Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The deindustrialization of Germany

politico.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 175 posts

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#101

Post by wernercd »

brazzy wrote: post #84
jterrys wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine working hard to guarantee a good future for your children and having the state step in and taking it away.

Imagine working harder that you can possibly imagine to guarantee a good future for your children, and yet not being able to because the deck is stacked against you, or you're just unlucky - and having the state step in to at least give them a fair chance. Then imagine someone saying that's bad because it's important for other people's kids to be able to live in luxury without ever having to work a day in their lives…

Imagine saying that you working hard, providing for your kids and doing good in life is less because someone else has it better/easier/"doesn't deserve it".

Imagine saying that the only way things can be fair is if you steal from others you think have too much to make things 'equal'.

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#102

Post by radiator »

eldaisfish wrote: post #39
choeger wrote: post #23

Germany is extremely well positioned to rise again economically in the next five years or so. It's attracting migrants from all over Europe, it's located quite nicely in the middle of the continent and it's currently building a massive capacity of renewable energy. The only real problem right now is efficiency of spending. Nearly all public sectors (defense, housing, transportation, education, healthcare) bemoan sign…

i would not be so hopeful. A big problem is that germany does not operate in the global lingua franca - English. This really shows when countries like Australia and Canada - combined, both have a population less than germany’s - are able to attract the best and brightest from around the world. Another problem is one that plagues all old world countries - societies are based around ethnicity. These combine to mean tha…

Since when is it a problem for a country to operate in its own language? Especially one which is spoken by 100 million people? Have you considered that people who migrate to a new country for work might even try to learn the language? Who says English must remain lingua franca in Europe?

But beside all that, everyone with a basic education in Germany does speak good English if needed.

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#103

Post by ManuelKiessling »

badpun wrote: post #62
holoduke wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eastern European people are very much german orientated. Most speak better German than English. So no you are not right. Germany is immensively popular by tech migrants from Russia. Poland, Hungary, Czech etc.

> Most speak better German than English. That's not true, at least not in Poland. Also, current German take-home salaries for coders are lower than Polish (gross amounts are similar, but in Poland a lot of coders are self-employed, with very lox taxes), with vastly higher costs of living. If anything, Germans programmers should emigrate to Poland - they're not getting a great deal in their country.

I’m intrigued — can you provide some numbers, e.g. some typical hourly rates and/or monthly wages for some typical programming jobs? Or maybe you have some sources (I’ll be able to help myself with Google Translate if they are Polish).

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#104

Post by patmorgan23 »

jterrys wrote: post #69
badpun wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The childred didn't earn it either.

Imagine working hard to guarantee a good future for your children and having the state step in and taking it away.

Brah most inheritance taxes a) don't start until you're in the several hundred thousand to millions range and b) are less than 100%.

So you can still leave a pretty large nest egg for your children. And if you really wanted to make sure they would be ok without you, you would have to pay for a good education and taught them the value of hard work. (And used your social network/connections to get them a good first job/seed money to start their own business)

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#105

Post by MyAccountYo »

wernercd wrote: post #100
brazzy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? It's not billionaires who "earn" money by doing nothing who are greedy, but those who think such greed should not be allowed to perpetuate across generations? That is the position you're trying to defend?

[flagged]

Super weird take. Most money is in capital. So most money needs to be spent/taxed in capital. Rich get richer and poor get poorer. That can't work. It's not sustainable. If wages would rise at the same rate as capital we might not need to have this conversation."successful" is also a pretty dim interpretation. Are people who care for elderly or teach kids not worth anything just because they are not CEOs? They should be seen as "successful" but instead we respect the people who exploit the most and are the most ruthless and psychopathic. It's really sad to see that money is the only metric for "success" some people employ.

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#106

Post by type0 »

badpun wrote: post #62
holoduke wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eastern European people are very much german orientated. Most speak better German than English. So no you are not right. Germany is immensively popular by tech migrants from Russia. Poland, Hungary, Czech etc.

> Most speak better German than English. That's not true, at least not in Poland. Also, current German take-home salaries for coders are lower than Polish (gross amounts are similar, but in Poland a lot of coders are self-employed, with very lox taxes), with vastly higher costs of living. If anything, Germans programmers should emigrate to Poland - they're not getting a great deal in their country.

I agree, actually think Poland is one of the best countries in Europe for future digital sector, it's more open to dealing in English language and more open to change when it comes to business. As levels of living rise, I'm fairly confident it will be attracting more and better talents than other old EU countries. Other East Europeans are treated much better in Poland than Germany (West Germans don't even treat East Germans that well).

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#107

Post by [deleted] »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #77
eldaisfish wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i would not be so hopeful. A big problem is that germany does not operate in the global lingua franca - English. This really shows when countries like Australia and Canada - combined, both have a population less than germany’s - are able to attract the best and brightest from around the world. Another problem is one that plagues all old world countries - societies are based around ethnicity. These combine to mean tha…

>These combine to mean that Germany and the EU in general are not attracting the best from abroad. How many skilled Eastern Europeans have you met who still want to move to Germany? This was the dream ~10 years ago but most white collar EE engineers I know take one look at the wages and housing situation there and make a 180 back home.

[deleted]

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#108

Post by patmorgan23 »

imtringued wrote: post #17
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In effect, Germany robbed all the poorer members of the union to prop up its own economy something it has kept doing since. Those who like to bully the poorer members of the Union on the grounds that they're being bankrolled by the the wealthier states would be wise to take note of this, and take a more intelligent and informed view of EU "subsidies". The idea that the wealthier member states are showering these co…

This sentiment is so common in Germany. Everyone blames the European "south" for Germany's problems as if Germany was some sort of hero doing all the work. The Greek economic crisis is a classic example. German banks mess up when they lend too much money to Greece, Germany does a bailout for "Greece", the money actually goes back to German banks. Then people have this perception as if they somehow paid for all the so…

And Greece never really got a bail out, all they were ever offered were just bigger and bigger loans. (with austerity measures attached that pushed down demand, when lowered revenues, that made it harder to pay the loans)

Re: The deindustrialization of Germany

#109

Post by OfSanguineFire »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #73
holoduke wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eastern European people are very much german orientated. Most speak better German than English. So no you are not right. Germany is immensively popular by tech migrants from Russia. Poland, Hungary, Czech etc.

>astern European people are very much german orientated. Not true in Romania at all. We're latin and way more US/angloshpere oriented than German. Where did you get your information? You're probably thinking only of the parts of the former Austrian empire which used to speak German, but the youth there is also more Anglo focused than German, and it's only a samll part of eastern Europe

It is true in Romania, too. Since the ethnic Hungarian population isn’t Latin, interest in the German language has always been higher among them, and Germany has been a magnet for Hungarian emigration from Romania. But even leaving language aside, I know a number of ethnic Romanians from Cluj and Timisoara who moved to Germany, especially Berlin a decade ago when it was viewed as the hipster capital of Europe and still regarded as a cheap place to live.
Post reply on HN