Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?
economist.com
economist.com
The train situation is a good starting point: an industry that used to be great and has been in slow decline for years without anyone doing anything other than shrugging and saying "well, that's how it is" or "yeah, but we are still better than X". I cannot speak for major macroeconomic trends but, as an individual, I can say that getting a doctor's appointment, an apartment, internet (not just the speed, but also getting the actual connection), a mandatory appointment at the "Bürgeramt" (and don't get me started on my citizenship application!) and (of course) traveling by train have been getting slightly more frustrating every year.
I know some of it is part of wider, world-wide tendencies (thanks, AirBnB), but it's also fair to recognize that the German government is getting asleep at the wheel. I actually appreciate that the government tends to err on the side of caution, but I also have to recognize that there's a line between "caution" and "paralyzed". I don't need to pay my taxes with Venmo, but I do need an apartment that I can actually afford to rent.
And FWIW, getting an appointment (both doctors and Bürgeramt) has been getting better and better every year here. Bürgeramt is now fully online, you can even pay by credit card, I’ve had an online diagnosis with a skin doctor that my health insurance paid for via OAuth, I can now have other appointments via websites.
This was Partially driven by COVID, partially because it’s simply advancing.
Sure, it's nice to be able to take a train, but if my experience is that I'm never on time and also not sure if it will start or arrive at all, what good does it do? I don't want to miss my flight in another city, so am I gonna take the train? Or the one before that? Oh, I was taking the first one of the day, that's bad luck.
But a few cases of delayed or canceled trains, pushed in the media since it's easy to beat that horse, thankfully picked up by opposition-party-of-the-day (often those that were in government just a few years prior), and everybody talks as if no train is ever on time. And you can expect that car industry lobbies like that development too, without starting conspiracy theories here. (Tbh, if I was PR responsible for a car company, that's where I'd direct some funds..)
In 2022, only 65,2% of German trains were on time. In some regions, that ratio was under 50%.
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/wirtschaft/puenktlichkeit-bah...
https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen...
Within 5 minutes was at over 90% in july 2023 and within 15 minutes was around 98% in july, and it was even higher in the beginning of the year.
But you don't get that as front-page news.
The "Total passenger traffic" (Personenverkeher) values (which are the ones you quote) are calculated in some opaque way designed to hide the fact that "Long distance traffic" (Fernverkeher) are really bad.
More importantly, every single indicator in that page is going down, not up, and they are all worse now than they were in January 2022 [1].
[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20221209074309/https://www.deutsc...
It's easy to select a subset of trains to make the statistic of this subset look bad. Take a single train that was canceled. In that subset, the "on time" statistic is 0%. Really bad, eh? Or take one that was on time. 100%. Great, eh? Well, not useful, just like all other anecdotes.
So, yes, sure, we can all pick the subset for which the statistic suits our narrative and then keep disagreeing about the facts. It's not a useful way of debating though and only suits lobbys in pushing their agenda.
(Or we take the facts as they are.)
P.S.: Even the 80.6% that you quote are not "really bad". Ever been in North America? No train traffic at all sounds worse than 80.6% to me. The German train system has its issues, but it's by far not as bad as the public perception seems to believe.
P.P.S.: Check out the German "Staustatistik" some time. Over a thousand every day. Of course nobody who wants to make trains look bad and implicitly push the car as the better alternative talks about this.
Two friends of mine have bought cars to go to work. A third is often crashing with me because they can't make it to their destination due to delays. And I changed cities in no small part due to a one-year train line closure that's six months behind schedule and counting. DB schedules ten minutes connections for trains that arrive nine minutes late and then argues "it's just nine minutes!" disregarding the actual fifty one minutes that it takes for the next train to arrive.
I love trains and I'll keep using them for as long as they remain the greenest option. But I hate DB with a passion and I dream of a day when those at the top end up in jail.
So much you need to get an accountant/tax advisor, but even then they will pass-through a lot of the bureaucracy. I need to put down excel sheets for every day of a business trip I do, mark whether its been longer or shorter than 8 hours, arrival/leave day etc. And double pay attention that the hotel you stayed didn't include breakfast, or at least had it separate on the invoice. If getting a company car, you are in for some real tax hell.
On top of that, the accountant charges ~5.000€/year for this single-person business (personal income tax declaration included). And no, it is not just an expensive accountant, as in Germany accountant prices are regulated just as lawyer fees are (they can max. give you 20% discount). Meanwhile, when I talk to my friends in Spain they pay less than 1.000€/year for accounting for an LLC (S.L.) with not even close the bureaucracy. And bear in mind, I'm german and speak the language, but even I struggle to keep up with all tax- and business regulations. On top of that, we have the highest tax load and social insurance is also amongst the top price ranges, while waiting months for a doctors appointment.
There is tons of examples where a solo-enterpreneur is drowned in these regulations (corporate car or even e-bike (!), calculation of privateley used square meter space in the homeoffice, separation of heating cost for your home office etc.). Don't even get me started about the beaurocracy hell if I had employees, there are so many regulations and rules.
Only if you want to make use of tax incentives for company cars. It's easy to complain about the downsides and ignore the upside. You can just not put it into your tax declaration, then you don't have trouble. Oh then you don't get the money?
> Meanwhile, when I talk to my friends in Spain they pay less than 1.000€/year for accounting for an LLC (S.L.) with not even close the bureaucracy.
Their cost of living is likely also a fraction of where you lived in Germany. (I'm guessing a larger city with high cost of living.)
Do they just skip this 5k EUR accountant ?
That's bullshit. A Gewerbeanmeldung for a one-person startup or a GbR (same, just with more than one person) takes one DIN A4 sheet of paper per person, and about half an hour of waiting at the city authority.
An LLC (UG, GmbH, AG) takes more effort to form, yes (including raising 12.500€ of capital for the GmbH/AG), but you can easily transition from an existing Einzelunternehmen/GbR to a LLC.
Now that is bs. Because you also need to register with the tax authorities (Finanzamt) to get your tax id after that. Oh, and if you want to do your VAT declarations ("Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung") yourself, don't forget to request a digital certificate for ELSTER, which is sent - yes- via snail mail. And good luck if you want a EU VAT id, which is another separate step/appointment. And when you want to pay out first dividends you are in for a surprise when the tax account asks all of the shareholders/owners of the GbR/GmbH for their proof of church membership (for dividends tax), which you have to request individually from the Finanzamt just to send it back to them later...
> you are in for a surprise when the tax account asks all of the shareholders/owners of the GbR/GmbH for their proof of church membership (for dividends tax)
Ah yes, I agree with you that this crap can go and die in a fire for all I care...
But it's probably easier to just rant, instead of gathering basic information.
Edit: and another, less obvious throwaway to answer this thread :) I'm not resorting in any way to personal threats, I'm just pointing out throwaway-account usage.
Edit2: And the reply to this thread is removed, as I pointed out the other obvious throwaway usage. There was antoher answer by throwaway "iiiieu". I'm quiting this discussion, mschuster91, save your throwaway creations :P
[1] https://www.existenzgruender.de/SharedDocs/BMWi-Expertenforu...
Everyone else can wait a week (or less, if you're persistent in nagging the Finanzamt on the phone), but let's be real: if you're a shop owner, you need weeks of "empty" runway to rent a shop, set up the shop, buy inventory, wait for it to arrive... so in reality the week of waiting time won't matter.
Additionally, when did we (germans) start to accept and get so stuborn to defend this process? I mean, the process should be: You go to the "Gewerbeamt", fill out the forms, and get the same day a tax id, a EU VAT id, and a one-time token to create your ELSTER accounts and certificates. Thats what digitalization should be. How does anyone think the current, cumbersome process is the ultimate way and that this is considered business friendly, yet tends to defend or glorifies this process?
The author is making observations about symptoms.
As a German, it is evident that we have caught a serious disease that started more than a decade ago. We sniffed free Russian Gas and ingested free Chinese manufacturing and got really high and felt great for a while but failed to invest into the future.
Now as both drugs are no longer cheap and their side effects are playing out, we will go through a serious withdrawal phase while having to invest for the future - a future that requires strong digital infrastructure we failed to build and a large part of the population rejects even digital learning devices in school based on a romanticized view of the olden times.
a future that requires more energy than in the past with even fewer options (In before the nuclear people jump in an hijack the narrative about that, it’s tangentially related but a drop in the bucket),
a future that needs us to make bold moves when an increasingly aging population is squabbling about every minor sacrifice, every wind-turbines location, every powerline of 5G cell tower and parties are locked to solely serve their constituents.
a future that requires leadership and vision to drive adaptation when the Manager of the country got his power by .. doing nothing and letting all other candidates destroy themselves. A “leader” who learned from 16 years of Merkel that all Germans want is no change while keeping prosperity and that doing nothing as long as possible is the best way to achieve it.
We lost our leaders as it always happens and are now run solely by managers, people who know how to get elected but not how to lead. Who know the game of thrones well enough to succeed but are mediocre at best, amateurs usually and corrupt at worst when given responsibility, afraid to touch the delicate balance of party loyalty and incentives that got them elected - vapid empty vessels not unlike those every day engaged playing the game of professionalism on LinkedIn while abdicating their responsibility to lead.
Even if leaders arise, they will be cut down and dulled enough by the managers and the population that fears change, they cannot move it anymore, this old old society.
A future that sees increasingly Europe, the engine of our growth being destabilized by our own and other forces, an act so stupid, it would reduce us to vassals in a global power conflict.
A future that requires military commitments to NATO and EU when the population is a third ex USSR, a third peace movement and a third alt-right (overlapping thirds)
A future were the economic engine of the country, the car, preferably driven without speed limit on the fictional Autobahn that has no speed limits and peasants, blaring Wohlstand with its powerful internal combustion engine, has to change for us to survive and the change is driven by China - but we really would like to stick to Kübelwagen GTI
The country had end stage Wohlstand disease where lack of growth means inability to run away from hard choices at a time when hard choices will get you voted out and consensus building had been destroyed by social media and hyper-scaled media conglomerates.
We are sick alright and quite late stage, as it so often is when you ignore the smaller symptoms. The nazis, openly fabulating about banning disabled children from schools and shooting migrants, and those who see no other option for their pent up desire for change approach the size of our large parties now. In the country that learned from but didn’t learn to avoid history repeating, the major opposition party leader talks about collaborating with the nazis, unable to instead offer viable alternatives as those would offend his base.
And now we look into a future where the robots have arrived for the jobs of the knowledge worker as the machines created havoc in the 1910s and 1920s. We bargain and hope that our lack of digital infrastructure will slow the progress. And get more afraid every day.
We see the symptoms but start preferring narratives that absolve us from the actions that brought us here.
We like to blame migrants for our problems as if migrants were the reasons. We blame “the greens” for the loss of nuclear power when the greens never had that power, never ruled, when a conservative chancellor and a socialist chancellor sold us out to Russia instead because it was easier to take cheap Gas than to reason with the nuclear fears in broad parts of society.
We are not special here, not unique. Most developed countries reach this stage eventually. Most systems of governance and society do. Our neighbors are sick too, the French, the British sneezed themselves away from Europe into decline.
The present can be comfortable and, if you don’t look to closely, appear healthy and wealthy, but the symptoms are far too numerous, the rot and decay and calcification far too obvious even beyond demographic effects to ignore without being willful - or selling narratives of national economic glory of the past as easy prescriptions, Brexit style.
This time, the underlying problems are probably much harder to tackle:
1. Germany's economic model depends on high worker productivity, strong education, cheap energy (still large industry base). All of these have structural weaknesses.
2. The public discourse is very much focussed on climate change, allowing little room for other discourses. Don't get me wrong: I believe the climate change discourse is globally the most important discourse of our time; it is just that there is little room left for other broad social discourses in Germany, at the moment.
3. No immediate pressure comparable to the high unemployment rate at the time. The German economy is getting comparably weaker, slowly but steadily. (Boiling frog problem)
That the economy is getting weaker, is eg. visible in GDP constant prices growth rate stats. It is yet not as severe as last time (between 2003 and 2006, Germany was last in G7, even behind Japan, and Italy with base year 1999), but the gap between the best performing G7 countries (US, Canada), number 3 (UK) and Germany is widening. Since 2017 Germany has fallen behind France, too (except in 2020). (see https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/Ap...)
Now you can call me a pessimist, but if we look back at the last 2 decades, did any social discourse really bring out anything positive?
The right-wing politicians are gaining more platform and more supporters, even the so-called social democrats brought us things like Hartz IV, the populists are always at work to call in less taxation for rich people by lying to poorer und uneducated people "they want to increase taxes! You'd get 10€ less per month!" while failing to admit they would maybe get 1000€ or 10k€ less per month)
Few migrants won't fix anything if locals sit on their asses. Especially if local culture pushes 2nd/3rd gen migrants the same way.
We need to use state propaganda machine (which is already very well greased in EU) to make it fancy to be engineer, doctor and so on. And then make sure those professions let people build a nice life. Universities have to be geared towards that as well.
A big issue for professionals to move is they have to learn German.
However, maybe a standardised pronunciation and the removal of some issues could make Neo-English a good and interesting language.
This outdated overview (2009) shows that most European countries only require A1/A2 for residency, and for citizenship B1 or B2 at most. https://rm.coe.int/16802fc1d9
That's exactly what Indonesian is , a simplified standardized language to allow hundreds of different ethnicities with their own languages to easily communicate.
There are tons more but I guess Indonesian is the world's best example because it is the language of one the most populated island on earth and one of the most populus nations
And there's no need for three tenses, neither Chinese nor Indonesian have tenses.
I don't know anything about Indonesian so, it's nice to know my idea is not a crazy one.
If Chinese and Indonesian do not have tenses, how they communicate when the action happens?
:)
The biggest issues are housing and the horrendously slow immigration office. Bureaucracy in general is so slow that some people give up and leave. Employers can't wait 4 months for employees to get the permission to start working. Employees get tired of waiting for weeks for every little piece of paper. It's infuriating.
And then there's work: There's a lot of good paying and rewarding tech jobs here that would seem foreign to SV types, in very specific domains or more traditional B2B. Getting a job at those places without speaking German is surely possible for a programmer, just a minor handicap maybe. But for other professions, it can be downright impossible.
no idea what "german quality" or "better" is supposed to mean.
As someone else complained beforehand: the public health system is already strained, the influx of illegals, refugees and other immigrants didn't help the situation - what where people expecting?
You sure about that? For example, there's nothing better for a country like Germany to have an inmigrant who has:
- got a bacherlo/masters degree in a different country other than Germany
- has a job in a German company and earns well above the average German citizen
- pays tons of taxes
- is relatively young (between 20 and 50 years old), so doesn't get to use the health care as much as others
Besides, European countries are getting old (the 'population pyramid' is getting inverted) so they definitely need young people that work (and it doesn't even really matter if they are skilled people or not; what's needed is people in the age of working and who can spend some of their earnings in the country)
On the contrary, that is _precisely_ what Germany needs if you are to sustain the bloated bureaucracy and the pensions.
As another comment pointed out, the best kind of immigrant is the one who pays really high taxes and social contributions and doesn't use up any benefits. That means young people with no families in high paying jobs. They don't get sick, don't use the kitas/schools, don't need to get paid kindergeld (money that parents get per child), are not married so have much higher taxable income (on average, because of Ehegattensplitting), pay into the pension system from which they will almost certainly get back far less (if at all) than what they pay in, usually live in big cities so they don't drive and therefore have significantly less impact on marginal infrastructure costs and drive up demand and pay into the local services economy.
Also, if it is difficult for such immigrants to assimilate and naturalize, they will often just pack up and leave, having contributed to (but never using) the various social systems.
- if you don't speak German, then chances are you want to live in the big cities (Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne,...) where some fraction of the population speak English... but in those cities there's a huge demand for flats and the offer is not up to it. Also, just by not speaking German you cut probably 50% of the flat offers already because they are offered by people who don't speak English
- if you just moved to Germany and you're applying to a flat, chances are they will ask you your last 3 payslips (this is not a law, but if they ask and you don't provide, well goodbye!)
But honestly, in which countries is that really different? The only ones I remember stories about would be the Netherlands and Sweden, but also only if you're living in a big city and not in a small town. Obviously I'm leaving out the countries where their main language is English already and assuming you speak English. And Spain if you come from a Spanish-speaking country, and France if you come from a French-speaking country... but overall I just think that this is the default?
Also, as a professional, in the big cities like Berlin and Hamburg, there is a different immigration centre and they process your paperwork way faster.
Coincidence, or a coordinated effort to bring in a new narrative?
[1] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/wir-sind-der-kranke-mann...
Every single thing is so obsolete. Nothing is digitized. Everything requires a giant stack of actual paperwork to be taken to an office where the whims of the clerk dictate everything. A million rules exist in the hopes that they cover all possible scenarios, but inevitable they don't and if you happen to have a scenario which is not covered, you're shit out of luck because the clerk is sure as shit not going to put their ass on the line and make a decision not explicitly present in the rule book.
You pay through the nose for health insurance, but when you need to find a doctor, none can take you because their quota of public insurance patients is done for the quarter. If I paid the same amount in insurance in India, I'd have a helicopter flown out every time I stubbed my toe.
And then there's the wait time for everything. Appointment for visa extension: 8 months. Driving license conversion: 1 year. German exam: 5 months. What, you want the results for your exam also? Better wait another year then. Honestly Germany is a shit show, and if I hadn't already invested so much time, money and energy into this god forsaken country, I'd be out of here in a heartbeat.
But the worst part of all this is - the vast majority of Germans think this is all acceptable and okay. If you go to the /r/germany or /r/de subreddits, any thread with genuine complaints will be drowned in responses from native Germans who naively believe that Germany is a great country to live in because they either don't have these problems, or they know how to work the system and get their results. So there is no voting pressure to get things to change. So long as the omas and opas get their pension, Germany will stay as it is for ever - there is no need to change in their view.
And I love how there are multiple comments about disrespecting the country that I moved to. Why? Because I dared to criticize it instead of pretending everything is awesome? Yeah that's cool man. You do know that people criticize because they care and want the system to change for the better right?
This is disrespect.
Complaining the system is OK but not attacking people.
Assume some one just says "All native Indian men are involved in harassing women/girls (incl. r-a-p.e)"
Hope, you will come back and report here and guide Indians/expats... If it is better/worse elsewhere.
(As some Indian living in EU for about 30 years - it won't be better. What you are expecting is Ambani level treatment. Then become one )
> And this is where the fallacy is. Indian salaries are currently actually higher than German ones for my role. And that's without even accounting for PPP.
I often meet people like this in many Indian restaurants - everyone brags but even after 20 years they never go out of Germany.
If this level of greatness is true then why are you here? I can even tell you that even at this level of richness you won't
- get the clean/non-flickering electricity in India that one gets in Germany
- Even Abdulkalam got stuck in traffic.
> If this level of greatness is true then why are you here? I can even tell you that even at this level of richness you won't
Believe it or not, it is true. You get paid more in India if you're an experienced and capable software dev than you do in Germany (unless you're employed by FAANG in Germany). As for why I don't do it - because even though I bitch about the bureaucracy and broken infrastructure, there are a billion other things that I love about Germany.
However just because I love a lot of things about Germany, doesn't mean I shouldn't criticize those things that are horribly broken - esp. when the politicians show no signs of wanting to fix them.
Of course, they do criticize. Are you even reading German news or staying only in thelocal.de or facebook for information.
so many subs incl r/legaladvicegerman constantly critical of system. I dare you to be critical of Indian system.
see Oliver Welke's "heute-show". Like Jon Stewart's Daily show.
Any change takes time. You have some bad experiences. But I know so many Indians/ Filipinos in Frankfurt with great experiences. Getting even PR residency in 1 month and passport in 6 months.
I have a feeling from your constant repeat of "I make more money than others across many threads" - it seems like you want things to happen 24/7 as you have MONEY. That is wrong.
Even a skilled plumber or skilled IT giant like you are treated equally. You think you need to be invited to FAST track like first class in planes and given service. That is not here. Go to UAE or Liechtenstein or Luxembourg.
Germany works more or less for middle class. Everyone is treated equally.
The other times were easy, despite being nerveracking.
Those are two things which are pretty far up the list of things I need to be fair.
1. More and more immigrants stop coming to Germany.
2. Taxes and Pensions dry up.
3. Already stressed and broken infrastructure can no longer be maintained thanks to lack of funds.
4. Your quality of life (that of the guy who never faces these problems) goes down because you did not speak out and help change the system.
But yes, by all means be typisch Deutsch and stick your head in the sand. Let's see how that helps when the car manufacturing industry is long gone and Germany is the Greece of the 2030s.
You are right, I also forget adding strawmen.
> You responded saying you won't fight against things that don't personally affect you
Didn’t say that either, but that fits with my image of you.
You are free to go private if you earn more than 60k a year and you get all the helicopters and 3-d printed tooth fillings. The only problem is that you can get back to public only if you get fired.
> Germans who foolishly believe that Germany is a great country to live
It's not Germans who foolishly believe these things, but all the immigrants who come to Germany over and over each year. If there were not so much immigration then the services for exams would be 1 week instead of 5 months.
> So long as the omas and opas get their pension, Germany will stay as it is for ever - there is no need to change in their view.
I strongly advise anyone who moves to Germany to start private pension scheme immediately because in 30 years there will be no pension in Germany, most likely.
But there is not way out of the government mandated pension unless you become self-employed. So you do have to pay into the giant ponzi scheme, while also building your own private funds.
Good luck if you are married and have children, or good beware, prior health conditions. Then private will cost you waaay more than public
To clarify why it's tricky:
I was going to private long time ago and they asked me if I have some conditions. I said I have mild scoliosis and whatever and they said "No, not like that - like HIV/AIDS or Cancer" and I said No.
Some time later they said I cheated them because I did not say I have "Nasal Septum Deviation" which is whatever for me, and it is not even close to having cancer or HIV. Basically they increased my premium by ~300 EUR because of that. So be careful, make sure you say EVERYTHING that might be wrong with you beforehand to not have surprises like I had.
Of course the upside is that:
- Nobody cares if you cannot speak German
- You get appointments next day regardless of what condition you have
- You go to hospital there is special counter for you sometimes where you skip line completely
- You get best healthcare in all Europe (I think)
Not to mention as a minority, who knows when you can be lynched or arrested for stating your opinion.
People come here, reek of privilege, miss their life in India where they had 3 servants for everything and also forget that if they have to go to any government office in India they have to pay bribes.
Also, please show some respect to the country you live in.
Unfortunately these are the exact people that Germany wants moving into their country - because they're the one's who pay the high taxes. Do you think Germany is throwing open their doors for the underprivileged folk of the developing world? Unless you're a refugee from a war torn land, they are not doing that. They don't want you here. Case in point - the new immigration reform allows you to bring your parents on FRV only if you're coming here on a high paying blue card job.
So if your goal is to explicitly attract these kinds of privileged individuals, then it's pointless to get pissed off when they speak from their position of privilege.
> Also, please show some respect to the country you live in.
So what, I should kow tow to a broken system and praise it? No thanks. People and countries should be able to take criticism. Also, just because I complain about everything that is bad doesn't mean that there is nothing good. It's just that none of them apply to a thread about Germany's dire immigration situation.
anyway - what are those countries? everybody would like to know!
The UAE has excellent administration.
scandinavia: (not a country) strong contestants.
estonia: not really - i have several estonian friends who will give you a long list of reasons why germany is the better place to live and work. personally, i really like estonia. have been there many times.
uae (or singapure): sure ... but you are discrediting yourself by even mentioning those in this list or possibly considering them as a place to live.
first three are all in EU by the way - and very close to germany. so the good news is that you can just easily try to move there. have a nice trip.
"Don't be snarky."
All I know, in Delhi I was using 1 inhaler in 1 week, in Germany it is 1 inhaler in 1 year. That is worth something to me.
You don't kow tow have to but never attack a group of people like "They will never change". Looking at the history Germans are one people that happily criticise themselves. Even incl. racism.
Germans happily and always criticise the bureacracy. If you are not this aggressive in stereotyping then may be you are in a bubble without German friends/co-workers.
What broken system? You have some pain points.
BTW, that headline is correct but it takes only one year and then same Economist will reverse the headline.
Until Lehman bros crashed every one called Germany sickman of europe. Then it became so much praise for their great Economics powerhouse.
This is my view formed after living in Germany for the better part of a decade and seeing multiple Governments push back modernization projects and allocate the budget intended for them to populist people pleasing measures - and then seeing a lot of Germans agree with these measures. It's also formed from a lot of discussion on the /r/german subreddit and with Germans I know personally of varying age groups - most of them do not believe these are big problems or that substantial effort has to be put into to change them.
> Even incl. racism.
I don't want to talk about this as it is off-topic for the post, but racism is alive and very healthy in Germany. It's just not as "in-your-face" as in other countries which are generally thought of as having "racism problems".
Germany is already open for work for ALL of the EU member states and associated countries. The EU has a "freedom to move for goods, persons, services and capital" as one of the four principles. That means EVERYONE of the EU, who can afford the life in Germany, could move here.
Additionally we have people coming from other countries, incl. India on visas: students, workers, ... plus Germany currently hosts around 1 million persons from the Ukraine, because of the war.
> because they're the one's who pay the high taxes.
Germany needs workers in many professions: construction workers, in agriculture, nurses, software developers, ...
They come from the EU and from outside the EU. For EU citizens its relatively easy to move to other countries. The EU also made it easy for people from the Ukraine, to help the war refugees.
Not sure about that. The ideal immigrant to a country is young and well educated. Through labour, they will contribute immensely to society and pay top income tax.
In constrast, some rich people who park their wealth in offshore tax heavens and live off passive income don't contribute much, beyond rising real estate prices.
I think they were pretty clear about that:
> > If you're in the higher earning bracket in India, then you get these there itself.
It's not a comment from a "commoner", clearly.
> So then moving to Germany from India is like stepping back into 1996.
Seriously then leave the country.
> Germany will stay as it is for ever - there is no need to change in their view.
You are attacking Germans.
- Million rules exist and if followed then it works smoothly.
- I know vast majority of Indians think bureaucracy works like India
- Assuming you are from wealthy background or software or doctor etc. They expect minimal paperwork and want the German bureaucrats to skip things. Why? because they are entitled.
- The rules are very clearly laid out. Too often people from India fill up forms like <I dont give a shit. I am invited to work in your country. So give me visa attitude>
- If you complain so much about German bureaucrats try to get your passport or any documents (like attestation) from Indian Consulate/Embassy. Unless you have power/connections etc. they delay it EVEN when you give all papers. Look all the ridiculous docx or PDF with one small line for complete address in embassy website. More over if you dont speak Hindi it is PITA.
> he vast majority of Germans think this is all acceptable
They don't. But remember many things in Germany are designed for EVERYONE. Incl. non smartphone users.
- Look at Indian railway system: If you have coding skill all tickets are booked by these people. And people that wait for booking in counters are left NO with no seats on the first day of booking availablity. Is this happening?
- Data protection. Sure in India: you dont care and upload any document by whatsapp etc. We dont.
- Language: it is painful. But why not learn? (Given the fact Govt of India wants Southern people to learn Hindi - why dont you learn German)
> health insurance, but
I call BS. How many helicopters are available for you in India for the €100 - €200 you pay in Germany. Do you know the number of celebrities from Bollywood that came to Germany to get COVID vaccine (Yes, I am in this field).
> You are attacking Germans.
I don't think so and I don't feel attacked.
The problem is that German politics has been VERY conservative for the last decades and also in general, the population seems very much averse to change. The younger people (younger than 50, lol) are not usually in a position of power, and maybe even in the majority not open to tech. (Look at the pixelated houses discussions with street view)
I'm still amazed sometimes that we can even have things like online banking or that SOME chores at government offices work digitally, it's just not happening and everything they try to do sucks anyway.
Anything digital Germany absolutely feels like a weird place fixated on the good old days and another problem is that every time some progress is on the horizon someone misinterprets data protection and privacy laws again and manages to sabotage progress. Or it's people who want to go the extra mile and instead of fighting so that we are allowed to bay with a card everywhere want to completely abolish coins and paper money...
So in that regard I absolutely agree with the post you replied to. The majority or the people in power don't want this to change it seems, or are too incompetent.
They don't cover all possible scenarios. Unless you are stuck in the no mans land things seem to work well for you. If instead Beamten were given the autonomy to make certain decisions not strictly by the rule book then this wouldn't be a problem.
> - I know vast majority of Indians think bureaucracy works like India
I don't expect it to work like in India. I just expect it to work in a reasonable amount of time.
> - Assuming you are from wealthy background or software or doctor etc. They expect minimal paperwork and want the German bureaucrats to skip things. Why? because they are entitled.
Where have I ever mentioned that I want things to be skipped? And minimal paperwork is not just expected by wealthy people - it's expected by everyone. Compare Germany's bureacracy with Netherlands or Swedens and there is a giant difference, primarily because most of the paperwork is minimized to bare necessities. Just because something worked when it was invented, doesn't mean it has to be stuck to when it's now causing a lot of pain needlessly.
> - The rules are very clearly laid out. Too often people from India fill up forms like <I dont give a shit. I am invited to work in your country. So give me visa attitude>
Again not sure where you got this from anything I said. I was only complaining about time taken and inflexibility of bureaucracy.
> - If you complain so much about German bureaucrats try to get your passport or any documents (like attestation) from Indian Consulate/Embassy. Unless you have power/connections etc. they delay it EVEN when you give all papers. Look all the ridiculous docx or PDF with one small line for complete address in embassy website. More over if you dont speak Hindi it is PITA.
Whataboutism.
> - Language: it is painful. But why not learn? (Given the fact Govt of India wants Southern people to learn Hindi - why dont you learn German)
I'm beginning to think you intended to reply to someone else. I never mentioned not speaking German as a problem. If you move to a country and live there, you should learn the local language.
> I call BS. How many helicopters are available for you in India for the €100 - €200 you pay in Germany.
Okay that was exaggerating for effect. But the point stands - If I paid 300Eur a month for health insurance in India I would be given the VIP treatment if I ever had to step into a hospital.
This is the problem for you. You got VIP treatment in India as you say you get better than FAANG salaries. No. Whether you are a plumber or $M you wait in the same queue.
For you that is painful.
I don't want to downplay any of this and I mostly agree with your points, but as a German the only "related" things I have to do is renew my ID and passport every 10 years and I've never had to wait such a long time (I think we're due to a change in our driving licenses, but that's one time, and I've not touched mine since I got it over 20 years ago).
My point being that we're not talking everyday things. Also not sure how long you've been here, before covid I could usually get one of these appointments in the next few weeks, like.. 2 or 3, which I found pretty reasonable. (just checked online, next available appointments are Tue-Fri next week). It was really bad in 2020-2022.
So maybe it depends on your city and the exact document you need to have renewed. I'm not saying this is a great country with low bureaucracy or that we're downplaying anything per se - but I've never heard a foreign national coworker complain that much, so maybe my town was just better at this all the time?
Exactly. This is precisely my point. Germans don't realize that there are such big problems for immigrants because they don't go through any of it. And immigrants can't vote, and those who can vote don't face the problem so then problem never gets fixed.
I just found https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/28347/umfrage... - which looks like a big jump (e.g. comparing to France https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/461789/umfrag... )
In a perfect world I'd assume this would be fixed slowly as this seems to be a recent trend, but I'm not hopeful.
Also I'm pretty sure there's currently no way to vote in any election that would make any process more digital and faster and less bureaucratic, so while that doesn't help you, you're not missing anything here. (Yes, the FDP and Lindner especially have ran their campaign on some pipe dreams but my personal opinion can be summed up with: lol.)
Fixing this needs a general shift of thinking first, then the stuff that is only relevant to 3% of the population (also maybe in their first few years, so even less?) will follow.
Yes, I thought the Ampel coalition's push for digitization was a great start to this. And then I read last week that they slashed the budget and pushed it back again. So I'm losing hope too.
The problem is that digitalization is just one of the problems we have.
Currently we are paying billions for energy related issues, for the Ukraine war and investing lots into the military industry and in energy infrastructure transformation. We had three years covid slowing things down and creating various large problems: inner cities have huge problems keeping businesses alive (because people stay home and shopping moved to online) and there is a huge housing crisis due to large amounts of people coming germany (demand) and low building activity due to shortage of materials/labor and price increases. This all costs huge amount of money.
Germany is disrupted by the Ukraine war started by Russia and the economic boycott against Russia.
Digitalization is important, but people feared more about cold homes and about lack of electricity, than lack of public service digitalization.
Hi, I'm likely in the top 10% of top 1% of salaried professionals in India. I'd like to know where in India I'd be able to get the kind of insurance you're talking about. If it's not hyperbole, I'd love to move there. So far, I've found no insurance that's as generous as you describe. Not even close.
Public services cost money. Relative to contributions to society (if you compare to the lady in the supermarket or the immigrant guy cleaning the toilets), SWE pay is what is obnoxiously high.
Sure the paperwork and bureaucracy is annoying. But India isn't exactly known for shining in this regard. At least the corruption in the public sector is magnitudes less in Germany compared to India. Things may be slow, but not because you didn't pay up, but because they are just ... slow.
The slowness has advantages too. The right wing guys will have a harder time taking over because everything is so slow. (Fingers crossed)
> German exam: 5 months. What, you want the results for your exam also? Better wait another year then. Honestly Germany is a shit show,
It's a "shit show" because you need to wait for a while for your language exam results? Your priorities are odd. There are a few thousand things higher up on my personal priority list. What about corruption? Environment? Safety? Health care? Pension? Child care? Just sitting in a street café having a latte, reading a book, watching birds sing and kids play near by, all in central Berlin, all while being safe, breathing clean air and not hearing a 7-lane highway?
> But the worst part of all this is - the vast majority of Germans think this is all acceptable and okay.
So, why is this bad then? A society that is happy with how things work, that's the dream state, right? If you immigrated there and don't like it, well, you seem to be in the minority. Perhaps choose a place that's more to your liking then.
(I'm neither a citizen nor a resident in Germany.)
By the way, I have many friends from South America who moved to Europe just to move back a couple of years later with stories very similar to what you are saying.
This topic is about Germany. Moreover you're replying to an Indian who moved to Germany...
> The only upgrade is in cleaner air to breathe and safety from crime
- Easy access to parks
- Good public transport (I used to live in Delhi, and it has an okay metro connectivity, but nowhere close to what even smaller German cities have).
- Traffic. I liked living in India, but holy shit, the traffic is the worst.
- It's a whole lot quieter which I really care about. I can hear birds chirping right now very close to Berlin's city center.
- Lots of activities to do if you're young.
- I know people complain about beauraucracy here, but I would be very surprised if India handles incoming migrant cases really smoothly either.
> But the worst part of all this is - the vast majority of Germans think this is all acceptable and okay. If you go to the /r/germany or /r/de subreddits, any thread with genuine complaints will be drowned in responses from native Germans who foolishly believe that Germany is a great country to live in because they either don't have these problems, or they know how to work the system and get their results.
Maybe it wasn't what you said, but how you said it. I'm judging based on your tone in this post. If you're this rude to people, expect them to dismiss your opinion even if you're making valid points.
It's not only rosy for me either.
- Cellphone coverage and mobile data is strangely expensive here for reasons I don't understand.
- Finding appartments is really difficult. But it's a problem that all big cities in Europe face. I wish some of my taxes would go towards making affordable mass housing.
- It's hard to learn a new language as an adult (not really the fault of Germans). You definitely run into German fairly often, websites, talking to cashiers, etc.
P.S. Obnoxiously high is a stretch. Yes, in India your taxes max out at 30% percent (roughly), which isn't nothing but you don't get much value out of it. In Germany, it maxes out at 45% but it pays for good quality education for everyone.
That said, there are indeed a lot more things that are in general better in Germany than in India, and this rant of mine was the result of a year of frustrated dealings with German bureaucracy (not that that makes any of the points I raised invalid though).
> Maybe it wasn't what you said, but how you said it. I'm judging based on your tone in this post. If you're this rude to people, expect them to dismiss your opinion even if you're making valid points.
Actually, whenever I've had in person conversations with Germans, after they get to the point where they realize that immigrants don't have the same experience as they do, they quickly accept that there should be change. However, the vast majority needs to understand this and push for it. Otherwise there is zero political will to fix these things. And the large majority don't have a friendly neighbourhood immigrant who will sit and tell them all the problems they face.
> P.S. Obnoxiously high is a stretch.
If you are single, you get zero benefits out of the system and are just paying into a pot you cannot touch. So yes it's obnoxiously high when you consider you don't see much benefits from it. I do understand the social nature of contributions, but that doesn't make my wallet hurt any less whenever I receive my paycheck.
I didn't include the things you listed as problems because these are there in any country you would want to move to (except maybe cheap/better mobile internet). It's okay to have to learn German - it's the language of the country I chose to live in, and it is in some ways a much more logical language than English .
Housing crisis exists pretty much everywhere. Again can't see any political will anywhere to change this - which surprises me as this is something that arguably impacts Germans more than immigrants.
And as a German let me say that you are totally right, when it comes to the bureaucracy. While most of the time the bureaucracy doesn't fell too bad for standard German citizens, I can well imagine that it is horrible for you and that it feels really oldfashioned.
All other points are not wrong but debatable, which dhruvrajvanshi already did. The problems that our nations face are both abundant but also quite different.
As an aside: I also perceived you're post as too blunt and slightly unfair, just as some of the people in the sub-reddits probably felt. On the other hand sub-reddits are full of awful people and I can imagine that you have to deal with a lot of rudeness and prejudices yourself. I could understand where you were coming from and understood why you expressed yourself in this way after beuing frustrated by the German Bureaucracy. The quoted clarification was useful.
That's not true. But it depends very strong on the City and task to which degree something is digitized. The problems are federation and privacy-laws, which exist for historical reasons. Basically, every city is doing their own thing, and sharing of data has been made hard for public services for a long time. Germany is moving away from this, but because of the big clusterfuck of everything, it takes a while, and not everyone moves at the same speed. And things have become better fast in the last years, because of the pandemia. So it might be already very different from when you made your experiences.
> But the worst part of all this is - the vast majority of Germans think this is all acceptable and okay.
Nobody thinks that, but most process the normal citizen encounter, are fast and people know how to avoid the problems. This is a more general problem of Germany, that many things depends on you having the necessary knowledge and experience about the system to get things done fast.
> If you go to the /r/germany or /r/de subreddits, any thread with genuine complaints will be drowned in responses from native Germans who foolishly believe that Germany is a great country
Those are often parodies, German humor. The stupid dry level to say, but overall they just joke about the attitude of Germany and its rules. And overall, Germany is in fact not a bad country to live, there are far worse countries, like North Korea, Russia, parts of Ukraine, parts of USA.. At least people have Beer and Döner.
I’m a resident in Switzerland and my girlfriend is from south India, now also a resident there.
This has not at all been our experience. The administration has been surprisingly pleasant and efficient. From the day we applied for her residence to the day she got it took about 6 weeks. Would have been quicker if we did everything right.
FWIW since I made my reply there has been a lot of thoughtful replies
>You pay through the nose for health insurance, but when you need to find a doctor, none can take you because their quota of public insurance patients is done for the quarter.
Just a reminder to anyone reading this: These are Germany-specific problems that don't exist in other Northern European countries like Denmark.
It seems that progressing fast with high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity isn't common, while other western companies seem happier to proceed faster with a looser brief and to solve problems flexibly as they come along.
Of course this won't be a universal truth and it might just be my personal experience, and it might also be a benefit in many situations, but I've always felt Germany has a different work culture compared to other European and Western countries.
Britain is the perennial 'sick man', except, I guess it's no longer 'of Europe'.
Worsening geopolitics and an ageing population are more immideate problem compared to the inability to eliminate (not reduce) carbon emissions.
Or am I missing something? Can someone explain to me why ”eliminating carbon emissions” was sandwiched between the other two issues?
The big problem is that has Germany has big dependencies on coal, gas and gasoline, for industry, heating, and cars. Nuclear power can't replace this at all. Which is why Germany is shifting around usages and started investing big in hydrogen.
Instead, they frantically closed them and now coal consumption increased. Case in point: Lützerath.
Who did the reforms? -- Cabinet Schröder.
Who did nothing since then? -- Cabinet Merkel.
Who rolled back many of the things Schröder implemented? -- Cabinet Scholz
If we're going off waiting times for government stuff it seems to be 10x better than Berlin but 3x worse than any small town where I have friends.
Things that can be done online elsewhere must be done in person, by appointment. The appointments are hard to get, come weeks later, and only trigger a 2-8 week wait.
Language is just icing on the cake.
I'm currently trying to get my driving license in the UK, as a US immigrant. This means I need to go through the same process as a new driver. The wait was about a month between application and approval for my provisional license, then 1.5 months to take a theory test, then 2 months to take a practical test -- but that was choosing to drive four hours to a test centre with a test available, and if I'd wanted to take one in London, it would have been ~6 months, which is long enough that my American license would have expired and I'd be left unable to drive at all in the interim. (There's still a decent chance this happens, because if I fail the test, it's a month before I can reschedule, and then I probably have to schedule multiple months out again.)
Wait times were pretty bad in the US, too, before we left last year. It's not a government thing, but we had foundation work done on our house last year, and the lead time was about eight months between signing the contract and the work being carried out. Permitting alone took several months for what was relatively straightforward work on a single-family dwelling.
I always found it a little backwards how you can just arrive at Heathrow with a license from anywhere else and jump behind the wheel, but after 6 months you magically lose the ability to drive.
Best of luck
Broken bureaucracy is a safe bet. My job is secure for the decades to come.
For the smaller shops who opens their doors to speaking common language(English), the quality of pay is sub-par compared to COL, so there is nothing attractive for talents to be there.
That means de-industrialisation of the country in a major way, because there's no way you can remain competitive on the world stage.
Germany was the major bread-winner and subsidiser for the whole of the EU, so it's not really that 'Germany is the sick man of Europe', it's more that 'Europe is the sick man of the West'.