I had no idea the economy was like that in Germany. I’ve recently been considering moving there from the US so it’s kind of a bummer to learn this.
Population is aging and paying for the retirement money for all existing retirees is already taking up over 25% of government spending. There’s barely money for anything else so taxes and social security payments are poised to go up while already being close to ~50% for most earners.
There’s a strong and growing far-right movement full of populist and even neo-nazi ideologies.
Infrastructure is still top notch internationally but funding has been cut over the last decades and it’s starting to show.
I could go on but I think you get the picture. Many people in my social circle want to leave the country so I would really think twice about moving here.
And go where?
There's no perfect country, just one where you have the least amount of compromises. Or where your family unit is.
Good luck with finding housing here.
HN paints an overly gloomy picture of Germany. All points mentioned contain a kernel of truth but also a pessimistic linear regression concerning the outlook of the future. We've got a very minor recession going on, that's all. The economy will turn around next year.
The energy crisis is of the higher price than usual variety (and is already way past its peak; look at the 5y chart: https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_pr...). The greenefication of our electrical grid is ongoing and will cost us a ton of money over the next 5-10 years, but will pay off after that (yes, it would have been better to keep the atomic power plants running until then; that's one of the few irrational decision done by the previous conservative government and confirmed by the current government).
We had a large immigration spike in 2015 and another one in 2022 (Syria and Ukraine), overfilling the immigration centers.
Aging population is a thing, as in any other western country. Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! And we're currently (and for the next decade) in serious need of unskilled labor, so even the 40% of syrian refugees that haven't gotten work yet (many of those because of the slow bureaucracy...) will be needed.
It's certainly not all sunshine and rainbows, but it's also certainly not a crumbling country without a future.
But where will they live? Germany has a housing shortage it refuses to fix, but is constantly importing more economic cannon fodder.
Yes, and everyone coming to Germany will also want to live only in the big cities, not in some desolate village full of empty homes and super conservative boomers. How is this sustainable?
The „village“ I grew up in has about 8000 inhabitants, it‘s 5 kilometers from a train station with trains every 15 minutes. About 70 000 people live in a circle of about 10-15 kilometers around that town. The next major town is about 20 kilometers away, or 15 minutes by train from that station. Yet, there‘s not a single bus to the train station. There’s no proper bike parking at that station. There‘s a bus every 30 minutes that takes an hour to reach the city center. Internet is capped at about 16MBit/sec. This is a densely populated area by most standards. Still, every bit of infrastructure sucks - except for cars. There‘s two different highways right around the village.
The software salaries in Germany are just low.
That calculation would work if Germany would be getting only kids and babies which would be adopted by local families.
It’s getting some of those kids, with a lot of parents, grandparents and teens in addition.
Many of those adults are economic migrants, without the education and the resources to succeed in any European country, never mind the highly demanding German labour market.
They will be stuck in dead-end jobs delivering packages at best. If Germany has a serious need of unskilled labour, why don’t those 40% have any job after so many years? I see three possibilities:
* living on state support is better than any of the jobs they could get
* they don’t want to work
* they can’t work
They will all nevertheless use all the benefits provided by the state, putting pressure on the housing market, state budgets, availability of medical treatment, etc.
Relying on immigration to fix plummeting birth rates is broken by design, with significant downsides. Nobody succeeded at doing this.
If you have a high demand job, that gives you leverage to move to a country that isn't shooting itself in the foot consistently and in a downward spiral toward authoritarianism.
I'd scratch France, Belgium, Sweden and the UK off that list. I've worked 6+ months in all those countries and well, they're not great. What's worse is they're going in the wrong direction.
I'm from Sweden and it is rapidly deteriorating. It saddens me greatly to say this, but I don't think my home country has a very bright future. When you hear the politicians talk it seems they finally realize that they have fucked up the country. But not to what extent, and their solutions are a joke. It will only get worse, and it will never be the same.
Before you consider Belgium, I suggest you spend some time in Brussels. You will know what I mean. Maybe Flanders... I really like Antwerp, actually it's one of my favorite cities. If you like beer, you will love Antwerp. I was working in Antwerp for a long time. But why bother with Belgium when Netherlands is right there?
The UK is dirty and the cities are full of homeless and it has a byzantine bureaucracy on top of everything. I'm currently working in Liverpool(not by choice, posted by my company) but I have been pretty much all over the U.K. Some places are better than others, the country side is all right, but still. Don't go there. The U.K. truly is a dying empire.
Context for others: Sweden has no language, income, employment, or skills requirement <https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/Private-individuals/...> for obtaining citizenship.
In completely unrelated news, Arabic is now the second most spoken language in Sweden <https://digitaledition.chicagotribune.com/tribune/article_po...>.
For me, climate change should also factor into this. While Germany will probably be fine temperature wise, I’m not sure if I’d considered moving to Southern Europe anymore.
If you wonder what the Swiss do, when all those Germans take their jobs: my observation, utterly anecdotal of course, is that they commute to Liechtenstein.
Yikes. Go read a history book before you end up like your predecessors from the 30s and 40s.
I'd be pissed too if that were to happen to me.
Once upon a time, when Western economies were relatively stronger (compared to the rest of the world) and Western nations much younger, idealistic people constructed asylum systems that were rather generous to asylants and awarded them the same welfare payments as to the locals.
Year by year, the "global parameters" have shifted bit by bit, and these idealistic systems are now unsustainable. Germany cannot afford to be Sozialamt for millions of young men that manage to get there. It has too many unmet obligations towards its citizens, and most people tend to agree that citizens should come first.
Refusal to even look at this situation and reflexive blaming of all problems on "far right disinformation etc" will only make the necessary correction in the future much more painful and complicated.
Some countries, like Denmark, already understood the situation and adjusted their systems so that they don't attract people looking for better living standards under the guise of asylum.
Elephant is in the room, Germany has uncontrolled immigration problem. There is no need to see me as a nazi reinstalling gas chambers. But these all people are refugees, let’s give them warm shelter, warm food and 10€ a day for personal expenses. Ok, maybe 15€ per day. But don’t treat them better than other people living and working in Germany for many years.
If this were beneficial for Germany and the EU, Ukrainians would have had the right to enter the EU and get a job before the war.
In reality, it’s just an attempt to mitigate another immigration disaster.
It will fail, because there is no immigration solution for plummeting birth rates. The people coming to the EU (not specifically Ukrainians, which are perhaps better than average) are already adults, often with incompatible or lacking education, often with a different, incompatible upbringing, consuming significant state resources without having contributed a cent. This can’t work in combination with a social state, it’s just maths.
Germany is a weird place where if you play by the rules you get a very harsh treatment but if you cheat the rules you can get a lot of free shit.
Society has failed this generation the world over.
That said, I strongly recommend the Balkans (e.g: Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, etc.) if you have a remote source of income: very safe, great people, fantastic culture, in the big cities English is widely spoken, low cost-of-living, active tech communities, and you're usually surrounded by tons of beautiful nature and again, some of the best people ever.
Not to mention, setting up your own company usually allows you to operate in a low tax/tax-optimized fashion.
For what it's worth, I've lived all over Europe (including Germany) and the Balkans really must be the best place in Europe - as long as you're earning remotely, local wages are unfortunately ridiculously low.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/30/europe/kosovo-tensions-mi...
Even Vucic made it clear: https://www.koha.net/en/arboretum/393870/Serbia-will-not-bri...
Also very high pollutions levels:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Horalek/publication...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2023/...
Especially compared to some more remote areas in Western Europe like the Alps or the Massif Central in France. Which would suggest that emissions from cars are not the main reasons why the Balkans (and Eastern Europe is general) are doing so bad.
PM10 is basically woodburning stoves. PM2.5 is much more hazardous to your health, and produced by industrial processes to a greater degree. Using PM10 is just artificially tipping the scale to make less-industrialized locations look worse.
Low cost of living in some regards … housing for example compared to most western countries.
But higher cost of living in others … price of gas for example… it’s close to 1.75$ per litere.
Food in the big cities is slightly cheaper, but not that much cheaper than the west. Around 40-50$ per person at the restaurant.
Food is much cheaper in the smaller towns, but most people from the west are unlikely to want to live there. Gas the same, housing is basically free, but there’s a reason for it.
Westerners are unlikely to want to live there because they've never even visited it so that's not an argument against. The Balkans is sunny, taxes are low. I'd take that any day over subzero Northern Germany.
40-50$ per person in a restaurant is a flat out lie so I'm not gonna even bother with that.
According to you it's much better to live in a 2m^2 apartment in Paris than in Balkans. I'd take the Balkans any day.
Only when eating out (if you're comparing to Northern Germany).
How much is the rent for a studio in Northern Germany?
And Munich is not a shithole but a fantastic place to stay at in the summer - less so in winter unless you can go skiing in nearby Alps IME and especially not during Oktoberfest.
A good quality meal with some wine and dessert will cost you +40$ for sure
Isn't the weather still not great during the winter months? I don't care if it's 0 C or +8 C, both make me not want to go out.
Unfortunately things here in Bucharest are pretty much getting there, maybe not in the range of 40-50$ per person but most definitely in the 35-40$ range, and I'm talking a regular restaurant. Before the pandemic I'd say that that price was in the 20-25$ range.
Though I can see how prices in cities like Belgrade, Sofia or Skopje might still be lower, as even Athens is now cheaper than Bucharest when it comes to eating out (I've experienced that myself recently), in which case enjoy it while it still lasts.
[1] I highly recommend it, it's the real deal when it comes to eating honest German food in Bucharest https://www.google.com/maps/place/Die+Deutsche+Kneipe/@44.45...
Hopefully they have doggy bags?
I had them in mind when I made the comment because I had just learned earlier that day that Japan had bears, that was a surprise to me. Plus, bears are cool, beer, too (if drunk responsibly).
The price of a shitty room in a coloc (not even in paris) gets you an actual 2/3 bedroom apartment.
Taxes are, as you say, very low in comparison. The usual min wage + dividends can get you an effective tax rate of about 9% (depending on the country).
They're just more interesting.
My reference point is growing up in western europe, and then spending a decade moving around various western european countries, coming to eastern europe and the balkans some years ago. To be quite frank, I found the balkans a massive upgrade in every way possible including the aspects you mentioned - except local wages.
Western europe used to be better, but the past 5 years or so it's nosedived while the balkans has seen improvements.
People are truly dramatic these days, if you had asked me five years ago what the toll of something like this would be I'd have guessed it'd be ten times as bad.
Give it a few years and don't base your long term decisions on stuff like this, Germany has always been resilient and able to adapt, if a little slowly at times. The 'sick man of Europe' debate is not new and the cup gets passed around every once in a while.
It’s not really a German recession, but instead a global manufacturing recession. Germany’s economy is highly exposed to manufacturing, and so it shows up more in the country-wide economic stats. If you look at almost any major manufacturing country right now, their manufacturing sector is also in recession.
Many other economic sectors of Germany are doing just fine, especially services. Unemployment is also very very low, so the country is well positioned to re-absorb any jobs that may be lost if some manufacturing companies go under, and those jobs may end up going into more productive companies or sectors anyways.
I moved here from Canada two months ago and I’m really liking it so far.
Addiction to Russian gas, over-bureaucratic system that's super inefficient with tax-money meaning most goes to waste, an ageing population hoarding all the wealth and burdening the welfare system, uncontrolled unskilled immigration further burdening the welfare system and pushing rents up, clueless boomer leaders not investing in innovation and capturing new areas of the economy, refusing to build more real-estate because environment further pushing housing up, politics based on ideology not reality, a clueless and arrogant voter base thinking everything is perfect and none of the issues above need addressing, will do that to you.
Though, that's most of Europe, not just Germany.
> Population is aging and paying for the retirement money for all existing retirees is already taking up over 25% of government spending. There’s barely money for anything else so taxes and social security payments are poised to go up while already being close to ~50% for most earners.
There are employer contributions in Germany that are recently counted in such calculations to prove a point, while leaving costs for "benefits" in US companies off the table when doing the comparison.
Some like to add the VAT to the "what life costs here", which is a 19% (except for necessities, which are at 7%).
If you refuse to accept such calculations that mix up tax brackets (popular error in that space), that immediately filters out 90% of them.
Because the pension is a ponzi scheme. Young people will be squeezed for every penny as the old population also controls the majority of votes. Politicians have known this for decades and done nothing serious to fix the problem.
They have always done something. They kicked the can down the road and blamed the previous people in power for the current siltation. Rinse and repeat.
They do. They vote to raise retirement age. Then the young people protest.
Social security-like systems require a growing population to sustain.
Labour productivity has gone up (As has labour participation, if you compare it to the 50s and 60s). It should more than counterbalance a demographic-caused dip in labour participation rates. Fewer people, working less, produce more today than they did 40 years ago.
We produce more for less work. Why can't that be turned into a lower labour participation rate, while maintaining the same quality of life, despite demographic shifts?
At the end of the day the contributors have to siphon off part of their earnings to give to the beneficiaries. Believe it or not, there is in fact many scenarios where the entitlements of the beneficiaries exceeds the input from the contributors. Just because we produce more per worker, does not mean we can support any arbitrary ratio of workers to retirees (who become more expensive over time).