> But in Germany, there is also an education system to become Geselle, Meister, Techniker, Fachwirt --- things that many other countries don't have. And somehow people always ignore that.
Why do you think I was ignoring that?
The reality is, that here almost everyone thinks that they must go to university. Their parents also tell them that, because of increased requirements that businesses put up as lowest bars. Parents become helicopter parents and will try to make your life difficult, if you give their very extremely specially gifted child a bad grade. Teachers are no longer as respected by the parents, as they were in the past, and are way too soft on the grading. Good grade inflation is the result, even when the children/pupils do not actually achieve good results. Ridiculous things like some secondary schools only accepting 1.0 graded pupils in Berlin happen. When I went to school, in my whole city there were perhaps 10 pupils with a 1.0 grade (mean of all subjects) per year. You could definitely not run a school with that as source material.
At the next level, at the universities, they are also complaining about the students coming with inflated grades from secondary schools. German universities are considering establishing entrance exams and are at risk losing their international status, by accepting too many not great students. Quality of university education suffers.
On the other hand we have the small businesses, which teach the trades, which complain loudly, that they don't get qualified people to teach. If almost everyone can go to university, even if only for some MBA, then this is what we get. Those businesses teaching the trades (ausbildende Betriebe, Ausbildungsbetriebe) are complaining about very basic skills like language skills, reading understanding, focusing on something, simple calculation, etc., that they find lacking in the people they are supposed to teach. These problems also extend to immigrants, who simply haven't had a proper chance to learn the language, or come with completely different educational background.
If you ask me, we should only welcome as many people, as we can offer proper language courses and other required courses to, so that people who come here have an actual future, and don't simply disappear in subcultures. I want people who come here to have a good future, by being part of society and by having stable jobs, adding to our society as a whole. If they can't have jobs, then coming here will only result in more strain on our already severely strained social net. Figuratively speaking, a massive amount of effort is needed to pull that cart out of the mud. Years and years of mismanaged immigration to fix.
> And the Deutsche Bahn ... perhaps not the shining example. But ... look at France. They hardly have trains, e.g. there are small towns that only have 8 trains a day. To go by TGV from Bordeaux to Lyon you must pass Paris, hundreds of kilometers depart. It's like going from Kassel to Hamburg must go via Berlin. Also, the trains in UK are bad. And some countries, like Spain, or Greece, also hardly have tracks AND trains. While here, we actually tracks "everywhere" and even a bit too many trains, therefore the delay. But you can reach your destination, while in other countries there's no way.
You got a point in that we still have something that is more than elsewhere, granted. But the criticism is about how much worse it has become, compared to what we already had decades ago. Colossal mismanagement of a public good. Germany (everyone involved in managing DB and current and past governments) does seemingly not understand, how important a working public infrastructure is, for a country to prosper. They only see Q1,2,3,4 numbers. Worsening infrastructure is not something that makes a country attractive. Qualified people will consider moving elsewhere. People cannot rely on DB to get to and fro their job office, or will simply be late every now and then. Living in a neighbor town becomes infeasible, due to unreliability of DB. We are basically working on getting everyone to drive their own 4 person city tank (that disease also has caught on here...) alone, to and from their work place.
> 5 weeks ago I went with ICE from Kassel to Regensburg --- for a mere 26 EUR (one way) because I booked in advance. Where else do you get that?
I got a last minute ticket from Berlin to Kassel recently for 22 EUR, also one way. But the issue is not only the pricing. The issue is the non-existent reliability. A trip that should have taken 2h53min took 4h37min, because of delays and the train already starting with 14min delay in Berlin. On my way back I was not so lucky to get a last minute ticket, and chose to take regional trains, which took me 8h+.
But to answer the question where else one gets that: In China, eaaaasily. Of course salaries are different there, no question, but for some 15 EUR I can travel through half of China, in approximately the same time, that I need in Germany, to cross half of Germany, and the train will be at the station on point, not starting 14min late. It will usually halt at the station with the carriages exactly aligned at the numbered markers at the station. I won't have to run all the way to the other end of the train. I won't have to hurry up and down some stairs, because of some last minute notice, that the train arrives at another track today, which then is corrected back again, causing me to run back to the original friggin track. That's just stuff that happens with Deutsche Bahn for some reason.
> But hey, the typical complaining german gives to me the impression as if we're still the "Herrenrasse". We must always #1. As soon we're not #1 the end is nigh :-) Place 7 of 27 is totally bad, apparently.
Well, #1 is the goal, obviously. Why should Germany not try to be the best? It is silly to not aim high in that regard. We should very much look at Japan (train sevice, making use of cultural goods, attracting visitors), South Korea (Internet, everyday convenience), and China (infrastructure, modern cities, getting construction projects done) and ask ourselves, what is going wrong here. The problem is not necessarily that we are not currently #1, but that things are decaying and we are falling in many rankings:
Education (falling in international comparisons, especially severe)
Train service (only gotten worse in the last decade, redefinitions of what is "too late" don't help)
Cost of living (has increased a lot, including groceries)
Wealth of young people (countries inside the EU, of which one might not think so, have higher average wealth of young people than Germany, for example Spain and Italy)
Young people these days can mostly only dream about living in their own home. Most are forced to rent, and rent is ever increasing, while salaries in many areas are stagnating. We are far away from being able to afford, what our parents were able to afford. But I think that is the case in many countries these days, and not only a Germany thing.