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Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

economist.com

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Re: Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

#81

Post by rockyj »

bgdam wrote: post #75
rockyj wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just your experience. You say as if things in India are all bed of roses. No major city in India (forget small towns) can boast of breathable air, manageable traffic, potable water from the tap or 24 hours of electricity. Women's safety - lol. Finding a place where there is a clean lake or some non-polluted piece of nature - forget that in North India. Not to mention as a minority, who knows when you can be l…

> People come here, reek of privilege, miss their life in India where they had 3 servants for everything and also forget that if they have to go to any government office in India they have to pay bribes. Unfortunately these are the exact people that Germany wants moving into their country - because they're the one's who pay the high taxes. Do you think Germany is throwing open their doors for the underprivileged folk…

Fair enough. Respect your opinion.

All I know, in Delhi I was using 1 inhaler in 1 week, in Germany it is 1 inhaler in 1 year. That is worth something to me.

Re: Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

#82

Post by littlecranky67 »

romanovcode wrote: post #62
bgdam wrote: post #26

As an immigrant (and a very well paid one paying obnoxiously high taxes), I've recommended every single person asking if they should move from India to Germany to not to. The only upgrade is in cleaner air to breathe and safety from crime. If you're in the higher earning bracket in India, then you get these there itself. So then moving to Germany from India is like stepping back into 1996. Every single thing is so ob…

> If I paid the same amount in insurance in India, I'd have a helicopter flown out every time I stubbed my toe. You are free to go private if you earn more than 60k a year and you get all the helicopters and 3-d printed tooth fillings. The only problem is that you can get back to public only if you get fired. > Germans who foolishly believe that Germany is a great country to live It's not Germans who foolishly believ…

> You are free to go private if you earn more than 60k a year

Good luck if you are married and have children, or good beware, prior health conditions. Then private will cost you waaay more than public

Re: Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

#83

Post by bgdam »

pluijzer wrote: post #70
bgdam wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, perhaps not. I'll get an EU passport next year. Oops scratch that the wait for naturalization is now upto two years. So I'll get an EU passport in 3 years, and then the right to be able to move to any of 27 countries at my discretion will more than make up for this time and energy I've spent here.

Sorry, but I hope you can show these countries a little bit more respect than the country that provided you with the ability to get very well paid, got you clean are and safety from crime.

And this is where the fallacy is. Indian salaries are currently actually higher than German ones for my role. And that's without even accounting for PPP. The ground reality is different from what people assume it is. The base assumption always seems to be "People are moving to our coutnry from 3rd world countries because those 3rd world coutnries are not as good as us." That's totally not the case. There are a multitude of factors and every persons personal individual decisions.

And I love how there are multiple comments about disrespecting the country that I moved to. Why? Because I dared to criticize it instead of pretending everything is awesome? Yeah that's cool man. You do know that people criticize because they care and want the system to change for the better right?

Re: Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

#84

Post by hannofcart »

bgdam wrote: post #26

As an immigrant (and a very well paid one paying obnoxiously high taxes), I've recommended every single person asking if they should move from India to Germany to not to. The only upgrade is in cleaner air to breathe and safety from crime. If you're in the higher earning bracket in India, then you get these there itself. So then moving to Germany from India is like stepping back into 1996. Every single thing is so ob…

> If I paid the same amount in insurance in India, I'd have a helicopter flown out every time I stubbed my toe.

Hi, I'm likely in the top 10% of top 1% of salaried professionals in India. I'd like to know where in India I'd be able to get the kind of insurance you're talking about. If it's not hyperbole, I'd love to move there. So far, I've found no insurance that's as generous as you describe. Not even close.

Re: Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

#85

Post by jwestbury »

nicbou wrote: post #29
the_common_man wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public services and service industry is particularly brutal to non German speakers. The unfriendliness is astounding if you don't speak german

Even if you do speak German, it's horrendously slow. You can't sit idle for months because this or that office has no appointments to do this or that thing. Things that can be done online elsewhere must be done in person, by appointment. The appointments are hard to get, come weeks later, and only trigger a 2-8 week wait. Language is just icing on the cake.

I think slow appointments are a thing across the western world right now (and possibly elsewhere, but my knowledge is lacking).

I'm currently trying to get my driving license in the UK, as a US immigrant. This means I need to go through the same process as a new driver. The wait was about a month between application and approval for my provisional license, then 1.5 months to take a theory test, then 2 months to take a practical test -- but that was choosing to drive four hours to a test centre with a test available, and if I'd wanted to take one in London, it would have been ~6 months, which is long enough that my American license would have expired and I'd be left unable to drive at all in the interim. (There's still a decent chance this happens, because if I fail the test, it's a month before I can reschedule, and then I probably have to schedule multiple months out again.)

Wait times were pretty bad in the US, too, before we left last year. It's not a government thing, but we had foundation work done on our house last year, and the lead time was about eight months between signing the contract and the work being carried out. Permitting alone took several months for what was relatively straightforward work on a single-family dwelling.

Re: Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

#86

Post by cinntaile »

pluijzer wrote: post #70
bgdam wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, perhaps not. I'll get an EU passport next year. Oops scratch that the wait for naturalization is now upto two years. So I'll get an EU passport in 3 years, and then the right to be able to move to any of 27 countries at my discretion will more than make up for this time and energy I've spent here.

Sorry, but I hope you can show these countries a little bit more respect than the country that provided you with the ability to get very well paid, got you clean are and safety from crime.

What is disrespectful about voicing his opinion on things that he considers broken or in need of much improvement? It is entirely possible that German people are too complacent or privileged to see all the issues that he mentions.

Re: Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

#87

Post by sony22 »

bgdam wrote: post #75
rockyj wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is just your experience. You say as if things in India are all bed of roses. No major city in India (forget small towns) can boast of breathable air, manageable traffic, potable water from the tap or 24 hours of electricity. Women's safety - lol. Finding a place where there is a clean lake or some non-polluted piece of nature - forget that in North India. Not to mention as a minority, who knows when you can be l…

> People come here, reek of privilege, miss their life in India where they had 3 servants for everything and also forget that if they have to go to any government office in India they have to pay bribes. Unfortunately these are the exact people that Germany wants moving into their country - because they're the one's who pay the high taxes. Do you think Germany is throwing open their doors for the underprivileged folk…

> So what, I should kow tow to a broken system and praise it? No thanks. People and countries should be able to take criticism. Also, just because I complain about everything that is bad doesn't mean that there is nothing good. It's just that none of them apply to a thread about Germany's dire immigration situation.

You don't kow tow have to but never attack a group of people like "They will never change". Looking at the history Germans are one people that happily criticise themselves. Even incl. racism.

Germans happily and always criticise the bureacracy. If you are not this aggressive in stereotyping then may be you are in a bubble without German friends/co-workers.

What broken system? You have some pain points.

BTW, that headline is correct but it takes only one year and then same Economist will reverse the headline.

Until Lehman bros crashed every one called Germany sickman of europe. Then it became so much praise for their great Economics powerhouse.

Re: Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

#88

Post by sony22 »

pluijzer wrote: post #70
bgdam wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, perhaps not. I'll get an EU passport next year. Oops scratch that the wait for naturalization is now upto two years. So I'll get an EU passport in 3 years, and then the right to be able to move to any of 27 countries at my discretion will more than make up for this time and energy I've spent here.

Sorry, but I hope you can show these countries a little bit more respect than the country that provided you with the ability to get very well paid, got you clean are and safety from crime.

These people live in a bubble. Will never understand....

Re: Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

#89

Post by littlecranky67 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #38
hliyan wrote: post #11

The anecdotal evidence the author supplies: economic growth is slow, trains are late, IT investment as a % of GDP is half that of US and France, business license takes 120 days to acquire. Nowhere does it seem to talk about living standards of the population. As if the economy is its own end and the population is just an epiphenomenon.

> business license takes 120 days to acquire. That's bullshit. A Gewerbeanmeldung for a one-person startup or a GbR (same, just with more than one person) takes one DIN A4 sheet of paper per person, and about half an hour of waiting at the city authority. An LLC (UG, GmbH, AG) takes more effort to form, yes (including raising 12.500€ of capital for the GmbH/AG), but you can easily transition from an existing Einzelun…

> That's bullshit. A Gewerbeanmeldung for a one-person startup or a GbR (same, just with more than one person) takes one DIN A4 sheet of paper per person

Now that is bs. Because you also need to register with the tax authorities (Finanzamt) to get your tax id after that. Oh, and if you want to do your VAT declarations ("Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung") yourself, don't forget to request a digital certificate for ELSTER, which is sent - yes- via snail mail. And good luck if you want a EU VAT id, which is another separate step/appointment. And when you want to pay out first dividends you are in for a surprise when the tax account asks all of the shareholders/owners of the GbR/GmbH for their proof of church membership (for dividends tax), which you have to request individually from the Finanzamt just to send it back to them later...

Re: Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

#90

Post by wink »

sony22 wrote: post #78
bgdam wrote: post #26

As an immigrant (and a very well paid one paying obnoxiously high taxes), I've recommended every single person asking if they should move from India to Germany to not to. The only upgrade is in cleaner air to breathe and safety from crime. If you're in the higher earning bracket in India, then you get these there itself. So then moving to Germany from India is like stepping back into 1996. Every single thing is so ob…

I am not a german but from India. while there is lack of digitialisation but most things work fine > So then moving to Germany from India is like stepping back into 1996. Seriously then leave the country. > Germany will stay as it is for ever - there is no need to change in their view. You are attacking Germans. - Million rules exist and if followed then it works smoothly. - I know vast majority of Indians think bure…

>> Germany will stay as it is for ever - there is no need to change in their view.

> You are attacking Germans.

I don't think so and I don't feel attacked.

The problem is that German politics has been VERY conservative for the last decades and also in general, the population seems very much averse to change. The younger people (younger than 50, lol) are not usually in a position of power, and maybe even in the majority not open to tech. (Look at the pixelated houses discussions with street view)

I'm still amazed sometimes that we can even have things like online banking or that SOME chores at government offices work digitally, it's just not happening and everything they try to do sucks anyway.

Anything digital Germany absolutely feels like a weird place fixated on the good old days and another problem is that every time some progress is on the horizon someone misinterprets data protection and privacy laws again and manages to sabotage progress. Or it's people who want to go the extra mile and instead of fighting so that we are allowed to bay with a card everywhere want to completely abolish coins and paper money...

So in that regard I absolutely agree with the post you replied to. The majority or the people in power don't want this to change it seems, or are too incompetent.

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