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Comment by banannaise | Hacker News Reader

Asking because my context as an American may not apply: If an American were jailed for the maximum 60 days, then they would almost certainly be fired from their job for non-attendance and become 30+ days late on all of their bills since you cannot pay bills from jail. This includes car payments and/or rent, which can result in repossession/eviction proceedings being filed.

Is the situation for short-term prisoners similar in Germany?

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Your employer is not allowed to fire you if are in jail for less than 2 years. You also can't evict someone from their home because of jail. And the government might be paying your landlord for your time in jail as well (depending on the time etc.). It's complicated, but basically, Up to 6 months, all fine on all ends.

Germans don't have car payments usually. They pay for the car in cash, if they don't have enough, they buy a smaller car :)

> Germans don't have car payments usually.

There's a lot of leasing.

Yes but most of the time your company pays and then they deduct from your salary.

1% of the purchase value is taxed, regardless of usage (company car could be used only for private purposes). That way the same cost for the employer leads to a bigger car (than if bought with taxed income) for the employee and less money for the government.

And a happy car industry, of course, being able to sell bigger cars.

That's corporate, mostly. But this is changing a bit, there are more private lease constructs but they are quite expensive compared to just owning the car.

> That's corporate, mostly.

Stats would be nice.

You do know that stats are the easiest way to lie, yes?

No, the easiest way to lie is “just trust me bro”

https://bdl.leasingverband.de/en/newsroom/press-releases/sin...

https://www.ibisworld.com/germany/industry/car-rental-leasin...

And many other industry publications. Private lease is a very small fraction, but it is growing. Same picture in most of Western Europe, in Eastern Europe it is very variable from one country to another.

47% of new cars are financed in Germany [1]

[1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1065113/umfra....

That's new cars. Which is mostly what employers buy for their employees. It's 35% alltogether.

Just wanted to highlight the different mindset. I am a German living in Canada with my family. The mindset is very different. Based on feeling, 70% of Canadians I know have car debt, whereas I know one person in my German friend circle who took out a loan. It's just not very common to take on debt for cars.

My impression of Germany is people are generally very anti-debt. Credit cards were barely used when I visited back in 2019 (although that changed by the time I went back in 2022)

The primary reason credit cards were rarely used is because Germany already had an electronic payment system (Maestro, formerly eurocheque), so there was no need and credit cards often came with a fee. Online shopping and a huge push by Visa/Mastercard to replace maestro changed this to some extend.

I have noticed that in the US people have much more tolerance for debt. Even relatively poor people in the US are much more likely to buy a new car (or even multiple of them!) than in most of the Europe.

For example, the proportion of financed new cars to all new cars sold is 84% in US vs 47% in Germany.

But that does not say anything how expensive are the cars, how expensive compared to income, how long they are being used or what is the proportion of new cars sold to used cars sold.

In Europe people tend to use the cars for longer after they buy them new and then the cars tend to be used for longer after they are sold used.

Also, in Europe people tend to buy smaller cars. And, historically, we preferred cars that use less fuel which means a lot of older cars are still very viable compared to older US cars.

In the US at least it has often (although not at present) been true that the interest rate on a new car loan with good credit is less than one could return from relatively safe investments. Thus the financially smart thing to do was often to finance the car, even if you could buy it outright.

Too much debt is a bad thing, but so is being excessively debt averse.

I would also say, historically, a dollar now is worth a lot more than a dollar 50 years from now, and your quality of life is probably better, too.

I see lots of people from my parents generation who saved their whole life… and now they have money but nothing to do as their health doesn’t permit the sort of travel (or outdoor activity, or whatever) they wanted while a 20 or 30-something.

> Thus the financially smart thing to do was often to finance the car, even if you could buy it outright

I think the financially smart thing is to avoid debt as much as possible.

Also, if you absolutely need to take on debt and decided to buy a car, the financially smart thing to do would be to buy as cheap a car as possible. But that's not what really is happening, isn't it?

The reality is that taking debt changes how you think and make decisions and has far more reaching consequences than just the financial cost of the debt.

Taking on debt at 3% so you can stick the money into a index fund reliably returning 5%... is what is smart.

This sort of knee-jerk debt avoidance on principle is not smart.

First of all, buying a car so that you can drive your ass around is very different from sticking those borrowed money into an index.

Second, there exists no index fund that can reliably return 5%. Borrowing money to put it in a financial instrument is called leverage and is a quick way to get poor, not rich (and I know a bit about it because I work with financial risk for a pretty large, well known bank).

Third, for some reason (and, do explain this if you can), people are not storming banks to borrow at 3% to then go to a brokerage house to buy a supposedly reliable index. Please, show me ONE person who got rich this way... I guess not. You see, this is not how people get rich... people get rich mostly by earning a bunch of money and then not losing it. You know, not losing it is kinda important part of getting rich.

In fact, there is lots of people interested in how people actually get rich. And funny thing, nobody gets rich by repeatedly borrowing money and buying index funds. BECAUSE IT DOESN'T WORK.

Fourth, the act of taking debt changes how people think. I also know something about it because for large part of my life I had a lot of debt. Wonderful things happened to me after I paid it all. And while most of it might be in your head, the results are very real.

The avoidance of as much debt as possible is an irrational, emotional attachment to avoiding debt. Excessive amounts of debt is also financially unsound to collect, but the financially prudent thing is some debt, after which you end up with money, or equivalent, than if you not had taken on that debt.

> Germans don't have car payments usually.

They do actually :-)

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/automotive-and-assembly/...

"In Germany, while customers purchase 50 percent of stock cars through financing, they buy 35 percent via lease-based products and additional services."

Well that just sounds like taking a relaxing 6-month vacation from work while the law-abiding taxpayers pay your rent. Meanwhile, your employer and landlord are forced by the government to accept the employment and housing of someone with a criminal history?

I'm usually all for protecting the little guy over the corporate entity, but that sounds like n awful deal for everyone involved except the criminal.

Well you prefer punishment, Germany prefers reintegration. Destroying a persons life is a pretty good way to keep a criminal criminal.

It's complicated, and the law leaves a lot of wiggle room. In principle, it can be a valid reason to end an employment relationship from the employer side if someone is unable to perform their work due to being in jail. However there's a lot of hoops to jump through for the employer - the absence has to be of "significant length", the employer has to be able to show they deeply looked into it when they came to this conclusion, they need to consult with the employee on it, they may have to look into alternative solutions to fill the gap, etc. As a guideline, if the absence is expected to be two years or longer, much of this is no longer expected by the employer.

I think most employers would not get away with firing someone in this case.

> maximum 60 days

In the US, political prisoners have been jailed for years without trial. 60 days would be a major respite.

I'm referring to the maximum length of detention under the German law being used (if I'm reading things right). I am aware that the US has some pretty serious problems that are at least somewhat related, but I'm trying not to digress into that.

> I'm referring to the maximum length of detention under the German law being used (if I'm reading things right).

It's not a German law but a state law. Some states only allow 4 days, Berlin only 2 days: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterbindungsgewahrsam

Of course it's Baravia which allows the (by far) longest detention with two months.

This is outside criminal procedure, which is a federal matter. Since it's not a criminal proceeding, criminal courts don't have jurisdiction, and the rights you have in criminal proceedings do not apply. This is a state administrative matter instead. Legally speaking, this solitary detention is not even a punishment.

We have a constitutional right to a speedy trial.

That right can be waived to give the defense time to prepare, and it isn't always enforced for non-citizens detained abroad (e.g. Guantanamo), but I'm unaware of anything similar to the article happening in the US.

See: January 6th. There are still many people in jail who haven't been to trial.

A person who is in jail awaiting trial for attempting to overthrow the government of the United States is not a "political prisoner".

In many cases they would be if they subscribed to a political ideology and committed acts because of them.

In this case overthrowing is actual a protest that went out of control because of lax security. A real overthrow attempt would need to involve heavy weapons. Protesters didn't even have butter knives.

> In this case overthrowing is actual a protest

Only for some of the people involved. However, there were certainly people there attempting an actual overthrow[1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/14/oath-keepers...

They are not political prisoners. They committed federal crimes while live-streaming it and the government has presented the evidence. It just so happens that the amount of evidence they generated while committing crimes overloaded the DOJ’s capacity to collect and organize it (both prerequisites for discovery by the defendants before they can build their defense).

There have been a few defendants who have successfully challenged the speed of the trial and courts have let them off. It’s far more likely that the DOJ attorneys are simply overwhelmed with the prosecution than they are purposefully persecuting the arrested.

> According to the George Washington Program on Extremism, the FBI has arrested 940 people in connection to January 6. Of those, 43 were convicted, 481 pleaded guilty, and 382 are still waiting for trial. Most of the people waiting are out on bail. [1]

It so happens that the defendants all committed crimes on the same day, causing a backlog in prosecution work. It also happens that DC is a strange jurisdiction that requires coordination between federal officers of different departments (Capitol Police, Parks Police, Secret Service, etc) in a town that must get all funding passed through Congress, which is functionally broken most of the year.

Terrible example of time-to-trial problems in the US, which is actually a significant issue, even in well funded jurisdictions.

[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/170991/cpac-january-6-riot-p...

Those aren't "political prisoners", they're merely normal criminals, but there's so many of them that the justice system is having a hard time dealing with it. There are only so many federal judges and prosecutors.

https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/8/17/23310771/why-some-spend-ye...

Pretrial detention can often happen for years, it's one of the issues that makes guilty pleas so insidious. Even if you are innocent, wanting to get your day in court can require you to spend months in jail, so a guilty plea can actually be the more economical outcome.

I appreciate the context link.

It's worth noting that one of the examples was someone changing his lawyer repeatedly. I don't believe the right to a speedy trial is violated if you're the one that causes your own delay.

In theory we have that right.

In practice, 98% of criminal cases in the federal courts end with a plea bargain.

https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158356619/plea-bargains-crim...

We have the right to a speedy trial and a the right to accept a plea bargain. You can decline a plea bargain and demand a speedy trial; the limits are defined by law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedy_Trial_Act

(As with other rights, these rights sometimes require active defense by civil rights organizations, nor are they completely absolute.)

Note this only applies to federal trials, not state trials (where the vast majority of crimes are prosecuted).

It's often defined at the state level, too. Here in NY, prosecutors are required to be ready to go within six months (felony) or 90 days (misdemeanor): https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CPL/30.30

The right exists whether or not your state has legislation defining a timeframe, too.

Yeah, absolutely the constitutional right exists, but it's often less well defined than the federal version, which is very clear and well followed.

Few people choose this because of the "trail penalty".

If you're found guilty in a trial, you get a 2-4 times longer sentence than the plea deal would have given.

So the theoretical right to a trial remains, but exercising that right is heavily penalized. To me that means the right is for practical purposes no longer exists.

Sure, that's why it's a deal. You say penalty, they say bargain. Both are true. For folks who've genuinely committed big-boy crimes, a plea bargain is great; for falsely accused innocents it presents an unpleasant dilemma at times.

My being able to opt to voluntarily testify doesn't mean the right to remain silent doesn't exist. We'd have no rights by your definition.

You can think of it that way if you want, sure.

Another angle is that plead bargains are necessary to put as many people in jail as we do.

The judicial system would completely break down if it needed to have 50x as many trials.

> The judicial system would completely break down if it needed to have 50x as many trials.

Yes. I'd argue that's not universally or even mostly a good thing.

I’m not following what that has to do with a speedy trial.

We still have that right.

The nuance is the US court system allows additional punishment if a defendant chooses to go to trial. Also, plea bargaining usually involves lots of prosecutor bluffing before they have to show discovery which is the same time they can “throw the book at the defendant” (overload the charges beyond what they can actually prove to a jury).

It’s also worth mentioning that the speedy trial can sometimes come with strings attached (as Georgia’s statute which has been recently discussed ad nauseum in the cases of 2 of the 19 2020-electoral-college-RICO defendants)

It seems that GP has deleted their comment before anyone else could reply.

I'll report it here, verbatim, as i still have it open in another tab:

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Are you talking about US citizens?

I'm unaware of that in any recent decades, and I assume you're talking about recent history.

More complicated cases take longer to prepare for trial, but can you point to a single example of a US citizen jailed for political purposes where their trial has clearly been delayed for political reasons?

-----

and here is what i wanted to reply:

> I'm unaware of that in any recent decades

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuAAPsiD768 - " The secret US prisons you've never heard of before | Will Potter"

Jails and prison are different.

"and become 30+ days late on all of their bills since you cannot pay bills from jail"

Do Americans have to authorize all their recurring payments every month again and again? I certainly never paid such bills "one by one"; I set up a regular monthly payment and it would be done automatically on the Nth day of a month.

I lived in America for two years and everything was automated

Some bills can't be autopaid either easily or at all, particularly utility bills. For those that can be autopaid, many people don't have them on autopay because of potential disruptions when living paycheck-to-paycheck. If you have to choose between food and rent, you better not have the rent on autopay, or you've accidentally made your choice.

60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, so this wouldn't matter. If they're not making money in jail they can't pay their rent, even if they have autopay set up.

https://ir.lendingclub.com/news/news-details/2023/60-of-Amer...

Some people choose not to set up automatic payments, and the percentage of people who are living paycheck to paycheck or nearly so is high enough that, even among those who do, probably a significant percentage would see the second month's payments fail if they were set up using a bank draft or debit card rather than a credit card.

> become 30+ days late on all of their bills since you cannot pay bills from jail

can't americans bind the utilities to their checking account? i (european) can do that. the bills are paid automatically from my balance (the same where i receive my salary). the web portal from my bank can lists all the entities allowed to pay bills from my balance, and i can revoke any of them unilaterally (in that case i'd have to go back to pay the bills one by one, manually).

They can but that's generally not the problem. You aren't getting paid while you're in jail, so those payments are likely to bounce (Americans often live paycheck to paycheck).

Why not bind them to their credit cards then?

All my bills go to credit cards and I even get 2% cash back on them all that way too.

I guess you will run into your credit limit that way eventually too if you are behind on payments for it.

No idea, just wanted to chime in with "you may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride!"

Most payments are done using SEPA mandates. The money automatically leaves your account, but you still get a piece of paper with the details.

I don’t remember paying a single bill manually for the past 3 years at least. Credit card is paid in full at the end of the month as well automatically.

Which all comes grinding to a halt pretty quickly when you stop getting paid because you're in jail.

I'm not sure about Germany specifically, but in the US the vast majority of people live paycheck-to-paycheck regardless of income bracket. Most are 2 weeks away from starting to have failing bill payments.

The rules about not paying employees for absences are a bit more difficult in Germany. Voluntary unannounced absence or unpaid vacation would be the simple cases, but involuntary absences don’t entitle the employer immediately to withhold payment, at least not for most employees on a fixed term contract. Things get more involved for workers that get paid by the piece. Freelancers would probably be the most hard hit here.

This would pretty clearly be an involuntary absence - these folks are not even accused of committing a crime.

Absence is reason to withhold payment in Germany, you can only expect continued payment if you are absent because you are ill (and then only for a certain period). There are some provisions like having to pay out leftover holidays and overtime before stopping payments altogether, but payment is contingent on really working in general.

Note that this is different from ending employment: If you are in jail, only an extended length of absence (usually 2 years) or a work-related crime is reason for dismissal. If you are in jail for 23 months you'll keep your job usually, you are just not getting paid.

BGB 616: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__616.html

> Der zur Dienstleistung Verpflichtete wird des Anspruchs auf die Vergütung nicht dadurch verlustig, dass er für eine verhältnismäßig nicht erhebliche Zeit durch einen in seiner Person liegenden Grund ohne sein Verschulden an der Dienstleistung verhindert wird.

The key terms here are “verhältnismäßig nicht erhebliche Zeit” and “ohne Verschulden”. That means that if you’re absent a relatively short time (usually compared to the duration of the employment and the notice period) and without being at fault for the absence, you get paid.

There’s a lot of interpretation here: for example if your bus is late, you’re responsible (you could have taken an earlier bus), if there’s an announced strike, you’re still at fault - you knew before etc. The cause must also lie in your person specifically - if you’re stuck in traffic with hundreds of other employees due to an accident, the paragraph does not apply. If you’re missing out on work because you were involved in that accident, it does.

But being imprisoned without having committed a crime is very unlikely to be considered a fault of the employee.

Your work contract or collective bargaining agreement may modify or specify where this paragraph is applicable. No legal advice, not a lawyer,…

> But being imprisoned without having committed a crime is very unlikely to be considered a fault of the employee.

I would (without being a lawyer and without having a case to cite) suspect that in those cases it would be considered to be the fault of the employee. In many, if not all cases, they had prior arrests, indictments and some were even found guilty, yet announced further blockades. I guess to a judge, that should make it their fault.

> Your work contract or collective bargaining agreement may modify or specify where this paragraph is applicable.

That might very well be the case, since actually many protesters are being employed as protesters: https://www.stern.de/gesellschaft/letzte-generation--so-viel...

You have to be very careful with the word suspect here. No crime has been committed, not even alleged. The allegations are that the arrested may in the future cause disruptions - it’s currently even unclear whether these acts are crimes, misdemeanors or even public demonstrations and as such protected by law and the constitution. Legal opinions and court decisions are all over the place.

The jail time is even more problematic given that the acts that the imprisoned may commit in the future are not punishable by prison time in practically all cases.

(As a side note: I would also be extraordinarily careful citing an article in the Stern, which cites allegations that the Welt published, without having at least a second source that confirms it)

Most reasons in §14PAG for preventative arrest include a crime or misdemeanor that has been committed and will likely be repeated, or the proven announcement or planning of such an offense. So most will be suspects in the literal sense, otherwise they wouldn't be in preventative arrest: http://www.lexsoft.de/cgi-bin/lexsoft/justizportal_nrw.cgi?x...

Road blockades are very often judged to be coercion, "Nötigung", a crime according to §240 StGB. Repeat offenders in this matter have been sentenced to some jail time: https://www.merkur.de/deutschland/kleber-aktivisten-letzte-g...

Further sources for your side note: https://www.merkur.de/welt/verdienst-klima-krise-kleber-geha... https://www.businessinsider.de/wirtschaft/letzte-generation-... https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/letzte-generation-akt... https://www.magdeburger-news.de/?c=20221228093058

Oh, and the best source, their own wiki: https://wiki.letztegeneration.org/de/%C3%B6ffentlich/allgeme...

Do you really pay you bills manually each month? When regular payments (like rent) are not debited directly from my account, I set up an auto transfer that sends out rent to my landlord at the 1st day of each month.

How does this work in the US?

It... depends.

Personally, I have everything automated. Including one incredibly dumb thing: I have to pay my homeowners' association dues (I live in a small condo building, so we have shared expenses) by check, so I have my bank mail a check to their bank. It's incredibly dumb that I can't easily set up an automated electronic bank transfer, but at least I can automate mailing a paper check.

US government agencies can also be annoying about this. For example, the city/county of San Francisco does not offer a way to automatically pay property taxes, which are billed twice a year. (My mortgage lender pays mine for me via an escrow account that gets funded along with my automatic monthly mortgage payment.)

But a lot of people in the US are un- or under-banked, and don't always have access to automation, if the people/orgs they have to pay support any kind of automation at all. Many landlords (especially those who cater to lower-income folks) will only accept cash or check. Many people who have to pay them don't have an online bill-pay system. And even many who could automate things, don't, because their finances are precarious enough that they will sometimes choose to skip a credit card payment, or pay their rent late, etc., and they'll make these decisions month-to-month.

If many people in the US were in jail for two months, after the first month (of not working, thus not getting paid) they wouldn't have enough money in their bank account to cover all their monthly bills. An unfortunate amount of people here live paycheck-to-paycheck.

Also consider that there's a lot of overlap between people who have unstable finances and people who are more likely to get caught up in the justice system, regardless of their innocence or guilt.

The people glueing themselves to the street don’t have any other job. They get payed to do exactly this.

It is almost impossible to fire long term employees in Germany. But getting proper employment is very difficult for this reason. Most people are on yearly contracts, part time jobs etc...

"Most people" is seriously wrong, statistically, but it's a significant number.

Most new employees and new job openings, would be correct formulation. German job market is very static.

Please provide a citation. In 2022, about 30% of new hires had a term limit. The peak was in 2004, with about 54% at a time when very few positions were available.

https://doku.iab.de/arbeitsmarktdaten/Befristungen_bei_Neuei...

I already cited the share of term limited contracts above.

It’s not surprising that term limited contracts are a significant chunk of the Job offerings, even if they are a small share of the total contracts - a job posting that must be renewed annually will appear every year for the same position, while an unlimited contract only opens up when a replacement must be found or a new position is created. Another cause is that a lot of companies use a limited contract as a trial period and later convert to an unlimited contract at renewal time.

It is absolutely true that some sectors suffer from having a huge chunk of limited contracts (academia for example) and that there’s abuse (auxiliary teachers only being employed during the term and made redundant during vacations), but generalizing this to the entire German job market is neither warranted nor helpful.

This is a good demonstration of how much more work it is to refute bogus statements than it is to make them.

This is just false, plain and simple. I’ll just take one of your statements and refute it, because the other parts are so broad and generalizing that you’ll just come around and make other shit up:

The share of part-time employment in Germany was 7.4% of all employment contracts in 2021. Nothing significant changed since then. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/Qualit...

Absolutely untrue. Source: was fired from indefinite employment contract in Germany. If they hate you and start throwing at you Abmahnung, Aufhebung, and Kundigung, you need a lawyer immediately and the pile of papers and letters starts growing exponentially.

> Is the situation for short-term prisoners similar in Germany?

Probably none of those kids have a Job, so no worries.

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