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Comment by StudyAnimal | Hacker News Reader

It is because of the slightly less socialist government we have here. If we can manage to trim some more of the huge government bureaucratic fat we can expect even more economic health. Germany will always be reasonably socialist, and probably for Germany (considering the culture, total state addicts here, even rich families get child support benefits, you can't change that overnight) a reasonable amount of socialism will be optimal, compared to English speaking countries, but I am sure we have a way to go as far as turning down the socialism dial, and turning up the free market dial.

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German citizen who moved out of Germany here. The country rebooted from scratch in '48 with the most unsocialistic / market-libertarian constitution / law landscape the country has ever had so far. Immediately there was the "German economic miracle" (not a miracle at all) but since then socialism has grown every year. Notably faster paced since 1990 but "dialling down socialism a bit and the free market up a bit" is optimistic and illusory. Once this beast feeds and grows, there is no real turning back, all you can possibly adjust is timing. They now have not just income taxes but taxes on everything that moves and every step of every transaction or value chain. Once these taxes exist, they are never removed and keep being raised. Continuous talk about new taxes. All political parties are various shades of socialism and this is apparent in legislation. They make it harder for productive people and firms every year and the real miracle is that there is still "power in the power house", and I'm convinced they're still riding on the momentum of the 50s-70s. All these various 100s of "social state insurances" schemes and constructions are about to collapse a few years down the road and every euro spent on them whether through taxation or debt will not prevent this and just be a waste and destruction of productive human energy.

I dropped out, I stay a perpetual traveller and out of Germany because my conscience forbids me to feed this corrupt destructive apparatus and the greater EU with the fruits of my labour. The only legal way for me to still be able do this and keep my citizenship is to stay outside the country for 180 days or more a year, and not stay inside more than 2 months in a row -- roughly. But hey they the left was already calling to tax permanent travellers so I guess I'm not the only one.

Wow, I for one enjoy free, good quality kindergarden, highschool, university and healthcare.

I am not saying there are no problems here, but I do enjoy the social benefits and I am happy to pay 50% tax for that.

Well if you include healthcare, you should really add another 13.5% to that, as it is funded by compulsory health insurance rather than tax.

I basically meant the current center left coalition is slightly less destructive than the far left SPD, you are right, we are still somewhat left of optimal.

If the SPD are "far left", what are Die Grünen? Die Linke?

Don't confuse your personal perspective with that of the general population.

Another German here: The trouble with getting out of the crises so well is that it relieves the need for real reforms.

We still have an extremely inflexible labor market, extremely high taxes/social security payments, and excessive regulation.

Becoming more competitive by keeping down wages works, but is also the stupidest way to do it, since, well, it means you get paid less than you could.

Basically German people decided that it's OK to earn less, but cutting taxes, benefits and government interventions would be too much change.

On the other hand, I just realized that complaining about a situation that other people envy you for is a very German thing to do...

Politically, little has changed in the last decade. There hasn’t been any major political shift away from anything in the last years.

All political parties, for example, share the view that it is important to preserve the welfare state. They might propose little tweaks here and there but that’s about it. There is no controversy about the fundamentals. The “socialist” party is not socialist at all and the “libertarian” party is not libertarian at all.

When I look at the current governing coalition I see it much more as a continuation of Kohl’s coalition.

The rise of Die Linke? The near collapse in the SPD?

The left is far, far weaker than it was in Kohl's day.

Near collapse? Exaggerating much? And isn’t that just the point? The SPD is weakened from the left not from the right.

That doesn’t matter much anyway because it doesn’t change the fundamentals. No party in Germany wants much change.

Finally HN turned into a political forum. (Tongue in cheek)

The downfall of most parties is due to the fact that they do have no distinct marks anymore. For many socialdemocratic parties in Europe this began with embracing neocon agenda's. Christdemocratic parties turn to nature preservation, ecological parties advocate engagement in afghanistan ...

Tells me that the era of differences is over, calling parties extreme left or right in european parliaments is mostly uninformed bogus.

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