What Does It Mean to Be Poor in Germany?
spiegel.de
spiegel.de
I also think Germany has a unique opportunity here to tackle the problem of social mobility and could improve the way they deploy the welfare budget. For example supporting a young family with many children before they face sliding into "poor status", due to one parent staying home to take care of the family. The article did a great job highlighting three interesting situations and their challenges/opportunities.
You're right, but that's the start of welfare dependency. If you have kids, you probably kill their life chances as well. I'm talking of the UK, rather than Germany, but I imagine the same is true anywhere in the rich world.
Paul Ryan, who never met a welfare program he didn't want to cut, received social security payments after his father died at age 16.
I pay plenty of money in taxes. You can bet that if I ever qualify for handouts, I'll be cashing them. You would be stupid not to.
Further, any advocates for higher tax rates should immediately begin to voluntarily pay the higher tax rates that they advocate for. You are allowed to donate extra money in taxes to the government if you'd please. So I demand that people put their money where their mouth is.
And while we're at it, I'm sick of these affirmative action advocates at elite universities who always want to give up other people's spots. All affirmative action advocates should immediately give up their positions at elite colleges and well-regarded employers, to make space for less-privileged people.
Can you see how this is not a reasonable line of argument?
2006 16,212
2007 17,266
2008 18,420
2009 19,844
2010 21,142
2011 22,029
2012 22,148
2013 22,737
2014 23,308
2015 23,881
You do not get to call steady, modest increases in real expenditure "slashing the welfare system". Sure we have a housing problem. You could make an argument that the government should be taking drastic action to address that problem, but you cannot argue that failure to take any such drastic action is the same thing as "slashing the welfare system"!
And you absolutely do not get to "call BS" when someone points out a simple statement of fact.
Damn hypocrites.
So here I am, a poor student paying my own way through college with no support from my parents, working part-time and going into debt, and they slam this on me. So I was forced to financially support my parents because there's no way to pay rent, food, insurance etc on 650 bucks. After many calls it turns out there was no solution, the -benefits was 1:1 with the +income I was earning.
This created an incentive for me to stop working. If I earned 100, my dad got 100 less, if I earned 600 my dad got 600 less. It'd only make sense for me to work if I quit college and got a job that paid more than he'd get in benefits, such that if I made 1k a month, my dad would get 0, I'd give him 950, and keep 50 bucks a month for working full-time at minimum wage.
So I stopped working and started desperately looking to move out (so that my income was no part of the 'household' income of my dad's place). Eventually did, got a job again and finished uni.
Anyway it's just one of many bad policy planning examples that look sensible in general... which is, if you're working, you don't need benefits anymore. And if you're living with people who are making all kinds of money, there's no need to depend on the state anymore, so they're counted as part of your income that the benefit requirements are tested against.
Then there's indeed examples where benefits are replaced quicker than income. Worse than 1:1. Like when you make 900 bucks, you get an exemption from a municipality tax of 150. But if you make 901, you pass the threshold, such that your effective income dropped to 751 by earning 1 euro extra, which puts you in a nasty situation in a country where rent, insurance puts you at 750 already and there's nothing left for food, culture or connectivity.
I did receive cheap student loans by the way, but I don't want rack up lots of debt so I liked to work part-time where I could. And even with loans covering tuition fees, for the two of us to live on 950 euros a month (or even 3 when my brother lived with us) is not a great deal even if I didn't have any college costs, or had all of them covered by a state program.
Each unreported euro earned is effectively worth two euros (the euro earned plus the euro lost to clawbacks) in addition to any unpaid taxes.
Not the kind of incentives a rational policy maker should strive for exactly.
Yes, the effective marginal tax rate is important here. (And another argument in favour of giving anyone a universal basic income, and just using the normal tax system to claw back benefits from people who earn enough.)
An even better system is to just tax land. There are no disincentives with that at all: the supply is fixed.
There is an odd mental hang up, especially in the US, that invariably and automatically views people who receive social benefits in a viscerally negative light, demonizing them in the public sphere and consciousness. This is, to me, an odd choice versus choosing to recognize as a social positive that there are benefits that can be designed and operated correctly to ensure we do not allow people to fall below a minimum living standard.
If we want to realize a society in which every able-bodied member is employed in the workforce, I do not believe we can do so without significantly altering the expectation of full-time employment as a standard. I also seriously doubt we can achieve full employment without realigning the world of business and work toward achieving social incentives first, instead of profit incentives.
But I think at least for mild depression, living off welfare and not having a job can make things worse and spiral into major depression.
From personal experience living in Scandinavia, anxiety and depression are known as easy reasons to get on disability pay and stop working. Of course these are real issues in many cases. But there are people who don't suffer from them and use them as an excuse to get government pay.
So, going back to the original comment, moving to a small village to make your benefits go further makes it harder to find a job. Thus, you remain on welfare for a longer period of time. On the other hand, if you stay in the city, you're more likely to get a job, but it's also harder to eat and find good accommodation.
So these things are difficult. It is clearly a big social problem that people have to face these kinds of difficulties.
Ignoring the often prohibitive costs of moving itself and possibly needing to buy a car for local transport, for example, the last thing an unemployed person needs to do is move away from the available jobs.
It's morally abhorrent that it's accepted practice that people vote for politicians that promise them money taxed from others. Social democracy is simply authoritarianism.
Given abortion, adoption and not getting pregnant in the first place are possibilities which a person has some control over, I don't think you can argue that all of those single mothers would otherwise be giving birth to children in abusive relationships if not for welfare.
Furthermore, welfare is funded through abusive tax laws, which throw those who refuse to hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade in prison, where they are kept in small enclosures, and often suffer mental illness and are subjected to physical and sexual abuse. There is nothing compassionate about authoritarian income redistribution.
It's collectivist ideology turned into dogmatic religion.
(In Finland, by definition of "everyman's right", everyone has a right to hike and to respectfully pick berries and mushrooms on claimed and unclaimed property -- in essence, all of society has limited rights on your land.)
In this comment I further explain why I don't believe these national legal rights, and their subsequent abolishment, in any way justify a tax on private income:
How is the right to forage a tax on private income? That's a non sequitur.
The OP argues that a tax on private income is justified by us no longer having a right to forage the now privatized land. I thought you were supporting the OP's position, which is why I made that argument.
> The Inclosure Acts (or "Enclosure Acts" in modern spelling[1]) were a series of United Kingdom Acts of Parliament which enclosed open fields and common land in the country, creating legal property rights to land that was previously considered common. Between 1604 and 1914, over 5,200 individual Enclosure Acts were put into place, enclosing 6.8 million acres (2,800,000 ha; 28,000 km2).[2]
> Prior to the enclosures in England, a portion of the land was categorized as "common" or "waste". "Common" land was under some kind of collective control.[3] Called the open field system, a single plot of land was divided among groups, often a lord and employed or participating peasants.[4] This facilitated common grazing and crop rotation.[4] "Waste" was the only land not officially claimed by any group, often cultivated by landless peasants.[3]
B. That's what the Malthusians said.
C. Google: [demographic crisis europe].
We don't need more people without jobs.
C. We improved living standards and decreased mortality in early years, so a pyramid shaped population structure is a thing of the past. And countering this with continued population growth is not an option because it is not sustainable. Some countries could nonetheless use a few more babies to get back to 2.1 children and avoid an inverted pyramid due to a shrinking population.
¹ There is certainly some theoretical upper limit but that is also certainly not relevant here.
That's significantly lower than most estimates I've seen. Jared Diamond for example says that the first world versus developing world resource consumption ratio is 32, with the majority of the world's population being much closer to the developing world:
The estimated one billion people who live in developed countries have a relative per capita consumption rate of 32. Most of the world’s other 5.5 billion people constitute the developing world, with relative per capita consumption rates below 32, mostly down toward 1.
He goes on to say that if China was to increase to match US consumption levels --- with no change in population or change in consumption elsewhere --- that alone would double the worlds consumption:
Per capita consumption rates in China are still about 11 times below ours, but let’s suppose they rise to our level. Let’s also make things easy by imagining that nothing else happens to increase world consumption — that is, no other country increases its consumption, all national populations (including China’s) remain unchanged and immigration ceases. China’s catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates. Oil consumption would increase by 106 percent, for instance, and world metal consumption by 94 percent.
A factor of 32 is a lot but that is also the extreme. China at 11, that leaves 5 billion people. If they were all at 1 that would drag the average down to 2.7. So maybe between 3 and 5 in the end? That still means a 5 to 10 fold increase in their resource consumption and matches my expectation. Suddenly needing twice as much of everything is probably already way harder than it first sounds, but up to 10 times...
There is no crisis, and there is not going to be a crisis. That premise is identical in concept, funny enough, to why the malthusians were wrong.
Robotics / greater automation + basic AI will more than dramatically take the place of the lost productivity from declining populations. Declining populations are not going to be a threat over the next century, not at all.
Japan and Germany should be cheering peak population. The inbound robotic boom is going to provide an extraordinary bounty for the remaining population, as productivity and GDP per capita soars in advanced nations. The absolute last thing any nation should want at this inflection point is more people.
There are plenty of people who would love to live in Europe. If Europe needs more people, let in more immigrants instead of adding even more humans to the world.
Yes, but in this situation is it wrong? For example genetic diversity appears to be a benefit to the species, allowing that to reduce may be a net loss even if there is a period of over-population (nations apparently reduce their birth rates as they develop which suggests we should be able to get a handle on population; hopefully before we ruin things too much!).
I also don't think it's a "right" to have as many children as you want and to expect state support for those children.
Why?
We would be better served by loss-of-income insurance, where people who made reasonable choices based on their income and then lost it would be able to continue supporting their families.
The net effect of that attitude is that larger families break up,are fully supported by the state and have worse outcomes. And when the "DINK" couples get old, society will be stuck supporting you fully after you become unable to manage without the type of support that adult children usually provide.
Because countries like Germany force the current generation to pay for the previous generation (and you can't opt out, it's called "intergenerational contract"), which is the reason why they need to motivate people to produce children, so that somebody can pay for that system. It's basically an intergenerational ponzi scheme.
The net effect of that attitude is not that larger families break up. Larger families break up because they are trying to do something infeasible (i.e. trying to support more children than they can afford to support)
Interestingly though, combining this data with the total numbers of households[2] since 1970 means that in 1970 there were 13M households of 5 or more...while there are 12M now...so the total number of these households has remained constant--although the demographics of that group may be quite different today.
[0] https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-570.pdf
[1] US, since you claim this is a "very American" perspective.
[2] http://www.statista.com/statistics/183635/number-of-househol...
agreed
Obviously nurses in Germany earn too little money. Obviously society would benefit if the state would help in cases like these.
Still it bothers me that this family is actually paying off its house, which means they are taking part in capitalism and creating capital for themselves, but rely on the state to do so. They decided that the benefit they are already getting (3 year job security, 14 months of wage-like financial benefits), which every American parent can only dream of, are not enough for their child.
Germans don't invest in the capital market (4,14% of Germans have stocks, compared to 23% in the UK or 56% in the US [0]), Germans - especially women - choose their careers without considering how much they will earn. Being rich has a dirty connotation in Germany. If you are rich, you better be a doctor or a lawyer, then you get an excuse, other than that you probably did something shady or just benefited from other peoples work. Business school is for people who were too stupid to become engineers. They will earn more, but be worth less, because they won't be a Diplomingenieur (okay, this one is gone now, the Master of Science has much less reputation). When Germans finally realize that a bit more would be nice, they complain that the state is not fixing their situation.
Wow, it's the same situation here in Argentina, word for word. Amazing considering the differences in culture and history.
I'd qualify that by saying to pick a small or mid-sized city over an actual village. Public transport is much better in cities than in rural areas and you are more likely to have stores in walkable or bikable distance, so you're either adding the cost of a car to your living expenses or reducing your quality of life and options for the future significantly by living in a village.
Also, as someone who has lived in the US and Argentina, and has spent a good portion of life living in the "poorer class", I have to say being "poor" in Germany seems lightyears better than it is in those two countries, although I haven't experienced being poor here, only in those others.
The first time I saw a German ghetto I thought it was joke. A German ghetto is a pretty nice place to live in most countries, in the US it'd be like living in a multicultural poorer neighborhood where everyone has healthcare and there's no guns or violent crime.
Anyway, it still amazes me sometimes how far Germans go with the "lets help the world" mentality. One of the first things, I got asked after arriving in Germany was if I wanted Hartz IV? I already had a fulltime well-paying job, but hey I wouldn't start for a couple months so they wanted to give me money until then! What country does that? So sure, you pay huge taxes, you get safer cities and even "poor" people have apartments, healthcare, food, tv, internet, etc.
This isn't to say all is perfect. There's plenty of things wrong in Germany (aka 6 month winters), but on the issue of "quality of life as a poor person", they are rocking it IMHO.
I find that a bit surprising; one of the downsides of Hartz IV (Germany's guaranteed minimum income scheme) is the hardnosed bureaucracy that tends to go with it.
That said, GMI schemes are generally pretty cheap; the welfare budgets of European countries are typically dominated by healthcare spending and pensions, not ensuring that everybody has a minimum standard of living, which generally makes up a relatively small fraction of public spending.
As Felix Salmon wrote a while ago [1]:
"At the same time, the amount of money that we need to spend in order to feed and clothe ourselves has never been lower. In much of the developed world, basic calorific and shelter needs have been taken care of, with their costs converging to zero. In dozens of countries, we have largely solved the physiological needs at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid, and indeed the safety needs one level up. Extending that security to all citizens is a matter of political will, not a question of adequate resources."
[1] http://fusion.net/story/197297/star-treks-utopia-is-already-...
In France, if you're not planned to have revenue for more than 3 months, you get the RSA+APL which is 650€pm (source: I've had it when my startup had no revenue yet), even if you have a lot of money in the bank or if you're not French. The minimum salary is ~1000€. That's if you've depleted your unemployment benefits (80% salary for 2 years, if you've worked for 2 years). RSA was just enough for me for food+housing, no clothes or extras.
That's Canada, not Germany.
I've seen video from the inside of the cells in a Scandinavian prison. Those looked nicer than the apartment my friend spent her sabbatical in, in Chicago. And she's a college professor!
What does suck is when something breaks. Your computer, your car, something bigger in your house. Expensive hardware parts are really hard to save money for.
I have to say, the Jobcenter is the worst employer ever. They don't require my presence most of the time, yet I can't plan in leaving the city unless on very short notice, as they require me to ask for "vacation" one week before. Soo.. I can save a little money to fly somewhere, book in advance and then I ask them one week before I'm going and they can decline!
I hope to get out of this, the sooner the better. Sadly, it's not the jobs that are lacking, it's discrimination by law in my case.
At the risk of making a too personal inquiry, what discrimination by law are you referring to here?
So, currently, a judge is deciding on my fate on this. I've done their interrogation, visited two psychologists now and one of the letters has some crap written in it, which might, at worst case trap me another 1 1/2 years in this situation.
Without the legal name change done, work life is limited: - I have to tell any employer my old name - If I start/join a startup, I have to use my old name. Plus it'll cost lots of money to change it once my name change process succeeds. - If I want to do freelancing, they want my old name for all paperworks. Then the thing with my bank account..
Using my old name is discouraging to any job I do. Also not being treated as an adult who can make their own life choices is highly discouraging.
Society is fine with it, with very few exceptions. As long as I don't include the right winged xenophobic/islamophobic idiots to society. Unfortunately they've gained a lot of strength lately.
Additionally there are other issues that are considered more important either because they're more popular or affect more people, so the SPD isn't willing to burn political capital.
Given the current political situation in Germany and more broadly in Europe, there won't be any policy change in this legislative period or the next, so at least ~5 years. In fact there is a risk the situation might get worse in the next legislative period. Hard to predict what will happen beyond that, a lot can happen in that timeframe, Merkel will probably retire and the political landscape could shift drastically in response.
Would it not have been possible to continue using your old name for legal purposes, and just use your new name in all other contexts?
I can certainly imagine various downsides of doing so, but if the name change process is that onerous, perhaps it might still have been better overall?
[This might be possible to deal with for some other trans people. Some have both boy and girl mode where they switch. My mind is not up to that because one side of it is a lie]
That said, I can certainly see how that could still be unpleasant, but to me, it sounds like the process you're going through at the moment is far more disruptive and unpleasant?
Problem is, seeing my old name might, if I'm in a very good mood not do anything, or if I'm in a not so good mood dig up/trigger my emotional trauma that sits deep inside of me. You couldn't understand how it feels like, assuming you're a cis person.
Trying to reason with logic does not work, this is an emotional issue. And it won't go away until I have eliminated the source of this problem. In addition, taking female hormones do make emotional issues more... intense.
Then I have to see that I get my treatment continued in the other country. Hormones I'm getting paid, hair epilation I'm getting paid to half and my operation I'll get paid in Germany. But going to another country means I need to figure out how stuff goes, possibly get another therapist who knows about the process in that country, get the letters that I have either translated into their language or get new ones... it's not like there's any country that doesn't have a piece of doubt to any trans person unless you have lots of money and be able to pay it all yourself.
It sounds like it must be constantly exhausting, mentally speaking. Like trying to get along in a country where you don't speak the language well and are struggling to learn it, when people tell you, "hey just learn to talk". Except the language is your body, your identity. But I'm just guessing, I don't know. In any case, I'm sorry things are difficult, and I hope you find success.
(By calling myself a man I mean no disrespect, that's who and what I am)
I have a trans friend and the biggest name related problem E. had was getting a new user account at work (as far as I know anyway).
Outside of that it's almost impossible to change your name.
I grew up in Germany. I live overseas now. I could change my name here relatively easily, I think. I wonder how hard it would be to get that recognized back in Germany.
By the time we moved to a different place Germany decided to kick out every refugee, and in the meantime made rules requiring jobs go to natives first, if one is applying, and refugees second. So in the end it didn't matter that we didn't live in a big city because everyone got the boot. We weren't terribly poor, not average certainly, but it was more of a struggle than it should have been.
In the US, on the other hand, they barely spent any time on government assistance because they moved upwards professionally, got compensated well, became citizens, bought a house, and funny enough sold it and bought couple more in Germany.
Do you have a citation for this one?
>As early as the end of September 1997 the employment offices were given instructions to systematically withdraw the work permits for Bosnians. Thousands of Bosnians, many of whom had worked in Germany for years, received duplicated forms, in generally restrained wording, notifying them that the employment centres had to first check whether there was a German available for the job.
Maybe Google Translate can help you getting the gist of it. Bottom line: Foreigners can only be employed if there are no negative consequences for German citizens.
I think the company also had to agree to allow employment agency to, either anonymously or publicly, publish ad for the job themselves for a couple of weeks.
Source from the federal employment agency:
>Die Ausländerbehörde holt die Zustimmung der Bundesagentur für Arbeit ein: Dort wird geprüft, ob es für die Ihnen angebotene Stelle bevorrechtigte Bewerberinnen oder Bewerber gibt. In diesem Fall können Sie für diese Stelle keine Zulassung auf dem deutschen Arbeitsmarkt erhalten.
https://www.arbeitsagentur.de/web/wcm/idc/groups/public/docu...
Note: There are different types of visas, and this might not be a requirement for all of them, but it was the requirement for me.
I'm also from a non-EU country, so this rule applies to me. I've been living and working in Germany for a few years, and while this rule does exist, I've never seen it used to deny me a work visa.
> I think the company also had to agree to allow employment agency to, either anonymously or publicly, publish ad for the job themselves for a couple of weeks.
Yes, the company has to prove that they at least tried to hire Germans or other Europeans. However, just because there are potentially people who are qualified, doesn't mean the company is obligated to hire them.
The company is obligated to show that they published the job description and allowed Europeans to apply, and that they made some amount of effort (e.g. interviews) for Europeans, but none of them had the skills, or fit the team, or were willing to be paid the salary offered.
> Note: There are different types of visas, and this might not be a requirement for all of them, but it was the requirement for me.
Typically you can avoid this if you have studied a Bachelor or Master degree in Germany, as then you are viewed as a preferred candidate and are basically on the same level as native Germans (some restrictions apply).
We've actually been trying to hire another team member at my current company, and of all the applications we received, less than 10% of people were German, and probably only 60% were part of the Eurozone. This isn't a job which requires rocket science, but seemingly no Germans want to apply, so we're going through the process to get a visa for someone from a European (but non EU) country because they were the best candidate and didn't have ridiculous salary expectations (someone said they wanted 120k EUR for a mid-level IT position... mmmmmmkay, no)
> Your computer, your car
> your house
> I can save a little money to fly somewhere
Being poor in Germany certainly sounds different from being poor in other countries.
It's easy to mess it up though. If you don't show up to appointments to the Jobcenter, they will give you less money. Suddenly you get 90% of the benefits (which is measured as minimum amount of money you need to survive per month). Do it again and you get only 60% for multiple months. Do it again, 30%. Still not showing up? They throw you out, including rent payments and health insurance.
Again, while I'm considered poor in the statistics, I'm not part of the group that's at risk of ending up without any benefits money or be homeless.
My city of about 260k population has over 900 homeless people according to the friendly volunteers of a homeless shelter. I know that because we sometimes bring food over to those places, if they're happy to accept it (not all of them do). That happens because I'm responsible for my town @ https://foodsharing.de/ - we rescue food from supermarkets that they'd throw into the bin otherwise. While being active there saves me some good cost of living, the amounts of food are huge and we have to distribute it too, mainly to homeless shelters in town.
Yes it did and I agree with all you said. As a German I just wanted to point out one thing that might not be clear to many readers not familiar with the situation in Germany:
And as you said the article was "highlighting the interesting situations". These life stories are highly atypical.
Mr. Huber was an Engineer at Siemens. Even if he didn't make quite a career there, he had certainly one of the better paying jobs in Germany. He inherited a house at Tegernsee, which is wealthy area. In contrast to most other Germans he had all the chances he could have, but somehow (the article doesn't say) he lost everything.
The Ehlers' trouble started with the birth of their forth child. Only 3.5% of all families with children in Germany have four or more kids [1].
Mrs. Kramer is seriously ill. She is a single parent but has (apparently) otherwise no family to support her. She lives in her own apartment and has a good education. Her case is certainly the most typical of all three.
What does typical poverty in Germany really look like?
15.4% of the German population is considered poor[2][3].
- Single Parent 41.9%
- Family with three or more children 24.6%
- Unemployed 57.6%
- Low level of education 30.8%
- Foreign national 32.5%
- Migration background 26.7%
[2] http://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2016-02/armut-deutschland-2016...
[3] http://www.der-paritaetische.de/index.php?eID=tx_nawsecuredl...
But at the beginning of the 1990s, his life came crashing down around him. One of his main customers stopped paying. He fought for years to get the unpaid money and restructured his debt to get seed capital for his new business plan. He fought desperately -- and ultimately in vain. In 1997, he was forced to capitulate. By that point, he had already been unable to work for two years and was on welfare. He lost his family home in a foreclosure and his pension and retirement insurance plan was seized. His landlord evicted him. Manfred Huber was ruined.
And Hartz IV is a neo-liberal's wet dream.
In the 20s and at the end of WWII? Any other one I missed?
Not really. UBI would be. The effective marginal tax rate for poor people is pretty high. (The conventional taxes are low, but each extra Euro earned pre-tax cuts into welfare a lot. That incentive ain't great---especially since welfare is a very stable income once you have all the bureaucracy sorted, but the kinds of jobs poor people get are often less stable. Especially jarring if getting a job involves sunk costs like buying a car or moving to a different city.)
See eg http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-price-of-uni... (lots more to be found with some searching).
I'm not in the Bay Area but in Amsterdam, NL, which also has a sizeable startup culture, and I'm in that age group as well. I think both things are true, yes many older programmers have trouble keeping up (hell, even youngsters are complaining about Javascript fatigue), and I see them struggle, but on the other hand ageism is real, and many people in my age group are hit by it. Unwarranted in many cases.
It's not even that you had to be lucky to guess right. The fundamentals are easy to identify.
But of course, lots of people chased and are still chasing the latest superficial thing; and complain that they can't keep up.
LOL, on my own Google recruiting track, it turned sour after I admitted I am significantly older than my LinkedIn profile shows. I believe I was reasonably good on fundamentals during the phone interview as you say ;-)
They do however seem to expect more seniority out of the senior candidates.
If you're young and looking for a junior position, employers will have no problems teaching you some of these things but there are limits.
Current programming languages: just stick to the ones that will be around for a while. (Simple heuristic: pick the ones that already have been around for a while. In the 80s, that would have been C for example.)
The more interesting question is why his customers stopped paying, but the article doesn't say. In the end I think many things had to happen for such a fall to take place.
Personally, I find this talk of age discrimination super scary, and I do my best to ignore it, just because I've spent most of what I should have spent on retirement savings on my business ventures, so I myself plan on working through his age. I already seem to be "not a cultural fit" even in my mid-30s, though I suspect for reasons other than age, but certainly, the social expectations for technical people have... changed, even within my own career.
It seems likely he has mental issues, which suggests the system is failing him in ways that have nothing to do with poverty or conventional welfare support. His life situation probably shouldn't be used as fodder for a generic cri de coeur article on those topics. But we can't be sure because the journalist couldn't be bothered to elaborate.
He left a job to work on his own business, and failed, and handled the failure badly. If that's "a trail of failures of the sort we'd normally give hurricane names to." - then I am in serious trouble.
Of course, as you said, there wasn't much detail, but very likely that was because the person in question didn't want to revisit those things.
I don't think you're wrong to be concerned about age discrimination, of course. But maybe this is an example of it, and maybe it's not.
Sure, there was no information indicating the guy didn't have serious mental issues... but there was also no information indicating that he did. Your "reading between the lines" I think blames the old guy... when there's really no evidence presented, one way or the other.
>Things like, "A customer (his only one?) stopped paying (why?)"
The vast majority of small computer businesses (corp to corp contractors) that I know only have one customer at a time, because they only have one worker to rent out; themselves. It's really common. It's less common for those customers to stop paying after work is rendered, but it has happened to people I trust to not bullshit me on the matter. (It's kind of common for some of these small contractors to get pissed when the "contract" ends early, and to demand compensation for that... One of those mistakes a lot of people make before they learn how things actually work, at least in my jurisdiction, the length of the contract has no bearing on anything at all. You usually get paid for hours worked; really there's no further guarantees.)
>I don't think you're wrong to be concerned about age discrimination, of course. But maybe this is an example of it, and maybe it's not.
I agree. Well, I'm not 100% certain I need to be concerned about age discrimination; it's in my "might be an irrational fear, but I'm not certain either way" bucket right now, but I agree about the article.
Because ageism is real. I finally got hired to a good job, with a boss who appreciates what I do, but before that happened, I got (rather snidely) accused of "googling the answer," had people blow off my phone appointment, was basically called a "fake programmer," and had people angry at me or look at me like I'm a piece of crap during interviews.
I have never, ever, been treated like this in my professional life, except in the Bay Area. Knowing what you don't know is generally best learned by getting some bruises in the process. Really, the lesson is that not knowing what you don't know can be very extremely painful. It's one thing to know that abstractly, another to know it from direct experience. There are some people who just knee-jerk say you can't do this or that. There are other folks who have enough experience to have a good feeling for how to navigate what they don't know, in such a way that the team can see it coming.
That said, the article makes it sound like this guy has been out of work for close to a decade or more. Maybe he can't get a cutting-edge IT or engineering job, but he could do tech-support, an entry-level job, or even drive for Uber or a taxi.
The absolute worst experience was a technical phone interview that was going very well, I thought I connected with the interviewer(2). So I was shocked after being complimented on the breadth and depth of knowledge I had, near the end of a 45 minute conversation, there was a pause and he asked "so, when did you graduate from high school?" Needless to say, the tone changed somewhat and I didn't get the in-person interview for the position that "wasn't really a good fit for me," and he, "wasn't really sure [we're] going to actually fill this position," forgetting that he earlier said he wanted someone as soon as possible.
(1) See Logan's Run -- it's a documentary about the Bay area companies' solution for aging software engineers. /s (2) And I knew him, but only in the sense I knew him from several mailing lists stretching back to the days of USENET as a knowledgeable, respectable guy with a good reputation.
TL;DR ageism is a thing everywhere.
He has had many interviews, and in about half of them he tells me he was rejected by the interviewers at the end because they're "looking for someone 'fresher'." One interview he had started out with a phone interview, and they loved him and his experience. He turned up for the interview, and the first question it was some time before the first question was asked because of all the awkward ways the interviewer tried to broach the topic of my friend's age.
I'm 41, with a Computer Science degree, and I don't even get half the number of interviews he has. He previously worked for an educational institution, I worked for what turned out to be one of the least reputable employers in town. That guy's business practices destroyed any hope of finding work that I've had. (In my country, if you're unemployed and signed up with the government support agency, whether receiving financial support or not, you agree to accept any reasonable job offer.)
Aside: in the last eight years, I've had three interviews. The first one found out that I have a disability, and much like your interview, he forgot that he'd told me I was well suited to the role due to my knowledge and skills. He turned bright red and started screaming at me, literally screaming. He was threatening me with legal action and bills, for wasting his time because I didn't have enough experience, threatening to lay a formal complaint with the referring agency.
I'm a great interviewer because I have a bit more empathy and interest in understanding other people.
You can downvote me if you like but my words still ring true.
wat. I presume this was after you called him out on his contradiction?
Then the hiring mentality in continental Europe is not as openminded as in the UK or the US. Being out of work alone is a big red flag on your resume. Moving from independent to employee is another one.
The cardinal sin is being over 50. When I was a kid, losing your job when you were in your 40s was the nightmare of all families - the event you do not recover from like the family terminal cancer. It is getting a lot better, but even 20 years later finding a job when you are over 50 is ridiculously hard. In my home country we even have the concept of pre-pension (i.e. unemployment payment with an extra added by the company) to get rid of older workers easily.
I've heard/feared this as well, but in light of the statistics on startup infant mortality it seems crazy to stigmatise.
Here in the US I can see how the Ehler's financial problems would became significant with a 4th child. But given the low birthrate in Germany it seems like Germans could be more generous to those who are willing to have more babies.
A country filled with Arabs, Africans, and Afghans isn't Germany, peoples aren't fungible in that way.
You can be non-Caucasian and still be German. That is what you were getting at right?
You certainly can be German and non-caucasian, but you actually have to believe yourself to be German and be part of German culture.
Many Puerto Ricans consider themselves both Puerto Rican AND American. This is especially interesting given Puerto Rico is an American territory yet it is considered a different cultural group.
Germans of Turkish descent are in fact still Turkish regardless of generation. Similarly Germans of Chinese descent are still Chinese while also being German.
Your final sentence is the nut. The rest of it is just discrimination (small d) of people into cultural groups.
(Edit: As an aside... Is Doner German culture? Or is it Turkish?)
I don't think it's easy to say what culture it is. The German Döner is still very similar to the traditional meal, but "Eating a Döner" has engrained itself deeply into German culture.
Normally, when eating foreign food, you'd call it by the country it comes from. If you order a burrito, you're "Eating Mexican", if you order a Pasta you're "eating Italian" and if you are having sushi you are "eating Asian". But you don't "eat Turkish" when eating a Döner.
I don't have an Answer, I just thought I'd share my thoughts.
Ie they are both enthusiastically adopted and adapted to local mores. Some of the changes even make it back to Turkey and India.
Hamburger are about as American as it gets. Of course, the name gives the origin away.
My wife & I are immigrants in Germany (and pay a lot more taxes than the median German family, draw far fewer benefits, speak German and have plenty of German friends and acquaintances) and our son was born in Germany.
I would expect him to believe himself to be German when he grows up, but would also see it as unfortunate if he doesn't also see himself as Israeli & Austrian at the same time.
So why would you like your son to see himself as "Austrian" and "Israeli" just because his parents lived there, instead of simply as having a genetic heritage in the region that goes back millennia before the modern conception of the German and Austrian State?
I would like him to know and acknowledge his cultural background, the same as I would like him to be able to speak Hebrew (at the very least so he could speak to his grandparents and extended family). And I don't see anything negative in that, there is no limit of having only a single identity.
I also don't see what genetics have to with it. Indeed my grandparents had to flee Europe for similarly phrased reasons (being ashkenazi didn't help them at the time) and I find them just as distasteful now as then.
What I found strange was that you thought he would want to identify with a neighboring political entity(Austria) instead of just as Germanic-European and Ashkenazi-European.
Also what I saw occuring was this symptomatic absurdity that occurs from our genuine desire to not want to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Which is acting like a migrant from Afghanistan or Syria is the same thing as an immigrant from Austria(!) or even Israel, Askenazim are mostly European.
In our fervor to not repeat past mistakes, we are willfully blinding ourselves to the fact that not all people are the same. And the kinds of societies that result when different peoples form societies are very different.
Thinking all these muslim migrants are going to somehow become model germans is madness.
The sad irony is, who do you think the biggest anti-semites in Europe are today? Muslim migrants and the Muslims already in Europe...
It's a shame Yiddish couldn't take that place that Hebrew got.
You say "[a] country filled with Arabs, Africans, and Afghans isn't Germany" and then question someone who wants to preserve their child's Israeli and Austrian heritage.
Trying to use genetic heritage to determine nationality is an unproductive use of one's time. You would be right in saying that the native populations of South Germany and Austria are similar genetically, but native North Germans are more similar genetically to the Dutch, Danish, and Swedish. Perhaps you also argue for those nationalities to identify as German?
I wrote the preceding sentences before checking your comment history (and remembering the neo-Nazi reference of your username). Now that I have, I can see why you would have a problem with non-Caucasians identifying as German and German parents wanting their children to remember their non-German heritage.
Differences among all those groups can be teased out when comparing them among themselves, but when comparing to Arabs, Africans, or Afghans, the differences among Europeans effectively vanish.
That was the point.
For Europe as we know it to continue to exist it's population must be Europeans.
Consider the types of societies one finds across the Arab world and Africa to the societies one finds in Europe.
neo-Nazi reference
I didn't even know about the "neo-Nazi reference" thing until someone pointed it out before(you?).
The truth is there are a series of account that were made when the number of saved stories was limited. i.e. cb1 ... 18
I just happened to stop on 18.
It's really absurd if every time you see the number 18 you shriek and go Nazi!!!
Do you watch sports where they wear numbers? Do you ever see prices in stores that say 18? There must be nazis hiding everywhere huh?
Let's do that:
European societies are nationalist (with distinct nations) and also functional.
African and Middle Eastern societies are pan-Arabic/pan-Islamic and dysfunctional.
I'm not claiming it's casuation not a mere correlation, but we should probably not fix what's not broken. Call when pan-Islamic Caliphate or pan-Arab Federation happens and is a success.
That's a well known code for Nazis.
- e.g. the, lamentable sub par state of most muslim countries. Many of those countries have so much (oil) money but look what stupid things their regimes are doing with it. Certainly not building a modern society. It's oppression almost everywhere - stop the population explosion would be another subject. Contrary to 50 years ago we have now the medical means to stop it. No wonder everybody gets poorer 'when a small farm has to be shared between 10 children'...
(But of course you (all) know this - and a cure is difficult)
Like the rise of xenophobic, populistic, nationalistic, fascist groups in Europe - where I live.
> lamentable sub par state of most muslim countries.
I suggest you take care of that. It's not my business. I have nothing to do with muslim countries.
> stop the population explosion
Where I live, there is no such thing.
It's true that creating series of 18 accounts just to make a concealed Nazi reference is pretty extreme, so maybe it's just a coincidence this time. False alarm guys, put away the pitchforks.
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb18 2227 days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb17 2253 days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb16 2257 days ago
...
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb3 2668 days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb2 2787 days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cb1 No such user.
But wait, there is no cb1! We've caught him in his crafty lies. Since there are actually only 17 accounts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_SS_Panzergrenadier_Divisi...) his cover is blown. Unless he can immediately clear his name by somehow proving the existence a cb1 account created 8 years ago, we've (essentially) _proved_ that he is a Nazi who is not worthy of refutation!
For Europe as we know it to continue to exist it's population must be Europeans.
Less sarcastically, I think it would be better to debate the points he makes rather than dismissing him by shrieking "Nazi". Is Europe defined by its genetic heritage or its culture? Which is more important? Do the two go hand-in-hand? At what cost is it worth preserving either?
It's really absurd if every time you see the number 18 you shriek and go Nazi!!!
You tried to slip that last reference in at the end where no one would notice, but I saw it. Nazi!!!
Just define it by geography, problem solved?
You have zero knowledge of European history.
Carl Zuckmayer:
Vom Rhein - noch dazu. Vom Rhein. Von der großen Völkermühle. Von der Kelter Europas! Ruhiger Und jetzt stellen Sie sich doch mal Ihre Ahnenreihe vor - seit Christi Geburt. Da war ein römischer Feldhauptmann, ein schwarzer Kerl, braun wie ne reife Olive, der hat einem blonden Mädchen Latein beigebracht. Und dann kam ein jüdischer Gewürzhändler in die Familie, das war ein ernster Mensch, der ist noch vor der Heirat Christ geworden und hat die katholische Haustradition begründet. Und dann kam ein griechischer Arzt dazu, oder ein keltischer Legionär, ein Graubündner Landsknecht, ein schwedischer Reiter, ein Soldat Napoleons, ein desertierter Kosak, ein Schwarzwälder Flözer, ein wandernder Müllerbursch vom Elsaß, ein dicker Schiffer aus Holland, ein Magyar, ein Pandur, ein Offizier aus Wien, ein französischer Schauspieler, ein böhmischer Musikant - das hat alles am Rhein gelebt, gerauft, gesoffen und gesungen und Kinder gezeugt - und - und der der Goethe, der kam aus demselben Topf, und der Beethoven und der Gutenberg, und der Matthias Grünewald und - ach was, schau im Lexikon nach. Es waren die Besten, mein Lieber! Die Besten der Welt! Und warum? Weil sich die Völker dort vermischt haben. Vermischt - wie die Wasser aus Quellen und Bächen und Flüssen, damit sie zu einem großen, lebendigen Strom zusammenrinnen. Vom Rhein - das heißt: vom Abendland. Das ist natürlicher Adel. Das ist Rasse. Seien Sie stolz darauf, Hartmann - und hängen Sie die Papiere Ihrer Großmutter in den Abtritt. Prost.
However you can also see how broad inclusion can be disappointing for "German Germans". You see, as an Israeli you have more flexibility and perhaps specific community support and, being a minority, additional lobbying power.
Whereas "German German", while being exactly same German as you (or your son), lacks all that and therefore at a disadvantage. They become "just Germans". These incentives lead to fragmentation of core German identity: everybody gains from declaring them as "German and Somebody Else". But fragmented society is a liability how we saw in Syria or Bosnia or many other troubled countries.
Therefore, while "German Germans" and "non-German Germans" should be equal almost everywhere, the former should have distinct weight at shaping society culture and policy. It's just more natural that way.
Disclaimer: I'm not a German but from a country that have similar issues.
To your specific example, I'd say football is a pretty big part of German culture and there are footballers who identify with the country they came from but feel more comfortable in a German shirt. They choose to represent Germany for that reason, becoming a massive part of that culture. Now would you say that Mesut Özil or Sami Khedira or Emre Can or Jerome Boateng aren't that German just because they remember where their family came from?
If you do, its interesting because others in Germany share that opinion. For example, one leader of a political party said a couple of days ago that Boateng remained "alien" despite his popularity and that people would not want "someone like Boateng as a neighbor." [1]
[1] - http://www.dw.com/en/afd-provokes-anger-with-racist-comments...
You can be non-Caucasian and still be German.
A country is the spirit and character of a people. That's what makes a country what it is. Not political boundaries on a map. And groups of people don't just take on a new spirit and character if they move into new political boundaries en masse.
The spirit and character of a people comes from their DNA. And their DNA comes from their environment over many thousands of years.
If the majority of the population in Germany were to be African or Arab, do you really think Germany would retain it's particular character that makes it European and German? No of course not! You would have to be insane to think that it would.
Were that to come to pass, Germany would look a lot more like countries in Africa or the Middle East than a European country.
With the recent migrant madness we are already seeing troubling signs of this, with loads of horrendous crimes hitherto unknown in Europe.
It's not just the excess of crime that doesn't bode well, but that these foreign populations, even into 2nd 3rd generation receive welfare at much higher rates than the general population.
Why would it ever be a good idea to take in loads of immigrants who are a net drain on the economy in multiple ways? Europe can't babysit the world in this way. Not only does make it make no sense, but it is unsustainable, the time at which our welfare states have become totally dismantled from this looting is rapidly approaching.
Many resources are finite. Why should grandparents who spent a life time contributing to the system have their benefits cut, so politicians can try to import future voters in order to extend their reign? It's madness. It is destroying the western world.
So, that's a long-winded way of saying, no a "non-caucasian" or anything else but an ethnic European, ethnic German cannot be a "german." Maybe someone else is a citizen of the Bundesrepublik. But that is just a piece of paper symbolizing an abstract system of agreements. The biological reality of what makes the German people what they are and by extent what Germany is, is another thing entirely.
---
I'm sure all of the Germans of Turkish familial origin
Funny you picked the Turks, who are notoriously unintegrated in Germany. Just like all the muslims across Europe of course, but some of the Turks have been here since the 1970s. So it makes people take notice and say, "uh oh!" In fact, this was more or less the reason for Angela Merkel's dictum years back saying "Multiculturalism has failed."
You're just trying to have a "filthy migrants are all criminals" whine dressed up as something other than bigotry.
Try to make the same exercise with the Aboriginal Australians: It doesn't matter if they don't reproduce; there's plenty of whites around to take their place.
Why do you hate diversity?
"German-ness" is emphatically not genetic.
German-ness comes from ethnic Germans which are a genetic subgroup.
"spirit and character" are not either.
Then where else would it come from? Spirit and character come from people, people are genetic.
---
Just answer this, you don't need to go into too much detail.
If an Icelandic couple moves to Africa, learns a Bantu language, and has a child who then also learns the language, is the child then a Bantu?
I'd argue what's far more problematic is the desire to portray oneself as the target of attacks as a method of evading argument, while posing reductio-ad-absurdium trick questions, but we digress…
German-ness comes from ethnic Germans which are a genetic subgroup.
I don't agree that this is the definition of nationality. It seems obviously false, given that at some point fairly recently in evolutionary terms there was no such thing as an "ethnic German" - so where did they come from? Following your argument, the only thing that can produce an "ethnic German" is the process of other "ethnic Germans" having children. I'm sure you see why that's not possible.
Isn't it far more likely that nationality is defined by shared cultural and social context? One becomes "German" by participating in and sharing the experience of other Germans? By its nature, this is going to be a fuzzy concept. One could certainly be forgiven for arguing that a first-generation immigrant who makes no effort to learn the German language or participate in German civil society isn't "German", but even then it's not clear.
Then where else would it come from? Spirit and character come from people, people are genetic.
People are far more cultural and social than they are genetic - that is, social and cultural differences between people are far greater than genetic differences. It would seem ludicrous for example to suggest that a child born in Germany, who speaks German and is an active participant in that society is somehow not German because of both of their parents were from, say, Turkey.
If an Icelandic couple moves to Africa, learns a Bantu language, and has a child who then also learns the language, is the child then a Bantu?
Isn't this exactly an example of where nationality and ethnicity is fuzzy?
If said child grows up in Africa, and the cultural experience of that upbringing is Bantu (the culture rather than the ethnicity) then why would that child not be Bantu? Simply because their genetic history took a detour via Scandinavia? That seems silly to me.
Would you then suggest that a country of mixed-nationality immigrants, like Canada, can never have a national identity? Do you believe that the patriotic affinity between Canadians is somehow lesser than that between Germans, because we don't share a well-defined genetic heritage?
You're right, Turks have integrated poorly in Germany. Temporary foreign workers were brought over en masse and ghettoized to fuel the economic rejuvenation of the nation; unsurprisingly, many chose to stay. Too many to integrate properly. The result is a huge chasm between German-born Turks and Germans, with resentment on both sides. But this was the result of a poorly-executed policy, albeit one that may have been necessary at the time; either way, it's not the normal way that immigration happens in Germany or other countries.
Lesser patriotic affinity for minorities? Absolutely. (I am Canadian)
There's even a study[1] showing that with increasing diversity, you get:
Lower confidence in local government, local leaders and the local news media.
Lower political efficacy – that is, confidence in one's own influence.
Lower frequency of registering to vote, but more interest and knowledge about politics and more participation in protest marches and social reform groups.
Higher political advocacy, but lower expectations that it will bring about a desirable result.
Less expectation that others will cooperate to solve dilemmas of collective action (e.g., voluntary conservation to ease a water or energy shortage).
Less likelihood of working on a community project.
Less likelihood of giving to charity or volunteering.
Fewer close friends and confidants.
Less happiness and lower perceived quality of life.
More time spent watching television and more agreement that "television is my most important form of entertainment".
[1] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9477.2007....
Switzerland is a better example---since they don't have big groups that want to split the country.
because we don't share a well-defined genetic heritage
This is not true. The genetic heritage of both Canada and the USA is European. It is only in recent decades that there has been non-European immigration of any significance.
Therefore the national identity of Canada and the USA is European. After all, they are part of the western world, they have the characteristics that are common to the European/western world.
When I have to explain this stuff, I feel like the world is going crazy. I mean it is so obvious. But it if helps someone, great.
But you are right, Germany does a pretty bad job at integrating newcomers.
"Preußen und die Marktwirtschaft" (whttps://www.amazon.de/Preu%C3%9Fen-die-Marktwirtschaft-Erhar...) is a fun read, if you don't mind taking it with a pinch of salt or two.
The author argues how much more efficient the Prussian state was compared to modern Germany. Eg 200 years ago they were devastated from the defeat by Napoleon but managed to invent and establish the modern university that everyone copied---and all that with less public servants for the whole of Prussia than a medium sized town these days.
The genetic arguement is completely bogus, shouldn't you be removing all the dogs first before you start splitting difference between humans?
Still, doesn't make too much sense.
We have all of this in Germany.
Child care is not free but heavily subsidized, even more there is a right to child care for children from age one to six [1].
Tax reductions are more complicated, broadly speaking the tax exempt amount for every child is around 7000 EUR - not too bad [2 (in German, look for the table in the section "Höhe des Kinderfreibetrages")] .
Payments "Child benefit" are [3]:
1 Child 184 EUR/month
2 Children 386 EUR/month
3 Children 558 EUR/month
additional child 215 EUR/month
[1] https://www.deutschland.de/en/topic/politics/germany-europe/...
Child benefit (Kindergeld) goes until the age of 18
Yes, and it's a right, your employer can't refuse it. If I remember correctly the 14 months is only if both parents take part, 12 months otherwise. 12 months for the wife, 2 months for the husband is typical.
> Child benefit (Kindergeld) goes until the age of 18
Even until 25 if your children have no income of their own, e.g. when they are go to college.
If both partners take it at the same time for 4 parallel months then you receive a bonus 4 months (which you can also take as half time which means 8 months). You could theoretically get 28 months of half-money/half-time.
I suspect the reasons are more social ones. Examples:
Having children is not being valued highly, having a career is. Imagine a woman proudly announcing to some gala aquaintances that she has 4 children. In a lot of countries, this would be the norm. In Germany, the woman would be deemed low-class.
Lack of family cohesion, thus as a parent, you are on your own. Compare this to the luxury of letting the grandparents take care of the kids multiple times a week/month.
Consumerism. A German thinks he has to have it all. Kids are percieved as a threat to that. We are very good at making our own lives miserable by not valuing family and friends over having the newest car/stereo/boat.
Perfectionsm. Parents think they have to get everything right and only the best things for their kids (again, THINGS). And the society thinks the same - a mother should be perfectly dressed, handling her two perfectly dressed kids with ease and loving devotion 24/7, never just let them play on their own but instead already teaching them latin. AND of course, having a stellar career AND a slender waist at the same time.
An aspect that seems more uniquely German is looking down on mothers that give their child to daycare "too early", meaning, before it's 3 years old.
Anecdotally from conversations with friends in their mid late twenties, early thirties, the idea that you have to justify yourself as a woman, or somehow fail as a mother, if you start working again too soon is still very prominent.
i was amazed reading this. there are nations where the natives are proud of beeing breeders?
while its not something to be ashamed of, it most certainly not something you should be proud of either...
A woman that has given birth almost certainly has also taken care of the child(ren) for many years, which shows, at least, the ability to:
- master a high responsibility job
- take on a huge workload
- constantly juggle multiple tasks at once
- typically work overtime
- keeping team morale up despite competing needs
- setting goals for the further development of each team member, and keeping a steady eye on the progress that is being made
Sounds like a management job, does it not?
Not to mention the extreme commitment towards everything that accompanies the pregnancy and delivery itself, including, amongst others:
- pain and nausea
- heavy reconfiguration of the body
- strech marks and/or genital wounds
- risk of losing the child
- risk of having a ill or impaired child
- risk of dying
- risk of losing the man and being on your own with all the aforementioned tasks
Yes, a woman with decent kids can most certainly be proud of herself.
In Israel the average woman has 3 children, and having 3-4 children is expected as the norm in the middle class.
Honestly, from my point of view as a free-minded individual, this is exactly the sort of thing that is quite frankly disturbing about government intervention. Society is seen as some sort of grand-experiment that needs to be tweaked and prodded in order to optimize X or reduce the risk of Y, in endless different contexts.
The pension system needs a next generation that will pay when the current generation is in old-age pension. Feel free to call it an obligatory pyramid scheme.
Well yes and no. I personally find virtually everything is cheaper in a city except that which comes at a premium: rent.
Now of course rent is a big chunk out of your cashflow, but in many European countries housing projects for the poor lock in the rents, such that they don't differ all that much across the country. In some countries, rents float freely, but there's rent subsidies that scale up, such that up to a certain maximum rent, your effective rent doesn't differ much across the country.
But living in the city usually means dramatically higher degrees of accessibility to university education, broad public transport, diverse cultural offerings, job opportunities etc, many of them at a discount to the rest of the country, and subsidised by the rich population and economies of scale.
Take London for example, various studies have shown poor kids do very well because London's infrastructure is so highly developed.
Further I personally feel it's easier to get ahead in cities if you're new, or you're down and out. It's easy to get a restart. Cities are used to strangers, companies are used to hiring unknowns, people are used to meet new people. In rural areas, I feel all of life, whether it's personal relationships or job opportunities, are more dependent on your social connections, relatively speaking. It's harder to start anew, or enter a rural area as a stranger and thrive, in the way one can in a city. But that last paragraph is a personal preference, I'm sure it'll be the exact opposite for others.
Anyway so it depends on the country, I'm not super familiar with the German situation. In the Netherlands though, I'd much rather be on welfare in a big city.
The one thing they don't offer is jobs, that's why rent is cheap.
If you have lots of stuff, sell some of it.
(I grew up on welfare in Germany. We had vacations, and we could afford to move. The biggest hassle is the bureaucracy with the Arbeitsamt involved.)
A national basic income would solve this with little overhead, but a more conventional policy with actively marketing cheaper areas to poor people (and, marketing areas where labor is in high demand; maybe providing transportation/transitional housing/etc.) would be a way to help people out of poverty.
People used to migrate for jobs; this happens a lot less now.
If you can work at all (eg no medical problems keeping you unemployed), you should probably move to Munich to get a job.
Lots of East Germans migrated to the more expensive west, and are still doing that. For the jobs.
That is basically not true in germany. We have a lot of smaller cities which are really close to bigger ones or even have small towns which are having a really good economy. Let's take Freiburg as an example. The city has disastrous rents and has a good economy. But, if you live in a town in some counties near Freiburg you can have a way cheaper live and still live in a town with a good economy + a fast way to work in Freiburg, which you don't need since there are really good companies, too.
Take Zalando for example they build a huge building down in Lahr, Ortenaukreis near Freiburg or Rust (Europa Park) which will employ a lot of people (not only warehouser, there will be a lot of office jobs as well) and the city is really cheap to live in compared to Freiburg and has some towns around which are even cheaper.
But Germany in general is pretty decentralized and you certainly don't need to move to Munich to get a job – there are many in cheaper cities as well with different sectors usually preferring different regions.
Of course, the rent in that commuter town was way less than the one's in Frankfurt itself.
There are two problems with moving away. The first problem is that cities are where the jobs are. If you're unemployed you could benefit from moving into the wild lands, but you could easily be 4-5 hours of public transportation away from any job interview. The the second problem is that you actually have to move pretty far away. Most of the smaller cities near the city centers are already occupied by the wealthy class who wants nature + a short drive to work.
Poor people are obviously much better off here than they are most places. They can get medical care, they can get education for their kids, and the system will even help pay their rent.
The stigma remains though. Perhaps especially so, in a society where we haven't yet gotten used to inequality.
Of course, that also sites you away from the jobs.
But yeah, eg the student welfare benefit (Bafög) goes much further in cheap cities.
Simply not true. Bafög is paid based on what your parents have. And how far you are away from them. They have a "base" need for everything in your students life which is something of ~650€ as of today and then they calculate how much your parents "should" give you (even if they can't) and give you the rest of that money (monthly).
And after something like 4-5 years your last payment was made you need to pay half of it (the rest is yours even if you don't make it, if you make it you don't get any bonuses, but making good grades or other super stuff will actually) back in junks of 150€ per (month, paid in quarters if you are wellthy) or you could make upfront payments which will reduce your payment need drastically.
I guess, maybe universal salaries, and free school, medicine will make our societies engage in what is important in life. Be happy, engage with your families and friends.
When I was young, I remember clear, days when I was starving, and so my parents trying and fighting to provide some food. Now, I life my first 30 years of life, and realize that nothing change. We are working for money and dreams that are fake.
In Berlin, capital, you see more people that are searching for food, empty bottles, and are in hartz and people look at them as dead animals. In Berlin, there are east european poor people, that sleep on the bridges, on parks. What they are doing? Ask for money.
Been poor in Germany, I guess is better than in Bulgaria or Romania, but been poor in any country, also ignorant make us damn idiots.
Context for the bottle thing: Germany has a deposit on bottles that gets refunded in cash when you return a bottle to any supermarket. It's up to €0.25 for plastic bottles which is quite a bit, so some people collect bottles that others have thrown away. (This is also why it's nice to put your bottle next to the bin rather than in it if you're not returning it yourself – saves people the hassle of rummaging around in there.)
I can't personally confirm the "looking at people like they're dead animals" thing, although I do admit that you get a bit jaded when you've been asked for spare change for the third time in a row on the same S-Bahn train.
I regularly see people rummaging through rubbish bins to see what they can salvage, and if someone dumps an appliance on the street (this is how they "recycle" here in Italy) things like the motor and cables will be gone in a few hours. The scary thing is a lot of people you see are young people - they've clearly just been failed by the system.
I'm from the UK and lived in London a few years ago ('09 - '11) and I remember seeing a few people begging but they were usually drunkards. I don't remember so many young people, or getting approached to give money as much as here. I wonder how the UK does things differently to Germany and Italy?
Italy, like most of southern Europe, has a huge problem with youth unemployment that Germany & the UK generally do not share.
From what I have seen, this will also result in hordes of people with tons of free time who have useless degrees who haven't been properly trained to think and aren't armed with basic knowledge about how the world actually works. They will then proceed to engage in social media to manipulate their democratic governments to their advantage and to the detriment of their society's future well being.
This has already been happening, but the amount and degree of free time such people have will be increased dramatically, as will their impact on the political system.
Besides which, "useless degrees" seems to be used in this context to mean "Anything I feel doesn't have employment prospects." Those things are not the same as each other.
Means degrees that don't indicate you learned how to think and how the world actually works. My distinction isn't by discipline. My distinction is by the intellectual ability of the individual holding it.
Points 2, 3 and 4 are essentially the same: "don't want to live outside Greece". I can understand that it's hard to decide to leave your home country for better economic prospects, but many many people make this same decision every year.
Which at least for me touches interesting points:
1) I think that Germans do not relate to their typical poors - at least not as much they'd like to think they do. To me this is connected to the welfare system: It effectively does anything to prevent middle-class people from a hard landing while doing up to nothing for the poorest to being able to compete for better places on the social ladder.
This makes sense from a political game theory standpoint: The vast majority of Germans aren't poor, at most they feel struggling. How can a democracy prevent its own sovereign (the majority of voters) from polluting the countries institutions for their own interests?
2) This "welfare focus" comes at the price of low social mobility: A welfare system aimed at the majority of people is generating huge costs, which the poorest also have to compensate for (ie harder to find employment, even harder to self-employ).
3) This "focus" is also reflected by the political debates about welfare reform: It's usually dominated by the concern for a soft landing rather than upward mobility. The massive welfare reforms of Chancellor Schröder in the late 1990 were thus mostly criticized by those groups fearing to become poor, rather than by people advocating for the poor or the poors themselves. In fact, for the majority of long-time jobless those reforms netted them more cash and a simpler way to get it.
PS:
4) Being poor within a society is always bad, no matter how high the average standard of living is. It's kind of sad to see those 3 example's compassion-worthiness degraded just because they are "poor in Germany". (In fact: If I was young I'd rather be poor in a country with a lower standard of living if it hat a higher social mobility.)
I would say the typical signifiers would be the same with low education level, teenage parents forced into a situation where the have to work low-end jobs.
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/armut-in-deutschla...
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11793276 and marked it off-topic.
Edit: ok, since so many of you protested, I must have gotten this one wrong. I've put that comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11793372) back where it was, and marked this comment (mine) off-topic instead.
I can understand parents with one child not quite anticipating how expensive they are, but surely parents who already have two children should understand the economic consequences of having two more.
It's perhaps not terribly charitable, but x0x0 does make a valid point: having children (in modern Germany) is a choice, and society probably shouldn't be on the hook for you to have as many children as you want.
It might be unkind, but it's certainly on topic.
I certainly don't claim to make the right call every time.
I actually get this type knee-jerk reaction from folks a lot but in a different context:
That bringing children into this world is the least "green" thing you can possibly do.
It's understandable to be defensive when someone appears to be saying something about "your children." It's not however understandable to lie to yourself about those truths and censor them.
Their post was not a rant, it's merely the reality of the situation. Just like me choosing to not have children makes me more green than people who do. Don't be angry at me, I'm not telling you to not have kids but I am telling you it is absolutely your choice.
I'd also be more inclined to think otherwise if this wasn't Germany, and the family wasn't educated... I.e. If this was a story on poverty in Sudan, I'd give them some slack. But! Germans have access and knowledge of birth control.
Not sure what's up with HN staff lately but it seems like some pretty troubling opinions, actions, and policies as of late.
dang seems to be employed by YCombinator, in order to moderate Hacker News.
Frankly, I'm worried that your only conclusion is that you "must have" gotten it wrong because of all the complaints. This wasn't even a borderline case. The decision was so plainly wrong, and reeks so much of politicized moderation, that anything but an outright acknowledgement of why seriously calls into question your ability to fairly moderate discussions on this site at all.
You're free to moderate your site however you want, but people who don't fit into the Silicon Valley hive-mind are going to be driven away by this animosity towards different perspectives.
After something like this, a little more than "I must have gotten it wrong" is necessary if you want people to trust you.
A lot of people clearly feel the same way as me. You called a widely held perspective--though one clearly at odds with the predominant political views around here--"unthoughtful", "rage", "noise", "this kind of rant", and then buried it. If I was x0x0, I'd be quite upset to have the moderator of the site say all those things about my reasonably argued position, remove my comment from the discussion, and then not even acknowledge why it was a bad decision, or even retract those nasty and unwarranted characterizations. And everyone who saw this might think twice about sharing their perspective in the future because they might have their name dragged through the mud a bit too; you've given no reason to believe that you changed your decision for any reason but its unpopularity in this particular case.
But at the beginning of the 1990s, his life came crashing down around him. One of his main customers stopped paying. He fought for years to get the unpaid money and restructured his debt to get seed capital for his new business plan. He fought desperately -- and ultimately in vain. In 1997, he was forced to capitulate. By that point, he had already been unable to work for two years and was on welfare. He lost his family home in a foreclosure and his pension and retirement insurance plan was seized. His landlord evicted him. Manfred Huber was ruined.
How does bankruptcy law work in Germany? This kind of catastrophe is what BK law is supposed to prevent.
Limited liability companies have the option of bankruptcy (by definition), but as a business owner it will leave a black mark on your credit rating in most countries... And typically in a small business, the bank required that company loans were guaranteed by the business owner or close family anyway, so a bankruptcy didn't really solve anything.
One is that until recently it was very difficult to form a limited liability company (GmbH) in Germany, requiring a fair amount of founding capital (currently €25,000). In 2008, the "UG (haftungsbeschränkt)" was created as a new type of limited liability company; it only requires €1 of founding capital, but also to set aside one quarter (I think) of your profits to add to the capital until you reach €25,000. This option was not available back then, and it appears as though Mr. Huber became fully liable for his business's accumulated debts (which must have been considerable to wipe out both his retirement savings and result in the loss of his family home).
The second problem is that until 1999, there was no viable way to deal with a personal bankruptcy. Basically, once bankrupt, it was nearly impossible to get out of it without your creditors' consent. The personal bankruptcy reform of 1999 changed that – though the process is still pretty onerous – but probably too late for Mr. Huber to recover in any meaningful way.
If he founded a GmbH (the most common type of business entity in Germany), his private funds are protected in case the business goes bankrupt.
On the other hand, if his business was a GbR he can also be held liable with his private money.
This are just examples. There are a lot of different business types out there with different liability implications.
The latest is on an ex-programmer who has fallen into heroin addiction and poverty. I suspect there are a lot more stories like this than you would expect from reading articles on Hacker News.
He plans to kill himself if he gets to the point where he has no good looking shirt, but he gives away two euros to the bathroom attendant?
You can get a nice shirt for 40 euro. Why does he give away his money if he is in dire need? It seems reckless.
Where am I wrong?
The failure isnt with the people but the government for not building enough houses ahead of time as they stopped to do so and even sold some of there owning for no real reason. Money is not the problem especially in bavaria.
But playing the card that the poor have to fight the poor is pretty stupid.
I'm glad my tax Euros are going towards sheltering them, though. I'm from a very Baptist part of Texas and find it deeply ironic that living in Germany puts me much closer to living in a Christian society than where I grew up.
Refugees are given housing under terms not accessable to regular citizens and thus may be (in some cases) getting a total "deal" at higher cost than a regular citizen.
But what is the alternative to this? Collecting refugees in big camps worsening social problems and problems with lack of integration.
Regular citizens will get their rent payed for by the government and subsidized housing, if they require welfare.
You've got to be mental or completely incompetent at identifying and comprehending trustworthy news sources to believe refugees are somehow better of than citizens or even immigrants.