliamentary system? Yes, I also prefer it. It is even better if there is a good mix of parties in power -- Germany, Netherlands, etc. It seems like 5-10 parties in parliament forces a good amount of compromise, which results in the most progress possible. I prefer what is loosely termed as a "weak prime minister" where the coalition is multi-party, over a "strong prime minister" where no coalition is required. (Please ignore the scenario of a _constant_ super majority, like Singapore's "People's Action Party".)

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Re:Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab by jimmydorry on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @12:14AM (#31663111)

GP is probably referring to the electoral system itself: "first past the post" [1]. Essentially a winner take all style of voting which enforces a two-party system.

E.g. In such a system, if a state has 50 seats and a party manages to win 24 of them (while the second place only wins 23 seats), that first party gets all 50 seats of representation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

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Re:Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab by throwaway2037 on Wednesday June 15, 2022 @10:51AM (#31753789)

Dreadful. I don't understand the point of "first past the post" versus a (semi-)Presidential system. What is the _effective_ difference if the outcome is always two parties?

To be fair: My comment is mostly focused upon "Western" parliments, which includes two geographically non-Western places: Australia and New Zealand! If you look at the constant dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan... look _very_ closely... you realise there are many competing factions within the party. So LDP _acts_ like multiple parties and forces the Prime Minister to compromise to get things done. Not perfect, but many outsiders fail to understand this about the Japanese (national) political system.

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Re:Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab by ido on Wednesday June 08, 2022 @12:18AM (#31663137)

There’s also weirdness like the electoral college and presidents getting elected despite getting fewer votes than their competitors (see Bush Jr. and Trump).

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