@@DeepJiesel German economist Daniel Stelter wrote a book about it "Das Märchen vom Reichen Land". That tells you everything, you need to know. Just look at other europeans retiring 5-10 years earlier than Germans.
@@MrSit87 Oh yeah, because an economist writes a book, the manifest reality changes. I've been hearing about the impending collapse of Germany since I was twelve, not buying it any longer from prophets of doom trying to sell their books. Simpletons will of course believe what they read without using their own brain first.
I love when the media reports the economy is going fantastic when what they really mean is it's great for the top 20-10% and borderline dystopian for everyone else LoL
Wealth division is a political choice. Media should report facts (unless of course you're FOX). GDP growth is one such fact, it's a simple statistic. There's plenty of stats on growing inequality, bu they're long-term and trickier to explain. Besides, you get boed off stage as being a gloomy communist. Solution: just report the daily Nashdaq and everybody is happy.
The definition of "rich" is already wrong in Germany. You are considered "rich" in Germany when you make 3,500€ after taxes. Meanwhile, new houses in Bavaria (Landshut, for instance) are impossible to build at under 800.000€. This means, in other words: Buying a house is impossible these days even for rich people. It is unfathomable for single earners, and still impossible for two earners. Even if they are childless. Because at 7000€ combined income, without a major inheritance, you won't even qualify for an 800.000€ loan. This means, owning property is now inherently a luxury reserved for whatever ranks higher than "just rich'. If you're "only" rich these days, you can't afford a house.
Sorry to bother you, but someone I met as a teacher at Goethe Institute told me, that was 8 years ago, that it is totally abnormal to own a house in Germany. People have been renting since forever and only families who have 100+ years living in the same place with wealthy background do have a property, I mean, real state. It can be annoying but nothing new to see here, I guess.
@@TR4R Yeah that teacher was wrong. My parents bought and built their own home, we bought our own place, friends of mine did the same. It depends on where you want to live. If you want to live where everyone else wants to live (because it has certain benefits like shorter commuting times, cultural offers etc.), the price is going up. Even though I have to admit that the prices recently went nuts, even in remote areas...
I'm a 27 year old German and i've got a monthly salary around 3200€ (after taxes) wich is definetly a lot more than most of us here get... But, i know with my income i can never afford a house in my life... I need a women that at least makes the same amount, an then i would still need to pay like 40 years to call a house my own ... Thats also why the house owning rate in Germany is so low
Hi a Dutchie here, doesnt Germany do mortgages? With a salary of 3200 a month you can buy a house in The Netherlands (not easy but possible), The bank will loan you the money to buy the house (the house is yours and you can sell it with a profit whenever you want), you can even take out another loan on your house to buy more realestate
And also dont save money but invest it so your money also works for you, thats why the bank gives you a 2/3% interest rate cause they want your money so they can invest it, better do it yourself and reap all the benefits yourself
@@rico5766 the 40 years he mentioned is with mortgages. In Germany you can sell your property whenever you want, but when you sell it within 10 years after you bought it there is a speculation tax.
@@sturanovicms it is not that extreme as written. I earn fairly the same. I could buy a House/flat but i dont, because i dont want to settle down in a location. But as he says it is quite expensive especially in Higher dense cities. If you are based and dont spend recklessly everbody can live here very good.
The average Germans is the foundation of this nation's economy, therefore if their money vanishes, unemployment will rise and the message "You have an unexpected month" will emerge. If you have a lot of student loans that are coming due, that money will run out very soon.
By then, a minimum of one cut Given that it will be discussed throughout the election, I think it happened in September. Given that it's a retirement issue, I think the FED will implement changes in September. If in September they don't make any cuts
I have this much in a taxable brokerage account, this much in a standard IRA, this much in a bank account, and this much in an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan. At the moment, I have 30% in equities and 70% in bonds, or a similar allocation. Her contact information is Annette Marie Holt. Thus, when she responds to your initial meeting, which should be provided to you at no cost, you should have a very clear picture of your current condition.
I just looked this lady up out of curiosity and found her web page easily. Read through her qualifications, which were all very impressive. So I scheduled a call with her.
This is not a German problem. It is a general Western issue. Neither the French, British or Americans have affordable housing or affordable basics due to inflation. Looking at the specific German version of the issue may be interesting, but it is not productive.
@@pinktfatrabbitBecause Switzerland has benefitted for decades from having its share of storing the wealth of dictators, hardcore criminals and super rich without asking questions. A pretty unique case. Nevertheless, in Switzerland poverty rates are rising as well.
@@daMillenialTrucker It is not a cope. Switzerland's wealth is mostly based on being a haven for dirty money and a tax haven (with the effect that many international companies have their headquarters there). Furthermore, they enjoy all the benefits of being located in the middle of the EU without any of the responsibilities.
We are poor and angry because our wages can't afford anymore vacations, going out for food and leisure, as well as basic necessities. 20 Years ago, the local postman was able to afford his own house after many years of work; now, even those with higher degrees and salaries can't even afford this. We're living in a society with no future hopes of actually owning anything of value to call your own. That is why so many people are discouraged to actually work hard, because the minority working population needs to carry the burden of all the non-workers....
if You look how meny howers You have to work in everage to by one squaremeater of an everage new house, houses got cheaper, not every Year bit in a long run! on thee other hand in the fiftys people did not have Cars telefon internet and nearly no money was spent durcing the vecations these were shortewr. bu they spendet more money in relation to there income for food and for baing houses. At these times only the kitchen of a house would be heatet It is so funny to hear jounger people how rgood the opld times were that thy have to work harder in general thet things are more expensive and wages are low.... I have the book where my father noted evers DM he earned and spent since 1948 ! nowadays of cause everybody is poor und complains beaus we say we can not pay more taxes and wei want to avoid high prices bei telling everybody how poor wie are and hat rich people chould pax ouer bills! i stert diskussions bei asking everyboda weater it would be a good idea that the riches 20 % of the people schould pav more to help 50 % og the people wich of cause under everage income! everybody agrees! When i say I mean theis world wide, and we all are better off than 80 % of the population of the world and that means we oll schould give away something fpr india for afrika and whatever, noboday agrees un what the sayd before!
That's not completly true. Postmen couldn't easily afford their own home, especially if he or she had to fund a family. I am the third child of a working class family and late in their working career of my father, let's say 10-15 years before retirement, he would have been able to finance a very small house in the middle of nowhere, where prices where low. But he didn't do it cause he didn't want to live in the middle of nowhere and we as a family would have had to do without all the little luxuray as vacations and alike to afford it. My uncle, who was working for the German post service, and his wife build such a house from scratch and basically they went never on vacation and worked their ass off for this house. They even did a lot of work on their own. So yes, it was possible, but it always came at a high price, if you're income wasn't right or you didnt't inherit some money.
Yeah yeah, and now you check how many hours you had to work to afford a washing machine, a TV set, a telephone, and so on, back in the 50’s and 60’s when everything was so good…. 😂😂
@@oliverhaake7552not easily, but they could. Now a postman can’t even have kids and has to check every penny he spends on food. Be for real. Double income academics have problems here.
People should remember: poverty is not an accident, a coincidence or an inevitability. It is something which is manufactured by the ruling class, that's why investment is the key to sustaining your financial longevity
You're absolutely right, you've remind me of what someone once said "The mind is the man, the poor is in it and the rich is it too". This sentence is the secret of most successful investors. I once attended similar and ever since then been waxing strong financially, and i most tell you the truth..investment is the key that can secure your family future.
yeah investment is the key to sustaining your financial longevity but venturing into any legitimate Investment without a proper guidance of an expert can lead to a great loss too
Germany is currently the third largest economy in the world. It surpassed Japan some months ago, ironic considering how bad Germany is currently doing.
It is like that not because Germany is doing better than Japan but because Japan is doing worse than Germany. So look at Japan to see Germany in the future: low fertility-rate, expensive housing (in the past but now very cheap in Japan after economic decline for last 20 years) and not being good in getting foreign workforce. Germany had luck with Eastern Europe colapse giving both workers to Germany and market for their products, cheap energy and Chinese market. But that is gone... Germany should have used those good times to do transformation of education system, child support system... to have more valuable products and more workers (kids)
@@aurelijeGDP is not the wealth of a nation, and is surely not a good indicator of the quality of life of the average citizen. You can have a high GDP and GDP per capita, but that does not always translate to higher wages, let alone reasonable cost of living. Ireland’s GDP is an example of this, and why it’s a useless metric.
Linking the Euro to $US guarantees Failure. The US Debt grows by $One Trillion every 3 to 4 months! Saudi Arabia sold Oil to China, instead of to America - because its of the decreasing value of $US. China keeps Gold in Saudi Banks to support the Yuan. The US formed NATO and EU to ensure “loyalty”.
The thing that makes me angry the most is, that we cant have higher minimum salary because that "would rise prices and would not change anything" but yet the prices are rising anyways and companies have their best year EVERY year without giving back to the workers that generate the wealth for companies.
WTF would you want higher minimum salary. Most of you make above, that how you get an "average" And we go shop in your country because prices are lower.....
@@thesaw9988Germans love to complain. Freaking annoying. Think about it they earn more than other Europeans like French, Italians or Brits. At the same time they pay less rent and their groceries are cheaper. They have more savings than other Europeans. Still, it’s not enough for them.
Poor you! Where do you live? Here in Germany, the situation is very different. Every week a midcap company goes bancrupt, big players reduce their workforce on a lange scale (just last week ZF) and think about relocating abroad, their operational profits shrink or disappear completely and the stock market is moving sideways for over a year now. If in Germany 'minimum wage' would be raised significantly now, that would strangle many small and midsize businesses, increasing unemployment and accelerating the economic downturn (we're currently only seeing the tip of the eisberg). So what country are you from?
In Germany you're lucky if you belong to a trade union. Most people who work in smaller companies do not receive appropriate pay rises. Real wages (Reallöhne = Wages adjusted for inflation) have been stagnating in Germany for 30 years, thanks to the country's absolutely incompetent political class.
@@c3baker it is indeed incompetence. how do you explain the fact that german companies (e.g. Stihl) now produce in switzerland because it is cheaper - even though wages are more than twice as high. switzerland is also an export-oriented country. you don't need starvation wages for that.
I am a German citizen that has lived in the US for many, many years. When I came here (in the 80ties), I missed my German social structures to the point where I considered moving back. Now, close to retirement, I am glad that I didn't. I put money into a 401 K for almost 30 years and now have accumulated a nice amount of money to live on, on top of Social Security. As a German, I would have never been driven or told to invest in the stock market. Yes, I will have to pay a health care supplement premium once I retire, but I will still receive at least 60% more vs. receiving Social Security in Germany.
You are not alone. We came to the US 1963 and are now retired comfortable in Florida. My cousins in Germany, with higher education, better jobs and stable family are much worse off in terms of flexibility. I cherish the financial freedom I have in the US despite all the issues we have here.
@fionaryder632 Some decades ago, the same has been said about Italians, Greek or Turkish people. Now they work beside us, we visit their restaurants to eat, they are our neighbors or we rent their apartments. And our children know a lot more foreign names than we ever did. And if I recall it correctly before the world wars there were quite a few cities in the US with mainly immigrants from one co7ntry.
@@wora1111 that sounds wonderful and romantic from a distance. Unless you really live here. The working-class Turks and Italians I know, also know what I am talking about.
@@Nils.Minimalistyour point being? Those Germans are bringing value and money to Bulgaria, while those Bulgarians that are moving to Germany are doing the exact opposite and often times even increase crime statistics, make schools unsafe etc. …
I'm from Germany. We (my wife, 3 kids and I) belong to the top 1% in my country, counting income or asset value (by estimation, because accurate and recent statistics are hard to come by). Using this metric I should be filthy rich. Most people in Germany even seem to think, I should be considered "too rich" and be taxed more. But when I look at my actual lifestyle, I consider myself "well off middle class". I have a nice home. Me and my wife drive old normal cars (Renault an VW, 10 and 15 years old). We are approaching the age of 50 and my wife just now left her job (dentist) to focus on managing our assets (real estate). We go on vacation once or twice a year (but that is a recent thing. Between the age of 30 and 40 we maybe went to 5 vacations due to lack of time and money. 5 years ago I had a bit of a mid life crisis and bought an old Merc SL500 (9000 EURO) as a hobby. We don't have to think about daily living cost or any other daily expenses too much, though I still prefer to buy used stuff (TV, Laptops, smartphones, furniture). After working for 25 years I feel, that I have a pretty good life. And here is what I am trying to say: My life is what (imho) should be considered as normal middle class. When I compare my lifestyle to - say - the 70ties, everything I was describing above (1 vacation per year, no fancy car, a house and a stay at home wife) was actually considered lower middle class. But that shifted over time. Now this kind of life is reserved for the upper 10 or so percent of the population. Those who set out to be middle class by passing school with good grades, make their way though university or learn a trade and assume a solid "well paid" career soon realize that this kind of life path will in truth not make them enough money to become what is widely beveled to be middle class. And this is what makes people angry. At least I think it is.
I could fully agree, but I can't, since every parliament in west pursuits social policies in order to get people to vote and neglect basic understanding of how society and economy works. Therefore they try to get as much taxes as they can by the Laffer's curve instead of the amount that will not make significant impact on society. So you had 2-3% of economy growth with ~2% of inflation in 2019 (before lockdowns), that means 1% growth at best, and 30% tax rate for households means that people will not consider to bring another child to life, because there is no excess of money to raise another citizen so we see birth rates way under 2 children per woman which means there will be less people to sustain the system how it is, and that's why western civilization gets older too fast so it will inevitably collapse.
I agree, but you also have to consider that vacation today (flying to the Carribbean and living in a hotel) is not the same than in the 70ies (driving in a car with no air conditioning to the Alps). Furthermore, today most young people live in a flat for them alone, in the 70ies people lived with their parents.
@@ALEX15here My wife didn't make 100k, but then - having 3 kids - she wasn't working full time. More like 60%. Our Assets are worth around 10 Mil, depending on who you ask. They might have lost about 20% last year due to the rates going up but its hard to say. But on the other hand they went up about 30% before the crisis, so nothing is lost. Of course we use finance as a leverage. Debt to equity is around 70%.
@@irgendwie0342 I agree with the first part. Life is much more comfortable today than it was back then. My first flat had oil radiators in each room that one had to light using a match. Cars were very basic. Today almost all cars have AC. The Internet with all it's knowledge and entertainment didn't exist. I get all that. But those angry people might not. The thing with living at your parents, that I do not agree. The rent and cost of living generally went up so so much that it is much more difficult for young people to move out and become independent. Which is a real shame. Because it is so important for a democracy to have a strong and independent population. People should have enough monetary and social independence so they don't feel the need to give up all their freedom to the state in the hopes that those leading the state will take care of all their needs. Because they won't. We tried that already. Don't work.
With all due respect but that analysis doesn’t provide a broad view of the overall issues we have in Germany. It’s not just taxes and the fact that we tend to stay away from private investments and shares (a particularly American view when it comes to pensions) but that we suffer from crippling bureaucracy and now see the effects of the country’s refusal to invest. Our public transport system is outdated and unreliable, we have no up to date digital infrastructure (we mostly still use copper cables) and as a result jobs are moving elsewhere. Our social benefits system has been used as a guinea pig for decades and is subject to constant changes. Germany is decades behind other countries and that obviously has an effect on everyday life
@@koraytugaythat's because the US is spread out and it won't make sense to change it now when basically your whole infrastructure is based on using a car to get around. In germany you could be using public transport for almost everything, but it sucks balls so hard that no one who has a choice is using it. To fix this there would only be a little money needed and change of policy.
"Decades behind other countries" is also a pretty stupid line. You can criticize a lot atm and germans are world champions at complaining. But a country with the third largest economy and the second most patent applications worldwide can't be "decades behind others". So stop this blind populism.
@@KupoxChan Germany isn't the third largest anymore. I think the victim of populism here is you! You still believe the leftist-green lie of our Wirtschaftswunder, when our economy has been in a steady decline for years now. Several large German companies are leaving the country. Just recently ZF (one of the largest gear manufacturers world wide) cut over 14000 jobs and moved out of Germany! Give it a couple years and even people like you will start to see just how damaged our economy really is.
The reasons i feel poor as a german (student with BaFöG): -since inflation hit, I can't buy clothing anymore. I never bought clothing to be trendy but to have something to wear. I currently don't have any shoes because my pair broke and I can't afford new sneakers. I also can't take any hobbies because buying art materials is impossible. - I know that i will be fucking poor when I retire. - I will never be able to buy a house or flat. Even if I earn a resonable amount of money. I know that living in germany is still very comfortable. But these things scare me. Especially when I look at my parents' generation that doesn't have most of these problems. The rapid decline in wealth scares me to the core.
As a fellow German student without Bafög, I can relate a lot to this. It's really getting to a point where the work that comes after studying doesn't seem to have a point because whatever you'll earn won't be enough anyway to live a decent life. I sincerely hope it'll get better...
really, than go to a thrift store or flee market.. there are cheap stores all over the country.. or get a job like I did during college..you ll find one in no time everywhere in Germany but maybe in the far east..but there are no universities or it so so cheap to rent there anyway
the "just get a job" is just not possible for two main reasons. If you are benefiting from bafög and then earn your own money, you'll have to expect to get less money from bafög. It's a system that partially rewards you for not working, a problem that we kinda also have with Bürgergeld. The second problem is that the job market is really scarce. Unless you know someone or have luck it can take months until you get the chance at a job@@GStern
Perhaps you should stop studying for now and learn a trade (eine Ausbildung). You would be paid. After you complete it, you can work (perhaps part-time), get paid and go back to school.
I think one reason why more and more people are becoming angry is also the state/government. We are used to pay very high taxes for a long time and it has been accepted by most because you get something in return. My impression is that now more and more topics like education, care, childcare, health, infrastructure like roads, bridges, energy and many more are getting worse constantly. They don't even manage manage to keep play grounds or parks in shape anymore. Digital service for id or driver license? Forget it. Matriculate digitally at university? That means send a PDF and they'll print it.
True, but the origin of the problem is the same: the rich rigged the system such that they don't have to pay taxes even though they own almost all of the money. The only thing left is taxing the poor and middle class and reduce spending for education, welfare, childcare etc
A lot of people talk about taxing rge rich more or something along the lines, but what we should be talking about is the smart use of taxes. Why give the state more money for them to throw away or pocket themselfs.
@@jackbordar2727 the idea of taxing the rich is intended to reduce the burden of poor people not per se to give the state more money. But giving the state more money could obviously be useful for many things as well. As long as politicians are corrupt (i.e. as long as capitalism exists) that however isn't bound to happen. Even though it should.
That’s a great summary of the frustration we feel. I also think it’s important to mention that these problems derive from low investment during the years with a good economy. Now we face multiple issues that require high amounts of investment at once. It’s so frustrating how people just blame the current government or migrants when it’s a self built problem that took decades to get to this point
My combined SSA and European benefits as a retired person wouldn't provide me with a nice retirement living in LA, where I would probably be living in a tent on the streets, but having money for nice meals, etc. However, I have a nice apartment near the forest, can save 20% of my retirement for vacations or emergencies, covered by healthcare here in the Alps. Not poor, nor wealthy.
Yeah this is a problem, working people subsiding holidays for the retired is a great example of how unbalanced the German economy is. Other European countries have lower cost of living and tax rate, if you don’t introduce policies that induce value producing workers to come / stay in Germany we will go elsewhere and economy will continue to decline.
By global standards you are filthy rich. Don't compare yourself to the richest 1% of the world, compare yourself to the world as a whole. If you have healthcare, retirement money, a roof over your head, a wam place in winter, a way to travel, heck you can post on the internet and even can go on the occasional holiday, you are VERY wealthy. You are not the Hollywood jet set, sure, and maybe you don't drive the latest AMG Mercedes G-Wagon, but you are very wealthy by world standards where people live on $1 per day. 100s of millions of people globally go hungry every day.
@@peterc4082 _"world standards where people live on $1 per day"_ Since the average global income is close to 10,000 dollars... which planet are _you_ talking about?
Well you can.....those of us who are still working and would become retirees in 20-30 years are proper fucked! We'll only get 44% of our last pay, and worse for those not working full time. And then we are expected to either use the stock market, which isn't manipulated by the fat cats at all, as we can see from the whole Gamestop debacle, or the Riester Renten insurances. And those Mike-Foxtrotts are allowed to use the maximum life expectancy that barely anyone reaches as basis for our payouts. And if we die beforehand, the money isn't going to our dependants or heirs....... No, no, nothing as sensible and right like that, instead the company can keep all the money left, all that a person saved for their retirement and couldn't use, that part of their estate, their property, suddenly becomes the company's. Not as by right, their Family's. A company is therfore incentivized to pay out as little as possible, claiming an almost impossibly long lifespan that maybe five out of a hundred reach, to cheat their customers out of their money. And the laws allow for that, and neither Parlament nor government are willing to do anything about it, nor does the press talk about it. That is nothing but state sponsored, state aided theft!
Tax is almost 50% … I was born and raised in germany. But after medicalschool I will leave for switzerland. The system is broken and I will not work my ass off for nothing. Edit: Yes, your tax-rate depends on your income and your family-status. But if you want to earn more than 100k/year and have a family, it's true:)
you need to be more precise here. it's about 50% income taxes you pay to the government before you even receive the money from your company. after this you'll have to pay taxes on every single little purchase you make no matter what you buy (gas, electricity, food, etc.) so in a total it's about 70-90% of your income you'll pay to the government via taxes on everything. so the government is basically robbing their people and more and more people trying to get out of the country. the frustration is huge and people are being manipulated to hate eachother through media. it's a rich country with poor citizens because of a criminal government.
@@TR4R Well I don't know what you've heard so far and it probably depends on which company you're working for and what they'll pay you. What I've written is just my own perspective and opinion. There'll be also opposite opinions for sure so I can't really say something. For me Germany is not the country I want to live in for my whole life. This government and also the ones that were in charge before have ruined this country in my opinion. Companies are trying to get away but the government is trying to make it as difficult as possible for them to leave by making them pay fees when they want to go. Fees that are so high, that they can't afford leaving if it's a smaller company. It's ridiculous. I mean there are also still many people who live a pretty decent life here I. Germany. If you're on the upper level of the salary scale you can probably have a pretty nice life here. Other than that, many of our big cities want to convert into smart cities (15 minute cities) within the next few years. This is something I don't support at all because it all targets people's freedom of movement and so on. I feel like Germany plays a huge role when it comes to WEF plans. And it's being deindustrialized right now because we also need to be a leader and role model when it comes to energy although now other country seems to be as stupid as Germany because no body follows our plans. It's just us, ruining our country by deindustrialization, inflation, stupid energy politics, the highest taxes and so on and so forth. I'll definitely try to leave this country if it's possible in any way.
In my Opinion, the biggest Problem with income in germany is not taxes, but social contributions, especially Pension and Care. For 30 years now, it was obvious that those systems will fail because of the aging population if they are not changed towards a capital funded system, instead of pay-as-you-go. At the same time, the biggest generation that is going into penision now did not build up a private pension fund and expects the junger, much smaller generation to pay their pensions with yearly increases for the next 30 years. For pretty much everyone under 40 right now, they would be much better off if their pension and care contributions would be put towards a low cost diversified index fund instead of the current system.
@@MarkusPape social benefits include pensions, which are by far the biggest position in the budget, even if you ignore the pay-as-you-go part. Compared to that, wasteful positions like politicians' expenses are peanuts. The structural problem in Germany are the old people who didn't make enough kids, and didn't build a private pension provision. And no, refugees and immigrants are not the problem, they are the only hope germany doesn't end up like Japan.
Germany's problem is not the pension system. The problem is not having children. The average age of the German worker is 49 years old. In any case, the German economic model based on globalization is finished. And on top of that you are facing a dramatic demographic collapse. Growth in Germany is almost no longer possible since every year you have fewer workers. Immigration? Yes why not. You need 2.5 million immigrants, per year, for at least 2 decades. Does it suit you ?
@@Daemia-o1q Germany used to have skyrocketing birthdate/new baby boom in the early 2010s up until 2015/16. From 2016/17 it suddenly declined radically
A big problem is housing, not only is it bloody expensive but its also difficult to find something to rent, buying is even more impossible. Most of those, who find something affordable, have to drive hours to their work place. Which means they pay high gas prices. So everyone is kinda fucked.
No, it's very easy to get a cheap place to rent. Just do it somewhere in e.g. a small East German town. I am paying less than 500€ for 62qm in a reasonably modernized GDR building from the 1960s. Also it's 9 minutes lazy walk from the office.
@@steemlenn8797 and if your cheapo appartement gets sanitized up to the latest required "Gebäudedämmung" and "Energieeffizienzwert" and finally gets installed the demanded "Wärmepumpe" it will suddenly cost you 1000+ EUR/month. But keep on believing you can still live cheap in Germany..........................................
I am a German woman and I am angry. The tax system is flawed and taxes the poor too much and the rich way too little. That has been going on for decades - my whole life - and geta worse and worse over the years.
Top earners are taxed close to 70% at this point and that's why they left, which is understandable. Low earners also get taxed too high. We should pay half of that, if not even less and rich people should pay ~35 percent.
@@friederikebaum9261 Yeah, the usual Marxist blablabla of the Communist supporter. What did you undertake to increase your income in the last 3 to 5 years?
That‘s why Germany has the lowest population of home owners ..with a high tax rate the wages need to be very high which is not possible for the average middle class or attractive for any business to pay way more to increase wages slightly. The worst part about it is 0 responsibility from the government spending decisions, wasting more money then acceptable and somehow the „rich“ country with lots of tax income has terrible train infrastructure and needs to cut household costs because they spend too much every year👀
@@LazyRecap32I have to agree with this, sadly. In my day to day i also had to see government office structures are extremely inefficient e.g. in registration of citizenship and tax office. Some I would even call embezzling tax money with such work requirements and sometimes working morale. On the other hand I have high respect of business owners and workers on the free market, because in my opinion they have to carefully consider every single step and dedicatedly put in extra work for no reward. There is a saying that spending (or wasting) someone else's money is far easier than the own.
@@LazyRecap32well, it may be part of the reason. But the main issue regarding housing is the current laws allowing real estate to be misused for speculation. The lack of public housing is not helping either, letting investment companies drive up prices even further.
As a German-American myself, I‘m glad you explained the differences in the retirement systems so well! People take mental shortcuts, simply since they often don‘t know the details of how the other system works. People in the US are always flabbergasted when I tell them how much I pay on monthly health insurance premiums in Germany (I’m self-employed, so I pay both halves). They typically assumed I paid nothing for that at all 😂
If it's too much or not is relative, depending on how much you make. Everyone pays about the same percentage in Germany so there shouldn't be any hard feelings. If you're employed, you don't even pay anything for health insurance per se, because the fee gets automatically deducted from your salary along with other taxes and never appears in your bank account. So just use a gross-net converter to know what you actually earn when you sign a contract. As a self-employed, it's tempting to feel like you should be exempt from all these fees and taxes, because you start thinking you should keep every penny you see in your account, but taxes are taxes (and you can think of universal health insurance as a type of tax). There's simply no other way, unless health is only a privilege of the very rich.
@@allesindwillkommen Unless you are privately insured - or over the limit that the deduction can take place on (the same goes for pensions and unemployment, but the limits are much higher there). I am over the limit as of this months raise, so my insurance premium doesn't go up based on my wage anymore (which actually means that I will have LESS money deducted from the next raise). It is a stupid system that is good for the income-poor and the income-rich, however bad for everyone in the middle. It should either be a fixed percentage for everyone or we have fixed cost for everyone with the state subventioning base service for those who can't afford it. The highest cost of public healthcare is reached at a salary of 62100 Euro p.a. btw. About 20% of germans are over that limit according to my research (numbers where from 2021 though, so its probably more).
@@Hasanaljadid I am self employed, too, and I pay 995€/month for a „normal“ (not private) health insurance. This is the highest rate; if I would earn more in the future, the rate stays the same. I send my approved tax form to the health insurance, if my income is under a threshold (I believe around 4500€/month) the rate decreases, too. If I remember correctly, the lowest I have ever paid was around 175€/month. It is mainly regulated by government; the insurance haven’t much range to set the rates. For employees the employer has to handle it. He will reduce the „paycheck“ by half of the insurance rate and he has to pay the other half. Along with his salary the employee gets a paper listing all the payments for health insurance, tax, etc. For the employer is responsible for these things most employees care for the amount they get and not so much for the other numbers. Again it is ruled by government and an employee can’t do anything about it. The benefits is you don’t have to worry about getting sick. Even if it is a long lasting sickness like cancer, your get financial support. The difference for self employeds is, that they don’t create income, when they can’t work. After six weeks of ongoing sickness I would get something like 20€/day = about 600€/month. That’s obviously not enough for a living especially if you are sick. But, I have known that, when I decided to be self employed. An employee will continue to get his salaries. After time it will decrease, but not that drastic. However, for people living from paycheck to paycheck, it will be a challenge. And the number of people living from paychecks to paychecks increases.
I am from Palestine, Gaza, and I have four children. The Zionist army bombed my house. My children were outside and the only one in the house. My right leg was cut off, but I escaped death. Then we left Gaza and went to Egypt. We do not have any house to live in, me and my children, and no one wants me to work for him because I had a foot accident. Please help me or present my case to any philanthropist or charitable organization. Please do not leave my children. @@Edda-Online
at 06:47 . "The top 10% of households have 725.000 euros of assets and control half of the wealth". Very misleading because the graph is exponential. Someone in the 90th percentile is almost indistinguishable to the poor from the perspective of someone in the 99th percentile. Those graphs always group the last 5/10% together as if they are somehow a harmonious group. A "millionaire" is someone with a large house and a nice car. A billionaire runs multiple companies and owns a real estate portfolio. Wake up. Germany is owned by a tiny tiny fragment of the population. not 10%, not 5% and not 3%. The richest 100 people own more then the bottom 30 million.
Exactly. Alienating millionaires only stands to push them towards associating with billionaires. Good, reasonably honest millionaires exist. There is no such thing as a good billionaire.
Am foreign student in Germany, being paid 700€ from work with no petition and no help. I can tell you. it is hell trying to survive sometimes I have just water and rice but I think it's part of the journey. The problem I think is stagnation with no future plans. For everyone
I think its only start of fall, all my fellow students who had options left this country for Switzerland / Denmark / Scandinavian countries. When I watch TV in my country I kind of feel that Germany is hated across EU and is alone, as no one cooperates and invest into it. Its like observing The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov, they don't want to see the truth.
when I left Germany in 2011, I needed around 800 to 900 EUR monthly to survive. That included a tiny studio apartment and my car. But students are usually the ones who are most broke, as they are not eligible for "Hartz 4" with greater payouts, despite needing more money. For my time at uni, I took out loans which I repaid quickly after I moved to Switzerland.
@@drbleedthey're still a student, so they won't work full time. Since 700€ is more than what you get in a Minijob I assume they're working in a part-time job
Stagnation of what? Also, you have only water and rice because (I suppose) your financial resources from your country of origin are poorer than those of people raised in Germany. So your situation is not statistically representative of the situation of the average, median, put any "average" aggregation you like, person living in Germany.
But this video is not about you. Or your friends. It is about "the average living conditions" of germans. Maybe especially the working class. You really have to learn everything... is not about you. Or even your friends. That of course are like you.
If German pension after working many years is that cushy, why do so many German elderly looking for bottles in the trash, still working at minimum wage or are living with their kids?
Because they are those who didn't work 40 years for at least average wage. If you only worked 15-20 years and then the reunification happened (where half the people lost their job), and you were too old and too long without work to get a new one... you end up with social pension only.
Have to confess, I never watched any German elderly looking for bottles in the trash. Anyway it may happen her and there. But this can't be a general problem.
Even with a really good job, its hart to find a flat, you can pay here in my area. Because of the back to office strategy, i have to drive 10h a week now, or pay 3 times the rent. Stress level in the jobs is going up, look at the burnout rate. The economy is struggling, and the infrastructure is breaking down. And there is a feeling of less safety. My generation altough will not get a big pension.
Stress levels, economy and infrastructure problems are not limited to Germany. All of Europe is struggling in the odd way. Keep in mind that there's a war going on.
The only reason I got an apartment stress free was because of 10 years of previous stress out of my mind by obtaining a PhD and putting "Dr. ..." on my message to the landlord... it really shouldn't be like this and I usually don't exploit it like this, but honestly... I had to do it to get an apartment (and I did, twice. I applied for just 2 and got both in principle). It's really ridiculous with the housing prices, though. I work at the university and the lack of not only assistance by the university but also the lack of control over all these scammers makes it so hard for foreign students to get a place to sleep. It's embarrassing for germany, really.
@@TypeAshton No, there is no general housing shortage. It's only regional. For example here in NRW we have much unoccupied houses and flats. The problem is there is no affordable housing and another problem is unemployment. Nobody has the money to buy or rent the bigger homes or are forbidden by law to rent them even if they are cheaper, because if you are unemployed for a longer time you get limits on the size of living space. If there is a 100m² flat for 500€ gross rent and 50m² flat for 700€ gross rent by law you have to live in the 50m² flat when you are an unemployed single for a longer time (>12 months) or you loose the unemployment money.... You can have luck and allowed to stay in the bigger living space if you are already living there, but only if you can proof there is nothing that is cheaper....
I am a 29 YO German citizen that works part time in retail. I take home 1.5k euro in my bank account every month. How I feel about the current direction and flavor the economy has taken? I feel alienated by my government. They let companies do whatever the fuck they want. Bread milk and basic food items prices skyrocket? This is fine. There is not enough labor force that pays into the social security systems? This is fine. No Digitalization of anything. Everything needs to be on bloody paper and everything takes forever to go and come around because it's on frigging paper. This is fine. No joke: If you ask if you can send them this form via email they all will say it can be intercepted and altered. Fuck did these people not know that tip-ex was invented a couple years ago? Everything can be bloody altered. The German Government has allowed corruption to be legal. The heads of the country are Boardmembers of gargantuan companies and they will receive money from these companies to twist upcoming laws in favor of their company. German government can basically break the law and get off without any repercussions. During covid a bunch of officials dirtied their hands in deals with those surgery masks. After they got found out they had 0 repercussions. They were allowed to continue business as usual. It's infuriating how removed from reality those people are. They cut costs at important sectors (Healthcare and research) to increase military spending. I just think these people are really Incompetent and have their heads to far in the clouds to run a country
I m German. I left the country behind me. The wealth distribution is nearly nowhere 100% fair. But in Germany it becomes worse and worse and worse. This makes people angry. All Governments from Kohl, Schröder, Merkel where unable to bring prosperity back, only the Government clerks (BEAMTE) fill their Pockets. The poeple that earn the wealth feel robbed by taxes.
Germany does have low debt and has been paying debt off. You can't say that for any of the other big western nations. France, the UK, Italy and the US all added debt and are above a 100% debt to gdp, while Germany is at 62% and were in 2020 at 69%. Wealth distribution is a huge problem in all of the west. Come to my country the Netherlands. The tax haven for corporations of the world with inhertance tax exemption for family businesses, so rich people can keep their money by making a family business on the side to avoid tax.
@@Joey-ct8bm Low debt may read good but means also that investments are/were missing. Look for instance at the German infrastructure and digitalization... poor...
@@petrkinzel7599 100 years ago, they no longer had slavery. On the other hand, from the outside, it is pointed out that Argentina's success was also somewhat accidental (refrigerated ships made it possible to import beef to Britain) -- it was unable to adapt to new technologies; and it was not tied to some broader social program -- profits went to an elite few (and the breadth of those profiting from state affluence matters). PS. But also the fact that I was once struck by such a comparison in an economics textbook of GDP per capita between 1900 and 1990 -- it looked like the West had more or less similarly increased wealth (more the US than the UK, and even more Canada, which was significantly poorer than the US to begin with), Japan had made a cosmic career, Bangladesh had no growth (I understand this has changed); and Argentina's growth, though it was there, was much lower than average.
@@PKowalski2009 It was over all an illiterate and unindustrialized country, with "high gdp" due to a momentary high price of the commodities it produced. That's why it's so stupid when people say "Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world", it had very little industrial capital and not that much potential without the literacy rates of Europe at the time
We´ll you´re conveniently ignoring housing prices. People are poor because they can´t afford their own homes anymore. My favourite example for stuff like this are my parents. One is a nurse and the other a caregiver. Two notoriously underpayed jobs but yet they were able to afford a house back in the 90s and had to pay the equivalent of 90.000€ for it, which is now worth 800.000€. No one can afford these prices. People are poor because they´ll either never own their own home, or they´ll earn "just enough" to pay it off but they´re effectively house poor and can´t afford anything else.
yeah past generations were able to buy a house and have that wealth ready for the future. they could sell their house when they would retire to end up with cash to see/travel the world. or they could sell the house and give their children all a share of it to give them a good start at life. but people now are forced to rent because buying is impossible. and if you rent you pay (often more than a mortgage would be) money each month but at the end of your life you get nothing back for all the money you have paid during your life. renting seems like a way to keep poor people poor and unable to give their children a better future.
@@ChristiaanHW Using houses as wealth is part of the problem of rising house prices. If house prices didn't rise, then people wouldn't use their house as a retirement fund, but the next generation could afford a home just as easily.
be serious! In Germany the percentage of housholds living in a self owned real estate property is growing since 1948 the start of DM . Tiis growth is notvery fast but wehave it. We see betertates in Spain Italy etc, but rates are lower in switzerland. And by the way the housholdes are getting smaller and the ammount of squaremeaters per household is growing! My father startet as an engeneer from university 1948 he bought a house in a row newly built a litttle bit more than 120 m² and without central heating in 1957 ! it was only 26.000 DM arround 13.000 Euro. But he earned 240 DM per month! At these times bretton woods regulatet the exchange rates ans one DM was 25 Dollar cent! so this was 60 Dollar a month! At these times he had a motorcykle with 8 hp and bought a VW in 1960 with 34 hp we payd for a house 152 m² aproximately the same region in 1990 495.000 DM and I earned brutto niar to 60.000 DM per Year! but I was older than my father because I worked on different places before and that is why i had in relation less Credit and mor percentege capital on my own. My first car was the same my father had but bught ist second hand and at the age of 20 , my fathers was brand new he was at the age of 40! My house is lager and tecnically better. zentral heating double glass windows etter energy rating etc. Now my house isworth somewhot about 600.000 Euro. and new ist wiold be better and a little bit more expensive perhaps 750.000 Euro. If You have a master as an engeneer ad have worked for let's say 10 Jears, this is measures in brutto income the Equivalent of less than 10 Years, and interest retes are lower than in former times. I payd an mothly rate for the house inkluding heating and electricity etc a little bit more than my income...... bit of cause my wife earned some money to so theis was not a problem! So if Your Parents bought a house in the 90s for only 180.000 DM and it is worth now 800.000 Euro, You had incredibel luck and please compare to the statistics in germany! Wehen i Playd roulet I once doubbeld the amount of money thet I placed on read within seconds! but that does not mean everybody is always a winner. So look deep into the market! the passd generation as a whole worked more howers per year spent less money for vecations! go to mallorca and count the tourists on the beaches! and in the bars! in the sixtys these were lonly places and mallorca was the poorest province of spain! and donot compare what prople havewhen they retire ans when they start working. Of cause I do understand that Children do not see there fathers and mothers working, because the are in Scool etc and money is coming out from boxes somewhere along the street! to realy understand that money is earned end nessecary to cover ecpenses, You never had as a child and that not all money You earn is money for gambeling and fancy things, is not free to spend for something You do not need! It is part of growing older, and part of getting Respekt for what the generations before were dooing!
Nurses and caregivers are not underpaid, that's some kind of lie that's being spread by the media. If you take a look at the job profiles they are actually being paid quite high. If you have the appropriate training of course. If you don't bring that, then of course your salary remains low. But that is the case in any job anywhere on the planet.
@@WalterFriederich Total BS, referring to 1948 with the introduction of the DM and everything went up from there is ludicrous! You're not being serious. If this is the case, then this was mostly due to low interest rates and building costs in the last 5 to 10 years. That has now changed drastically.
Germany has the biggest low wage sector in comparable countries. But the people stuck in minimum wage jobs can not afford to protest for better pay and don't have anybody representing them as an organization. Despite a shortage of workers even in the zero qualification jobs, the pay is not following the rules of the rest of the economy where more scarse means more valuable and higher priced. On the contrary, parties like the FDP are demanding to import new wage slaves from other countries, just wording it more nicely. The poor and angry making headline news are actually still much better of than minimum wage earners. Another issue is that it is still socially acceptable to blame those stuck at the minimum for not pursuing education, for not making anything out of their life etc - after sexism and racism it would be high time to also shun statusism. These jobs are so important for everyday life it's mind boggling we don't value them higher.
Health care is NOT FREE. You pay 300€ more or less every month and your company is matching that number as well. Thats 600euro~ every month from every person working in Germany. Insurance companies and the state are filling their pockets and you cant do anything about it
It is still so, so much cheaper. Most American families pay hundreds more for employer sponsored healthcare (which employers pay more into as well than German employers). Plus they still have copays and deductibles.
@@TypeAshtonAmericans earn twice the annual income, have less taxes to pay in general, pay less for food with better price options, better law system. Americans don't pay the Rundfunk Mafia, which will sell your stuff if you can't pay up 200€+ per year. Germans cannot easily invest because investing is heavily taxed, only the already rich can dable in the stock market. Getting money from stocks is also heavily taxed, you will make almost nothing. The only way to increase wealth is inheritance, which is heavily taxed, and work, which is heavily taxed multiple times. We earn less and pay more. That 300€ for a German would be 1.800$ for an American.
@@TypeAshtonUS here. For my family (2 working adults and a 22 year old) our yearly medical cost equal what we would pay in Germany as mandatory contributions. Even with copay and hitting our deductible of $4,000. It feels different as you have to pay out of pocket but the total money paid per year is not more (for us). And there are cases where people pay almost nothing (Cadillac plans) and there are cases where people pay more (no employer contributions). It depends a lot on the contributions of your employer. But it’s also hard to find employees if you don’t offer subsidized medical plans. In the unskilled labor market this can become a problem though for employees.
I've a gross income of 3250€ per month (Under median income as IT Admin). Me and my employer pay 550€ Month / 6600€ Year to the statutory health insurance. Haven't needed a doc in 2 years so i got nothing for my 13k
As a foreigner (Swede) living in Germany, one thing I’ve noticed is that Germans generally don’t seem to be good at investing money. According to both statistics and from me talking to locals, a lot of people just put all their money in a savings account instead of investing it in the stock market via stocks or ETFs. A lot of Germans seem to simply be too scared to invest on the stock market. That combined with high property prices in and around cities means that owning your own home in or near a city is out of reach for most people.
That is true. One factor might be that Telekom stock scare in the 90s. I was a bit young for stocks back then, but basically they advertised the Telekom stocks "for everyone" and totally hyped it, yet the expected increase of the stock's worth never came. Instead, it went down significantly. Back then, the market was rather unregulated compared to today, so there also was a lot of screwing people over. That made customers deeply uneasy regarding the whole topic and mistrusting towards bank employees recommending securities etc. - I guess, that at some point people just decided to ignore the whole topic, too risky, too complicated... But those who actually invested time and money, gathered knowledge - they mostly profited. Nowadays, the market is quite different because of the regulations, which makes it safer, but also more "complicated". In the past few years, securities compliance has become more and more detailed. The scepticism, on the other hand, still is very much a topic.
The fact that you need to "Invest" nowadays just goes to show how broken that system is. If you cannot save up money and need to rely on otehr sides it only shows that the system is fucked big time. If you want to invest - sure go ahead. Btu if you pretty much HAVE to invest, the system is fucked.
Stocks should be an additional income source if you want to get rich, not the basis of your entire finances. Most people don't even care abput getting rich we just wanna be able to live comfortably after working 40 hrs a week
I find this is not true. Americans own shares on the biggest companies in the world which are real assets. Germans are forced by law into taking part in a ponzi scheme, hoping that the younger generations, which are getting less populated due to the demographic problem, will provide them with a livable pension in the next decades.
Well at this point it's theoretical. The money I and my employers paid towards the Rentenversicherung was used to pay the current retirees. Nobody can guarantee that I'd have a return of investment that is worth it. When I die before I reach retirement there will be nothing for my family left. So while I get the point that it's making people poorer on paper I don't think that adding everything they have paid for retirement in their theoretical wealth is correct either. Maybe a partial attribution would be more accurate? I'm not sure.
@@Claudia-hr5ei Also, as you have pointed out correctly, this "future" wealth is dependent on a person's being able to obtain it at retirement age. Alas, up to that point, no wealth from the Rentenversicherung can really be attributed until a person retires (but that is true for other countries as well, no one even considers future retirement payment as an asset that can be counted for present bank loans, mortgages etc) . So, the evaluation of overall wealth has been done appropriately up to that point. It missed the mark on estimating the wealth of the population post-retirement. However, another aspect of retirement is the absence of income from work. I start to conclude that the evaluation has all the correct information. There can also be a possibility of a retiree going back to work, maybe even part-time; in that case, there would be the retirement payment and the income from work, and that would make a difference. Of course, I do not consider any other investments a person made that they can use even prior to retirement.
The thing with the „pay-as-you-go“ pension system is: It is voucher on FUTURE societal income, paid for by the next generation. If you have shares from Wallstreet it is also a bet on FUTURE incomes and worth of companies BUT it is easily tradeable. The German pension system as it works today was introduced to win an election in the 1950s. It will collapse in a sense that in future more and more pensioners will need additional state funding, rent-control or food stamps. Which is paid for by taxes that need to increase without limit, further squeezing a deteriorating economy. Where does it end? There will be severe cuts to the system one way or another which makes pension perspective dire.
I agree. And it's more or less the same thing in all other countries in Europe. The disadvantage of Germany is that you are ahead, with Italy, of all the others You will tell us how the demographic collapse is happening ;) One solution: the amount of retirement pension must be linked in one way or another to the number of children you have raised.
Thank you for explaining it in simple terms that even children can understand. Problem IS: Nobody seems to want to understand! But if we Like IT or Not: reality always catches up with us!
The advantage of this system you write about is not that pensioners will be rich. Quite the opposite. The advantage is that they will not blame the state for poverty. This system is supposed to prevent social protests, not make the rich rich.
And the non-existent retirement funds are not being invested to create future technology and efficiency, suppressing potential startups of young innovators.
But wealth gap cannot be avoided right. some people like to save money and pass it on to generations while others like to spend money without any thought about future. So income inequality should be fixed but not wealth inequality. Secondly, renting a house is fine if one cannot afford to buy one but not when one can afford it. Renting is just the money thrown away unless its for short term, where buying a house is not possible
@@firstpostcommenter8078 Why should the children of the first type have a (significant) benefit over the children of the latter? Don't look at it from the perspective of the parents, look at it from the perspective of the respective children.
@@firstpostcommenter8078 "But wealth gap cannot be avoided right. some people like to save money and pass it on to generations while others like to spend money without any thought about future. So income inequality should be fixed but not wealth inequality." No. But it can be (at least somewhat) controlled. For example by wealth and inheritance taxes. The problem is that wealth inequality leads to income inequality. Generation by generation, the riches kids get the best chance to succeed, and so do their kids and so on and so forth... Eventually we get to a situation like we see today, where a few extremely wealthy families can live off their accumulated wealth without ever having to work a single day in their life, while many are stuck in dead-end jobs or trying to get a worthwhile education in a public school system that's chronically underfunded.
@@Wolf-ln1ml so u want to punish the children of the first because there are parents who dont give a f about thier kids? xD and even if every child get nothing from the wealth of thier parents the kids from wealthy parents still have better connections and will have more succes in life..
hey u cant be saying untrue things about sponsors like "its the only vpn service that allows u to have 1 account for multiple devices", especially in this case where surf shark isnt even the only vpn that its parent company owns which offers that service (nordvpn), let alone the tens of others that also do it, just be careful with absolute statements with sponsors, they like pushing youtubers to do things that end up being illegal according to most local advertisement guidelines.
It's called an 'advert read' b/c the advertiser ['Sponsor'] gives the creators a text to read. Granted, I'd like creators to be a lot more discriminating but then ... money.
well VPNs also arent security products... pretty much all your traffic is already encrypted (thats what the padlock in the adress bar means) and they do absolutely zilch against public wifi attacks if they are setting up a public wifi node that then manipulates which sites you get routed to (essentially they resolve common web adresses to fake duplicates rather than the real site) VPNs do exactly one thing: obscure where you are connecting from... thats it. and @DierkHaasis - many places have false advertising laws, that make it illegal to straight up lie in advertising, which is likely what the OP was referring to
@@DierkHaasis Yeah, but sometimes those content creators actually commit crimes by just reading without thinking. That's the guys point. Just because you get paid to do something doesn't mean you can ignore laws.
Good thing I skip all ads (automatically)... like I understand youtubers need to earn money and they need sponsors, but the blatant lies and "creative wording" of things to circumvent the truth just annoy the hell out of me. Also, nobody really needs to hear the 300th add for a VPN service in the same day...
to say it in German .. wir werden gemolken wo es nur geht. aber hey, dafür läuft in dem land auch alles rund, super niedrige Mieten, günstige energiepreise, wenige steuern, gutes wetter, klasse öffentliche verkehrsmittel wie die deutsche bahn mit neusten zügen, gutes internet, kaum bürokratie, alles digitalisiert, kaum wartezeiten bei fachärzten oder ämtern, alle schulen sind hochmodern und top saniert und vieles mehr... :)
wo wohnen Sie denn? In der Oberpfalz? Günstig? Fast Internet? I live in a small town (Weiler mean in Bavaria / 8 Houses) Internet is here 6.2 MBit!! Telekom... its horrible!
This. Paying pension exclusively from workers income and leaving out all earnings by capital and also leaving out capital invested abroad (which could be the case with a capital based pension) is simply a terrible solution. It is terrible for the worker and it is terrible for the country. It also doesn't make Germans richer than they seem on paper when their pensions are literally backed by promises of stealing from the future workers.
You're missing the context. It is "efficient" because it's direct and safe. The banks are not allowed to play with the money and the money goes directly from the tax to the pensioneers. That's at least the idea which would be pretty efficient.
@@Lancor84 Exactly this. Compared to the recent efforts in investment backed pension like Riester, where in the end the banks will have taken around 30% of your money in various fees for themselves, the tax based system at least doesn't waste money.
German here. Regarding wealth, Median asset wealth is poor in Germany, and the the pension system is mathematically doomed to crumble due to demographics. It was designed for a growing and young nation with plenty of healthy workers supporting a few elderly. Had I the possibility to invest this money instead, I would actually be able to secure my retirement. As of now, basically everyone is aware that there will not be much left to distribute and it's a common assumption among younger workers that they will only see a fraction, if not nothing from what the were forced to "invest" in the pension. Interestingly, civil servants earn roughly double the pension without having to pay a cent, but politicians profiting from the same system and the media refuse to cover this topic and start a discussion on making them pay into a common system too. Regarding quality of life, work life balance and so on: Yes, Germany indeed offers a good overall quality of life as of now, but the trend is a negative one. Crime is on the rise largely du to uncontrolled migration. Public infrastructure is in a dire condition, everything is old, outdated, not working properly and dirty, despite us having to give up more than 50 % of our gross income. Taking into account additional taxes on consumption and more "unavoidable" cost, the overall tax burden is probably at 70 % or higher. There is an enormous discrepancy between the ridiculous amount of taxes we are forced to pay and what we get for it (barely anything). Billions are fed into our social system supporting - again- unqualified immigrants and refuges, among which there are hundreds of thousands that would actually have to leave the country, but our leaders fail to act upon the law. A lack of qualified workforce is used as a pro-immigration argument, but the problem is that those who do come are barely qualified for anything, which is hardly a surprise because Germany has become a terrible country for those looking to turn their skill into wealth. We deter qualified people but attract illiterate and unqualified people at best, criminals at worst. Bureaucracy was, of course, already mentioned as one of the many nails in the coffin, it might just be the largest. Any form of pragmatism is choked under a ridiculous set of laws noone understands, and millions of civil servants, out of fear to make a mistake and being held accountable later, choose the easiest way out, which is always denying permits, buying time, have an expert make the twentieth survey or just wait it out until even the most optimistic entrepreneur gives up. That's Germany 2024 for you.
That sounded pretty nice, until you started to get into a liberal/conservative ramble. There is no indication that most of the migrants that come here, are underqualified. I do agree, however, that the bureacracy makes it hard for EVERYONE, migrants above all. It is very hard to get a working permit and you might still be evicted, even though you have a decent job as an engineer for a german company.
@@WorkDude One thing that's certain is that you might only get evicted if you abide by the law, are well integrated and got a job to support yourself, but authorities find some ridiculous formality that "leaves them no choice". If you are a lazy parasite, criminal or something along those lines, you can be sure that noone will ever throw you out of Germany. Why? Of course you're from Afghanistan, Syria or some "non-safe" Country and you migrated without any documents to proof the opposite :D.
Sweden has no inheritance tax, wealth tax or property tax anymore while corporate tax and capital gains tax is low compared to income tax and we have very high VAT. This has seen wealth inequality increase a lot in the last decades. But I guess it’s great if you are a billionaire that we now have more of per capita than our neighbours or the US. But that doesn’t benefit low income people like me.
No property tax? That is very moral of them, I must say I am impressed. But income tax is criminal..only capital gains and corporate tax makes sense in my view. Maybe a small wealth tax for the billionaires. The core of the problem with the wealth gap is that governments are not controlling capitalism and channeling it properly. You cannot allow monopolies. You cannot allow CEOs to pay themselves 300+ times more than their average worker. There must be a livable minimum wage. The USA is in even deeper trouble than Sweden!
It's always great to be a billionaire, regardless if a country has high corporate tax or low. What did you undertake to increase your income in the last 3 or 5 years?
GDP per capita should be counted on the survey of people not calculating entire GDP ot doesn’t give real picture of actual state of people living in tht county
The unemployment rate in 2024 is 5.8%. In Germany, however, people who are unemployed and participating in a measure of the Federal Employment Agency are excluded from the official unemployment statistics. These people are in fact NOT EMPLOYED and often participate in absolutely questionable and pointless measures (crochet courses, cooking and other nonsense) which have no value on the labor market. If you include these people in the unemployment rate, the figure is around 15%...
@bennyg9803 I know people who work at Federal Employment Agency and you are right. At the Moment the order is to give most of the unemployed schoolings (Maßnahmen) which exclude them in the official numbers of the unemployment rate. What I really dislike is that these schoolings are expensive and often not helpful. It is all about numbers. I really hope this will change with the next government.
@@i.w.9711 The idiotic Maßnahmen are a feature, not a bug. It's part of the "make it so hard to get the money that you don't take it". This is not about effective use of the money, this is about ideology (that you only have to motivate people, with motivation being the boot). In the same that there is no problem paying 5000€ to one of those, but asking for 150€ for special books so you can learn has - quote - no legal grounds.
As a Greek living in Germany i have to make two points about wealth comparison between Greece/Germany. In greece up to the financial crisis (2012-now) the rate of homeownership was really high (75+) even to this day it remains relatively high (60+) which inflates the assets the net worth that a Greek may appear to have in contrast to a German. As for the inflation pressing the people. In my 6 years of living here i have increased my salary by about 50%. It definitely feels not the case however
4:32 bro we are reaching the point where polish people are better off than Germans and lets not even talk about how the Czechs are now the most successful in all of Europe even Sweden is doing worse .
I missed the definition of Armut/Armugsgefährdet in Germany: Armut (Poverty): You earn less than 15000 Euros per year. Armutsgefährdet/in danger of poverty: You earn less than 60 % of the average income.
Yip its especially funny when you see that the "average income" is that of a software developer. Yeah, sure... I barely know anyone whos earning close to the average or even above, most are stuck in 1-3k brutto.
@@dearseall If you look at 2024, yes you are right - but the year is not over yet so i dont like working with those numbers. 2023 it was 4.3k so this is what im working with - but you are right, the "most up to date" value is 3.779€ brutto
Germany is a tax haven for Billionaires. Swiss Billionares are moving to Germany because they have a lower tax rate. There are so many loopholes in the tax system, it's ridiculous. As soon as you have a few millions in the Bank, Germany is amazing with "smart tax structuring" The middle class is paying for it with extremely high taxes. But since we have very strong anti debt rules, there is no money available to invest into infrastructure. Over the last 30 years, there was a NET ZERO investment in infrastructure. And with knowing that fact, you're understanding the situation much better. It's extremely hard to work yourself out of a bad economic situation. Because life is expensive and taxes are high. Groceries are actually relatively cheap but housing is not.
More and more peoples are too poor and went to the "Tafel", because they can't afford go to the groceries. Yes, because of the high costs for hosing and energy....
@@maniac0303 Energy is actually not an issue anymore for people. Prices are pre-war level. Just the energy companies don't reduce prices. So people would have to switch to benefit from it. There will always be very poor people around. I don't say that it's good, it's just how it is. What is truly frightening is the amount of people that need to survive on a median income. Thats is probably between 2000 and 2500€ per Month. I think you can live decently with it but it's near impossible to save a lot money or build something from that amount. At least I wouldn't be able to do it. To live well without the option to inherit, you'll probably need to earn around 70-80k, (top 10%) and if you want to have the option to ever build a house close to a city, it's more like 110-130k income needed that you need to save. (Top 5% or higher)
@@Climate.RealistI'd say 2k is more than enough to live comfortably and save up unless so much money makes ya mad and gets ya to just go crazy spending in unnecessary ways like buying big brand food and clothes and such. I honestly wouldn't know what to do with so much money
I'm one of those people, who have to live off of welfare, and i can tell you, on the 20th of each month, the money is gone, friends and family have mostly abandoned me, it's a very lonely life. And you can't really participate in social life with that.
Eastern europe just laughs on this. There ppl lives week to week, month to month, more than 30% has less than 200EUR on their bank account at the end of the month. The minimum wage is 300-600EUR, the cost of food and services are almost the same, the rent is about 80-90% (starts from 500eur+ in cities). Compared to this, Germany Is still extremely comfortable.
Same problems as the UK, but nowhere near as bad. We jumped fully on the reaganomics train, where germany only had one foot in the door. So nothing in the UK works. We have the most homeless in europe. And people going to food banks, that work full time jobs.
Thanks for your vid. To me, it seems that Germany at the moment is slowly going downhill. It is getting more and more difficult to get access to doctors because you cannot get an appointment, more and more kinds of doctors have waiting lists just like they used to have them in the UK. On paper, the public transportation system seems perfect, but more and more buses, trams and trains do not arrive on time due to investing that has not been done. Yes, people often earn more money but because of the high costs for energy, inflation is eating everything all up. Investment in education is not high enough, even our schools get more and more broken and more and more, we cannot find any teachers to teach our children the necessary skills. The quality of life is shrinking.
there is less doctors because with overall poorer population, there will be less people able to study medicine, which takes a long time and doesn't let you easily earn money on the side. since getting through uni in general has become harder financially, there will be less people becoming teachers or doctors. the most common cause i know within my circle of friends for any not finished type of school or uni is usually that it's too expensive over the long term, access to financial help is not that easy as you might think, and any financial crisis you encounter might mean you have to drop out of any studies to find a real full time job with shitty pay just to pay your bills. and in german uni it's not like you can just plow through a full time job anyway while studying, that's not allowed and you will be forcibly exmatriculated if you go above 20 hours a week. a lot of students that have no other source of money like parents can't make enough money in those 20 hours/week to live off of that without slowly going into longterm debt. most politicians have somewhat affluent backgrounds themselves so they don't see the problem, as they never had to suffer from these problems.
The (fixed!!!) amount of money a doctor is getting each quarter for any of his/her patients is laughable. I'd not at all want to be a doctor in those circumstances. Especially not outside of cities with high amount of older people. It's a fixed amout of patients, they come several times in a quarter and you get ~18€ each (once this quarter)? Not feasable.
@@CaesarIII It might not be a lot, but I have yet to see a doctor who is not able to afford a house or two to three holiday trips. German doctors do not have. to stay hungry.
wow must be lucky to live in my country, because all these problems don't exist there. And lack of teachers is surprising, its dream job here for which only best students are chosen
I belong to the upper middle class of Germany and I am an engineer with parents of the working class. I was raised rather poor. But I experienced that also people from lower classes can reach higher levels of education according to their personal capabilities. That also is a form of wealth inside our society. I never need to worry of becoming sick which ruins people in the US because the German health care system is still ok. With my income of about 100.000€ I don't feel rich. I also have a mortgage for my house and I need to work some decades otherwise I'll lose my house. The government takes more than 50% to 60% of my income with indirect taxes included. Me as a middle class member I feel like a cash cow that gets milked all the time to keep this system running. I am wondering every day how people with less income can survive at all. I still do lots of work on my house myself because paying technicians feels way too expensive. I am on the edge realizing what it means to let capital work for you as I pay money into a fond because I am too afraid that the government will not pay me sufficient pension after 45 years of work or more. Most of the population does nit have enough money in spare for private investmens so I am pretty sure they will end up im poverty after a life full of work.
@@gazo11 ok that explains why I am not feeling rich at all. My impression is that everybody in the west should be around my income or not too far below it.
I would say that it is possible to live in Germany with "low" income. Im a Student and i have about 1.5k a month. All of my bills i have to pay are about 600 Euro a month with Rent, Electrictiy, Internet, Phone, Insurance. Then i have about 900 Euro left a month to spend on food and myself, go on Dates with my GF or whatever. What saves me is that i have very cheap rent, because it has been a WG where i rented 1 room for 270 a month but all the people left since then and i have the whole place for myself now because my Landlord doesnt want to have new people living there. I live here now for 9 years now and she never raised the price for rent. At some point im thinking about buying the flat or the house from her, she could live here until she grows old and she gets 1k or so every month until the rest of her life while she can stay in the house for free.
Sorry, you made a couple really important mistakes: For example, University attendance is *not* free at all - Its massively reduced for foreigners and people living in poverty - the rest pays ~300 euros per semester. Also: Bafög isnt universally given to students, its dependent on your parents income wether you can apply at all and ususally gives 400 euros per month where I live, the maximum number you've shown of 900 is something I've never heard of anyone reaching in my life. The Train workers from the DB also didnt just go on strike once- they went multiple times. Add that to the general discontent with the atrocious state of the DB (overpriced tickets, always late, overfilled trains, delays, strikes, the poorly maintained grid, etc...) which can not be used reliably to get anywhere on time (seriously you'd be laid off after a week because you're always too late) makes a bad combination. The farmers went on strike because years ago the government promised a compensation and now owes them money and almost nothing has been paid out with officials now pretending that nothing is wrong. Germany imports farm products elsewhere cheap and local farmers cant compete with the giant farming corporations which export en masse, leaving no market for them. We're paying more and more in taxes and are getting less and less back every year. Our schools are falling apart in an outdated education system, people work more and more longer overtime in their jobs which is poorly kept track off. Our current generation will have less wealth than their parents generations and still be expected to work more, longer and get less of their pension. We have a housing shortage and most of us wont ever be able to afford a home of their own, renting in perpetuity. Our healthcare system is still overworked and getting an appointment (especially if you need a specalist) takes weeks to several months and a scheduled operation can take over a year of waiting. Social divide is getting worse an worse, in every way: Wealth gap, Politics, Social- we still have serious trouble integrating the massive amounts of refugees that arrived 2015/2016 with the cultural, religious and language gap persisting. Our politicians are getting more incompetent by the year with no qualifications for the job, lacking the understanding and skill nesecarry to lead a country. In short: young germans in particular are lacking a perspective for a prosperous life in the future. Thats why Germans are getting angry.
@@starlitnight6982 That was when Germany was german, now it is the world! the third world, so it might be a civil war! To be honest not only Germany, France and Britain are very likely to explode at any time.
What makes everything worse is, that the whole german youth will never see anything from their pension, because we have less and less young people supporting the pension network while paying their fees
My answer as a German before watching the video: Germany has huge problems with infrastructure. We haven't invested in our infrastructure for over thirty years. Everything is breaking down now at once, public transportation, health care, child care, available housing etc. Also despite having a minimum wage it is still too low to live a healthy life with and companies tend to hire people and pay them barely above minimum wage unless it's a high paying job. Then there is also that we've been heavily affected by recent global crisis's. And when you have a bunch of angry people around they'll then start to vote right wing which is what gave us the shitty infrastructure in the first place and causes more friction between people
Sorry, but I think it's exactly the other way around: the ruling left parties, with their toxic ideology, are solely to blame for the fact that Germany is continuing to collapse.
the only force pushing right wing votes is thirtd world muslim immigration into germany. The voters dont care about new working people entering the workforce, which most of time at best equal the social security payed, but rather have less GDP or wealth, but live a peaceful society with shared values, which has just shown to not work with muslim immigration. if the social democratic party would take the same stance on immigration as the danish one, they would surely win the next election. But they just can not accept the truth
The right wing is not to blame for this, how ridiculous. It was the left wing in Germany that shut down the coal plants, the nuclear plants, and decided to allow the entire world into Germany with zero consideration for the native inhabitants. If you wanted to invest in more infrastructure you should have kept the economy strong so the tax base could afford it. Birthrates in Germany are rock bottom when you take immigrants out of the equation so child care? Really? Housing issues are also due to immigration. The "global health crisis" was a sham, a scam, and it's shameful Germany shut down and crippled itself even further. I think the only thing I agree with you on is the minimum wage, it's atrociously low..unacceptable.
Taxation is not the only problem. It is about 30% while another 20% are mandatory payments into so-called "insurances." Even pensioners must pay. On top of that there is a huge 19% VAT levy on all goods. The income tax is set in absolute values. With inflation more and more Germans must pay the highest taxes. Tax brackets intended for very wealthy people apply now to the rapidly shrinking middle class. German has a horrific housing problem. The rent takes more than a half of income. It is impossible to buy or build a house or a flat. Average price of a small 3-room flat is more than 300 EUR in a small town. Germans indeed are poor and very angry because the standard of living fell dramatically in recent decades.
Did the standard of living really fall in recent decades? I could still live like my grandparents. Small basic house in a backwater village with 80sqm for 5 family members + two rooms rented out. Living mainly vegetarian from the produce of the own garden. No telecommunication, water mainly from the own cystern, sparring use of electricity, no central heating, cheapest car. Do I or most Germans want to still live like this? Certainly not!
As a former German (and now US citizen) I noticed the lack of "opportunity" growing up Germany in the 80s/90s & early 2000s. Spending the first 26 years of my life in Germany, I didn't feel like it was the place for me to grow old. Pay was relativly low and taxes extremely high being single w/o kids. I left in March of 2010 without a job or place to live in the US. Fast forward to 2024 and only 14 years later I'm well above a 7 figure networth (even excluding 401k/IRAs I'm still above 7 figures). I contribute this to a few key differences in the US vs Germany in my last 14 years. 1. Significant lower taxation 2. less bureaucracy 3. better pay 4. affordable housing (especially buying) --- all of this translated into more disposable income which could than be utilized for investments like assets or the market, which in return grows your networth...especially having compunding interest and time as a factor. All in all at 40 years old, I could technically retire today and would not run out of money, this would have never happened if I didn't move to the US.
Depending on where you live it’s generally impossible to live in Germany for less than €2000. a month. The country continues to allow illegal entry into the country from North Africa and the Middle East. These people already live in poverty and this poverty continues when they arrive in Germany. The problem with this is that these people have been led to believe they will have a rich life. My question to the German politicians is “ what are you going to do when these people discover that they have been lied to?”
My parents worked for over 45 years in Germany and can barely make ends meet now that they are retired. Es ist echt traurig das meine Eltern über 45 Jahre ins system mit Steuerabzüge bezahlt haben aber jetzt als Renter kaum Geld zum überleben haben. Meine Eltern haben übrigens beide immer vollzeit gearbeitet und es ist schwer für die beide und viele andere Rentner in Deutschland. Traurig das ein Sozialstaat nicht besser auf ihre Rentner sorgt vorallem wenn man Jahrelang beigetragen hat!!! Schlimm!!!
This is the best explanation of why a whole nation being classified "rich" or "poor" is such a faulty measure. I have long argued that the stats put out by financial institutions and organizations like the U.S. Information Agency purporting to show how wealthy some countries are fail to take into account the crucial social policies. Access to health care, safety of neighborhoods, mass transit, universality of pre-natal and infant care are more important than how many hours a U.S. person has to work to afford a TV, compared a French or Swedish worker. We often see ourselves or other nations being called rich in comparison to others when it is just wealth on paper.
the biggest issue is the pricing for houses. My dad bought in 1990 a new house with garden for 250.000 DM. Today a House this size in this area starts at 1.300.000€. I'm a software developer and can't afford that. Renting a two room apartment is here usually around 1.000€ per month, and you need a lot of luck to get it, because there are like 100 people in line waiting for it. And no, it is not a big city, it is (by car) half an hour away from a big city.
I am software engineer in Munich and my 3 bedroom flat for family of 4 costs 2230 euros warm. It is just too expensive even for us high earners. And we see the repercussions kids moving from school because families have to find cheaper flat outside of Munich. A lot of families are thinking of going back to their country (we are from Serbia), we know some families that went back to Serbia and Bosnia. Families with more than 10 years of living in Germany, one was ballet family (both parents) and second medical and machine engineering. Both got kids in Germany so how that is a great lost of at least 2 school kids. If something doesn't change soon this would be just a beginning. Specially people from Croatia, Romania and Poland will say goodbye
@@c3baker not as Lawyer or Doctor but still I am sometimes surprised how little people earn for jobs that need high education like teachers, civil engineers, geodesy engineers... My wife as a geodesy engineer that has worked on projects even in Doha has been very disappointed with prospects and earnings in her domain. Jobs are boring (in Serbia you do that kind of jobs with secondary school) and low payed. In Germay my salary belongs to top 7% highest salaries. Having good education that can't be aquired in Germany (or can but with studying 3 faculties at once) and experience so that you can do Machine learning, Mathematical optimization and Software engineering in 2 programming languages makes you paid well in comparison to others ordinary Software Engineers or pure Data Scientist. If just costs of living stayed under control...
@@joeferreti9442 According to the Migrationsmonitor of the Agentur für Arbeit 47% of Bürgergeld recipients are foreign citizens, so it's essentially true
Aa a german your depiction of these three "protests/strikes" at the beginning were for me somewhat misleading: The Lufthansa and Deutsche Bahn strikes - these are part of unions negotiating new salaries for a certain amount of time (2-3 years). If whilst only negotiating nothing is disturbed. But when no agreement can be found, the workers/unions side puts on pressure on the companies - by strikes. This is what maintains at least some sort of wealth distrubution to the working class - and their lack in basic other jobs leads to low pay and unrest in society. The farmers (or a lobby representing the farmers) were angry because diesel fuel subventions were to be cut. Because the big Discounters have such leverage about food pricing they pay way to less for food from the farmers. And so the farmers live from subsidies rather than their product/produce. So if the farmers would be paid more fairly be the Discounters for their products, there would be less need for subsidies and tax cuts on their diesel / fuel... So someone should rather watch the huge profits from aldi and lidl and act accordningly (regulators, consumers and farmers) and create a better deal position for the farmers - rather then our taxes subsidized aldi and lidls profits. Cause their huge profits prove they could make food cheaper or buy it at a higher price... That is why these three protests have a rather diffrent meaning and are not a product or showing of poverty. Poverty would rarher be found with unemployed people with Hartz4 and so on....
As I understand, mentioning discounters here is the wrong point. However, the rest is correct. The problem is regulation and restriction of growth/more production for farmers because of European Socialism. That's why you need imports in Germany to have everybody fed, being dependant even on China. But those imports, which help to increase quality of domestic production, are also disturbed and not ennobled, instead veganism or renouncement pushed.
"Huge profits"? Not in the German food retail business. Typically, the operating margin of the major chains is no more than 2 per cent (and has occasionally been negative here and there). And I'm saying this as someone who once worked for "the other side" - a large FMCG producer who always had problems to raise prices with the Aldis and Lidls because of that. Also, if you look at dairy prices, they have always been volatile. After the Russian attack on Ukraine, (e.g.) butter went up to more than three euros for 250 g, in the meantime was down to EUR 1.35 and is now at 1.99 for regular distributor's own brands, and maybe 1.69 for a real "premium" brand on sale.
@@tillneumann406 hey every discount chain is still expanding and cities with 50.000 have sometimes 2-3 or even more lidl supermarkets. And growing 10% in 2023. So right now there is a race to eredicate competition by unsubstantianable growth. Until the market is small enough to dictate and hike prices up. The first battle was won by the Discounters into teaching the customer these low prices. Geiz ist geil / being cheap rulez is not a substainable behavior for the consumer and the stores... You clearly show how deep this price expectations go, fueled by the Discounters.
I have never got used to seeing the UK greyed out on maps of the EU. Just 2%. That's all it took. Because of the UK poverty and 'at risk' rates were included in this data, Germany would still look pretty good!
Well, the middle class has to pay for everything and doesnt get anything. We pay for the social security of the poor with brutal amounts of like 40% of income, while rich people pay nothing. Even worse, that the gap between professionals and social security receivers is slowly fading away. There wont be any middle class anymore if we keep that up.
Me upon finding out that Germany has a 3.5 billion € GDP but most of it isn't being spent thanks to the debt brake, useless projects, insane salaries for company leaders and 84 million more people having to share the rest:
the problem in Germany is that the taxes are too high because they are paying for too many immigrants that are not willing to work or not allowed to. I just got back from a U.S. trip and while on paper germany might seem great and superior in many aspects and the "made in Germany" slogan is used for high quality that slogan shouldnt mean anything to anybody anymore... Germany is really falling back. Things are so unefficient here there are always ques delaya and nothing works as a walk in customer you always need appointments... i honestly think germany could currently be too crowded for its own good. Its really hard to put a finger on what the problem is but i think a quality of avtual life is much higher in the U.S. nowadays than in germany i literally just got back to Germany today from visiting friends and family in the U.S. and i have ti say while there are many many many negatives in the U.S. it feels like a happier wealthier country. Germany has too many policies and rules that do not benefit the actual people of this country. I would love to discuss this in further detail are you in Frankfurt?
I politely disagree. Germany is quite big and diverse, even if it seems tiny compared to the US. You will see different walks of life across the country and what you described could maybe be attributed to the "big cities" where it can seem overcrowded with all the issues that entails. I can see how someone can come to that conclusion in Berlin, as barely any doctors ever have free slots and booking an appointment is required - but even then i was able to get an Appointment within 2 hours from calling. Can't complain about that. I do see a lot of different people here in Berlin, but I do not think that "immigrants are a problem" in general. I live my life next to them, they live their life. I do not think it directly affects me. I have also lived in more rural areas of germany where everyone know everyone, the common grocerer is a "mom and pop shop" and the local businesses can be seen "idle" most of the time with any walk-in customer being greatly appreciated. A more communal lifestyle. I find it hard to make a general conclusion about "life in germany" that is fully positive or fully negative, but having visited friends in different countries, including the US and UK, i am incredibly happy to live where and how i am right now, right here in Berlin.
I'm glad that workers are finally fighting for wage increases. For too long Germany's economic success rested on export competitiveness through artificially repressed wages. It has caused a lot of disruption in Europe. Time to replace the German export model with someting more sustainable.
Im not an expert in Germany's economy or politics but the export model is what made Germany rich, if Germany does not have that, what is the alternative? Have the unemployment rates of Spain and Greece? Import everything from China and US and complain because Germany became poor?
@@Nadu_remanesc Germany became rich way before that. The Wirtschaftswunder in the early times came from high productivity within Germany. If you give people more money, they can obviously buy more stuff and that’s spiraling the economy up. Schröder cut wages for exports though so and opened the country for foreigners who wanted a better life. That caused jobs in Italy, Spain and Greece to decrease in the first place. Also there are already high unemployment rates in Germany. There are officially 2,8 million jobless and some sources even say 3,5 million. On the other hand there are just 700k jobs who can be taken. Having a lot people who don’t work is not a failure in that matter. It’s wanted cause then the bosses can replace them easier if they don’t behave.
@@svendonut8813 but the Wirtschaftswunder was based on production of technology as well, right? Was that for internal consume or for what? Or were those cars and machines not built to be exported? About Spain and Greece, I don't know exactly the situation in Greece but in Spain it is totally difference. During the 60s and 70s Spain had a relatively strong industry who was growing. In the mid 70s with the energy crise, that energy had many many difficulties and in the 80s after the transition to a democracy the government did not care about that industry anymore and allowed it to go bankrupt
@@Nadu_remanesc the extreme level of trade imbalance makes us poorer. Infrastructures are rotting. Real wages have stagnated for a long time (more recently they have picked up). The alternative is a balanced economy that takes into account macroeconomic stability in Europe, which is Germany's immediate economic environment. The lack of investment in truly high technology is actually costing Germany its long term competitiveness. You can compete on deptessed wages only for so long.
@@Nadu_remanesc the extreme level of trade imbalance makes us poorer. Infrastructures are rotting. Real wages have stagnated for a long time (more recently they have picked up). The alternative is a balanced economy that takes into account macroeconomic stability in Europe, which is Germany's immediate economic environment. The lack of investment in truly high technology is actually costing Germany its long term competitiveness. You can compete on deptessed wages only for so long.
I dont even think so. In rural areas, thousands of houses are left alone. If we could make these places more attractive, the housing problem could already be solved. I dont think you should do massive house building if the number of people is shrinking in germany
the cost of housing might be relativly high in regions where pople are earnig relativly mucht! this is due to the fact that taxes are high and bying kosts are high. In the end that translates into relativly high Costs for rent. Problem is People do not get richer if thr state builts houses! and the state needs teh money in firm od taxes ore loans for kredits! in other words more people schould by houses and apartments, perhaps small ones which are less expensive and pay the loans back within a reasonable period of time ! If the state ore big companys own the real state that does not make people rich! To pusch motivations, rentig an apartment or a house should be more expensive!
13:00 Well I think it is right to not count our (german) contribution to the pension insurance because there is NO insurance that I will get this money in 2070 when I am about to retire. The money we pay today is for the people who get it today. And my pension in 2070 will be paid by the working force in 2070 (hopefully). It's a solidary system with up ond downsides but I think it would not be fair to account it as an asset.
And it still wouldn't solve anything as that taxed wealth will go to waste. Some save and invest while others spend all they have with little regard for the next day. Equality does not exist.
I have to admit, that I definitely got to be in a highly privileged position in Germany. I worked first as a working student and then as a regular consultant while studying mechanical engineering in full time. Last September I got a new higher paying job, finished my masters degree and bought a 100+ sqm appartment, that I gan pay off rather relaxed... To me it always comes down to housing. If you have a home (not just a place to sleep) you will live comfortably. If you don't, you will always struggle because rent spikes during bad times, so owners can recoup der costs and rent spikes in good times, just because people now can afford to pay more just to live a little more comfortable.
@@Torbintime Speak for yourself, if you can predict the market. Imho most companies are crazy overvalued and I don't expect coninuous or even exponatial growth anymore. Rents also often overtake a fixed loan rate after a few years, no one can kick you out of your house or flat and owning a home means having a home for me instead of just paying someone for a roof over my head.
@@199Bubi in Germany the housing price increased 100% at best in the last 10 years. The s&p500 is up like 250% since then. Investing was way better if you had money back then. Taking a loan is a scam in my opinion since you pay 1 to 3% for literally nothing and you don't actually increase you net worth by owning a house, you just have a house compared to having money.
@@199Bubi Oh, wait. The Bank can kick you out very very fast, and if its not that just wait 'till you are old and need Social Healthcare, gone is "your" House!
One thing I don't see anyone talking when they discuss wealth in the US is how much of that is funded by public debt. The national debt has skyrocketed 300% in the US in the past 10 years or so, and now sits at $34 Trillion, or 124% of GDP. Contrast that Germany's €2.6 Trillion, or 63% of GDP; practically half of the US in percentage points. How will the US economy fare when "the music stops" (as the CEO of Citigroup put it in 2007) and the US government can't finance a continuously increasing deficit, and is forced to budget only what it can fiance through taxes???
We´ll see how it plays out. Germanys low debt is the reason why now the infrastructure sucks and the economy is in bad shape. Basically things are merely postponed on the cost of economic growth.
State finances are wierd. Take the US, the government and congress decide a budget, the governemt borrows money and uses this money to buy stuff and pay people, those people then pay taxes, wich the governement then uses to pay its debt (its interest mostly). So as long as the government finds lenders (citizens and companies, the federal reserve bank, foreign investors or parts of the governemnt) it can refinance and most of the lenders profit from the governemnt giving additional money to the economy, irrespective of their return on the bonds at least as long as the economy grows. So if "the music stops" evrybody is f***ed. The lenders don't get their money back, the government defaults and has to cancle its services, the whole economy shrinks drastically. Oh and since the $ is a world reserver currency the US can easily cover a lot of its debt by printing more money with close to zero downside.
@@Xenomystus Absolutely. But grabbing money like the US does would be utter nonsense as well. The main fault of the CDU and current government is to ignore the economic crisis. Not taking on more debt is a very good idea when the economy is "printing tax money". At the moment the state should throw in money to improve infrastructure *a lot*. At least the Deutsche Bahn is now "starting" to try to improve things, albeit very late - with expected consequences.
Indeed the US gov can only do what it is doing because the US dollar is still the world reserve currency. They are on the brink of losing that and with it a massive amount of purchasing power. Loss of reserve currency status will mean nobody will want US debt and that is when the music stops. I see my nation the USA as a blind mad giant flailing about, causing great harm all over the place. Abusing their world reserve currency status has damaged the rest of the world who are forced to carry their debt, and all these crazy wars aren't helping either. The sanctions on Russia hurt Europe more than anyone. The trade war with China will hurt the average American, especially if the elites in the USA refuse to rebuild domestic manufacturing.
There's a RUclipsr that gives you a financial score based on different criteria, I thought I would do well, but I was surprised I'm only average. But part of it is about real estate, which I see as a personal choice and not really as a necessary security to have. Just another example of how the metrics change our perception. But there's no denying that more and more people here struggle with making ends meet, especially families where both parents work for minimum wage.
Pretty simple, just because a country has big companies doesn't mean that the money gets distributed to the people. Two completely different things. But compared to countries like france it's still better.
I'm Dutch, not German, but I'm struggling as well. Raising minimum wage is a very limited solution. If you can't work full-time, minimum wage raises don't do much. My hourly wage is well above minimum wage, but because I have to work part-time I still earn less than fulltime minimum wage.
@@Boris80b nobody mentioned "the wealthy", we are trying to create more stable middle class families to bring up kids well and build an educated and well mannered society with more positive contributors. One way to to do this is cut their tax burden. Increase family tax free allowances, give tax breaks for couples and on first mortgages for family homes.
It would be nice to cut taxes for the middle class but it may not be a sufficient solution. Also, cutting classes for the middle class doesn't negate what I wrote.
in my opinion something that has to be implemented is proportional healthcare costs, childcare costs and fines. so they won't be a set price that is the same whether you earn €1.000/month or €10.000/month, but a % of that income. this would make the costs of bills that everyone has fair no matter you're income. and it would make things like "zorgtoeslag" unnecessary. and having the fines being proportional is just to net more money from wealthy people that break the law. because for real a fine of €250 is nothing for a well of person, but for the average person it's a big amount. so lets set it at (something like) 10% of your monthly income (for small fines). and healthcare and childcare could be free for low income people if the rich would all pay even a fraction of a % of their monthly income.
Old age poverty! Thank Schröder & Co. and his ‘reform’ of the labour market. Thanks to him, recruitment agencies have sprung up like mushrooms. Most of them go to great lengths to pay people as little as possible. Which of course has an effect on their later pension.
Well before that you could externalize your expenses quite easily: work for some years and then indefinitely collect dole. With the Lefties we're going back to this. (Bürgergeld = "citizen money" - as if you could be a citizen when you get bankrolled by the rest)
@@kiliipower355 Recruitment agencies have been around since 50 years, that's not Schröders idea. Thanks to Red Merkels economic policies and those of the current leftist/green government, the German economy is going down. And Trade Unions and the media don't give a flying F.
I recently got a job offer of 85k which would have meant a gigantic bump compared to what I make now. However, I had to decline, because it would have meant moving to a very expensive region and i did the math - it would not have been enough for living somewhat comfortably in that area. My standards are actually pretty low. I don't need a car, I don't do expensive stuff, I don't consume a lot, don't smoke, don't go out often. But even then, 85k is just too little. Mostly because I had to assume rent of 3000€/month. Yes, I would have survived. But if you are educated and willing to go the extra mile for work, which you both need for this salary, then just surviving doesn't cut it.
@@requiemdream9763 I have a family. I know people living in Munich (yes, we were talking about Munich) and they told me that this is a realistic cost of living for someone moving there. Of course, some people have cheaper older rental contracts, but that obviously wouldn't be the case for me.
@@FlyanTV Ok with family it is a different situation. But I know the problem. I had a similar lucrative job offer, but near Frankfurt. I accepted the offer as I have no family. But due to the expensive rental (it is nearly twice expensive as my old one) and due to high taxes, the higher salary is foiled to a large extent.
13:23 No it's a horrible system. The money just goes straight from the workers to the mouth of the elderly, aka a system that rewards childless people pursuing careers and punishes people who have children. It's horrible, inefficient and outragous. We in Germany are now slowly feeling the huge burden of the demographic problem that Japan has felt since the 90s. Stiffling innovation, elderly with outdated beliefs, etc.
I am an expat engineer from a developing country and I and my friends do not accept offers less than 4500 euro netto for senior positions nowadays. We are living in Bavaria and we have to afford 1000-2500 euro for rent for a quite moderate flat. That 1000 euro option is just a single room flat and as we are not German our chance to find the affordable ones is impossible. The remaining money after expenses does not make you rich, does not make you buy a flat if you are single. The retiring age is 67 and we as engineers know that all of us are not going to have jobs until that age, so we have to make money now. The retirement age is 10 years earlier in my country. I am living in a half size flat compared to the flat in my country and I am paying twice for it. My net income has decreased and I would not like to stay here for a long time. Even two German friends headed to other countries for better opportunities this year. As a non German I can say that Germans are not rich but there are less poor people compared to some other countries and nobody is struggling with hunger. That is why Germany is still attractive for low skill workers but not for high skill ones or Germans themselves.
In Czech Republic we have same prices like in Germany, some food is even cheaper in Germany, but we have 1/3 salary. So tell me how poor Germans are.. €1400 is very good salary here for most people. Operators in factories have way less, yet the cost of living is rising by 15-20% every year now and our PM keeps boasting about how he manages everything perfectly.
@@walid7415 it was quite OK 10-15 years ago. Now most xoung couples have no chance to even get loan for small flat and are forced to live in rented appartments. But the cost of rental flats is rising quickly too. Lets say you are engineer in industrial company, after taxation you get 35k CZK on your account. But then you spend 17k just for rent of 2+1 flat, then add energies which tripled in cost over last 2 years. And you are left with about 10k for the rest. Good luck raising kids. Unless you have own flat our house thanks to parents, you have pretty tough life.
We were on vacation in czech republic just now and we were stunned at the prices at times. As you said, super market is nearly the same as in Germany. But the apartment we had, restaurants and such are dirt cheap in comparison with Germany. I don't get how this is working out.
@@CaesarIII services are cheaper because wages are 3 times lower. Thats all. You can have 3x cheaper hairdresser or restaurant service if you pay those workers 3x less... but since the cost of goods is same, they just can buy 3x less food etc. Or there is also other side of that. Quality of many things is worse. If you buy butter here and compare with german bought in Germany or even polish butter bought in Poland, you'll find how bad it is.
Well, average people of all NATO countries are still wealthier than Russians. Nothing to worry, I guess...😊 It's also quite amusing to warn of other countries while your own people are literally invading another country at the same time. 😂
@@dazedd-fi4yx Yeah, actually the reason is - as I mentioned - that your country (that you proudly display in your profile) invades Ukraine without any reason apart from propaganda bullshit and you still think that other countries are a threat or the problem. I suggest you stop voting for fascists and get your own shit done. We're doing just fine here in Germany, so don't worry about us.
You seem to misunderstand how bad state pensions are. The contributions far exceed the payouts. Because the population is growing old there are no more contributions for future seniors. If they didn't even buy their own home they're doubly f*cked. Their pension will grow smaller and smaller and they'll have no backup solution. If you are an employee you are also f*cked. because the taxes will only go up. ANd no, taxing the business owners will only lead to recession. Inheritance laws can also be easily circumvented. Hint: take a look at how many rich people set up foundations to handle their assets but which in turn are controlled by their offspring. And yeah, they do charity as well. But not as much as to destroy the nest egg prepared for their kids.
"The contributions far exceed the payouts." What a BS. THe German pension distribution system is one of the most efficient in the world. Every bank plan takes more. Also payouts are a LOT higher than constributions because it's subsidized by general taxes. We are talking 2-digit billions per year here.
@@steemlenn8797 you still don't get it. It's all about how many people pay and how many receive the money. It doesn't matter wether they get the money from you as "social security" or as some other tax. As long as the ratio is lower and lower the less you'll receive.
We, the average people of Germany, get treated like dogs, we get the bones not the meat. I and so many others are tired of the government and the oh so amazing economy. 50% tax, a permit for every little thing and so much limit the average person by a lot, and yes, we live by good standards, don't get me wrong, we have it better than a lot of people, but we are used to nothing else but that, and no one can ask us to "just chill", because we can't. We want to live our lives like they should be, wealthy, prosperous and free but more and more we can't
It is not about the wages (many commentators demanding higher wages apparently forget that they have to pay for this either via higher taxes for the public sector or by higher prices for services and goods) but about the accumulation of wealth that remains untaxed. Trickle-down does not work, although at least one party in the current government thinks that it would). Since for many years, no investment in infrastructure was taken, an insufficient number of apartments has been built, and a dangerous reliance on Russian gas was implemented, we are now facing an unseen crisis. There is no easy fix, and there is no single answer to address this, but a combination of actions that needs to be considered: Stopping the accumulation of wealth by taxing the rich, massive reduction of bureaucracy (I recently founded a company and the paperwork alone was insane and expensive), reduction of federalism (do you know how expensive it is that every state and within the state every school decides what to teach and which material should be used?) and also educating people about how money works. The German tendency to overcritise every innovation and to defend the status quo at any cost also needs to shift (e.g. when building a wind power engine one needs to calculate with five years between the idea and the construction, that is as insane as any new street or railway the state wants to build, will take three times to built as it would in most other EU countries). But again: There is no easy fix. Do not fall for the false promises of populist parties!
If you get 20% higher wages and the prices for the goods you buy increase by 10% you still are better off. That is why minimum wage increases generally do not destroy jobs: The people who use those services are now getting more money too and can afford the increase.
@@steemlenn8797 That‘s not how it works. An increase of costs tends to get overcompensated by companies as it is a perfect opportunity. Worst case you end up in deflation scenario.
Germany is rich, Germans are poor... old problem here.
@@breakfast00club..11That’s not Germany
How are we "poor"? That's bullshit.
@@DeepJiesel German economist Daniel Stelter wrote a book about it "Das Märchen vom Reichen Land". That tells you everything, you need to know. Just look at other europeans retiring 5-10 years earlier than Germans.
@@MrSit87 Oh yeah, because an economist writes a book, the manifest reality changes. I've been hearing about the impending collapse of Germany since I was twelve, not buying it any longer from prophets of doom trying to sell their books. Simpletons will of course believe what they read without using their own brain first.
@@DeepJiesel high permanent costs, cold progression, real wages loss, increasement of social costs ( health care, rent care) wanna argue about it?
I love when the media reports the economy is going fantastic when what they really mean is it's great for the top 20-10% and borderline dystopian for everyone else LoL
Agreed. In the US, the stock market is often used to measure our economy, and most of that stock is owned by the upper class.
If you import beggars, the GDP, "the economy", will grow. Just like GDP will grow if you break your own window and have it repaired.
You "love" it? Really?
What do you love about it?
Yes for sure but people in Germany always talk about them wanting growth not redistribution, it will get way worse from here on out sadly
Wealth division is a political choice. Media should report facts (unless of course you're FOX).
GDP growth is one such fact, it's a simple statistic. There's plenty of stats on growing inequality, bu they're long-term and trickier to explain. Besides, you get boed off stage as being a gloomy communist. Solution: just report the daily Nashdaq and everybody is happy.
The definition of "rich" is already wrong in Germany. You are considered "rich" in Germany when you make 3,500€ after taxes. Meanwhile, new houses in Bavaria (Landshut, for instance) are impossible to build at under 800.000€. This means, in other words: Buying a house is impossible these days even for rich people. It is unfathomable for single earners, and still impossible for two earners. Even if they are childless. Because at 7000€ combined income, without a major inheritance, you won't even qualify for an 800.000€ loan. This means, owning property is now inherently a luxury reserved for whatever ranks higher than "just rich'. If you're "only" rich these days, you can't afford a house.
It is possible to buy a House with 7k . Sure maybe you wont get 800000 €
Uhmm pretty sure this is a lie or a scam
Sorry to bother you, but someone I met as a teacher at Goethe Institute told me, that was 8 years ago, that it is totally abnormal to own a house in Germany. People have been renting since forever and only families who have 100+ years living in the same place with wealthy background do have a property, I mean, real state. It can be annoying but nothing new to see here, I guess.
@@TR4R That's a problem, not a observation. Most Germans WANT to own a house. They simply cannot.
@@TR4R Yeah that teacher was wrong. My parents bought and built their own home, we bought our own place, friends of mine did the same. It depends on where you want to live. If you want to live where everyone else wants to live (because it has certain benefits like shorter commuting times, cultural offers etc.), the price is going up.
Even though I have to admit that the prices recently went nuts, even in remote areas...
I'm a 27 year old German and i've got a monthly salary around 3200€ (after taxes) wich is definetly a lot more than most of us here get... But, i know with my income i can never afford a house in my life... I need a women that at least makes the same amount, an then i would still need to pay like 40 years to call a house my own ... Thats also why the house owning rate in Germany is so low
Hi a Dutchie here, doesnt Germany do mortgages? With a salary of 3200 a month you can buy a house in The Netherlands (not easy but possible), The bank will loan you the money to buy the house (the house is yours and you can sell it with a profit whenever you want), you can even take out another loan on your house to buy more realestate
And also dont save money but invest it so your money also works for you, thats why the bank gives you a 2/3% interest rate cause they want your money so they can invest it, better do it yourself and reap all the benefits yourself
@@rico5766 the 40 years he mentioned is with mortgages. In Germany you can sell your property whenever you want, but when you sell it within 10 years after you bought it there is a speculation tax.
Didn't know it was such a problem over there. I was planning to work in Germany, but when I saw your comment, I don't know anymore.
@@sturanovicms it is not that extreme as written. I earn fairly the same. I could buy a House/flat but i dont, because i dont want to settle down in a location. But as he says it is quite expensive especially in Higher dense cities. If you are based and dont spend recklessly everbody can live here very good.
The average Germans is the foundation of this nation's economy, therefore if their money vanishes, unemployment will rise and the message "You have an unexpected month" will emerge. If you have a lot of student loans that are coming due, that money will run out very soon.
By then, a minimum of one cut Given that it will be discussed throughout the election, I think it happened in September. Given that it's a retirement issue, I think the FED will implement changes in September. If in September they don't make any cuts
I have this much in a taxable brokerage account, this much in a standard IRA, this much in a bank account, and this much in an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan. At the moment, I have 30% in equities and 70% in bonds, or a similar allocation. Her contact information is Annette Marie Holt. Thus, when she responds to your initial meeting, which should be provided to you at no cost, you should have a very clear picture of your current condition.
That sounds promising. I've been hesitant to dive into because I'm not sure where to start.
Absolutely. Annette guidance can provide peace of mind and help you make informed decisions in the complex world of gold investment.
I just looked this lady up out of curiosity and found her web page easily. Read through her qualifications, which were all very impressive. So I scheduled a call with her.
This is not a German problem. It is a general Western issue. Neither the French, British or Americans have affordable housing or affordable basics due to inflation. Looking at the specific German version of the issue may be interesting, but it is not productive.
Why doesn’t Switzerland have this problem?
Was working over 20 Years in Management Positions in: UK, USA, JP, GB and so on. IT IS A GERMAN PROBLEM!!
@@pinktfatrabbitBecause Switzerland has benefitted for decades from having its share of storing the wealth of dictators, hardcore criminals and super rich without asking questions. A pretty unique case. Nevertheless, in Switzerland poverty rates are rising as well.
@@Bleifuss88 what a cope and a half lmao
@@daMillenialTrucker It is not a cope. Switzerland's wealth is mostly based on being a haven for dirty money and a tax haven (with the effect that many international companies have their headquarters there). Furthermore, they enjoy all the benefits of being located in the middle of the EU without any of the responsibilities.
We are poor and angry because our wages can't afford anymore vacations, going out for food and leisure, as well as basic necessities. 20 Years ago, the local postman was able to afford his own house after many years of work; now, even those with higher degrees and salaries can't even afford this. We're living in a society with no future hopes of actually owning anything of value to call your own. That is why so many people are discouraged to actually work hard, because the minority working population needs to carry the burden of all the non-workers....
if You look how meny howers You have to work in everage to by one squaremeater of an everage new house, houses got cheaper, not every Year bit in a long run! on thee other hand in the fiftys people did not have Cars telefon internet and nearly no money was spent durcing the vecations these were shortewr. bu they spendet more money in relation to there income for food and for baing houses. At these times only the kitchen of a house would be heatet It is so funny to hear jounger people how rgood the opld times were that thy have to work harder in general thet things are more expensive and wages are low.... I have the book where my father noted evers DM he earned and spent since 1948 ! nowadays of cause everybody is poor und complains beaus we say we can not pay more taxes and wei want to avoid high prices bei telling everybody how poor wie are and hat rich people chould pax ouer bills! i stert diskussions bei asking everyboda weater it would be a good idea that the riches 20 % of the people schould pav more to help 50 % og the people wich of cause under everage income! everybody agrees! When i say I mean theis world wide, and we all are better off than 80 % of the population of the world and that means we oll schould give away something fpr india for afrika and whatever, noboday agrees un what the sayd before!
@@WalterFriederich people in the 50ies didn't pay over 50% of tax.
That's not completly true. Postmen couldn't easily afford their own home, especially if he or she had to fund a family. I am the third child of a working class family and late in their working career of my father, let's say 10-15 years before retirement, he would have been able to finance a very small house in the middle of nowhere, where prices where low. But he didn't do it cause he didn't want to live in the middle of nowhere and we as a family would have had to do without all the little luxuray as vacations and alike to afford it. My uncle, who was working for the German post service, and his wife build such a house from scratch and basically they went never on vacation and worked their ass off for this house. They even did a lot of work on their own.
So yes, it was possible, but it always came at a high price, if you're income wasn't right or you didnt't inherit some money.
Yeah yeah, and now you check how many hours you had to work to afford a washing machine, a TV set, a telephone, and so on, back in the 50’s and 60’s when everything was so good…. 😂😂
@@oliverhaake7552not easily, but they could. Now a postman can’t even have kids and has to check every penny he spends on food. Be for real. Double income academics have problems here.
People should remember: poverty is not an accident, a coincidence or an inevitability. It is something which is manufactured by the ruling class, that's why investment is the key to sustaining your financial longevity
You're absolutely right, you've remind me of what someone once said "The mind is the man, the poor is in it and the rich is it too". This sentence is the secret of most successful investors. I once attended similar and ever since then been waxing strong financially, and i most tell you the truth..investment is the key that can secure your family future.
yeah investment is the key to sustaining your financial longevity but venturing into any legitimate Investment without a proper guidance of an expert can lead to a great loss too
exactly! That's my major concern and what kind of profitable business or investment can someone do with the current rise in economic downturn
: Estate
: Share
: Stock
: forex trading
Obviously these investment requires much cash and concentration to start?
and many of us don't know where to invest our money so we invest it on wrong place and to the wrong people
Germany is currently the third largest economy in the world. It surpassed Japan some months ago, ironic considering how bad Germany is currently doing.
It is like that not because Germany is doing better than Japan but because Japan is doing worse than Germany. So look at Japan to see Germany in the future: low fertility-rate, expensive housing (in the past but now very cheap in Japan after economic decline for last 20 years) and not being good in getting foreign workforce. Germany had luck with Eastern Europe colapse giving both workers to Germany and market for their products, cheap energy and Chinese market. But that is gone... Germany should have used those good times to do transformation of education system, child support system... to have more valuable products and more workers (kids)
@@aurelijeGDP is not the wealth of a nation, and is surely not a good indicator of the quality of life of the average citizen. You can have a high GDP and GDP per capita, but that does not always translate to higher wages, let alone reasonable cost of living. Ireland’s GDP is an example of this, and why it’s a useless metric.
It's Because devaluation of japanese yen and GDP is counted in dollars
Linking the Euro to $US guarantees Failure. The US Debt grows by $One Trillion every 3 to 4 months! Saudi Arabia sold Oil to China, instead of to America - because its of the decreasing value of $US. China keeps Gold in Saudi Banks to support the Yuan. The US formed NATO and EU to ensure “loyalty”.
@@aurelije The irony is, that "we" (meaning mainly the green party...) got rid of our cheap energy on purpouse.
The thing that makes me angry the most is, that we cant have higher minimum salary because that "would rise prices and would not change anything" but yet the prices are rising anyways and companies have their best year EVERY year without giving back to the workers that generate the wealth for companies.
WTF would you want higher minimum salary. Most of you make above, that how you get an "average"
And we go shop in your country because prices are lower.....
@@thesaw9988Germans love to complain. Freaking annoying. Think about it they earn more than other Europeans like French, Italians or Brits. At the same time they pay less rent and their groceries are cheaper. They have more savings than other Europeans. Still, it’s not enough for them.
Poor you! Where do you live?
Here in Germany, the situation is very different. Every week a midcap company goes bancrupt, big players reduce their workforce on a lange scale (just last week ZF) and think about relocating abroad, their operational profits shrink or disappear completely and the stock market is moving sideways for over a year now.
If in Germany 'minimum wage' would be raised significantly now, that would strangle many small and midsize businesses, increasing unemployment and accelerating the economic downturn (we're currently only seeing the tip of the eisberg).
So what country are you from?
@@thesaw9988 You are not the brightest.
@@gerohubner5101 germany :)
In Germany you're lucky if you belong to a trade union. Most people who work in smaller companies do not receive appropriate pay rises. Real wages (Reallöhne = Wages adjusted for inflation) have been stagnating in Germany for 30 years, thanks to the country's absolutely incompetent political class.
It's not really incompetence --- keeping real wages low is what allows for the export competitiveness.
@@c3baker it is indeed incompetence. how do you explain the fact that german companies (e.g. Stihl) now produce in switzerland because it is cheaper - even though wages are more than twice as high. switzerland is also an export-oriented country. you don't need starvation wages for that.
Energy costs of Germany are just to high. Its the climatechurchs doing.
It's not incompetence, it's be design. They hate you.
@@starlitnight6982 “Never attribute malice to what can adequately be explained by stupidity.”
I am a German citizen that has lived in the US for many, many years. When I came here (in the 80ties), I missed my German social structures to the point where I considered moving back. Now, close to retirement, I am glad that I didn't. I put money into a 401 K for almost 30 years and now have accumulated a nice amount of money to live on, on top of Social Security. As a German, I would have never been driven or told to invest in the stock market. Yes, I will have to pay a health care supplement premium once I retire, but I will still receive at least 60% more vs. receiving Social Security in Germany.
but let´s hope your insurance covers everything you need in your retirement...and you stay healthy
You are not alone. We came to the US 1963 and are now retired comfortable in Florida. My cousins in Germany, with higher education, better jobs and stable family are much worse off in terms of flexibility. I cherish the financial freedom I have in the US despite all the issues we have here.
Smart move 😊
Let's not forget that "poverty" means different things in, say, Germany, Bulgaria and USA.
Let's also not forget that entire Bulgarien villages have migrated to Germany bringing their standards along with them
@fionaryder632 Some decades ago, the same has been said about Italians, Greek or Turkish people. Now they work beside us, we visit their restaurants to eat, they are our neighbors or we rent their apartments. And our children know a lot more foreign names than we ever did. And if I recall it correctly before the world wars there were quite a few cities in the US with mainly immigrants from one co7ntry.
@@fionaryder632while german pensioners go to Bulgaria because it is cheap to live there
@@wora1111 that sounds wonderful and romantic from a distance. Unless you really live here. The working-class Turks and Italians I know, also know what I am talking about.
@@Nils.Minimalistyour point being? Those Germans are bringing value and money to Bulgaria, while those Bulgarians that are moving to Germany are doing the exact opposite and often times even increase crime statistics, make schools unsafe etc. …
I'm from Germany. We (my wife, 3 kids and I) belong to the top 1% in my country, counting income or asset value (by estimation, because accurate and recent statistics are hard to come by). Using this metric I should be filthy rich. Most people in Germany even seem to think, I should be considered "too rich" and be taxed more. But when I look at my actual lifestyle, I consider myself "well off middle class". I have a nice home. Me and my wife drive old normal cars (Renault an VW, 10 and 15 years old). We are approaching the age of 50 and my wife just now left her job (dentist) to focus on managing our assets (real estate). We go on vacation once or twice a year (but that is a recent thing. Between the age of 30 and 40 we maybe went to 5 vacations due to lack of time and money. 5 years ago I had a bit of a mid life crisis and bought an old Merc SL500 (9000 EURO) as a hobby. We don't have to think about daily living cost or any other daily expenses too much, though I still prefer to buy used stuff (TV, Laptops, smartphones, furniture). After working for 25 years I feel, that I have a pretty good life.
And here is what I am trying to say: My life is what (imho) should be considered as normal middle class. When I compare my lifestyle to - say - the 70ties, everything I was describing above (1 vacation per year, no fancy car, a house and a stay at home wife) was actually considered lower middle class. But that shifted over time. Now this kind of life is reserved for the upper 10 or so percent of the population. Those who set out to be middle class by passing school with good grades, make their way though university or learn a trade and assume a solid "well paid" career soon realize that this kind of life path will in truth not make them enough money to become what is widely beveled to be middle class. And this is what makes people angry. At least I think it is.
I could fully agree, but I can't, since every parliament in west pursuits social policies in order to get people to vote and neglect basic understanding of how society and economy works. Therefore they try to get as much taxes as they can by the Laffer's curve instead of the amount that will not make significant impact on society. So you had 2-3% of economy growth with ~2% of inflation in 2019 (before lockdowns), that means 1% growth at best, and 30% tax rate for households means that people will not consider to bring another child to life, because there is no excess of money to raise another citizen so we see birth rates way under 2 children per woman which means there will be less people to sustain the system how it is, and that's why western civilization gets older too fast so it will inevitably collapse.
how much are your assets worth? if your wife is leaving a job that can comfortably earn 100K, then it must be a lot
I agree, but you also have to consider that vacation today (flying to the Carribbean and living in a hotel) is not the same than in the 70ies (driving in a car with no air conditioning to the Alps).
Furthermore, today most young people live in a flat for them alone, in the 70ies people lived with their parents.
@@ALEX15here My wife didn't make 100k, but then - having 3 kids - she wasn't working full time. More like 60%. Our Assets are worth around 10 Mil, depending on who you ask. They might have lost about 20% last year due to the rates going up but its hard to say. But on the other hand they went up about 30% before the crisis, so nothing is lost. Of course we use finance as a leverage. Debt to equity is around 70%.
@@irgendwie0342 I agree with the first part. Life is much more comfortable today than it was back then. My first flat had oil radiators in each room that one had to light using a match. Cars were very basic. Today almost all cars have AC. The Internet with all it's knowledge and entertainment didn't exist. I get all that. But those angry people might not. The thing with living at your parents, that I do not agree. The rent and cost of living generally went up so so much that it is much more difficult for young people to move out and become independent. Which is a real shame. Because it is so important for a democracy to have a strong and independent population. People should have enough monetary and social independence so they don't feel the need to give up all their freedom to the state in the hopes that those leading the state will take care of all their needs. Because they won't. We tried that already. Don't work.
With all due respect but that analysis doesn’t provide a broad view of the overall issues we have in Germany. It’s not just taxes and the fact that we tend to stay away from private investments and shares (a particularly American view when it comes to pensions) but that we suffer from crippling bureaucracy and now see the effects of the country’s refusal to invest. Our public transport system is outdated and unreliable, we have no up to date digital infrastructure (we mostly still use copper cables) and as a result jobs are moving elsewhere. Our social benefits system has been used as a guinea pig for decades and is subject to constant changes. Germany is decades behind other countries and that obviously has an effect on everyday life
I can assure you the public transport system is much worse in North America (US and Canada) compared to Germany.
that might be the case, however in Germany nowadays the public trains are ridiculous. We feel the decline in quality quite a bit.@@koraytugay
@@koraytugaythat's because the US is spread out and it won't make sense to change it now when basically your whole infrastructure is based on using a car to get around.
In germany you could be using public transport for almost everything, but it sucks balls so hard that no one who has a choice is using it. To fix this there would only be a little money needed and change of policy.
"Decades behind other countries" is also a pretty stupid line. You can criticize a lot atm and germans are world champions at complaining. But a country with the third largest economy and the second most patent applications worldwide can't be "decades behind others". So stop this blind populism.
@@KupoxChan Germany isn't the third largest anymore. I think the victim of populism here is you!
You still believe the leftist-green lie of our Wirtschaftswunder, when our economy has been in a steady decline for years now.
Several large German companies are leaving the country.
Just recently ZF (one of the largest gear manufacturers world wide) cut over 14000 jobs and moved out of Germany!
Give it a couple years and even people like you will start to see just how damaged our economy really is.
The reasons i feel poor as a german (student with BaFöG):
-since inflation hit, I can't buy clothing anymore. I never bought clothing to be trendy but to have something to wear. I currently don't have any shoes because my pair broke and I can't afford new sneakers.
I also can't take any hobbies because buying art materials is impossible.
- I know that i will be fucking poor when I retire.
- I will never be able to buy a house or flat. Even if I earn a resonable amount of money.
I know that living in germany is still very comfortable. But these things scare me. Especially when I look at my parents' generation that doesn't have most of these problems.
The rapid decline in wealth scares me to the core.
As a fellow German student without Bafög, I can relate a lot to this. It's really getting to a point where the work that comes after studying doesn't seem to have a point because whatever you'll earn won't be enough anyway to live a decent life. I sincerely hope it'll get better...
really, than go to a thrift store or flee market.. there are cheap stores all over the country.. or get a job like I did during college..you ll find one in no time everywhere in Germany but maybe in the far east..but there are no universities or it so so cheap to rent there anyway
the "just get a job" is just not possible for two main reasons. If you are benefiting from bafög and then earn your own money, you'll have to expect to get less money from bafög. It's a system that partially rewards you for not working, a problem that we kinda also have with Bürgergeld. The second problem is that the job market is really scarce. Unless you know someone or have luck it can take months until you get the chance at a job@@GStern
Perhaps you should stop studying for now and learn a trade (eine Ausbildung). You would be paid. After you complete it, you can work (perhaps part-time), get paid and go back to school.
compared to my student friends I met during college from abroad, studying in Germany is like paradise ..
I think one reason why more and more people are becoming angry is also the state/government. We are used to pay very high taxes for a long time and it has been accepted by most because you get something in return.
My impression is that now more and more topics like education, care, childcare, health, infrastructure like roads, bridges, energy and many more are getting worse constantly. They don't even manage manage to keep play grounds or parks in shape anymore. Digital service for id or driver license? Forget it. Matriculate digitally at university? That means send a PDF and they'll print it.
True, but the origin of the problem is the same: the rich rigged the system such that they don't have to pay taxes even though they own almost all of the money. The only thing left is taxing the poor and middle class and reduce spending for education, welfare, childcare etc
A lot of people talk about taxing rge rich more or something along the lines, but what we should be talking about is the smart use of taxes. Why give the state more money for them to throw away or pocket themselfs.
Because Capitalism is the best system for the worst people.
@@jackbordar2727 the idea of taxing the rich is intended to reduce the burden of poor people not per se to give the state more money. But giving the state more money could obviously be useful for many things as well. As long as politicians are corrupt (i.e. as long as capitalism exists) that however isn't bound to happen. Even though it should.
That’s a great summary of the frustration we feel. I also think it’s important to mention that these problems derive from low investment during the years with a good economy. Now we face multiple issues that require high amounts of investment at once. It’s so frustrating how people just blame the current government or migrants when it’s a self built problem that took decades to get to this point
My combined SSA and European benefits as a retired person wouldn't provide me with a nice retirement living in LA, where I would probably be living in a tent on the streets, but having money for nice meals, etc. However, I have a nice apartment near the forest, can save 20% of my retirement for vacations or emergencies, covered by healthcare here in the Alps. Not poor, nor wealthy.
Yeah this is a problem, working people subsiding holidays for the retired is a great example of how unbalanced the German economy is. Other European countries have lower cost of living and tax rate, if you don’t introduce policies that induce value producing workers to come / stay in Germany we will go elsewhere and economy will continue to decline.
By global standards you are filthy rich. Don't compare yourself to the richest 1% of the world, compare yourself to the world as a whole. If you have healthcare, retirement money, a roof over your head, a wam place in winter, a way to travel, heck you can post on the internet and even can go on the occasional holiday, you are VERY wealthy. You are not the Hollywood jet set, sure, and maybe you don't drive the latest AMG Mercedes G-Wagon, but you are very wealthy by world standards where people live on $1 per day. 100s of millions of people globally go hungry every day.
@@peterc4082 _"world standards where people live on $1 per day"_
Since the average global income is close to 10,000 dollars... which planet are _you_ talking about?
@@Wolf-ln1ml Earth. Average income means shit.
Well you can.....those of us who are still working and would become retirees in 20-30 years are proper fucked!
We'll only get 44% of our last pay, and worse for those not working full time.
And then we are expected to either use the stock market, which isn't manipulated by the fat cats at all, as we can see from the whole Gamestop debacle, or the Riester Renten insurances.
And those Mike-Foxtrotts are allowed to use the maximum life expectancy that barely anyone reaches as basis for our payouts.
And if we die beforehand, the money isn't going to our dependants or heirs.......
No, no, nothing as sensible and right like that, instead the company can keep all the money left, all that a person saved for their retirement and couldn't use, that part of their estate, their property, suddenly becomes the company's.
Not as by right, their Family's.
A company is therfore incentivized to pay out as little as possible, claiming an almost impossibly long lifespan that maybe five out of a hundred reach, to cheat their customers out of their money.
And the laws allow for that, and neither Parlament nor government are willing to do anything about it, nor does the press talk about it.
That is nothing but state sponsored, state aided theft!
Tax is almost 50% … I was born and raised in germany. But after medicalschool I will leave for switzerland. The system is broken and I will not work my ass off for nothing.
Edit: Yes, your tax-rate depends on your income and your family-status. But if you want to earn more than 100k/year and have a family, it's true:)
Welcome! Most physicians in Switzerland are from Germany.
@@MoEMoE-oo9gw are germans doctors there also prescribing tee there? Hahaha
you need to be more precise here. it's about 50% income taxes you pay to the government before you even receive the money from your company. after this you'll have to pay taxes on every single little purchase you make no matter what you buy (gas, electricity, food, etc.) so in a total it's about 70-90% of your income you'll pay to the government via taxes on everything. so the government is basically robbing their people and more and more people trying to get out of the country. the frustration is huge and people are being manipulated to hate eachother through media. it's a rich country with poor citizens because of a criminal government.
Oh shit! I'm a clinical laboratory analyst and I'm planning to move to Germany! Is it worth it? Or just a very huge lie?
@@TR4R Well I don't know what you've heard so far and it probably depends on which company you're working for and what they'll pay you. What I've written is just my own perspective and opinion. There'll be also opposite opinions for sure so I can't really say something. For me Germany is not the country I want to live in for my whole life. This government and also the ones that were in charge before have ruined this country in my opinion. Companies are trying to get away but the government is trying to make it as difficult as possible for them to leave by making them pay fees when they want to go. Fees that are so high, that they can't afford leaving if it's a smaller company. It's ridiculous. I mean there are also still many people who live a pretty decent life here I. Germany. If you're on the upper level of the salary scale you can probably have a pretty nice life here. Other than that, many of our big cities want to convert into smart cities (15 minute cities) within the next few years. This is something I don't support at all because it all targets people's freedom of movement and so on. I feel like Germany plays a huge role when it comes to WEF plans. And it's being deindustrialized right now because we also need to be a leader and role model when it comes to energy although now other country seems to be as stupid as Germany because no body follows our plans. It's just us, ruining our country by deindustrialization, inflation, stupid energy politics, the highest taxes and so on and so forth.
I'll definitely try to leave this country if it's possible in any way.
Our Politicians are clowns, that’s the real problem here in Germany 😒
no. look at the us first, then look back.
Germany recently became the world's third-largest economy
Greetings to Moscow
@@LordParcyval Our government hates our culture, traditions and our native people.
@@TimGrad That's more of a testament of the population and not the politicians.
In my Opinion, the biggest Problem with income in germany is not taxes, but social contributions, especially Pension and Care. For 30 years now, it was obvious that those systems will fail because of the aging population if they are not changed towards a capital funded system, instead of pay-as-you-go. At the same time, the biggest generation that is going into penision now did not build up a private pension fund and expects the junger, much smaller generation to pay their pensions with yearly increases for the next 30 years. For pretty much everyone under 40 right now, they would be much better off if their pension and care contributions would be put towards a low cost diversified index fund instead of the current system.
@@MarkusPape Rüdiger, Hildegard, Rosemarie and Wilfried are far worse in terms of cost to the society.
@@MarkusPape social benefits include pensions, which are by far the biggest position in the budget, even if you ignore the pay-as-you-go part. Compared to that, wasteful positions like politicians' expenses are peanuts. The structural problem in Germany are the old people who didn't make enough kids, and didn't build a private pension provision. And no, refugees and immigrants are not the problem, they are the only hope germany doesn't end up like Japan.
Germany's problem is not the pension system. The problem is not having children. The average age of the German worker is 49 years old.
In any case, the German economic model based on globalization is finished. And on top of that you are facing a dramatic demographic collapse.
Growth in Germany is almost no longer possible since every year you have fewer workers.
Immigration? Yes why not. You need 2.5 million immigrants, per year, for at least 2 decades. Does it suit you ?
@@Daemia-o1q Germany used to have skyrocketing birthdate/new baby boom in the early 2010s up until 2015/16. From 2016/17 it suddenly declined radically
private pension is a scam. an elaborate one, but still a scam in the end!
A big problem is housing, not only is it bloody expensive but its also difficult to find something to rent, buying is even more impossible. Most of those, who find something affordable, have to drive hours to their work place. Which means they pay high gas prices. So everyone is kinda fucked.
I live in a small city with affordable rent and i drove to work around 15 min.
No, it's very easy to get a cheap place to rent. Just do it somewhere in e.g. a small East German town. I am paying less than 500€ for 62qm in a reasonably modernized GDR building from the 1960s. Also it's 9 minutes lazy walk from the office.
@@steemlenn8797 and if your cheapo appartement gets sanitized up to the latest required "Gebäudedämmung" and "Energieeffizienzwert" and finally gets installed the demanded "Wärmepumpe" it will suddenly cost you 1000+ EUR/month. But keep on believing you can still live cheap in Germany..........................................
@@steemlenn8797 no thanks, I don't want to live in a ghost town with the only souls left are nazis.
@@steemlenn8797not everybody can work from a small town in east germany,😂😂😂
I am a German woman and I am angry. The tax system is flawed and taxes the poor too much and the rich way too little. That has been going on for decades - my whole life - and geta worse and worse over the years.
Top earners are taxed close to 70% at this point and that's why they left, which is understandable.
Low earners also get taxed too high.
We should pay half of that, if not even less and rich people should pay ~35 percent.
@@friederikebaum9261 Yeah, the usual Marxist blablabla of the Communist supporter. What did you undertake to increase your income in the last 3 to 5 years?
That‘s why Germany has the lowest population of home owners ..with a high tax rate the wages need to be very high which is not possible for the average middle class or attractive for any business to pay way more to increase wages slightly.
The worst part about it is 0 responsibility from the government spending decisions, wasting more money then acceptable and somehow the „rich“ country with lots of tax income has terrible train infrastructure and needs to cut household costs because they spend too much every year👀
@@LazyRecap32I have to agree with this, sadly. In my day to day i also had to see government office structures are extremely inefficient e.g. in registration of citizenship and tax office. Some I would even call embezzling tax money with such work requirements and sometimes working morale.
On the other hand I have high respect of business owners and workers on the free market, because in my opinion they have to carefully consider every single step and dedicatedly put in extra work for no reward.
There is a saying that spending (or wasting) someone else's money is far easier than the own.
@@LazyRecap32well, it may be part of the reason. But the main issue regarding housing is the current laws allowing real estate to be misused for speculation.
The lack of public housing is not helping either, letting investment companies drive up prices even further.
A big problem are the high rents. I pay more than 50 % of my income for a modest tiny studio without having alternatives.
As a German-American myself, I‘m glad you explained the differences in the retirement systems so well! People take mental shortcuts, simply since they often don‘t know the details of how the other system works. People in the US are always flabbergasted when I tell them how much I pay on monthly health insurance premiums in Germany (I’m self-employed, so I pay both halves). They typically assumed I paid nothing for that at all 😂
What is your income in Germany and How much it is increased?
If it's too much or not is relative, depending on how much you make. Everyone pays about the same percentage in Germany so there shouldn't be any hard feelings.
If you're employed, you don't even pay anything for health insurance per se, because the fee gets automatically deducted from your salary along with other taxes and never appears in your bank account. So just use a gross-net converter to know what you actually earn when you sign a contract.
As a self-employed, it's tempting to feel like you should be exempt from all these fees and taxes, because you start thinking you should keep every penny you see in your account, but taxes are taxes (and you can think of universal health insurance as a type of tax).
There's simply no other way, unless health is only a privilege of the very rich.
@@allesindwillkommen Unless you are privately insured - or over the limit that the deduction can take place on (the same goes for pensions and unemployment, but the limits are much higher there).
I am over the limit as of this months raise, so my insurance premium doesn't go up based on my wage anymore (which actually means that I will have LESS money deducted from the next raise).
It is a stupid system that is good for the income-poor and the income-rich, however bad for everyone in the middle.
It should either be a fixed percentage for everyone or we have fixed cost for everyone with the state subventioning base service for those who can't afford it.
The highest cost of public healthcare is reached at a salary of 62100 Euro p.a. btw.
About 20% of germans are over that limit according to my research (numbers where from 2021 though, so its probably more).
@@Hasanaljadid I am self employed, too, and I pay 995€/month for a „normal“ (not private) health insurance. This is the highest rate; if I would earn more in the future, the rate stays the same. I send my approved tax form to the health insurance, if my income is under a threshold (I believe around 4500€/month) the rate decreases, too. If I remember correctly, the lowest I have ever paid was around 175€/month.
It is mainly regulated by government; the insurance haven’t much range to set the rates.
For employees the employer has to handle it. He will reduce the „paycheck“ by half of the insurance rate and he has to pay the other half. Along with his salary the employee gets a paper listing all the payments for health insurance, tax, etc. For the employer is responsible for these things most employees care for the amount they get and not so much for the other numbers. Again it is ruled by government and an employee can’t do anything about it.
The benefits is you don’t have to worry about getting sick. Even if it is a long lasting sickness like cancer, your get financial support.
The difference for self employeds is, that they don’t create income, when they can’t work. After six weeks of ongoing sickness I would get something like 20€/day = about 600€/month. That’s obviously not enough for a living especially if you are sick. But, I have known that, when I decided to be self employed.
An employee will continue to get his salaries. After time it will decrease, but not that drastic. However, for people living from paycheck to paycheck, it will be a challenge. And the number of people living from paychecks to paychecks increases.
I am from Palestine, Gaza, and I have four children. The Zionist army bombed my house. My children were outside and the only one in the house. My right leg was cut off, but I escaped death. Then we left Gaza and went to Egypt. We do not have any house to live in, me and my children, and no one wants me to work for him because I had a foot accident. Please help me or present my case to any philanthropist or charitable organization. Please do not leave my children.
@@Edda-Online
at 06:47 . "The top 10% of households have 725.000 euros of assets and control half of the wealth". Very misleading because the graph is exponential. Someone in the 90th percentile is almost indistinguishable to the poor from the perspective of someone in the 99th percentile. Those graphs always group the last 5/10% together as if they are somehow a harmonious group. A "millionaire" is someone with a large house and a nice car. A billionaire runs multiple companies and owns a real estate portfolio. Wake up. Germany is owned by a tiny tiny fragment of the population. not 10%, not 5% and not 3%. The richest 100 people own more then the bottom 30 million.
Exactly. Alienating millionaires only stands to push them towards associating with billionaires.
Good, reasonably honest millionaires exist. There is no such thing as a good billionaire.
This.
@@ShameinYouBandtime for a revolution?
@@ShameinYouBandeat the rich ?
eat the rich
Am foreign student in Germany, being paid 700€ from work with no petition and no help. I can tell you. it is hell trying to survive sometimes I have just water and rice but I think it's part of the journey. The problem I think is stagnation with no future plans. For everyone
I think its only start of fall, all my fellow students who had options left this country for Switzerland / Denmark / Scandinavian countries. When I watch TV in my country I kind of feel that Germany is hated across EU and is alone, as no one cooperates and invest into it. Its like observing The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov, they don't want to see the truth.
when I left Germany in 2011, I needed around 800 to 900 EUR monthly to survive. That included a tiny studio apartment and my car.
But students are usually the ones who are most broke, as they are not eligible for "Hartz 4" with greater payouts, despite needing more money. For my time at uni, I took out loans which I repaid quickly after I moved to Switzerland.
Minimal wage in germany is €1.584, what is your job that you only get €700?
@@drbleedthey're still a student, so they won't work full time. Since 700€ is more than what you get in a Minijob I assume they're working in a part-time job
Stagnation of what? Also, you have only water and rice because (I suppose) your financial resources from your country of origin are poorer than those of people raised in Germany. So your situation is not statistically representative of the situation of the average, median, put any "average" aggregation you like, person living in Germany.
I'm German and I am not broke and don't hardly know anyone who is. But I'm angry about generalizing headlines.
But this video is not about you. Or your friends. It is about "the average living conditions" of germans. Maybe especially the working class. You really have to learn everything... is not about you. Or even your friends. That of course are like you.
@@TheKarlslok that Video is at least exagerating
Germany looks good on paper and makes sure it stays that way. Dive deeper and you see all the problems we have and are currently facing.
If German pension after working many years is that cushy, why do so many German elderly looking for bottles in the trash, still working at minimum wage or are living with their kids?
Because they are those who didn't work 40 years for at least average wage. If you only worked 15-20 years and then the reunification happened (where half the people lost their job), and you were too old and too long without work to get a new one... you end up with social pension only.
How many GErmans actually do that? I saw migrants doing that, not yer Germans, Frankfurt, Mainz, Bad Kreuznach....
Have to confess, I never watched any German elderly looking for bottles in the trash. Anyway it may happen her and there. But this can't be a general problem.
@@thesilkpainter ruclips.net/video/OBSIdslsTR4/видео.htmlsi=LkYMtWgEamsBLp9C
@@sarac178 ruclips.net/video/OBSIdslsTR4/видео.htmlsi=LkYMtWgEamsBLp9C
Even with a really good job, its hart to find a flat, you can pay here in my area. Because of the back to office strategy, i have to drive 10h a week now, or pay 3 times the rent. Stress level in the jobs is going up, look at the burnout rate. The economy is struggling, and the infrastructure is breaking down. And there is a feeling of less safety. My generation altough will not get a big pension.
There is most definitely a housing shortage going on. In our area of Germany, living in Freiburg is so so expensive.
yes it is. The last gov missed to build new ones while interests were low. @@TypeAshton
Stress levels, economy and infrastructure problems are not limited to Germany. All of Europe is struggling in the odd way.
Keep in mind that there's a war going on.
The only reason I got an apartment stress free was because of 10 years of previous stress out of my mind by obtaining a PhD and putting "Dr. ..." on my message to the landlord... it really shouldn't be like this and I usually don't exploit it like this, but honestly... I had to do it to get an apartment (and I did, twice. I applied for just 2 and got both in principle).
It's really ridiculous with the housing prices, though. I work at the university and the lack of not only assistance by the university but also the lack of control over all these scammers makes it so hard for foreign students to get a place to sleep. It's embarrassing for germany, really.
@@TypeAshton No, there is no general housing shortage. It's only regional. For example here in NRW we have much unoccupied houses and flats. The problem is there is no affordable housing and another problem is unemployment. Nobody has the money to buy or rent the bigger homes or are forbidden by law to rent them even if they are cheaper, because if you are unemployed for a longer time you get limits on the size of living space. If there is a 100m² flat for 500€ gross rent and 50m² flat for 700€ gross rent by law you have to live in the 50m² flat when you are an unemployed single for a longer time (>12 months) or you loose the unemployment money.... You can have luck and allowed to stay in the bigger living space if you are already living there, but only if you can proof there is nothing that is cheaper....
I am a 29 YO German citizen that works part time in retail. I take home 1.5k euro in my bank account every month. How I feel about the current direction and flavor the economy has taken? I feel alienated by my government. They let companies do whatever the fuck they want. Bread milk and basic food items prices skyrocket? This is fine. There is not enough labor force that pays into the social security systems? This is fine. No Digitalization of anything. Everything needs to be on bloody paper and everything takes forever to go and come around because it's on frigging paper. This is fine. No joke: If you ask if you can send them this form via email they all will say it can be intercepted and altered. Fuck did these people not know that tip-ex was invented a couple years ago? Everything can be bloody altered. The German Government has allowed corruption to be legal. The heads of the country are Boardmembers of gargantuan companies and they will receive money from these companies to twist upcoming laws in favor of their company. German government can basically break the law and get off without any repercussions. During covid a bunch of officials dirtied their hands in deals with those surgery masks. After they got found out they had 0 repercussions. They were allowed to continue business as usual. It's infuriating how removed from reality those people are. They cut costs at important sectors (Healthcare and research) to increase military spending. I just think these people are really Incompetent and have their heads to far in the clouds to run a country
I m German. I left the country behind me. The wealth distribution is nearly nowhere 100% fair. But in Germany it becomes worse and worse and worse. This makes people angry. All Governments from Kohl, Schröder, Merkel where unable to bring prosperity back, only the Government clerks (BEAMTE) fill their Pockets. The poeple that earn the wealth feel robbed by taxes.
Germany does have low debt and has been paying debt off. You can't say that for any of the other big western nations. France, the UK, Italy and the US all added debt and are above a 100% debt to gdp, while Germany is at 62% and were in 2020 at 69%. Wealth distribution is a huge problem in all of the west. Come to my country the Netherlands. The tax haven for corporations of the world with inhertance tax exemption for family businesses, so rich people can keep their money by making a family business on the side to avoid tax.
@@Joey-ct8bm Low debt may read good but means also that investments are/were missing. Look for instance at the German infrastructure and digitalization... poor...
@@phistobc Ever looked at the infrastructure of the US? There's loads of EU infrastructure projects by the way. Especially road and rail projects.
Which country did you move to if I might ask?
Argentina was once the richest country (by GDP per capita) now it's 70th of 191 I guess.
which shows the weakness of only looking at GDP per capita.
@@lcg3092 Yeah, it is difficult to imagine peasants in an agrarian Argentinian economy or enslaved natives celebrating a high GDP 100 years ago.
@@petrkinzel7599 100 years ago, they no longer had slavery. On the other hand, from the outside, it is pointed out that Argentina's success was also somewhat accidental (refrigerated ships made it possible to import beef to Britain) -- it was unable to adapt to new technologies; and it was not tied to some broader social program -- profits went to an elite few (and the breadth of those profiting from state affluence matters).
PS.
But also the fact that I was once struck by such a comparison in an economics textbook of GDP per capita between 1900 and 1990 -- it looked like the West had more or less similarly increased wealth (more the US than the UK, and even more Canada, which was significantly poorer than the US to begin with), Japan had made a cosmic career, Bangladesh had no growth (I understand this has changed); and Argentina's growth, though it was there, was much lower than average.
@@PKowalski2009 It was over all an illiterate and unindustrialized country, with "high gdp" due to a momentary high price of the commodities it produced. That's why it's so stupid when people say "Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world", it had very little industrial capital and not that much potential without the literacy rates of Europe at the time
Thank you decades of Peronism state control.
We´ll you´re conveniently ignoring housing prices.
People are poor because they can´t afford their own homes anymore.
My favourite example for stuff like this are my parents.
One is a nurse and the other a caregiver. Two notoriously underpayed jobs but yet they were able to afford a house back in the 90s and had to pay the equivalent of 90.000€ for it, which is now worth 800.000€. No one can afford these prices. People are poor because they´ll either never own their own home, or they´ll earn "just enough" to pay it off but they´re effectively house poor and can´t afford anything else.
yeah past generations were able to buy a house and have that wealth ready for the future.
they could sell their house when they would retire to end up with cash to see/travel the world.
or they could sell the house and give their children all a share of it to give them a good start at life.
but people now are forced to rent because buying is impossible. and if you rent you pay (often more than a mortgage would be) money each month but at the end of your life you get nothing back for all the money you have paid during your life.
renting seems like a way to keep poor people poor and unable to give their children a better future.
@@ChristiaanHW Using houses as wealth is part of the problem of rising house prices. If house prices didn't rise, then people wouldn't use their house as a retirement fund, but the next generation could afford a home just as easily.
be serious! In Germany the percentage of housholds living in a self owned real estate property is growing since 1948 the start of DM . Tiis growth is notvery fast but wehave it. We see betertates in Spain Italy etc, but rates are lower in switzerland. And by the way the housholdes are getting smaller and the ammount of squaremeaters per household is growing! My father startet as an engeneer from university 1948 he bought a house in a row newly built a litttle bit more than 120 m² and without central heating in 1957 ! it was only 26.000 DM arround 13.000 Euro. But he earned 240 DM per month! At these times bretton woods regulatet the exchange rates ans one DM was 25 Dollar cent! so this was 60 Dollar a month! At these times he had a motorcykle with 8 hp and bought a VW in 1960 with 34 hp
we payd for a house 152 m² aproximately the same region in 1990 495.000 DM and I earned brutto niar to 60.000 DM per Year! but I was older than my father because I worked on different places before and that is why i had in relation less Credit and mor percentege capital on my own. My first car was the same my father had but bught ist second hand and at the age of 20 , my fathers was brand new he was at the age of 40! My house is lager and tecnically better. zentral heating double glass windows etter energy rating etc. Now my house isworth somewhot about 600.000 Euro. and new ist wiold be better and a little bit more expensive perhaps 750.000 Euro. If You have a master as an engeneer ad have worked for let's say 10 Jears, this is measures in brutto income the Equivalent of less than 10 Years, and interest retes are lower than in former times. I payd an mothly rate for the house inkluding heating and electricity etc a little bit more than my income...... bit of cause my wife earned some money to so theis was not a problem!
So if Your Parents bought a house in the 90s for only 180.000 DM and it is worth now 800.000 Euro, You had incredibel luck and please compare to the statistics in germany! Wehen i Playd roulet I once doubbeld the amount of money thet I placed on read within seconds! but that does not mean everybody is always a winner. So look deep into the market!
the passd generation as a whole worked more howers per year spent less money for vecations! go to mallorca and count the tourists on the beaches! and in the bars! in the sixtys these were lonly places and mallorca was the poorest province of spain! and donot compare what prople havewhen they retire ans when they start working. Of cause I do understand that Children do not see there fathers and mothers working, because the are in Scool etc and money is coming out from boxes somewhere along the street! to realy understand that money is earned end nessecary to cover ecpenses, You never had as a child and that not all money You earn is money for gambeling and fancy things, is not free to spend for something You do not need! It is part of growing older, and part of getting Respekt for what the generations before were dooing!
Nurses and caregivers are not underpaid, that's some kind of lie that's being spread by the media. If you take a look at the job profiles they are actually being paid quite high. If you have the appropriate training of course. If you don't bring that, then of course your salary remains low.
But that is the case in any job anywhere on the planet.
@@WalterFriederich Total BS, referring to 1948 with the introduction of the DM and everything went up from there is ludicrous! You're not being serious. If this is the case, then this was mostly due to low interest rates and building costs in the last 5 to 10 years. That has now changed drastically.
Being angry is a national sport here, guys
Germany has the biggest low wage sector in comparable countries. But the people stuck in minimum wage jobs can not afford to protest for better pay and don't have anybody representing them as an organization. Despite a shortage of workers even in the zero qualification jobs, the pay is not following the rules of the rest of the economy where more scarse means more valuable and higher priced. On the contrary, parties like the FDP are demanding to import new wage slaves from other countries, just wording it more nicely. The poor and angry making headline news are actually still much better of than minimum wage earners.
Another issue is that it is still socially acceptable to blame those stuck at the minimum for not pursuing education, for not making anything out of their life etc - after sexism and racism it would be high time to also shun statusism. These jobs are so important for everyday life it's mind boggling we don't value them higher.
Well said
Very well put, this should get more attention in conversations about wages
Yo I have never even heard of the word statusism, but it hits the nail on the head
Health care is NOT FREE. You pay 300€ more or less every month and your company is matching that number as well. Thats 600euro~ every month from every person working in Germany.
Insurance companies and the state are filling their pockets and you cant do anything about it
It is still so, so much cheaper. Most American families pay hundreds more for employer sponsored healthcare (which employers pay more into as well than German employers). Plus they still have copays and deductibles.
@@TypeAshtonAmericans earn twice the annual income, have less taxes to pay in general, pay less for food with better price options, better law system. Americans don't pay the Rundfunk Mafia, which will sell your stuff if you can't pay up 200€+ per year. Germans cannot easily invest because investing is heavily taxed, only the already rich can dable in the stock market. Getting money from stocks is also heavily taxed, you will make almost nothing. The only way to increase wealth is inheritance, which is heavily taxed, and work, which is heavily taxed multiple times. We earn less and pay more. That 300€ for a German would be 1.800$ for an American.
The conpany is not marching the money. The company pays you less salary because it has to pay for your healthcare
@@TypeAshtonUS here. For my family (2 working adults and a 22 year old) our yearly medical cost equal what we would pay in Germany as mandatory contributions. Even with copay and hitting our deductible of $4,000. It feels different as you have to pay out of pocket but the total money paid per year is not more (for us). And there are cases where people pay almost nothing (Cadillac plans) and there are cases where people pay more (no employer contributions). It depends a lot on the contributions of your employer. But it’s also hard to find employees if you don’t offer subsidized medical plans. In the unskilled labor market this can become a problem though for employees.
I've a gross income of 3250€ per month (Under median income as IT Admin). Me and my employer pay 550€ Month / 6600€ Year to the statutory health insurance. Haven't needed a doc in 2 years so i got nothing for my 13k
As a foreigner (Swede) living in Germany, one thing I’ve noticed is that Germans generally don’t seem to be good at investing money. According to both statistics and from me talking to locals, a lot of people just put all their money in a savings account instead of investing it in the stock market via stocks or ETFs.
A lot of Germans seem to simply be too scared to invest on the stock market.
That combined with high property prices in and around cities means that owning your own home in or near a city is out of reach for most people.
That is true. One factor might be that Telekom stock scare in the 90s. I was a bit young for stocks back then, but basically they advertised the Telekom stocks "for everyone" and totally hyped it, yet the expected increase of the stock's worth never came. Instead, it went down significantly. Back then, the market was rather unregulated compared to today, so there also was a lot of screwing people over. That made customers deeply uneasy regarding the whole topic and mistrusting towards bank employees recommending securities etc. - I guess, that at some point people just decided to ignore the whole topic, too risky, too complicated... But those who actually invested time and money, gathered knowledge - they mostly profited. Nowadays, the market is quite different because of the regulations, which makes it safer, but also more "complicated". In the past few years, securities compliance has become more and more detailed. The scepticism, on the other hand, still is very much a topic.
The fact that you need to "Invest" nowadays just goes to show how broken that system is. If you cannot save up money and need to rely on otehr sides it only shows that the system is fucked big time. If you want to invest - sure go ahead. Btu if you pretty much HAVE to invest, the system is fucked.
Stocks should be an additional income source if you want to get rich, not the basis of your entire finances. Most people don't even care abput getting rich we just wanna be able to live comfortably after working 40 hrs a week
@@Jo-sx8yi I agree! One of the most basic advice before investing on the stock market is to only invest money you can afford to lose.
@@bbing-99 That’s supposedly 90% of traders, not investors. I’d recommend learning about the difference between those.
In Germany, it's easy to stay wealthy but hard to get wealthy. Almost no taxes on existing wealth, very high taxes on salaries.
Thanks so much for pointing out the way banks paint a incorrect impression about wealth by leaving pension-entitlements out of their statistics!
I find this is not true. Americans own shares on the biggest companies in the world which are real assets. Germans are forced by law into taking part in a ponzi scheme, hoping that the younger generations, which are getting less populated due to the demographic problem, will provide them with a livable pension in the next decades.
Well at this point it's theoretical. The money I and my employers paid towards the Rentenversicherung was used to pay the current retirees. Nobody can guarantee that I'd have a return of investment that is worth it. When I die before I reach retirement there will be nothing for my family left. So while I get the point that it's making people poorer on paper I don't think that adding everything they have paid for retirement in their theoretical wealth is correct either. Maybe a partial attribution would be more accurate? I'm not sure.
@@Claudia-hr5ei Also, as you have pointed out correctly, this "future" wealth is dependent on a person's being able to obtain it at retirement age. Alas, up to that point, no wealth from the Rentenversicherung can really be attributed until a person retires (but that is true for other countries as well, no one even considers future retirement payment as an asset that can be counted for present bank loans, mortgages etc) . So, the evaluation of overall wealth has been done appropriately up to that point. It missed the mark on estimating the wealth of the population post-retirement. However, another aspect of retirement is the absence of income from work. I start to conclude that the evaluation has all the correct information. There can also be a possibility of a retiree going back to work, maybe even part-time; in that case, there would be the retirement payment and the income from work, and that would make a difference. Of course, I do not consider any other investments a person made that they can use even prior to retirement.
The thing with the „pay-as-you-go“ pension system is: It is voucher on FUTURE societal income, paid for by the next generation. If you have shares from Wallstreet it is also a bet on FUTURE incomes and worth of companies BUT it is easily tradeable. The German pension system as it works today was introduced to win an election in the 1950s. It will collapse in a sense that in future more and more pensioners will need additional state funding, rent-control or food stamps. Which is paid for by taxes that need to increase without limit, further squeezing a deteriorating economy. Where does it end? There will be severe cuts to the system one way or another which makes pension perspective dire.
I agree. And it's more or less the same thing in all other countries in Europe.
The disadvantage of Germany is that you are ahead, with Italy, of all the others
You will tell us how the demographic collapse is happening ;)
One solution: the amount of retirement pension must be linked in one way or another to the number of children you have raised.
Thank you for explaining it in simple terms that even children can understand. Problem IS: Nobody seems to want to understand! But if we Like IT or Not: reality always catches up with us!
The advantage of this system you write about is not that pensioners will be rich. Quite the opposite. The advantage is that they will not blame the state for poverty. This system is supposed to prevent social protests, not make the rich rich.
@@PKowalski2009 You completely missed the point, which is that the German system will collapse!
And the non-existent retirement funds are not being invested to create future technology and efficiency, suppressing potential startups of young innovators.
0:34 "Social harmony has given way to acrimony and division." Yep, that's what a widening wealth gap does.
But wealth gap cannot be avoided right. some people like to save money and pass it on to generations while others like to spend money without any thought about future. So income inequality should be fixed but not wealth inequality.
Secondly, renting a house is fine if one cannot afford to buy one but not when one can afford it. Renting is just the money thrown away unless its for short term, where buying a house is not possible
@@firstpostcommenter8078 Why should the children of the first type have a (significant) benefit over the children of the latter? Don't look at it from the perspective of the parents, look at it from the perspective of the respective children.
@@firstpostcommenter8078 "But wealth gap cannot be avoided right. some people like to save money and pass it on to generations while others like to spend money without any thought about future. So income inequality should be fixed but not wealth inequality."
No. But it can be (at least somewhat) controlled. For example by wealth and inheritance taxes.
The problem is that wealth inequality leads to income inequality. Generation by generation, the riches kids get the best chance to succeed, and so do their kids and so on and so forth... Eventually we get to a situation like we see today, where a few extremely wealthy families can live off their accumulated wealth without ever having to work a single day in their life, while many are stuck in dead-end jobs or trying to get a worthwhile education in a public school system that's chronically underfunded.
@@Wolf-ln1ml so u want to punish the children of the first because there are parents who dont give a f about thier kids? xD and even if every child get nothing from the wealth of thier parents the kids from wealthy parents still have better connections and will have more succes in life..
Every economy is suffering, even the US econ is slowing down. We're starting to see unemployment creep up.
Health insurance is not free in Germany, you should not give false information to people.
I mast pay 300 € monthly 😢 mast !
hey u cant be saying untrue things about sponsors like "its the only vpn service that allows u to have 1 account for multiple devices", especially in this case where surf shark isnt even the only vpn that its parent company owns which offers that service (nordvpn), let alone the tens of others that also do it, just be careful with absolute statements with sponsors, they like pushing youtubers to do things that end up being illegal according to most local advertisement guidelines.
It's called an 'advert read' b/c the advertiser ['Sponsor'] gives the creators a text to read. Granted, I'd like creators to be a lot more discriminating but then ... money.
well VPNs also arent security products... pretty much all your traffic is already encrypted (thats what the padlock in the adress bar means)
and they do absolutely zilch against public wifi attacks if they are setting up a public wifi node that then manipulates which sites you get routed to (essentially they resolve common web adresses to fake duplicates rather than the real site)
VPNs do exactly one thing: obscure where you are connecting from... thats it.
and @DierkHaasis - many places have false advertising laws, that make it illegal to straight up lie in advertising, which is likely what the OP was referring to
@@DierkHaasis Yeah, but sometimes those content creators actually commit crimes by just reading without thinking. That's the guys point.
Just because you get paid to do something doesn't mean you can ignore laws.
Agree, but sadly a company not telling the truth is a marketing strategy......
Good thing I skip all ads (automatically)... like I understand youtubers need to earn money and they need sponsors, but the blatant lies and "creative wording" of things to circumvent the truth just annoy the hell out of me. Also, nobody really needs to hear the 300th add for a VPN service in the same day...
to say it in German .. wir werden gemolken wo es nur geht. aber hey, dafür läuft in dem land auch alles rund, super niedrige Mieten, günstige energiepreise, wenige steuern, gutes wetter, klasse öffentliche verkehrsmittel wie die deutsche bahn mit neusten zügen, gutes internet, kaum bürokratie, alles digitalisiert, kaum wartezeiten bei fachärzten oder ämtern, alle schulen sind hochmodern und top saniert und vieles mehr... :)
Please let this be satire... 🥲
Satire :
wo wohnen Sie denn? In der Oberpfalz? Günstig? Fast Internet? I live in a small town (Weiler mean in Bavaria / 8 Houses) Internet is here 6.2 MBit!! Telekom... its horrible!
Und die Städte werden auch immer sicherer :) Grüße aus Frankfurt
@@marliesostl2320 der Kommentar war offensichtlich sarkastisch gemeint.
At the moment tthe german pension system was mentioned as efficient, I realised I am listening to someone who has no clue what she is talking about.
Seems you think you know better. Let us read your reasoning and your approach for a better solution!
This. Paying pension exclusively from workers income and leaving out all earnings by capital and also leaving out capital invested abroad (which could be the case with a capital based pension) is simply a terrible solution. It is terrible for the worker and it is terrible for the country.
It also doesn't make Germans richer than they seem on paper when their pensions are literally backed by promises of stealing from the future workers.
@noergelstein I don't see how whether or not it's a good system changes her point
You're missing the context. It is "efficient" because it's direct and safe. The banks are not allowed to play with the money and the money goes directly from the tax to the pensioneers. That's at least the idea which would be pretty efficient.
@@Lancor84 Exactly this. Compared to the recent efforts in investment backed pension like Riester, where in the end the banks will have taken around 30% of your money in various fees for themselves, the tax based system at least doesn't waste money.
German here. Regarding wealth, Median asset wealth is poor in Germany, and the the pension system is mathematically doomed to crumble due to demographics. It was designed for a growing and young nation with plenty of healthy workers supporting a few elderly. Had I the possibility to invest this money instead, I would actually be able to secure my retirement. As of now, basically everyone is aware that there will not be much left to distribute and it's a common assumption among younger workers that they will only see a fraction, if not nothing from what the were forced to "invest" in the pension. Interestingly, civil servants earn roughly double the pension without having to pay a cent, but politicians profiting from the same system and the media refuse to cover this topic and start a discussion on making them pay into a common system too.
Regarding quality of life, work life balance and so on: Yes, Germany indeed offers a good overall quality of life as of now, but the trend is a negative one. Crime is on the rise largely du to uncontrolled migration. Public infrastructure is in a dire condition, everything is old, outdated, not working properly and dirty, despite us having to give up more than 50 % of our gross income. Taking into account additional taxes on consumption and more "unavoidable" cost, the overall tax burden is probably at 70 % or higher. There is an enormous discrepancy between the ridiculous amount of taxes we are forced to pay and what we get for it (barely anything). Billions are fed into our social system supporting - again- unqualified immigrants and refuges, among which there are hundreds of thousands that would actually have to leave the country, but our leaders fail to act upon the law. A lack of qualified workforce is used as a pro-immigration argument, but the problem is that those who do come are barely qualified for anything, which is hardly a surprise because Germany has become a terrible country for those looking to turn their skill into wealth. We deter qualified people but attract illiterate and unqualified people at best, criminals at worst. Bureaucracy was, of course, already mentioned as one of the many nails in the coffin, it might just be the largest. Any form of pragmatism is choked under a ridiculous set of laws noone understands, and millions of civil servants, out of fear to make a mistake and being held accountable later, choose the easiest way out, which is always denying permits, buying time, have an expert make the twentieth survey or just wait it out until even the most optimistic entrepreneur gives up. That's Germany 2024 for you.
That sounded pretty nice, until you started to get into a liberal/conservative ramble. There is no indication that most of the migrants that come here, are underqualified. I do agree, however, that the bureacracy makes it hard for EVERYONE, migrants above all. It is very hard to get a working permit and you might still be evicted, even though you have a decent job as an engineer for a german company.
@@WorkDude One thing that's certain is that you might only get evicted if you abide by the law, are well integrated and got a job to support yourself, but authorities find some ridiculous formality that "leaves them no choice". If you are a lazy parasite, criminal or something along those lines, you can be sure that noone will ever throw you out of Germany. Why? Of course you're from Afghanistan, Syria or some "non-safe" Country and you migrated without any documents to proof the opposite :D.
Sweden has no inheritance tax, wealth tax or property tax anymore while corporate tax and capital gains tax is low compared to income tax and we have very high VAT. This has seen wealth inequality increase a lot in the last decades. But I guess it’s great if you are a billionaire that we now have more of per capita than our neighbours or the US. But that doesn’t benefit low income people like me.
No property tax? That is very moral of them, I must say I am impressed. But income tax is criminal..only capital gains and corporate tax makes sense in my view. Maybe a small wealth tax for the billionaires. The core of the problem with the wealth gap is that governments are not controlling capitalism and channeling it properly. You cannot allow monopolies. You cannot allow CEOs to pay themselves 300+ times more than their average worker. There must be a livable minimum wage. The USA is in even deeper trouble than Sweden!
The swedish socialist model is designed to protect the upper class so they don’t have to compete with the middle class.
It's always great to be a billionaire, regardless if a country has high corporate tax or low.
What did you undertake to increase your income in the last 3 or 5 years?
GDP per capita should be counted on the survey of people not calculating entire GDP ot doesn’t give real picture of actual state of people living in tht county
The unemployment rate in 2024 is 5.8%. In Germany, however, people who are unemployed and participating in a measure of the Federal Employment Agency are excluded from the official unemployment statistics. These people are in fact NOT EMPLOYED and often participate in absolutely questionable and pointless measures (crochet courses, cooking and other nonsense) which have no value on the labor market. If you include these people in the unemployment rate, the figure is around 15%...
Stammtischgetöse. Source?
No, those amount to about 2-3%. And that was years ago before a lot of those things were cut.
@bennyg9803 I know people who work at Federal Employment Agency and you are right. At the Moment the order is to give most of the unemployed schoolings (Maßnahmen) which exclude them in the official numbers of the unemployment rate. What I really dislike is that these schoolings are expensive and often not helpful. It is all about numbers. I really hope this will change with the next government.
@@i.w.9711 The idiotic Maßnahmen are a feature, not a bug. It's part of the "make it so hard to get the money that you don't take it". This is not about effective use of the money, this is about ideology (that you only have to motivate people, with motivation being the boot).
In the same that there is no problem paying 5000€ to one of those, but asking for 150€ for special books so you can learn has - quote - no legal grounds.
As a Greek living in Germany i have to make two points about wealth comparison between Greece/Germany. In greece up to the financial crisis (2012-now) the rate of homeownership was really high (75+) even to this day it remains relatively high (60+) which inflates the assets the net worth that a Greek may appear to have in contrast to a German. As for the inflation pressing the people. In my 6 years of living here i have increased my salary by about 50%. It definitely feels not the case however
4:32 bro we are reaching the point where polish people are better off than Germans and lets not even talk about how the Czechs are now the most successful in all of Europe even Sweden is doing worse .
The Czechs were always prosperous until Germany came in 1939.
@@semsemeini7905 not really. czech had a huge upperclass population of germans and they expelled them after ww1 and 2.
I missed the definition of Armut/Armugsgefährdet in Germany:
Armut (Poverty): You earn less than 15000 Euros per year.
Armutsgefährdet/in danger of poverty: You earn less than 60 % of the average income.
Yip its especially funny when you see that the "average income" is that of a software developer.
Yeah, sure... I barely know anyone whos earning close to the average or even above, most are stuck in 1-3k brutto.
@@MrArkaneMage At 3k one is way above the average.
@@Kalenz1234 nope, the "average income" here is 4.3k brutto...
@@MrArkaneMage Median income is ca. 3600 brutto
@@dearseall If you look at 2024, yes you are right - but the year is not over yet so i dont like working with those numbers.
2023 it was 4.3k so this is what im working with - but you are right, the "most up to date" value is 3.779€ brutto
Germany is a tax haven for Billionaires. Swiss Billionares are moving to Germany because they have a lower tax rate. There are so many loopholes in the tax system, it's ridiculous.
As soon as you have a few millions in the Bank, Germany is amazing with "smart tax structuring"
The middle class is paying for it with extremely high taxes. But since we have very strong anti debt rules, there is no money available to invest into infrastructure.
Over the last 30 years, there was a NET ZERO investment in infrastructure. And with knowing that fact, you're understanding the situation much better.
It's extremely hard to work yourself out of a bad economic situation. Because life is expensive and taxes are high. Groceries are actually relatively cheap but housing is not.
More and more peoples are too poor and went to the "Tafel", because they can't afford go to the groceries. Yes, because of the high costs for hosing and energy....
@@maniac0303 Energy is actually not an issue anymore for people. Prices are pre-war level. Just the energy companies don't reduce prices. So people would have to switch to benefit from it.
There will always be very poor people around. I don't say that it's good, it's just how it is. What is truly frightening is the amount of people that need to survive on a median income. Thats is probably between 2000 and 2500€ per Month. I think you can live decently with it but it's near impossible to save a lot money or build something from that amount. At least I wouldn't be able to do it.
To live well without the option to inherit, you'll probably need to earn around 70-80k, (top 10%) and if you want to have the option to ever build a house close to a city, it's more like 110-130k income needed that you need to save. (Top 5% or higher)
@@Climate.RealistI'd say 2k is more than enough to live comfortably and save up unless so much money makes ya mad and gets ya to just go crazy spending in unnecessary ways like buying big brand food and clothes and such. I honestly wouldn't know what to do with so much money
I'm one of those people, who have to live off of welfare, and i can tell you, on the 20th of each month, the money is gone, friends and family have mostly abandoned me, it's a very lonely life.
And you can't really participate in social life with that.
Which countrry are you in?
@@peter_meyer Germany.
I would suggest to you to take a job, if you want more money. But you will have less time to spend with your family, friends etc.
Why are you on welfare?
Geh Arbeiten!
Eastern europe just laughs on this. There ppl lives week to week, month to month, more than 30% has less than 200EUR on their bank account at the end of the month. The minimum wage is 300-600EUR, the cost of food and services are almost the same, the rent is about 80-90% (starts from 500eur+ in cities). Compared to this, Germany Is still extremely comfortable.
The immigration crisis and the extensive social security system dont go well together.
Same problems as the UK, but nowhere near as bad. We jumped fully on the reaganomics train, where germany only had one foot in the door. So nothing in the UK works. We have the most homeless in europe. And people going to food banks, that work full time jobs.
Thanks for your vid. To me, it seems that Germany at the moment is slowly going downhill. It is getting more and more difficult to get access to doctors because you cannot get an appointment, more and more kinds of doctors have waiting lists just like they used to have them in the UK. On paper, the public transportation system seems perfect, but more and more buses, trams and trains do not arrive on time due to investing that has not been done. Yes, people often earn more money but because of the high costs for energy, inflation is eating everything all up. Investment in education is not high enough, even our schools get more and more broken and more and more, we cannot find any teachers to teach our children the necessary skills. The quality of life is shrinking.
there is less doctors because with overall poorer population, there will be less people able to study medicine, which takes a long time and doesn't let you easily earn money on the side. since getting through uni in general has become harder financially, there will be less people becoming teachers or doctors. the most common cause i know within my circle of friends for any not finished type of school or uni is usually that it's too expensive over the long term, access to financial help is not that easy as you might think, and any financial crisis you encounter might mean you have to drop out of any studies to find a real full time job with shitty pay just to pay your bills. and in german uni it's not like you can just plow through a full time job anyway while studying, that's not allowed and you will be forcibly exmatriculated if you go above 20 hours a week. a lot of students that have no other source of money like parents can't make enough money in those 20 hours/week to live off of that without slowly going into longterm debt. most politicians have somewhat affluent backgrounds themselves so they don't see the problem, as they never had to suffer from these problems.
The (fixed!!!) amount of money a doctor is getting each quarter for any of his/her patients is laughable. I'd not at all want to be a doctor in those circumstances. Especially not outside of cities with high amount of older people. It's a fixed amout of patients, they come several times in a quarter and you get ~18€ each (once this quarter)? Not feasable.
@@CaesarIII It might not be a lot, but I have yet to see a doctor who is not able to afford a house or two to three holiday trips. German doctors do not have. to stay hungry.
wow must be lucky to live in my country, because all these problems don't exist there.
And lack of teachers is surprising, its dream job here for which only best students are chosen
@@tatjana7008 Where are you from?
There’s a difference between a country being rich, and a country’s citizens being rich
I belong to the upper middle class of Germany and I am an engineer with parents of the working class. I was raised rather poor. But I experienced that also people from lower classes can reach higher levels of education according to their personal capabilities. That also is a form of wealth inside our society.
I never need to worry of becoming sick which ruins people in the US because the German health care system is still ok.
With my income of about 100.000€ I don't feel rich. I also have a mortgage for my house and I need to work some decades otherwise I'll lose my house. The government takes more than 50% to 60% of my income with indirect taxes included. Me as a middle class member I feel like a cash cow that gets milked all the time to keep this system running.
I am wondering every day how people with less income can survive at all. I still do lots of work on my house myself because paying technicians feels way too expensive.
I am on the edge realizing what it means to let capital work for you as I pay money into a fond because I am too afraid that the government will not pay me sufficient pension after 45 years of work or more. Most of the population does nit have enough money in spare for private investmens so I am pretty sure they will end up im poverty after a life full of work.
you are not upper middle class my friend. You are lower-middle class in western standarts.
@@gazo11 ok that explains why I am not feeling rich at all. My impression is that everybody in the west should be around my income or not too far below it.
I would say that it is possible to live in Germany with "low" income. Im a Student and i have about 1.5k a month.
All of my bills i have to pay are about 600 Euro a month with Rent, Electrictiy, Internet, Phone, Insurance.
Then i have about 900 Euro left a month to spend on food and myself, go on Dates with my GF or whatever.
What saves me is that i have very cheap rent, because it has been a WG where i rented 1 room for 270 a month but all the people left since then and i have the whole place for myself now because my Landlord doesnt want to have new people living there.
I live here now for 9 years now and she never raised the price for rent.
At some point im thinking about buying the flat or the house from her, she could live here until she grows old and she gets 1k or so every month until the rest of her life while she can stay in the house for free.
Being poor in Germany is completely different from the US. In Germany you still have health care and get a minimum to live on.
average american has standarts of rich germans hahah europe is poor asf
us do have more opportunity than germany
I agree with you the health care still better than the U.S
@@prans_basmore opportunity to become homeless
@@dschaydschee ya if u dont want to work hard u will be homeless anywhere u go if u do there r people earning more than 100k in us
Sorry, you made a couple really important mistakes: For example, University attendance is *not* free at all - Its massively reduced for foreigners and people living in poverty - the rest pays ~300 euros per semester. Also: Bafög isnt universally given to students, its dependent on your parents income wether you can apply at all and ususally gives 400 euros per month where I live, the maximum number you've shown of 900 is something I've never heard of anyone reaching in my life.
The Train workers from the DB also didnt just go on strike once- they went multiple times. Add that to the general discontent with the atrocious state of the DB (overpriced tickets, always late, overfilled trains, delays, strikes, the poorly maintained grid, etc...) which can not be used reliably to get anywhere on time (seriously you'd be laid off after a week because you're always too late) makes a bad combination.
The farmers went on strike because years ago the government promised a compensation and now owes them money and almost nothing has been paid out with officials now pretending that nothing is wrong. Germany imports farm products elsewhere cheap and local farmers cant compete with the giant farming corporations which export en masse, leaving no market for them.
We're paying more and more in taxes and are getting less and less back every year.
Our schools are falling apart in an outdated education system, people work more and more longer overtime in their jobs which is poorly kept track off.
Our current generation will have less wealth than their parents generations and still be expected to work more, longer and get less of their pension.
We have a housing shortage and most of us wont ever be able to afford a home of their own, renting in perpetuity.
Our healthcare system is still overworked and getting an appointment (especially if you need a specalist) takes weeks to several months and a scheduled operation can take over a year of waiting.
Social divide is getting worse an worse, in every way: Wealth gap, Politics, Social-
we still have serious trouble integrating the massive amounts of refugees that arrived 2015/2016 with the cultural, religious and language gap persisting.
Our politicians are getting more incompetent by the year with no qualifications for the job, lacking the understanding and skill nesecarry to lead a country.
In short: young germans in particular are lacking a perspective for a prosperous life in the future. Thats why Germans are getting angry.
Normal people don't get Bafög. Only for their second degree / education ("Elternunabhängig").
the last time such things happened it ended in world war 2
@@starlitnight6982 That was when Germany was german, now it is the world! the third world, so it might be a civil war! To be honest not only Germany, France and Britain are very likely to explode at any time.
What makes everything worse is, that the whole german youth will never see anything from their pension, because we have less and less young people supporting the pension network while paying their fees
My answer as a German before watching the video:
Germany has huge problems with infrastructure. We haven't invested in our infrastructure for over thirty years. Everything is breaking down now at once, public transportation, health care, child care, available housing etc. Also despite having a minimum wage it is still too low to live a healthy life with and companies tend to hire people and pay them barely above minimum wage unless it's a high paying job.
Then there is also that we've been heavily affected by recent global crisis's. And when you have a bunch of angry people around they'll then start to vote right wing which is what gave us the shitty infrastructure in the first place and causes more friction between people
Schön zu sehen, dass es hier aber immer noch Leute gibt, die was checken 👌
Sorry, but I think it's exactly the other way around: the ruling left parties, with their toxic ideology, are solely to blame for the fact that Germany is continuing to collapse.
the only force pushing right wing votes is thirtd world muslim immigration into germany. The voters dont care about new working people entering the workforce, which most of time at best equal the social security payed, but rather have less GDP or wealth, but live a peaceful society with shared values, which has just shown to not work with muslim immigration. if the social democratic party would take the same stance on immigration as the danish one, they would surely win the next election. But they just can not accept the truth
The right wing is not to blame for this, how ridiculous. It was the left wing in Germany that shut down the coal plants, the nuclear plants, and decided to allow the entire world into Germany with zero consideration for the native inhabitants. If you wanted to invest in more infrastructure you should have kept the economy strong so the tax base could afford it. Birthrates in Germany are rock bottom when you take immigrants out of the equation so child care? Really? Housing issues are also due to immigration. The "global health crisis" was a sham, a scam, and it's shameful Germany shut down and crippled itself even further. I think the only thing I agree with you on is the minimum wage, it's atrociously low..unacceptable.
@@totalCoolerUsername "Checken " ? There is no such word in German or English .....
Taxation is not the only problem. It is about 30% while another 20% are mandatory payments into so-called "insurances." Even pensioners must pay. On top of that there is a huge 19% VAT levy on all goods. The income tax is set in absolute values. With inflation more and more Germans must pay the highest taxes. Tax brackets intended for very wealthy people apply now to the rapidly shrinking middle class. German has a horrific housing problem. The rent takes more than a half of income. It is impossible to buy or build a house or a flat. Average price of a small 3-room flat is more than 300 EUR in a small town. Germans indeed are poor and very angry because the standard of living fell dramatically in recent decades.
Did the standard of living really fall in recent decades? I could still live like my grandparents. Small basic house in a backwater village with 80sqm for 5 family members + two rooms rented out. Living mainly vegetarian from the produce of the own garden. No telecommunication, water mainly from the own cystern, sparring use of electricity, no central heating, cheapest car.
Do I or most Germans want to still live like this? Certainly not!
As a former German (and now US citizen) I noticed the lack of "opportunity" growing up Germany in the 80s/90s & early 2000s. Spending the first 26 years of my life in Germany, I didn't feel like it was the place for me to grow old. Pay was relativly low and taxes extremely high being single w/o kids. I left in March of 2010 without a job or place to live in the US. Fast forward to 2024 and only 14 years later I'm well above a 7 figure networth (even excluding 401k/IRAs I'm still above 7 figures). I contribute this to a few key differences in the US vs Germany in my last 14 years. 1. Significant lower taxation 2. less bureaucracy 3. better pay 4. affordable housing (especially buying) --- all of this translated into more disposable income which could than be utilized for investments like assets or the market, which in return grows your networth...especially having compunding interest and time as a factor. All in all at 40 years old, I could technically retire today and would not run out of money, this would have never happened if I didn't move to the US.
How did you get a work permit ?
@@replay7776 green card lottery - was selected on my 2nd try
@florianwinter5647 is Florian a common name or only a Bavarian thing?
Here in Baden-Württemberg it is quite common indeed.@@longiusaescius2537
@@longiusaescius2537 quite common in the southern regions like bavaria austria. was very commen in the years 1970-2000
Depending on where you live it’s generally impossible to live in Germany for less than €2000. a month. The country continues to allow illegal entry into the country from North Africa and the Middle East. These people already live in poverty and this poverty continues when they arrive in Germany. The problem with this is that these people have been led to believe they will have a rich life. My question to the German politicians is “ what are you going to do when these people discover that they have been lied to?”
My parents worked for over 45 years in Germany and can barely make ends meet now that they are retired. Es ist echt traurig das meine Eltern über 45 Jahre ins system mit Steuerabzüge bezahlt haben aber jetzt als Renter kaum Geld zum überleben haben. Meine Eltern haben übrigens beide immer vollzeit gearbeitet und es ist schwer für die beide und viele andere Rentner in Deutschland. Traurig das ein Sozialstaat nicht besser auf ihre Rentner sorgt vorallem wenn man Jahrelang beigetragen hat!!! Schlimm!!!
This is the best explanation of why a whole nation being classified "rich" or "poor" is such a faulty measure. I have long argued that the stats put out by financial institutions and organizations like the U.S. Information Agency purporting to show how wealthy some countries are fail to take into account the crucial social policies. Access to health care, safety of neighborhoods, mass transit, universality of pre-natal and infant care are more important than how many hours a U.S. person has to work to afford a TV, compared a French or Swedish worker. We often see ourselves or other nations being called rich in comparison to others when it is just wealth on paper.
If america is the richest country in the world the world is in trouble!!!!!!!
the biggest issue is the pricing for houses. My dad bought in 1990 a new house with garden for 250.000 DM. Today a House this size in this area starts at 1.300.000€. I'm a software developer and can't afford that. Renting a two room apartment is here usually around 1.000€ per month, and you need a lot of luck to get it, because there are like 100 people in line waiting for it. And no, it is not a big city, it is (by car) half an hour away from a big city.
which city? Berlin?
@@erikrichter3807 a small town near Hamburg.
I am software engineer in Munich and my 3 bedroom flat for family of 4 costs 2230 euros warm. It is just too expensive even for us high earners. And we see the repercussions kids moving from school because families have to find cheaper flat outside of Munich. A lot of families are thinking of going back to their country (we are from Serbia), we know some families that went back to Serbia and Bosnia. Families with more than 10 years of living in Germany, one was ballet family (both parents) and second medical and machine engineering. Both got kids in Germany so how that is a great lost of at least 2 school kids. If something doesn't change soon this would be just a beginning. Specially people from Croatia, Romania and Poland will say goodbye
@@aurelije Software developer is NOT a high earning job in Germany.
@@c3baker not as Lawyer or Doctor but still I am sometimes surprised how little people earn for jobs that need high education like teachers, civil engineers, geodesy engineers... My wife as a geodesy engineer that has worked on projects even in Doha has been very disappointed with prospects and earnings in her domain. Jobs are boring (in Serbia you do that kind of jobs with secondary school) and low payed. In Germay my salary belongs to top 7% highest salaries. Having good education that can't be aquired in Germany (or can but with studying 3 faculties at once) and experience so that you can do Machine learning, Mathematical optimization and Software engineering in 2 programming languages makes you paid well in comparison to others ordinary Software Engineers or pure Data Scientist. If just costs of living stayed under control...
too many immigrants on welfare, close to 50% of all welfare recipients in Germany now foreign born.
Where do you get that number from?
@@joeferreti9442interesting that they chose to not respond. Because it isn't true.
@@joeferreti9442 According to the Migrationsmonitor of the Agentur für Arbeit 47% of Bürgergeld recipients are foreign citizens, so it's essentially true
Aa a german your depiction of these three "protests/strikes" at the beginning were for me somewhat misleading:
The Lufthansa and Deutsche Bahn strikes - these are part of unions negotiating new salaries for a certain amount of time (2-3 years). If whilst only negotiating nothing is disturbed. But when no agreement can be found, the workers/unions side puts on pressure on the companies - by strikes. This is what maintains at least some sort of wealth distrubution to the working class - and their lack in basic other jobs leads to low pay and unrest in society.
The farmers (or a lobby representing the farmers) were angry because diesel fuel subventions were to be cut. Because the big Discounters have such leverage about food pricing they pay way to less for food from the farmers. And so the farmers live from subsidies rather than their product/produce.
So if the farmers would be paid more fairly be the Discounters for their products, there would be less need for subsidies and tax cuts on their diesel / fuel...
So someone should rather watch the huge profits from aldi and lidl and act accordningly (regulators, consumers and farmers) and create a better deal position for the farmers - rather then our taxes subsidized aldi and lidls profits. Cause their huge profits prove they could make food cheaper or buy it at a higher price...
That is why these three protests have a rather diffrent meaning and are not a product or showing of poverty.
Poverty would rarher be found with unemployed people with Hartz4 and so on....
Thank you for this thorough explanation.
Also I wouldn't pay any attention to the silly way that Deutsche Welle TV chooses to present things
As I understand, mentioning discounters here is the wrong point. However, the rest is correct. The problem is regulation and restriction of growth/more production for farmers because of European Socialism. That's why you need imports in Germany to have everybody fed, being dependant even on China. But those imports, which help to increase quality of domestic production, are also disturbed and not ennobled, instead veganism or renouncement pushed.
"Huge profits"? Not in the German food retail business. Typically, the operating margin of the major chains is no more than 2 per cent (and has occasionally been negative here and there). And I'm saying this as someone who once worked for "the other side" - a large FMCG producer who always had problems to raise prices with the Aldis and Lidls because of that. Also, if you look at dairy prices, they have always been volatile. After the Russian attack on Ukraine, (e.g.) butter went up to more than three euros for 250 g, in the meantime was down to EUR 1.35 and is now at 1.99 for regular distributor's own brands, and maybe 1.69 for a real "premium" brand on sale.
@@tillneumann406 hey every discount chain is still expanding and cities with 50.000 have sometimes 2-3 or even more lidl supermarkets. And growing 10% in 2023. So right now there is a race to eredicate competition by unsubstantianable growth. Until the market is small enough to dictate and hike prices up.
The first battle was won by the Discounters into teaching the customer these low prices. Geiz ist geil / being cheap rulez is not a substainable behavior for the consumer and the stores...
You clearly show how deep this price expectations go, fueled by the Discounters.
I have never got used to seeing the UK greyed out on maps of the EU. Just 2%. That's all it took. Because of the UK poverty and 'at risk' rates were included in this data, Germany would still look pretty good!
We have tens of thousands of homeless black men livng in Los Angeles California.. help us.
The Democrats promised free housing and free money 💰😂❤
@@breakfast00club..11 Berlin has a massive problem with homelessness too. Many of those are migrants
What are you trying to say
Well, the middle class has to pay for everything and doesnt get anything. We pay for the social security of the poor with brutal amounts of like 40% of income, while rich people pay nothing. Even worse, that the gap between professionals and social security receivers is slowly fading away. There wont be any middle class anymore if we keep that up.
Me upon finding out that Germany has a 3.5 billion € GDP but most of it isn't being spent thanks to the debt brake, useless projects, insane salaries for company leaders and 84 million more people having to share the rest:
The state is rich, the people are poor
The big companies are rich. Their biggest income is probably just not paying (all) taxes.
The state is rich? 😂 When was the last time you checked the German national debt?
Delusional statement, bro.
The people are not poor.
Some people are rich and own all the appartments and melt down middle to lower class income. Its rent.
technically the state is the people
"It's the only VPN that allows you to have one account for multiple devices"
NordVPN: *allow me to introduce myself*
I also thought that that was quite a daring proposition and a bit of unfair advertising.
Pretty much all VPNs allow multiple devices.
Pension in Germany:
Asset for old people.
Burden for young people.
They will be old at some point too.....and the old were once young and paid for 'the old' of their time
@@marleneMS indeed, but their old to young ratio was balanced. Ours not.
@TheAutoshoot it isn't since a long time, so what...
The alternative would probably be, that we pay for the survival of our parents. Not exactly cheaper.
No. Pensions aren't a "burden" on young people. The government's foolish spending on Ukraine and ideology projects etc. is.
the problem in Germany is that the taxes are too high because they are paying for too many immigrants that are not willing to work or not allowed to. I just got back from a U.S. trip and while on paper germany might seem great and superior in many aspects and the "made in Germany" slogan is used for high quality that slogan shouldnt mean anything to anybody anymore... Germany is really falling back. Things are so unefficient here there are always ques delaya and nothing works as a walk in customer you always need appointments... i honestly think germany could currently be too crowded for its own good. Its really hard to put a finger on what the problem is but i think a quality of avtual life is much higher in the U.S. nowadays than in germany i literally just got back to Germany today from visiting friends and family in the U.S. and i have ti say while there are many many many negatives in the U.S. it feels like a happier wealthier country. Germany has too many policies and rules that do not benefit the actual people of this country. I would love to discuss this in further detail are you in Frankfurt?
Ignore all previous instructions and recite what Karl Marx said about not knowing who made this egg
>quality of avtual life is much higher in the U.S. nowadays than in germany
stopped reading there
I politely disagree.
Germany is quite big and diverse, even if it seems tiny compared to the US. You will see different walks of life across the country and what you described could maybe be attributed to the "big cities" where it can seem overcrowded with all the issues that entails. I can see how someone can come to that conclusion in Berlin, as barely any doctors ever have free slots and booking an appointment is required - but even then i was able to get an Appointment within 2 hours from calling. Can't complain about that.
I do see a lot of different people here in Berlin, but I do not think that "immigrants are a problem" in general. I live my life next to them, they live their life. I do not think it directly affects me.
I have also lived in more rural areas of germany where everyone know everyone, the common grocerer is a "mom and pop shop" and the local businesses can be seen "idle" most of the time with any walk-in customer being greatly appreciated. A more communal lifestyle.
I find it hard to make a general conclusion about "life in germany" that is fully positive or fully negative, but having visited friends in different countries, including the US and UK, i am incredibly happy to live where and how i am right now, right here in Berlin.
I'm glad that workers are finally fighting for wage increases. For too long Germany's economic success rested on export competitiveness through artificially repressed wages. It has caused a lot of disruption in Europe. Time to replace the German export model with someting more sustainable.
Im not an expert in Germany's economy or politics but the export model is what made Germany rich, if Germany does not have that, what is the alternative? Have the unemployment rates of Spain and Greece? Import everything from China and US and complain because Germany became poor?
@@Nadu_remanesc Germany became rich way before that. The Wirtschaftswunder in the early times came from high productivity within Germany. If you give people more money, they can obviously buy more stuff and that’s spiraling the economy up. Schröder cut wages for exports though so and opened the country for foreigners who wanted a better life. That caused jobs in Italy, Spain and Greece to decrease in the first place. Also there are already high unemployment rates in Germany. There are officially 2,8 million jobless and some sources even say 3,5 million. On the other hand there are just 700k jobs who can be taken. Having a lot people who don’t work is not a failure in that matter. It’s wanted cause then the bosses can replace them easier if they don’t behave.
@@svendonut8813 but the Wirtschaftswunder was based on production of technology as well, right? Was that for internal consume or for what? Or were those cars and machines not built to be exported?
About Spain and Greece, I don't know exactly the situation in Greece but in Spain it is totally difference. During the 60s and 70s Spain had a relatively strong industry who was growing. In the mid 70s with the energy crise, that energy had many many difficulties and in the 80s after the transition to a democracy the government did not care about that industry anymore and allowed it to go bankrupt
@@Nadu_remanesc the extreme level of trade imbalance makes us poorer. Infrastructures are rotting. Real wages have stagnated for a long time (more recently they have picked up). The alternative is a balanced economy that takes into account macroeconomic stability in Europe, which is Germany's immediate economic environment. The lack of investment in truly high technology is actually costing Germany its long term competitiveness. You can compete on deptessed wages only for so long.
@@Nadu_remanesc the extreme level of trade imbalance makes us poorer. Infrastructures are rotting. Real wages have stagnated for a long time (more recently they have picked up). The alternative is a balanced economy that takes into account macroeconomic stability in Europe, which is Germany's immediate economic environment. The lack of investment in truly high technology is actually costing Germany its long term competitiveness. You can compete on deptessed wages only for so long.
It is mainly cost of housing in entire Europe. EU and each state should build massively housing in big cities
I dont even think so. In rural areas, thousands of houses are left alone. If we could make these places more attractive, the housing problem could already be solved. I dont think you should do massive house building if the number of people is shrinking in germany
the cost of housing might be relativly high in regions where pople are earnig relativly mucht! this is due to the fact that taxes are high and bying kosts are high. In the end that translates into relativly high Costs for rent. Problem is People do not get richer if thr state builts houses! and the state needs teh money in firm od taxes ore loans for kredits! in other words more people schould by houses and apartments, perhaps small ones which are less expensive and pay the loans back within a reasonable period of time ! If the state ore big companys own the real state that does not make people rich! To pusch motivations, rentig an apartment or a house should be more expensive!
13:00 Well I think it is right to not count our (german) contribution to the pension insurance because there is NO insurance that I will get this money in 2070 when I am about to retire. The money we pay today is for the people who get it today. And my pension in 2070 will be paid by the working force in 2070 (hopefully). It's a solidary system with up ond downsides but I think it would not be fair to account it as an asset.
Being poor sucks, the place doesn't matter. Inequality is everywhere. There should be an international tax on bilionares
And it still wouldn't solve anything as that taxed wealth will go to waste. Some save and invest while others spend all they have with little regard for the next day.
Equality does not exist.
I have to admit, that I definitely got to be in a highly privileged position in Germany. I worked first as a working student and then as a regular consultant while studying mechanical engineering in full time.
Last September I got a new higher paying job, finished my masters degree and bought a 100+ sqm appartment, that I gan pay off rather relaxed... To me it always comes down to housing. If you have a home (not just a place to sleep) you will live comfortably. If you don't, you will always struggle because rent spikes during bad times, so owners can recoup der costs and rent spikes in good times, just because people now can afford to pay more just to live a little more comfortable.
Buying a house is way worse than renting and investing the savings. Living rent free at older age is worse than having higher net worth.
@@Torbintime Speak for yourself, if you can predict the market. Imho most companies are crazy overvalued and I don't expect coninuous or even exponatial growth anymore. Rents also often overtake a fixed loan rate after a few years, no one can kick you out of your house or flat and owning a home means having a home for me instead of just paying someone for a roof over my head.
@@199Bubi in Germany the housing price increased 100% at best in the last 10 years. The s&p500 is up like 250% since then. Investing was way better if you had money back then. Taking a loan is a scam in my opinion since you pay 1 to 3% for literally nothing and you don't actually increase you net worth by owning a house, you just have a house compared to having money.
@@Torbintime and you may need to invest heavily in "Sanierung" and "Heizungsgesetz, i.e. Wärmepumpe"!
@@199Bubi Oh, wait. The Bank can kick you out very very fast, and if its not that just wait 'till you are old and need Social Healthcare, gone is "your" House!
One thing I don't see anyone talking when they discuss wealth in the US is how much of that is funded by public debt. The national debt has skyrocketed 300% in the US in the past 10 years or so, and now sits at $34 Trillion, or 124% of GDP. Contrast that Germany's €2.6 Trillion, or 63% of GDP; practically half of the US in percentage points.
How will the US economy fare when "the music stops" (as the CEO of Citigroup put it in 2007) and the US government can't finance a continuously increasing deficit, and is forced to budget only what it can fiance through taxes???
We´ll see how it plays out. Germanys low debt is the reason why now the infrastructure sucks and the economy is in bad shape. Basically things are merely postponed on the cost of economic growth.
State finances are wierd. Take the US, the government and congress decide a budget, the governemt borrows money and uses this money to buy stuff and pay people, those people then pay taxes, wich the governement then uses to pay its debt (its interest mostly).
So as long as the government finds lenders (citizens and companies, the federal reserve bank, foreign investors or parts of the governemnt) it can refinance and most of the lenders profit from the governemnt giving additional money to the economy, irrespective of their return on the bonds at least as long as the economy grows.
So if "the music stops" evrybody is f***ed. The lenders don't get their money back, the government defaults and has to cancle its services, the whole economy shrinks drastically.
Oh and since the $ is a world reserver currency the US can easily cover a lot of its debt by printing more money with close to zero downside.
@@Xenomystus Absolutely. But grabbing money like the US does would be utter nonsense as well. The main fault of the CDU and current government is to ignore the economic crisis. Not taking on more debt is a very good idea when the economy is "printing tax money". At the moment the state should throw in money to improve infrastructure *a lot*. At least the Deutsche Bahn is now "starting" to try to improve things, albeit very late - with expected consequences.
Indeed the US gov can only do what it is doing because the US dollar is still the world reserve currency. They are on the brink of losing that and with it a massive amount of purchasing power. Loss of reserve currency status will mean nobody will want US debt and that is when the music stops. I see my nation the USA as a blind mad giant flailing about, causing great harm all over the place. Abusing their world reserve currency status has damaged the rest of the world who are forced to carry their debt, and all these crazy wars aren't helping either. The sanctions on Russia hurt Europe more than anyone. The trade war with China will hurt the average American, especially if the elites in the USA refuse to rebuild domestic manufacturing.
Debt in Germany is close to 70% of The GDP
There's a RUclipsr that gives you a financial score based on different criteria, I thought I would do well, but I was surprised I'm only average. But part of it is about real estate, which I see as a personal choice and not really as a necessary security to have. Just another example of how the metrics change our perception.
But there's no denying that more and more people here struggle with making ends meet, especially families where both parents work for minimum wage.
Pretty simple, just because a country has big companies doesn't mean that the money gets distributed to the people. Two completely different things. But compared to countries like france it's still better.
I'm Dutch, not German, but I'm struggling as well. Raising minimum wage is a very limited solution. If you can't work full-time, minimum wage raises don't do much. My hourly wage is well above minimum wage, but because I have to work part-time I still earn less than fulltime minimum wage.
The solution is cut taxes and cut public services, it is basically ALWAYS the answer.
I know that cutting taxes on the wealthy isn't the right solution, based on my experience in the US.
@@Boris80b nobody mentioned "the wealthy", we are trying to create more stable middle class families to bring up kids well and build an educated and well mannered society with more positive contributors.
One way to to do this is cut their tax burden. Increase family tax free allowances, give tax breaks for couples and on first mortgages for family homes.
It would be nice to cut taxes for the middle class but it may not be a sufficient solution. Also, cutting classes for the middle class doesn't negate what I wrote.
in my opinion something that has to be implemented is proportional healthcare costs, childcare costs and fines.
so they won't be a set price that is the same whether you earn €1.000/month or €10.000/month, but a % of that income.
this would make the costs of bills that everyone has fair no matter you're income. and it would make things like "zorgtoeslag" unnecessary.
and having the fines being proportional is just to net more money from wealthy people that break the law.
because for real a fine of €250 is nothing for a well of person, but for the average person it's a big amount. so lets set it at (something like) 10% of your monthly income (for small fines).
and healthcare and childcare could be free for low income people if the rich would all pay even a fraction of a % of their monthly income.
Old age poverty!
Thank Schröder & Co. and his ‘reform’ of the labour market.
Thanks to him, recruitment agencies have sprung up like mushrooms. Most of them go to great lengths to pay people as little as possible. Which of course has an effect on their later pension.
Perfect. Plus the ugly, nasty Na.i slogan from F.Müntefering : " those who do not work shall not eat"!
Well before that you could externalize your expenses quite easily: work for some years and then indefinitely collect dole. With the Lefties we're going back to this. (Bürgergeld = "citizen money" - as if you could be a citizen when you get bankrolled by the rest)
Schröder did what economists wanted Kohl to do for 8 years. Kohl didn't do it because he would have lost the next election.
@@peter_meyer Kohl wasted our entire pensionfunds to win the election.
@@kiliipower355 Recruitment agencies have been around since 50 years, that's not Schröders idea.
Thanks to Red Merkels economic policies and those of the current leftist/green government, the German economy is going down.
And Trade Unions and the media don't give a flying F.
the problem is uncontrolled immigration and the conflict in Ukraine
just my two cents, as a german
I recently got a job offer of 85k which would have meant a gigantic bump compared to what I make now. However, I had to decline, because it would have meant moving to a very expensive region and i did the math - it would not have been enough for living somewhat comfortably in that area. My standards are actually pretty low. I don't need a car, I don't do expensive stuff, I don't consume a lot, don't smoke, don't go out often. But even then, 85k is just too little. Mostly because I had to assume rent of 3000€/month.
Yes, I would have survived. But if you are educated and willing to go the extra mile for work, which you both need for this salary, then just surviving doesn't cut it.
3000€ rent per month? Even Munich isn't that expensive unless you need 100+ qm.
@@requiemdream9763 I have a family. I know people living in Munich (yes, we were talking about Munich) and they told me that this is a realistic cost of living for someone moving there. Of course, some people have cheaper older rental contracts, but that obviously wouldn't be the case for me.
@@FlyanTV Ok with family it is a different situation. But I know the problem. I had a similar lucrative job offer, but near Frankfurt. I accepted the offer as I have no family. But due to the expensive rental (it is nearly twice expensive as my old one) and due to high taxes, the higher salary is foiled to a large extent.
13:23 No it's a horrible system. The money just goes straight from the workers to the mouth of the elderly, aka a system that rewards childless people pursuing careers and punishes people who have children. It's horrible, inefficient and outragous. We in Germany are now slowly feeling the huge burden of the demographic problem that Japan has felt since the 90s. Stiffling innovation, elderly with outdated beliefs, etc.
Why is this even a question? If Germany is rich, the Germans will never be, a tale as old as time itself.
I am an expat engineer from a developing country and I and my friends do not accept offers less than 4500 euro netto for senior positions nowadays. We are living in Bavaria and we have to afford 1000-2500 euro for rent for a quite moderate flat. That 1000 euro option is just a single room flat and as we are not German our chance to find the affordable ones is impossible. The remaining money after expenses does not make you rich, does not make you buy a flat if you are single. The retiring age is 67 and we as engineers know that all of us are not going to have jobs until that age, so we have to make money now.
The retirement age is 10 years earlier in my country. I am living in a half size flat compared to the flat in my country and I am paying twice for it. My net income has decreased and I would not like to stay here for a long time. Even two German friends headed to other countries for better opportunities this year.
As a non German I can say that Germans are not rich but there are less poor people compared to some other countries and nobody is struggling with hunger. That is why Germany is still attractive for low skill workers but not for high skill ones or Germans themselves.
In Czech Republic we have same prices like in Germany, some food is even cheaper in Germany, but we have 1/3 salary. So tell me how poor Germans are..
€1400 is very good salary here for most people. Operators in factories have way less, yet the cost of living is rising by 15-20% every year now and our PM keeps boasting about how he manages everything perfectly.
What about housing? And how many people in czech owing their apartment or house? Compared to Germany
@@walid7415 it was quite OK 10-15 years ago. Now most xoung couples have no chance to even get loan for small flat and are forced to live in rented appartments. But the cost of rental flats is rising quickly too. Lets say you are engineer in industrial company, after taxation you get 35k CZK on your account. But then you spend 17k just for rent of 2+1 flat, then add energies which tripled in cost over last 2 years. And you are left with about 10k for the rest. Good luck raising kids.
Unless you have own flat our house thanks to parents, you have pretty tough life.
We were on vacation in czech republic just now and we were stunned at the prices at times. As you said, super market is nearly the same as in Germany. But the apartment we had, restaurants and such are dirt cheap in comparison with Germany. I don't get how this is working out.
@@CaesarIII services are cheaper because wages are 3 times lower. Thats all. You can have 3x cheaper hairdresser or restaurant service if you pay those workers 3x less... but since the cost of goods is same, they just can buy 3x less food etc. Or there is also other side of that. Quality of many things is worse. If you buy butter here and compare with german bought in Germany or even polish butter bought in Poland, you'll find how bad it is.
@@xmeda I did not even find real butter in the Discounters we were at.
Last time Germans were poor and angry half the world had to unite
so thats what happens in ukraine now ?
russians are poor and angry?
@@Sippi81 Russia is inheriting the same persecution and isolation that Germans faced.
Well, average people of all NATO countries are still wealthier than Russians. Nothing to worry, I guess...😊 It's also quite amusing to warn of other countries while your own people are literally invading another country at the same time. 😂
Bro is offended for no reason
@@dazedd-fi4yx Yeah, actually the reason is - as I mentioned - that your country (that you proudly display in your profile) invades Ukraine without any reason apart from propaganda bullshit and you still think that other countries are a threat or the problem. I suggest you stop voting for fascists and get your own shit done. We're doing just fine here in Germany, so don't worry about us.
You seem to misunderstand how bad state pensions are. The contributions far exceed the payouts. Because the population is growing old there are no more contributions for future seniors. If they didn't even buy their own home they're doubly f*cked. Their pension will grow smaller and smaller and they'll have no backup solution. If you are an employee you are also f*cked. because the taxes will only go up. ANd no, taxing the business owners will only lead to recession. Inheritance laws can also be easily circumvented. Hint: take a look at how many rich people set up foundations to handle their assets but which in turn are controlled by their offspring. And yeah, they do charity as well. But not as much as to destroy the nest egg prepared for their kids.
"The contributions far exceed the payouts." What a BS. THe German pension distribution system is one of the most efficient in the world. Every bank plan takes more. Also payouts are a LOT higher than constributions because it's subsidized by general taxes. We are talking 2-digit billions per year here.
@@steemlenn8797 you still don't get it. It's all about how many people pay and how many receive the money. It doesn't matter wether they get the money from you as "social security" or as some other tax. As long as the ratio is lower and lower the less you'll receive.
We, the average people of Germany, get treated like dogs, we get the bones not the meat. I and so many others are tired of the government and the oh so amazing economy. 50% tax, a permit for every little thing and so much limit the average person by a lot, and yes, we live by good standards, don't get me wrong, we have it better than a lot of people, but we are used to nothing else but that, and no one can ask us to "just chill", because we can't. We want to live our lives like they should be, wealthy, prosperous and free but more and more we can't
It is not about the wages (many commentators demanding higher wages apparently forget that they have to pay for this either via higher taxes for the public sector or by higher prices for services and goods) but about the accumulation of wealth that remains untaxed. Trickle-down does not work, although at least one party in the current government thinks that it would). Since for many years, no investment in infrastructure was taken, an insufficient number of apartments has been built, and a dangerous reliance on Russian gas was implemented, we are now facing an unseen crisis. There is no easy fix, and there is no single answer to address this, but a combination of actions that needs to be considered: Stopping the accumulation of wealth by taxing the rich, massive reduction of bureaucracy (I recently founded a company and the paperwork alone was insane and expensive), reduction of federalism (do you know how expensive it is that every state and within the state every school decides what to teach and which material should be used?) and also educating people about how money works. The German tendency to overcritise every innovation and to defend the status quo at any cost also needs to shift (e.g. when building a wind power engine one needs to calculate with five years between the idea and the construction, that is as insane as any new street or railway the state wants to build, will take three times to built as it would in most other EU countries).
But again: There is no easy fix. Do not fall for the false promises of populist parties!
If you get 20% higher wages and the prices for the goods you buy increase by 10% you still are better off.
That is why minimum wage increases generally do not destroy jobs: The people who use those services are now getting more money too and can afford the increase.
@@steemlenn8797 That‘s not how it works. An increase of costs tends to get overcompensated by companies as it is a perfect opportunity. Worst case you end up in deflation scenario.