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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?

#181

Post by [deleted] »

wageslave99 wrote: post #152
silverpepsi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're writing this tongue in cheek or really not knowing? That's exactly what Indonesian is , a simplified standardized language to allow hundreds of different ethnicities with their own languages to easily communicate. There are tons more but I guess Indonesian is the world's best example because it is the language of one the most populated island on earth and one of the most populus nations And there's no need for…

I mean European languages, in the context of internal migration inside EU. I don't know anything about Indonesian so, it's nice to know my idea is not a crazy one. If Chinese and Indonesian do not have tenses, how they communicate when the action happens?

[deleted]

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

#182

Post by romanovcode »

the_common_man wrote: post #6

> Germany has liberalised its immigration rules, but the visa process is still glacial and the system favours refugees over professionals who might want to settle in the country. A big issue for professionals to move is they have to learn German.

Would you expect someone to live well in Silicon Valley only speaking Mandarin? I don't understand this question.

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

#183

Post by probably_wrong »

iiiieu wrote: post #180
tga wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the vast majority of trains come on time In 2022, only 65,2% of German trains were on time. In some regions, that ratio was under 50%. https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/wirtschaft/puenktlichkeit-bah...

Which was acknowledged and dramatically increased since then. https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen... Within 5 minutes was at over 90% in july 2023 and within 15 minutes was around 98% in july, and it was even higher in the beginning of the year. But you don't get that as front-page news.

You are being misled by misleading data.

The "Total passenger traffic" (Personenverkeher) values (which are the ones you quote) are calculated in some opaque way designed to hide the fact that "Long distance traffic" (Fernverkeher) are really bad.

More importantly, every single indicator in that page is going down, not up, and they are all worse now than they were in January 2022 [1].

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20221209074309/https://www.deutsc...

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

#184

Post by arprocter »

jwestbury wrote: post #85
nicbou wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The 6 months expiring thing happened to me - the only amusing thing was the confused look on someone's face after I passed the provisional test and then got in my car by myself and drove off

I always found it a little backwards how you can just arrive at Heathrow with a license from anywhere else and jump behind the wheel, but after 6 months you magically lose the ability to drive.

Best of luck

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

#185

Post by wink »

lispm wrote: post #167
bgdam wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a perfect world I'd assume this would be fixed slowly as this seems to be a recent trend, but I'm not hopeful. Yes, I thought the Ampel coalition's push for digitization was a great start to this. And then I read last week that they slashed the budget and pushed it back again. So I'm losing hope too.

There is still money from the current budget. The problem is that digitalization is just one of the problems we have. Currently we are paying billions for energy related issues, for the Ukraine war and investing lots into the military industry and in energy infrastructure transformation. We had three years covid slowing things down and creating various large problems: inner cities have huge problems keeping businesse…

That's a bit of a cop-out though, because computers and the internet have existed for long enough that we could have had something before 2014 :P

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

#186

Post by laserdancepony »

Gud wrote: post #135
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…

Thanks for sharing. I read the replies to your informative post. Sorry to see so much racism directed your way. I’m a resident in Switzerland and my girlfriend is from south India, now also a resident there. This has not at all been our experience. The administration has been surprisingly pleasant and efficient. From the day we applied for her residence to the day she got it took about 6 weeks. Would have been quicke…

To disagree is also racism now, how insightful.

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

#187

Post by iiiieu »

probably_wrong wrote: post #183
iiiieu wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which was acknowledged and dramatically increased since then. https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen... Within 5 minutes was at over 90% in july 2023 and within 15 minutes was around 98% in july, and it was even higher in the beginning of the year. But you don't get that as front-page news.

You are being misled by misleading data. The "Total passenger traffic" (Personenverkeher) values (which are the ones you quote) are calculated in some opaque way designed to hide the fact that "Long distance traffic" (Fernverkeher) are really bad. More importantly, every single indicator in that page is going down, not up, and they are all worse now than they were in January 2022 [1]. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/2…

Rejecting statistics that you don't like while pushing those that you do is a case of selection bias, the extension of which is the infamous "the election was rigged" trope.

It's easy to select a subset of trains to make the statistic of this subset look bad. Take a single train that was canceled. In that subset, the "on time" statistic is 0%. Really bad, eh? Or take one that was on time. 100%. Great, eh? Well, not useful, just like all other anecdotes.

So, yes, sure, we can all pick the subset for which the statistic suits our narrative and then keep disagreeing about the facts. It's not a useful way of debating though and only suits lobbys in pushing their agenda.

(Or we take the facts as they are.)

P.S.: Even the 80.6% that you quote are not "really bad". Ever been in North America? No train traffic at all sounds worse than 80.6% to me. The German train system has its issues, but it's by far not as bad as the public perception seems to believe.

P.P.S.: Check out the German "Staustatistik" some time. Over a thousand every day. Of course nobody who wants to make trains look bad and implicitly push the car as the better alternative talks about this.

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

#188

Post by dang »

2-718-281-828 wrote: post #79
bgdam wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

sounds like you miss your servants which happen to be a little too expensive for you here ... and you even have to treat them respectful. what a bummer

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

"Don't be snarky."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#189

Post by 2-718-281-828 »

dang wrote: post #188
2-718-281-828 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like you miss your servants which happen to be a little too expensive for you here ... and you even have to treat them respectful. what a bummer

" Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. " " Don't be snarky. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

i think my comment was justified and quite on point. it is very much a cultural thing in india to have servants from a lower and less respected caste. it's not nice but that's how it is. and yes, the caste system is very much racist.

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

#190

Post by jeroenvlek »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #141
jeroenvlek wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but they could have kept nuclear until the reactors were end of life to have more time for the transition. Instead, they frantically closed them and now coal consumption increased. Case in point: Lützerath.

They did, most German reactors are ancient and were past the recommended life-time. And coal consumption did not increase because of the closing down of nuclear reactors.

No? Why did it increase? You know a lot of reactors were closed early. What filled that demand?
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