Why Germany Has It So Much Better Than Us

ODD that you should say this! They only RECENTLY set a national minimum wage:

German minimum wage rings in Happy New Year for millions - Business Insider

Shared housing there is POPULAR! So it cuts down housing costs! They have had TIERED education, and, after trying 12 years, like the US, are likely going to go back to 13, if they haven't already. They ALSO have the old apprentice style trade system.

At one point, the largest software company in the world was GERMAN! ALAS, they are now only the worlds largest BUSINESS software company, and third overall worldwide by revenue:

SAP SE - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MIDDLE GROUND? We left that LONG AGO! 45% TOP? NO WAY, and that is FAR from middle!

The GERMANS, for the most part CAN BE TRUSTED! They have had balanced amendments and are now looked at by europe for money. WHY!?!?!?!?!? Because THEY are balanced and do well with it!

ALSO, their insurance system is more like ours was, than is: Healthcare in Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


GIVE ME A BREAK! They have SEVERAL parties that want a lot of crazy things. MERKEL, a relative CONSERVATIVE, didn't want to institute the minimum wage, for example, but the center LEFT guys INSISTED, or they would provide gridlock. The FIRST reign was relatively decent. Because of certain incidents, we had WWI. The world, in retaliation tried to obliterate it through some IDIOTIC MOVES, not unlike what MANY are trying to do in the US, RIGHT NOW, and created the SECOND reign. A WWI corporal that was in the hospital during the 2nd reign decided to join a group and HE created a coup to come up with the THIRD reign, that you refer to. That ended when he was defeated in WWII. Check out youtube sometime. There are GERMAN people there that say they don't even want to THINK about WWII. That wasn't THEM. They say if you ask an honest question, they will answer but if you really push it, you will be a pariah.

They are where they might have been if that idiotic "treaty", in the 2nd reign, were never signed, etc... It IS ironic that TODAY they are helping out countries that are in the same position that they were FORCED into back then. You know, companies like Greece, and perhaps even france and the UK, who knows. If not for that, that corporal might have found work assembling cars or something, and that group may have never existed! But NOOOOOOOOO! People wanted them bankrupt, defenseless, and to pay everyone even money they didn't have. YEAH, how did THAT work out? Even TODAY, they world is TEETERING on total destruction because of the era that created!

OH, and Germany was one of the world leaders in nuclear technology and is now decommissioning ALL of their nuclear power plants. I don't believe ANYONE asked them to do so. They did it ONLY to prevent a disaster like what happened with that JAPANESE reactor.

Steve

Of course the middle ground for me would be the rescinding of the extra gravy flung into social programs since about the 1960's.

Joe Mobley

ANOTHER THING, HOW do they determine a low wage? A good wage in the US may NOT be a good wage in germany! They have VAT, higher taxes, etc... Last time I checked the wage in DENMARK, through a poll of danish people in denmark that I did myself, they were paid the SAME as americans!!!!!!!! That was true EVEN though the minimum wage was about double, in dollar terms!

OH, and greece is GREECE! You really don't have to say much more!

Steve

Well, that is NOT exactly true! SOMEONE decided things were TOO burdensome, and lifted the ban imposed some time ago. RECENTLY, like LAST YEAR, they reinstated the ban. But let the following article sink in:

There Is No Such Thing As A Free College Education - Forbes

STILL, Germany had a better setup from the get go!

Remember how I said "Formal education" does NOT equal education? In 1933 the COLLEGES kind of secretly realized that, or at least ONE did, HARVARD. So they ended up with what today is called the SAT. EVENTUALLY, around 30 years ago, STATES started creating different tests for all the highschools they had. WHAT A MESS!!!!! Germany will NEVER have to worry about that! In 1788 they made it a national law that every student taking the college prep route has to take the NATIONAL abitur to pass highschool, and IT is accepted at all of their colleges.

HECK, they started talking about bringing back the 13 year because too many people didn't pass the abitur. If ONLY the US had such thought!

WE didn't either until a few years ago! But YEAH, germany's reform happened in 2007, and last years rates climbed very little. OURS SKYROCKETED! MY insurance went up nearly THIRTY FOUR times as much as the german insurance did! Facts about Germany: Medical care for everyone

It is a SHARED plan, and likely does NOT include taxes on the very items NEEDED for healthcare! Taxing items, like the new taxes in the US, RAISES costs and thus PRICES!

Read that last article again! WHY are PRIVATE pension plans becoming more important?

Facts about Germany: Social security

OK, ONE statement is VERY TELLING: Keep in mind, that THEY pay almost TWICE as much for what they get, AGAIN, SHARED, like OURS! And it is likely that most of the able bodied germans WORK!

Steve

The U.S. alone could have stopped them in both world wars.


In the first WW we broke a stalemate between the belligerents and in the 2nd we truly saved the day for western Europe.


I guess you have no idea of the war industrial capacities of the U.S. - combined with a large population.

Also, the Russians defeated them during WW2, so what you're saying isn't factually true.

Blatantly wrong.

If you'd said "Most OECD countries are a lot better than the US", you may have had a point.

There are around 200 nations on Earth and the US ranks in at least the top 50 for most outcomes, so it is obvious that "most" countries are a lot worse off than the US.

You have that right. East Germany became like some far off alien! IMAGINE! The Germans had a WELL DESERVED reputation, and I mean one built over hundreds of years. Even today, they do pretty well at living up to it. But EAST Germany was like a BIZARRO version of Germany. They had different expectations, work ethics, etc..... The culture changed SO much. You want a GREAT example of this? OK!

Let's look at CARS! WEST GERMANY was KNOWN for cars! INVENTED the car! When the wall fell, they had Mercedes, BMW, VW,AUDI and at least a couple others, as well as what the rest of the world had. EAST GERMANY? Well, they had the TRABANT! Trabant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And VW even ended up buying the trabant plant back, though they were forced to sell it during the split.

Even WEST GERMANY was afraid of east Germany's effect on the culture and economy.

Steve