41–50 of 165 posts
Good article, but it always bothers me a bit when people talk about Americans generically. Yes, you can make some generalizations, but the country is huge and there are many distinct cultural zones. Attitudes and behavior vary widely between them.
On charity: I see two reasons for these different approaches to charity: first, Americans distrust big organizations and third world governments; they fear that money they donate to global causes will trickle away in bureaucracies somewhere. Second, Germans intuitively don't feel much of a need to help local organizations or schools: "that's the government's job, that's what I pay taxes for." I think the main driver…
The German approach in my opinion does more to alleviate outcast-scale poverty. I'd be curious how this actually plays out in practice. In the US, we have a great document called the American Housing Survey. It breaks down what percentage of poor people (and non-poor people) own various goods - e.g., 75% of poor people own a car, 65% own a washing machine and 45% own their home. http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h1…
100% of poor people in Germany own a health insurance
0% own a house (you have to use up your own money first)
100% own a washing machine (paid for by the government)
50& own a car (my guess, but you dont really need it in big cities)
Good article, but it always bothers me a bit when people talk about Americans generically. Yes, you can make some generalizations, but the country is huge and there are many distinct cultural zones. Attitudes and behavior vary widely between them.
I hate to sound trivial and to deviate from the conversation, but I would like to draw attention to Finland for a moment and say that the US government should follow suit (for the most part I agree that people in the US have learned to tolerate substandard quality when it comes to many technology services). In Finland, legislation dictates that it is the right of every citizen to have free access to at least a 1Mbps…
It's just a matter of different welfare system(if you could say so, it applies well to the cultural differences between European countries - might be a bit of a stretch to compare it to the States... :))
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The German approach in my opinion does more to alleviate outcast-scale poverty. I'd be curious how this actually plays out in practice. In the US, we have a great document called the American Housing Survey. It breaks down what percentage of poor people (and non-poor people) own various goods - e.g., 75% of poor people own a car, 65% own a washing machine and 45% own their home. http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h1…
The key is that the basics are covered (like in most of Europe) 100% of poor people in Germany own a health insurance 0% own a house (you have to use up your own money first) 100% own a washing machine (paid for by the government) 50& own a car (my guess, but you dont really need it in big cities)
About the house: If your house is cheap enough, I am not sure whether you have to use it all up completely. (I heard that there's even the possibility under certain circumstances of the government helping you with mortgage payments instead of helping you pay for rent.)
In general, you can live of the government welfare and even raise kids. But you need some skills for that, and they aren't that different from the skills that make for basic employability.
Seems interesting but with a notable number of mistakes on the US, how much can I trust what is said about Germany? and how much has changed since he moved to the US?
If you want to talk about different culture, email me. I'm a German living in the UK, working for a multinational American company. I also spent some time studying in Turkey.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing I observed is that both countries got less different over the years: If you look at the policies regarding the social-net, Europe has tried to become more american ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept ) while the US has tried to become more european ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Health_Care_for_Amer... ). Countries in the EU have a mandate to bring down public debt and the easiest place…
It's ridiculously expensive to treat someone in the ER for an infection rather than them having regular doctor visits. No, it's billed at ridiculously high rates. That's not the same thing. ER docs are not paid that much more than primary care docs. The cost of treating an infection in the ER is 1 hour of a doctor's time + drugs. The cost of a regular doctor visit is also 1 hour of the doctor's time + drugs. The hosp…
You are probably right about the direct labour costs of treating an infection in ER. However, to use the language of computing, the difference between a GP and ER comes down to latency. An ER should be able to react fast, clogging it up with ailments that could be resolved at a leisurely pace earlier, doesn't strike me as a good idea.
I've lived in Germany for 5+ years and believe humor to be one of the widest cultural gaps between Germany and the US. To wit: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/what-makes-germ...
Disclaimer: I am German and I actually saw and liked 30 Rock (in English) ;-) As for 30 Rock: The problem with English shows on German television is that they are all dubbed. I won't say that they are doing a bad job (c.f. eastern european countries) but sometimes they are missing out puns and jokes which "can't be translated" without losing meaning. In the end this can make a funny TV show unwatchable. On the other…
Jelly donuts rant was a nice touch in the end :) .