If the future German Chancellor is here, here's my proposal for your new campaign: "We choose to build one million affordable apartments in four years, not because it's easy but because it's hard".
It may not solve all of Germany's problems but at least you'll energize the construction sector, alleviate the housing crisis, learn how to finish a construction project on time and you'll have to remove some bureaucracy to reach the deadline. Build them with EV chargers outside and you'll help VW too.
Interesting that 2 similar problems - water rise and population increase - are treated that differently, i.e. it is considered normal that the government would build levies/etc. while the government building housing is an abomination.
Well, it has been a race to the bottom to be fair, any infra is just becoming derelict, railways, levies are a very good example of infra in very bad state btw.
I have a deep dislike for Scholz (SPD), but this is for the biggest part the fault of Lindner/finance minister (FDP) who was an absolute disgrace and unable to make a compromise.
You can't tell me he didn't negotiate before with the other two parties about what the compromises would be. Leave it or stick with it.
"Schuldenbremse". "Debt"+"brake", brake as in what forces a car to stop.
Keep in mind that Russian's attack on the Ukraine, which lead to the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, didn't happen until after the election. I don't understand how people blend this out so easily.
Let's assume your important car breaks down because of a strange, non-technical reason, which isn't covered by any insurance. If you don't have enough money, you will have to borrow some, you will have to go into debt, unless you are able to reduce your expenses otherwise.
During the entire time of this coalition you had the finance minister saying that the debt brake is holy, therefore restricting in cash those in the coalition which his party disliked the most, always saying: "But the debt brake." - well knowing that those affected by the constrained cash flow would get bad publicity because they can't do their job, corrected: because they're personally unfit to do what they should do, because "they are losers". All this, while not proposing a real solution to the problem.
They suggested to decrease government spending, which is - of course - something every government should strive for, but this is something which cannot be done in a few years if it means to reduce bureaucracy. This requires modification of laws, which always is a slow process, and firing officials, which is a no-go for absolutely every party.
Their reasonable expectation of lowering financial support for those who are too lazy to work or are illegal immigrants, which are able to live without working because of it's better for them to just cash-in from the government, isn't something which would free up a significant amount of cash. Nevertheless it's something which should be done to send a signal.
Cheap gas had become the foundation of Germany's economy, which is why the USA and other European countries rightly always pointed out that Germany is too reliant on Russian gas. So it's kind odd if now the opposition blames the current government for all the problems. There are also enough videos which show the finance minister saying that the automotive industry has no problems in competitiveness. This was pre-pandemic, post Dieselgate. Because that was what the automotive industry paid him for to say. And now they are surprised that they are collapsing.
> "Schuldenbremse". "Debt"+"brake", brake as in what forces a car to stop.
No. Schuldenbremse limits the amount of new debt that can be taken on per year. So the correct comparison is that it's a limit on how quickly the car can accelerate.
> Let's assume your important car breaks down because of a strange, non-technical reason, which isn't covered by any insurance. If you don't have enough money, you will have to borrow some, you will have to go into debt, unless you are able to reduce your expenses otherwise.
Again, no. Your example describes a one-time expense, and the German Schuldenbremse has exemptions for that. Increased military spending is a running expense, and if the energy price problem is to be solved through subsidies, that's also a running expense.
Germany has been gutting the military and breaking their obligations toward NATO for decades, believing that the US would forever be footing the bill. With that "peace" dividend – or rather, through their parasitic behaviour – they funded generous social programs. They can keep funding all of this by increasing debt (again: not a one-time increase, but debt increasing every year), like Argentina did. Or they can admit they have a structural problem and act in a fiscally responsible way, like Lindner was advocating for.
People who already have property would not be happy because the government would spend huge money on a program they are not interested. And it could make the houses prices lower (which could be not popular for people, who already paying a loan). Would attract people who are renting though.
Right, the high percent of people owning the houses gives extra stability to the country. It keeps prices reasonable and gives overall more options (wanna change a city for a new job? wanna start a family? need some space for your extra hobby, which could give you some money potentially?). Sadly, not many people connect all the dots.
It is pretty simple, parties estimated how many votes and influence they could get. And decided it is too little. The only way is to be more noisy (protests, pressing politicians to do it).
It's unbelievably bad government behaviour. Allow mass immigration, to enjoy the boost in tax revenues and GDP, while dumping all the costs and fallout on the people.
Rents skyrocketed, utility bills getting more expensive, waiting twice as long for a doctor? Well that's not my problem, is it pleb?
It'd be one thing if they were actively clearing the path for it to minimise impact. Preemptively clearing land and building hospitals etc.
But that would imply something about these people that they definitely are not. Ruled by the worst among us.
I invite anybody to show me any credible evidence the immigration has a positive Net Present Value (NPV). The purpose was the destruction of the status quo, not improved tax revenues and GDP, but rather its replacement with a compliant, desperate, and above all else, an obedient population.
Poland saw net increase of GDP by 1-2% solely due to immigrants in 2023. And that number is from their own Warsaw institute, not some outside entity. In the same time period Poland saw immense monetary inflow from immigrants, who had to spend their money in the country, far more than any spending on those same immigrants.
And this is super short term data. Imagine how much better they are in long term, after assimilating and finding good jobs, founding businesses etc. Poland was losing population and in general not topping development charts, but immigrants fill this gap and boost the economy.
PS: an anecdote - I'm now an adult immigrant in Poland. I'm paying approximately 39.5% of tax now, a crazy rent to the Polish citizen landlord and all local products and services. I won't be eligible for Polish pension for two more decades, and after that I'll probably get some minimal one because I've started too late. I'm also paying some incredible sum to the healthcare system (included in those 39.5%) while not using it much. Statistically the most ill human groups are kids and elderly. Immigrants skip the kids stage themselves and elderly part is very far into future, so they are net gain in the healthcare system.
I guess the parent poster is talking about refugees/asylum seekers and similar conditions rather than qualified immigrants such as students and professional workers, which might be the main source of foreigners in Poland, unlike Germany.
That was implied, yes. The problem is that every time, like clockwork, when migrants are "dealt with" it means country is tightening professional legal immigration, and doing jack shit about illegal ones. Example - Canada has a problem with illegal migrants, to combat that they cut legal (and quite hard and complex) immigration path which Ukrainians used, maybe others too. They are also constantly raising the number of points for permanent residence (which includes education and work among other things, so is kinda for professionals). USA has a problem with migrants, it restricts H1B professional visa criteria which was very restricted in the first place.
PS: I don't mean that these restrictions are bad, maybe they are needed. I mean that often it seems that anti immigration ire is directed on the ones can be found the easiest, legal migrants who can be sent home with a flick of the pen, without getting from the comfy chair.
Completely agree. IMO, first thing should be done is to properly label, distinguish and group these terminologies about different types of immigration and foreigners. Then, have a solid policy especially on (initially) illegal immigration.
“To put their impact in perspective, in 2018, the average per capita fiscal contribution of first-generation immigrants was $16,207. In contrast, the average drain was $11,361, resulting in a net positive fiscal impact of $4,846 per immigrant in 2012 dollars. Multiplied by the number of immigrants present in 2018 (45.4 million), this amount results in a cumulative net fiscal impact of +$220 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that number is 1.2 percent of U.S. GDP in 2018 ($18.7 trillion in 2012 dollars) and 3.7 percent of all 2018 government spending ($6.031 trillion in 2012 dollars). The former number is roughly in line with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2006–2018 estimates, which are 1 percent for the United States and between plus or minus 1 percent for most OECD countries”
And
”The Cato Model finds that immigrant individuals who arrive at age 25 and who are high school dropouts have a net fiscal impact of +$216,000 in net present value terms over the next 30 years, which does not include their descendants. Including the fiscal impact of those immigrants’ descendants reduces those immigrants’ net fiscal impact to +$57,000. By comparison, native-born American high school dropouts of the same age have a net fiscal impact of −$32,000 that drops to −$177,000 when their descendants are included (Table 31).”
"The report finds that the total net contribution in 2018 by native Danish people was +41 billion DKK. The contribution of immigrants and their descendants was net negative at -24 billion DKK (Table b)"
You get skilled workers that you didn’t have to raise and educate, and their presence in the country is tied to their employment. Many will leave long before they need to use your healthcare system or collect a pension.
The greatest cost is that they also have expectations like shelter and functional services. Germany failing to meet this expectation was not caused by immigration. Immigration is not to blame for Germany failing to modernise its bureaucracy and its infrastructure.
Living in a migration heavy, booming German city I have to remind everyone that:
1. Migration is not distributed equally, it will mainly affect metropolitan areas
2. Metropolitan areas are usually doing well economically, but housing can become an issue. Not only due to foreigners, but also because people move in from the countryside and tourists need accomodation
3. Metropolitan areas are also not voting right wing
That means the areas voting against immigration are the ones who experience its impacts the least, except for the fact that young people tend to migrate away from these places. If that comes as a surprise to you you didn't look at the numbers.
The argument against migration in Germany isn't rational or economic, it is emotional¹.
The next question woud be whether these right wing parties are actually gonna reduce migration numbers. They don't have any incentive to do so as people vote them based on that — people who vote based on emotion not based on track record. So it happens that under some right wing governments migration numbers are actually higher than under other governments before and after.
¹: I recall seeing a German family on the subway who in shock proclaimed: "Oh mh god, there are so many foreigners" as she clutched her bag. I, a blonde blue eyed guy, asked her how she knew I was Austrian and that she does not need to worry since I have rode with that subway for 6 years and never seen or heard of any crime being committed, but whether she trusts me as an foreigner is another question — usually they mean: brown people.
> The purpose was the destruction of the status quo, not improved tax revenues and GDP, but rather its replacement with a compliant, desperate, and above all else, an obedient population.
I invite you to provide any credible evidence to this statement.
US has generally done alright? It comes down to who the immigrants are and how much money are they making. If they are in high value industries like tech how can they not generate any value?
The problems are that it becomes visible and hence it generates fear of the unknown which some politicians (populists or demagogues is probably a better description) easily exploit.
That really is the core of the issue - and it’s a big one, not easy to solve.
Exactly, we're going to sit here and buy "region locked dvds" and get exposed to competition from "wherever", it is just ridiculous. The capitalists need serious punishment.
Best is subjective, some care about human rights, some care about their children, some care about people other than themselves and others don't care and frame everything they don't care about as ideology.
Same in the US. Especially in the party that now lost. Maybe believing in some equality fairyland where everything is fair and equal doesn’t work. Doesn’t work for the US and doesn’t work for Germany. You need to let crazy people do crazy things (within the law of course). Many inventors were “crazy” at the time including Einstein, Turing and DaVinci to name a few. Maybe in 50 years we will talk about the government that forced Turing to take medication against his homosexuality in the same way as the woke politicians who supported cancel culture. A culture that has caused many academics to lose their job and caused even more academics to fear speaking up.
Germany is in a really dire situation now by the way. Car production is about 17% of GDP and sales for all their brands are declining steadily. Especially Chinese sales are going down fast. Relatedly, Xiami is now one of the fastest cars on the Nordschleife. But the German government doesn’t seem to have any solutions. Yes close power plants. Oh wait they have now the highest electricity prices in the whole of Europe.
And this is while their education system is fine. Young German engineers are great I think. I’ve seen many great German open source developers. Especially of course the creators of Typst.
> And this is while their education system is fine. Young German engineers are great I think.
German education system is not as fine as it used to be. It might still be fine at the later high school and university levels, but earlier school classes now often have a majority of kids that don't speak German, holding the whole class back. In parts of problem cities like Berlin there are even classes where no kid speaks German. We don't have enough teachers and the ones who are still there are frustrated and overworked.
> but earlier school classes now often have a majority of kids that don't speak German, holding the whole class back
Nope, that's not the problem. My wife is a teacher. Schools where teachers don't go on the toilet because it's so fucked up. That's the problem. But we need to reduce money there, because we need more tax breaks.
> You need to let crazy people do crazy things (within the law of course).
Yeah, like stripping away LGBT rights or abortion? The far-right, no matter if we are talking about the US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Argentinia, Israel or the UK, has clearly stated what they want to do, and they have shown in more than enough cases (Argentinia, USA, UK) that they are willing to throw the entire nation under the bus for their ideological bullshit! And the people have suffered horribly for the foolishness of their fellow countrymen.
These are ideological battles which are specular to those of the left. All these laws to extend and protect LGBT rights? Marginally useful only to a small minority (which should be already protected in its fundamental rights by the normal laws) but great to avoid talking about difficult issues: how to go against established interests to improve the economy, how to modernise administration so that is more efficient and cheaper, etc.
I agree, I also think it's fundamentally different from other "minority" rights. Anyway, I think the state referendums have proven the voters are going to defend abortion, whatever the right says about it.
> I agree, I also think it's fundamentally different from other "minority" rights.
Both result in completely preventable deaths. In the case of LGBT in massive youth suicide rates compared to non-LGBT youth, in the case of abortion bans deaths from medical complications of which there have been a few very widely publicised cases since Roe v Wade fell.
> Anyway, I think the state referendums have proven the voters are going to defend abortion, whatever the right says about it.
The problem is, when the federal government does things like revoke the certification of mifepristone (abortion pill) or levonorgestrel (plan b), there's jack shit the states can do. If they go and classify it as scheduled drugs, grey-importing or shipping it around the country will be a serious federal crime now.
And yes, that is the strategy. They already tried with mifepristone [1], they will try again now that they actually control the FDA and can just do it themselves instead of asking for a court order, and plan b is already dropping massively due to restrictions of states [2].
Are we cosplaying Hellen Keller? The only ones who are upset about the current state of those minorities are conservatives. Not those on the left, the left doesn't care and has moved on. The right is the only one propping up the "culture war" (your dreaded "ideology"). I don't understand how you guys can't see it, it's so obvious.
Conservatives are always cosplaying Helen Keller when it suits them and not when it doesn't - just like everything else they could possibly do. It's an ideology of "how do I win this next sparring matc?" not one of consistency.
It has been a whole campaign based on the needs of the 0.whatever% part of the population, I’ve always been a respectful member of society thinking that lgbt people have the rights to be whatever they want and everyone has the right to define himself, I’ve been even to a gay pride, but now they’ve broken my balls, a bunch of people can’t just monopolize the debate for everyone
I don’t know about you, but I actually watched interviews with Trump and he mostly seems to indicate that he doesn’t want a nation-wide ban on abortion. It should be up for individual states to decide. Although I’m in favor of more choice for women, I don’t think Trump’s stance is completely unreasonable. There are already more than enough federal rules and some states want to be more strict. But you make it sound like Trump wants to strip away abortion rights. Please give me a recent interview in which he himself clearly said that. Otherwise it seems someone else came up with that narrative.
Not even a week ago a new law was signed that enables anyone to legally change there sex yearly while making it a finable offense up to 10.000€ to state reality.
> Not even a week ago a new law was signed that enables anyone to legally change there sex yearly while making it a finable offense up to 10.000€ to state reality.
First of all, that's Germany, not the US. Second, the only people who will realistically be using this right are trans people whose legal situation has been defined by a very old law that has been partially declared unconstitutional multiple times for years now.
Of course, there will be trolls abusing it - but it's expensive, so TBH I do not expect more than a dozen dumbasses going through with it. Even name change after a marriage is a huge fucking deal of bureaucracy. I went through that one just a year ago. Banks, authorities, association memberships of all kinds, billing changes for tons of services, new name => new card => new CC number, probably the associated effort cost me well over 5000€ if I include the value of my time, and probably around 1000€ in travel (dual citizenship) and fees for new documents. And for fucks sake it's a smokescreen anyway. There was nothing stopping creeps from invading women's toilets, installing cameras or outright raping women before, and such cases were on the regular. The new SBGG changes absolutely nothing, sexual coercion, rape and other abusive behavior were and will remain crimes.
None of this addresses the problem of making reality illegal not to mention that there is a monumental difference between illegally installing cameras and being legally physically in women spaces. If you want to play dress up and be called something else good for you but forcing people by law to lie is tyranny.
> None of this addresses the problem of making reality illegal.
Recognizing that trans people exist in reality and providing them legal backing for it is not new. Trans (or gender-nonconforming, third gender or whatever you want to call it) people have been a thing for millennia. Even back in old Greece their existence was recognized [1], the Talmud has regulations on their status in society [2], various Southern Asian countries have some sort of legal recognition for them for centuries [3].
"Reality" is a societal definition, and nature alone provides a lot of interesting edge cases such as various sport stars who pass for females in all aspects including having vaginas but have chromosome sets (or hormonal levels) typically associated with males.
Given that I just posted evidence of non-binary people over millennia and at a large enough scale to warrant inclusion into legal systems, it's hard to call non-binary people "crazy" - they have always been a staple of humanity.
To the people downvoting me again. Please come with arguments instead of just clicking the “I disagree” button. I’ll happily be proven wrong but I need someone to do it. Just clicking “I disagree” doesn’t add anything to the discussion. Thank you.
It's ok to downvote without comment if someone is not following the posted rules: Please "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says"
Your response included the statement: "The left wants to chemically castrate gay teenagers and ban single-sex gay spaces." - I don't think that's a response made to the strongest plausible interpretation of mschuster91's post.
No, it is this attitude, which was even reflected in the speeches the party leaders gave after the breakup, accusing each other of "ideology", that is the problem. Every single party in germany claims to stand for "reasoning", "pragmatism" and accuses others of "ideology". People brandmark anything they disagree with as ideology, as in "heizungsideologie" for example. (The idea that gas heating should be replaced with heay pumps.) Voting for people who are the quietest about expressing their own beliefs and loudest about denouncing other beliefs as "ideology" is exactly how germany got into this mess.
"Gesinnungsethik" - We had the purest ideas, never mind the results. A real scourge. For some reason, it seems to be most popular with those with the highest education and the corresponding parties. Intelligent people doing stupid things on the regular, that takes ideology.
I don’t think there was ever much reasoning. What changed is the scale at which emotions can be exploited nowadays. I just obliterates any reasoning happening…
As a German I'm quite happy with this, because the coalition was doomed to fail from the start.
On that note, I read the paper of Lidner and IMHO he has good points. Germany does not have an issue with income but with spending. We spend way too much for social stuff, especially pensions. The idea proposed by the SDP would fuck every following generation over pretty hard.
And to loose the debt break to funnel that money to the Ukraine is brain dead.
Why does no one tackle overflowing spending for social stuff, insane bureaucracy, abysmal education.
I'm a bit concerned about new elections. That will probably make the CxU the major party, with probably SPD as a junior partner. However, IMHo the whole German political landscape is just FUBAR.
CDU/CSU=old guys sprinkled with new guys that are both corrupt. Scheuer, Spahn, Dobrindt et al. Merz as chancellor. Yeah fuck.
SPU=Give money from the middle class so poor, so they don't have to work that match
FDP=Unfortunately I do not own a Porsche, but generally speaking I find the ideas proposed by Lidner in his paper quite sound
Grüne=Ivory tower and out of touch with working people
AFD=Crude mix between Nazis and just braindead people
BSW=???
+ all the other smaller parties that are just useless
I pay the max amount possible for public healthcare (~1,1k€?) and pay about 1k+ in wage tax. That's just outright insane.
In the meantime, my ex wife gets paid a flat + utilities + some other stuff.
This is all fucked. The EU needs to get stronger, by having a Ungarn Exit and stopping the idiotic expansion to Moldova and the other states that will bring nothing to the table. Instead, they should be made partner, with some benefits, butno voting rights. Oh, and please no Schengen for all of them.
With the shit also going on with the US election this is all just shit.
I don't think the issue is spending on social stuff. There are more issues like tax evasion - even supported by the ministry of Lindner [1].
But I think the biggest issue is spending money by employing more and more governance worker. I heard that the Kanzleramt employs more people than most of the big companies in Germany.
Also, you wrote CDU is corrupt, but FDP feels as corrupt as CDU. At least it looks like working for FDP lead ministry pays off [2][3].
It just feels morally wrong to try to cut social spending when they can't cut spending on their side. Also, pensions for governance worker are pretty high too.
My comment was written with a bit of rage, I might have missed some things. So I agree with wealth tax and tackling tax evasion.
Yes, I also should've added corruption to FDP, good catch! Mövenpick. Also look at the absolute dog shit minister that is Wissing.
I also agree with reducing spending on their side.
I think you can also do this before someone replys, so no luck there.
Honestly I have no clue who to vote for. I guess we will get a GroKo again, which is utterly retarded, SPD has to go to. Their pension packet is just insane.
We spend way too much for social stuff, especially pensions
Germany has a problem with pensions in particular but it isn't fixable without abandoning what Germany stands for. At least for another few generations.
Germany told everyone that they needn't worry about their pensions. The government has got your back. We take care of it.
Norbert Bluem - "Your pension is safe!"
Shortly after they introduced legislation that would make pensioners pay tax on their pension income. Something that was "not a thing" before. They also basically told those people that would now have to pay tax on their pension income that they "should've had private pension plans already anyway".
Oh and they introduced multiple ways to help insurance companies steal people's money. "Riester Renter" and such. Not a good deal at all. Oh and there's no way to save money in a tax advantaged way without using insurance companies. No self-serve investment 401k or RRSP. It's all employer and insurance tied.
As another German, I fully agree about the political landscape in Germany being FUBAR.
I'm an entrepreneur with a small business and the FDP is closest to my personal views in theory. In reality, they are just a bit lighter shade of green-socialism than the other parties. Lindner's paper is a joke. Germany needs much more radical changes than he proposed to ensure a prosperous future, but even his very tame suggestions now caused a government collapse.
My payment for public healthcare is also at the maximum around 1k€/month and similar wage taxes. A few days ago I used an unemployment payment / "Bürgergeld" calculator and found out that if I stopped working and instead just got married and had 1-2 kids, I'd have more income after taxes than now. This is completely unsustainable, but nobody in politics talks about it.
New elections won't make a difference, other than taking away some time and focus from the people in power to do more harm to the country. There simply is nobody sensible to vote for.
Germany, and all of the EU in general, needs to hit absolute rock bottom first for new and sensible political parties to emerge.
Personally, I don't want to be around for the ride down, so I'm preparing to leave the sinking ship. Unfortunately thats not easy with enormous exit taxes and much of the western world in a similarly bad state. The US honestly seems like the best option right now.
> My payment for public healthcare is also at the maximum around 1k€/month and similar wage taxes [...]
> and found out that if I stopped working and instead just got married and had 1-2 kids, I'd have more income after taxes than now
That's not possible. Either you lied or didn't fill out the Bürgergeld calculator correctly.
If you make enough money to get to the Jahresarbeitsentgeltgrenze so you pay the maximum of 843.53€ for public healthcare, then you at least should get 3.213€ a month "auf die Hand". If you get you apartment payed and 563€ if you are alone or 506€ if you are married. Yes you get "extra" money if you have kids, but FUNFACT: Kids cost money.
All political landscape is FUBAR. But in part that because there are unlimited different opinions but only a handful of party's.
I don't know how Cum-Ex Scholz could get Chancellor and I am ashamed of it, but with E-Fuel-Porsche Linder...
You know his company before politics, which he ran into ground was funded in part by the KFW? He wasted more of our money than a village of people getting Bürgergeld.
Yeah sure, the german car industry will be great again with this E-Fuel bullshit and then with lesser taxes the profits will trickle down to everyone.
Have fun with more poverty and richer Billionaires.
> Lindner's paper is a joke. Germany needs much more radical changes than he proposed to ensure a prosperous future, but even his very tame suggestions now caused a government collapse.
I wouldn't call it a joke, but rather a starting point. I agree that more radical changes are required. But then again, who will do them? Which party? Yeah, there is none
much of the western world in a similarly bad state
That is the real crux. The only chance so to speak is to go to a western country that's in better state, though it's not necessarily gonna be a good state.
The US honestly seems like the best option right now
That probably depends on various things. Are you a white male with the right job? Not too bad. Are you male and the wrong job or you might like other men? Much less good. Are you female or non-white? You may want to reconsider. Not that the AfD isn't gonna be problematic in those regards but the US is definitely going into a bad direction that way.
"Are you male and the wrong job or you might like other men? Much less good. "
Could you explain what you're talking about here? "It sucks to be poor", that makes sense. But being gay doesn't matter imo and I fail to see how other (western) countries are much different.
I generally have similar feelings about your other points, but don't have personal experience there.
Donald Trump and especially the people that voted for him are not so sweet on gays (well I guess some might tolerate gay women on a porn site, but not so much living right next to them). It would absolutely not surprise me if after the repeal of abortion rights, gay marriage rights will be next. Now to be fair, some of the states did vote for better abortion rights after the repeal (and during this presidential election), so there's that. But the tendencies and what Trump stands for in general don't bode well. I wouldn't bet on it so to speak.
That said, we are talking about this in context of Germany, where you are correct in that women's rights are less enshrined than one might think of in such a country. And especially in AfD country you don't want to be seen going off to party at CSD. Being gay in the middle of Berlin I guess is akin to being gay in the middle of a metro city in California, while being gay in the middle of the Thuringian forest is like being gay in the middle of certain "flyover states".
Most people aren’t moving into any of the red states, though (maybe Texas)?
And with the all states right thing that they are pushing hopefully Trump will be dead by them time they have enough political capital to restrict stuff on a Federal level.
Hoping someone is dead is very much in poor taste imo.
"And with the all states right thing that they are pushing hopefully Trump will be dead by them time they have enough political capital to restrict stuff on a Federal level."
This sentence doesn't make any sense to me, 'states rights' is a federalistic concept, it's inherently against adding new restrictions at the federal level.
Did you paste the wrong link? That’s a population growth map, not immigration specifically? Also it’s from 2022…
I mean you might be right or wrong but declining population in California doesn’t mean that a lot of immigrants are moving there (and I of course wasn’t talking about all
immigrants in general but rather people who might be on HN which aren’t exactly a random sample).
> Hoping someone is dead is very much in poor taste imo
Is it? Much more extreme rhetoric is perfectly normalized and accepted these days in the US these days..
If you give up residency in Germany and own company shares over 1%, you are taxed as if you sold them at the current value.
For private companies, this value is calculated by the tax authority with a procedure called "Vereinfachtes Ertragswertfahren" ("simplified income approach"), where they basically take the average post-tax profit of the last three years and multiply it by 13,75.
The tax you pay on that varies based on your personal circumstances (personal tax rate, church tax etc) but is around 30%.
So, the tax authority values your small company with 100k€ average yearly profit at 1,37m€ and wants you to pay roughly 400k€ exit tax for the privilege of moving out of Germany.
You already paid around 50k€ corporate tax per year to get to that 100k€ post-tax profit. And to pay out the 100k€ as dividends from the company to yourself, you pay another 25% capital gains tax on it, being left with 75k€. So to afford the exit tax, you'd have to save 100% of your profits for roughly 5 years, or less if you are able to save something from your regular salary.
This is very hard to afford under most circumstances, even with installments, and means that Germany quickly becomes a prison for even mildly successful entrepreneurs.
Thanks for the clarifications, since I don't think this is widely known (outside of entrepreneurial circles). That makes a lot of sense then.
So, as a "regular bloke" you can leave Germany for better pastures, no problem. But if you are "independently wealthy-ish", they really want to keep you there, to pay more taxes / employ people that pay taxes. Or take the money anyway, make sure they get their "capital gains taxes" so to speak?
25% capital gains tax is actually not that bad other than that Germany has no equivalent of an RRSP and TFSA. Capital gains are taxed as regular income in Canada for example. Your marginal tax rate is quite probably gonna be greater than 25%. To be fair, you only get taxed on half of the gains in many cases. Quoting https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/capital-gains-tax-c...:
As of June 25, 2024, however, you will be taxed on 50% of your annual capital gains up to $250,000. For any capital gains over $250,000, that ratio increases to two-thirds, or approximately 66.67%. Here’s how that would look in real life: Suppose one year you sell stocks for $300,000 more than you paid for them. 50% of the first $250,000 of those gains ($125,000) would be taxed as income. 66.67% of the remaining $50,000 ($33,335) would be taxed as well. So on the $300,000 gain, only $158,335 counts toward your taxable income.
For corporations and trusts, there’s no such threshold: regardless of the total capital gains, 66.67% are taxable
Like, if I was to sell my investments and move to Germany from Canada :) and let's say I had your 5 year example worth of 100k profit i.e. capital gains, to dispose of, even if you made zero other money that year for example would mean you pay $113,685 of taxes that year (in Ontario, just to make an example). That's an average tax rate of ~22.75%, marginal rate of ~53.5%.
Like it does sound like Canadian departure tax basically. And it's not just about companies as the example above shows. That was just me owning stocks. Any Canadian leaving has to pay departure tax. Basically, when you leave Canada you have to pay tax on any of your investments. A "deemed disposition". Pay taxes as if you had sold, even if you keep ownership. Which if you think about it, makes some sense. For all the country knows, you've accumulated wealth without ever paying capital gains tax, because you never sold and now you leave the country (potentially never to come back but who knows?!), and sell shortly after leaving. Leaving to a country with no capital gains taxes. A year later you come back and retire in Canada like you always planned. Deemed disposition prevents that. Makes sense actually. If you do stay in the other country afterwards, that's none of Canada's business any longer.
The good thing here is that we do have the RRSP and TFSA. So hopefully before leaving Canada I would've paid myself dividends over the years, in a tax efficient way and put those into a TFSA to grow tax free and I won't have to pay departure tax on that (or anything in an RRSP). And an RRSP would AFAIK even be tax sheltered as a "retirement account" under Canada - Germany tax treaties.
(fun thought experiment to move from each of these countries to the other :) )
> Pay taxes as if you had sold, even if you keep ownership. Which if you think about it, makes some sense.
It does make some sense, yea. The draconic thing is taxing you on a fictitious sale. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was delayed until you actually sell the shares. There are actually ways to delay it, but they require a collateral.
For example if you can reasonably prove that it is a temporary absence up to 7 years when moving outside the EU, you don't have to pay the exit tax, but need to have collateral.
If you move inside the EU, the exit tax actually clashes with the EU's free movement directive and I think there are pending court cases for this up to high levels.
So if you move within the EU, you can delay indefinitely without interest, but they will still require a collateral. And if you want to leave Germany, you'll usually also want to leave the EU for the same reasons...
Switzerland is an option because due to various bilateral agreements, it is treated similarly as other EU countries.
Its funny that you mention this Canadian departure tax on stock holdings. Because just a few weeks ago the German government actually enhanced the exit tax and it now also applies if you own more than 1% OR 500k€ in a _single_ investment fund.
Supposedly this is to close loopholes around creating family-owned investment funds to get around the exit tax.
But as we all know, once a new tax is there, it will never go away. Easy enough to lower the limit or apply it to all holdings in the future.
Not just stock holdings. Any investments. Except for your primary residence, if you sell it before leaving. So e.g. you're not safe just because you didn't own stock and instead created a real estate investment empire :) If you keep your primary residence and rent it out for example (presumably because you do want to come back and retire in Canada?), then capital gains will accrue from the date you leave Canada.
Fictitious sale = deemed disposition. Same thing. If you can't pay the tax from cash you have lying around you will have to actually sell some of the investments.
Now I do get that selling a business might not be as easy as selling (part of) a liquid stock. But take the real estate example again. Selling your real estate empire seems much harder than selling some of your NVDA shares to pay the tax. If you aren't prepared to sell your business though and you want to hold onto it, why would the government be inclined to believe that you really want to leave and never come back so to speak?
> If you aren't prepared to sell your business though and you want to hold onto it, why would the government be inclined to believe that you really want to leave and never come back so to speak?
No idea. And for a corporation (GmbH) in Germany, it would actually be trivial to track and control this, since the ownership transfer is only possible through a notary public and only becomes legal fact after its published in the public company register. So put a flag on it, and when that transfer shows up, just block it until the exit tax from when you left is paid.
I'm not sure we understood the same thing there, given you said "no idea".
My point is that it's very understandable that the government doesn't just trust that you'll pay your departure tax at some future later point, once you've been able to sell your business, in say like 5 years from now, or maybe 7 or like never ;)
I'm not trying to argue that everything is rosy. Just trying to see both sides so to speak. In a non-ideal world. Where not everyone is like you, who'd actually pay his taxes as soon as they were able to sell but they just really really want to leave like now.
Oh, yea I misread that a bit and my "no idea" doesn't really fit there.
I agree with your point that the government generally doesn't trust me to pay at some point in the future. Blocking the ownership transfer for a corporation like I mentioned above would be one way to ensure it though.
In the end the Nazi's had the right ideal, your laziness is causing capital outflow, and this hits you in the face, later. It's time to critically examine the capital outflow and inflow of Europe, and act accordingly.
Oh, and the speech by Scholz was just taken from a drawer, so it has been written for quite some time. So overall this is just shady: Lidner wanted structured new elections but now Scholz forced this to be some shit show.
Also the 4 points mentioned by Scholz are mostly shit:
1. Subventions for VW/other car manufactures: good to secure jobs, but eventually against strengthen of the German economy because we keep failed shot living for some time that is also doomed to fail
2. Energy price, how will he do it without screwing over private households?
3. Pensions: Yeah, the proposed pension packet would screw over newer generations tremendously, just to secure some votes from old people
4. More money for the Ukraine. Use that money to invest in to European Level defense
4. what part of money sent to ukraine is actually investment to eu defence? trying tactics and seeing arms in actios and then selling these to aravia and asia because of good reviews.
3. all young screwed with inflation money printing, and laws protecting rich to be rich, not poor become rich. so i doubt any coutry is different now.
2. check out nuclear in france and canada. they are fine. and... it was russia. ao de does not wants to fight it again?
1. yeah, exactly this, as i worked in that oart of de industry for a while.
TBH, I'm not sure I can parse your comment correctly, but I'll try anyway:
1. I also work for some subsidiary of VW and honestly them going down is no surprise. It's mismanagement on all levels
2. I'm not sure nuclear is a good think. Sure, no CO2, but waste. Also, building them is just ridiculously expensive.
3. Unfortunately true! But the plans of the SPD were really insane IMHO
4. What I meant is that instead of sending anything to the Ukraine just invest in EU level defense.
What surprised me is not that it happened, but that it happened now. Since it didn’t happen years earlier, I expected the coalition to last until the next election to at least give some semblance of stability.
The FDP has always had its finger on the self destruction button in this coalition and perhaps they wanted to get some especially, ehm, daring policy through with its politically quite different partners.
This is not destabilizing this democracy. The FDP has done that same thing before - twice! In 1966 and 1982.
Abandoning a non-functioning government and calling new elections is part of democracies. Just ask the Italians (68 governments in 76 years), or recently the French and the Brits.
The coalition falling apart isn't really the problem. The problem is that with the strength of AfD and BSW, and the other parties' unwillingness to work with them, it will likely be impossible to form any coalition with a majority next year, which is sure to be destabilizing simply through how dysfunctional the government will be. Again.
The problem is that the far right is ready to exploit that situation with their broken populist rhetoric and look to gain massively from it. Currently, they are the second biggest faction behind the conservatives in the polls. All the moderate parties have so little support that the only coalition government options are the ones that couldn't stop this growing trend of disillusionment and protest voting in the past.
The point though is that we don't have a good mechanism to remove a government that isn't meeting expectations. Impeachment exists, but it is very difficult and has never succeeded at removing a sitting president.
In a stable democracy, whenever there are elections, the losers accept that the elections were fair and they lost. If there are reasons to believe that the elections were not fair, or if the losers refuse to admit that the elections were fair and they lost, the system is unstable.
Peaceful transition of power is the most important factor in the long-term stability of any system of governance. Whenever a leader loses legitimacy or dies, there must be a process to select a successor. If the outcome of the process is contested, the system is at a high risk of collapsing in the power struggles of its elites. It's far more common for a state to fail due to internal power struggles than external threats.
He left office. He wasn't kicked out (other than the election of course), it's not like Secret Service had to drag him out of the Oval. He left. He also went through the whole process again and we know how that turned out.
To imply that the US is an "unstable democracy" is laughable.
The US was already unstable in 2000. Once courts get involved in determining the outcome of elections, it's a sure sign that the system is no longer functioning properly.
Instability does not mean that a collapse is imminent. It means that further shocks may cause a collapse more easily than in a stable system. It makes a collapse more likely in the long term, which in this context means something like a human lifetime.
Stable democracies can preserve themselves even against undue influence. Even if you think Jan 6 was a carefully calculated and orchestrated attempt at a "kill the elected leaders and install sycophants in their place" style coup d'état - or perhaps especially if you think that - the result proved the US's stability.
How about send to prison the main culprit behind it?
> Starting at 11:58, from behind a bulletproof shield, President Trump gave a speech, declaring that he would "never concede" the election, criticizing the media, and calling for Pence to overturn the election results.
At no point did those Jan6 people have the ability to actually overthrow the US government. Let's not exaggerate their ability to take over all US armed forces and government operations. Jan6 was more a barnacle on the leviathan that is the US government.
They absolutely had the opportunity to give the president an excuse to stay in power.
“The electoral ballots have been compromised, Congress is in disarray with its leadership killed. I’m staying in office for the duration of this emergency, and the states will decide on a process to select new electors, or the House of Representatives will elect the next president per its Constitutional authority.”
Virginia and Maryland were on the brink of invading DC (had the government continued to resist deploying the National Guard and the riot got even more out of hand) with all the bizarre consequences of that…
To be fair it’s not like the mob was that determined and capable to actually murder Pence etc. (at least there weren’t any clear signs of it). They scattered immediately after the first guns were fired (I mean those close enough to witness it). So more people might have died but it would have primarily been the rioters rather than anyone else..
Lindner was out of line, did a solo act and Scholz took it personally, his ego was insulted, so he fired him.
Lindner did it on purpose.
He either knows what he's doing (ace under the sleeve) or is a total idiot.
Lindner was forced to do it. FDP has been under the 5% barrier in polls for months now, down from 11,4%. If they stayed in the coalition until the next regular election, they would most likely not even get into parliament again. At least with this move, they have a better chance.
> Political analyst Thu Nguyen, Deputy Director at the Berlin-based think tank Jacques Delors Centre, said it was not meant to be in a comment on social media.
As I understand Trump is more isolationist and less neo-con interventionist than Biden/Harris is. So why does the article state 'increased geo-political challanges' after a Trump win?
Because Europe cannot put trust in US help for Ukraine. Thus, Germany has to do more. (and they can only do more if they spend money and the [now ex-]finance minister does not want to)
Also, if the US raises its tariffs wrt to Europe, then the German economy is in even more trouble.
it's not much of a discussion, it's the side that lost (which corresponds to the bulk of the HN community) not acknowledging anything unsound about their beliefs or approach or misalignment with the electorate, and instead continuing with the same talking points that lost the election. Which is fine, they can do that, that can be a heartfelt belief, but it's not a discussion that's going anyplace or illuminating anybody.
And that’s exactly the reason I like HN and actually read comments here unlinke on other platforms like Reddit where the quality of comments in average are bad
I have a tangential question, especially to the native Germans in this thread.
I've been living in Germany for a while now and have been trying to understand German politics in that time, including this whole concept of coalition governments and the crisis the Ampel is facing. Due to the latter, I came across this: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-could-face-snap-election/a-704...
In this article are statements such as (emphasis mine):
> Brandt called for a vote of confidence in the Bundestag with the aim of losing it, so that his chancellorship could be reconfirmed by voters in fresh elections.
> [Kohl] called for a vote of confidence, which he, too, deliberately lost on December 17, 1982.
> Schröder called for a vote of confidence, which he deliberately lost on July 1, 2005.
I just can't wrap my head around these in so many levels. The easier of these questions would be, how can a chancellor deliberately lose a vote of confidence? What makes the action deliberate exactly?
Brandt is a more complicated case to the point where I am, honestly, having a hard time putting my bewilderment into words. I'll try nonetheless: How can a chancellor expect voters in fresh elections to bolster their chancellorship, just right after losing a vote of confidence? I can only interpret this as some kind of political flex, basically telling the Bundestag that "I may not have your confidence but I still have mandate from the people".
(If it is, then, well, weird flex but ok, as we used to say a few years ago. It is a reason after all, even if I find it a bit absurd.)
Perhaps what adds to my confusion is, in Kohl's section we read: "Because Kohl's coalition of the CDU/CSU and FDP came to power through a vote of no confidence and not a general election, Kohl wished for additional legitimacy through a general election" which to me implies that Brandt's strategy would not have consolidated his position as strongly; indeed, the article notes his maneuver was fiercely criticized at the time.
I know I'm an idiot when it comes to German politics so I'd be glad if someone can make sense of my bewilderment. I know there is a lot of subtlety and context I am missing here and I'm sure I'm confusing one thing for another. But I strongly feel like this would go a long way to helping me understand the current machinations of the Ampel.
> How can a chancellor expect voters in fresh elections to bolster their chancellorship, just right after losing a vote of confidence?
I'd say in general, because his party has gained in the polls since the original election that put him in office.
In Brandt's case, he probably indeed thought that voters would reward him for this "political flex" and selflessness for the benefit of the country. Asking for the vote and thereby risking his own career, but also resolving the stalemate in government after they had their majority dramatically reduced.
I'm guessing that Scholz has a similar idea, but with how much the SPD already lost in polls since the last election, I don't see it going well for them and him. In fact, a majority of people are very unhappy with the government and have been in favor of new elections for months now. His plan of getting "critical" bills passed before Christmas with this minority government won't work. Opposition parties would be suicidal to work with him. So I'd say, the longer Scholz waits, the worse the SPD results will be. He needs to ask for the vote immediately, not in 2 months.
> I just can't wrap my head around these in so many levels. The easier of these questions would be, how can a chancellor deliberately lose a vote of confidence? What makes the action deliberate exactly?
Just openly telling your coalition to not vote for you.
> How can a chancellor expect voters in fresh elections to bolster their chancellorship, just right after losing a vote of confidence?
I don't think saying "I came into power, but I'am not sure, if you really want me so please vote for me." will have negative effects on your election results.
> I can only interpret this as some kind of political flex, basically telling the Bundestag that "I may not have your confidence but I still have mandate from the people".
The chancellor gives up on forming the government, but it's the parliament's to vote for a new election.
It's frustrating to watch governments constantly argue over what they should do to help the economy when what they should be arguing about is what they should undo to stop hindering the economy.
In Germany, it seems somewhat obvious: a more efficient bureaucracy. Everything is bogged down in red tape and bureaucratic processes, most of which are completely archaic and actively hostile to digitalisation.
I am a strong proponent of regulation, but the kind that involves computers, not faxes.
i once was working for bosch contractor. they have team of 2-3 people doing in half year less work than i am in one month, and yet payed 2x less.
de lead of that 2-3 team was putting some integration tests ignored and unignored several times during that time as stabilisation effort, sure they were not stabilized.
team we dependent on for car data lagged behind for month all time, and people were pieced off when i was going to sent prs to their code to speed up things.
If the future German Chancellor is here, here's my proposal for your new campaign: "We choose to build one million affordable apartments in four years, not because it's easy but because it's hard".
It may not solve all of Germany's problems but at least you'll energize the construction sector, alleviate the housing crisis, learn how to finish a construction project on time and you'll have to remove some bureaucracy to reach the deadline. Build them with EV chargers outside and you'll help VW too.
Interesting that 2 similar problems - water rise and population increase - are treated that differently, i.e. it is considered normal that the government would build levies/etc. while the government building housing is an abomination.
Well, it has been a race to the bottom to be fair, any infra is just becoming derelict, railways, levies are a very good example of infra in very bad state btw.
That was essentially the slogan of the current coalition and they failed completely.
I have a deep dislike for Scholz (SPD), but this is for the biggest part the fault of Lindner/finance minister (FDP) who was an absolute disgrace and unable to make a compromise.
You can't tell me he didn't negotiate before with the other two parties about what the compromises would be. Leave it or stick with it.
"Schuldenbremse". "Debt"+"brake", brake as in what forces a car to stop.
Keep in mind that Russian's attack on the Ukraine, which lead to the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline, didn't happen until after the election. I don't understand how people blend this out so easily.
Let's assume your important car breaks down because of a strange, non-technical reason, which isn't covered by any insurance. If you don't have enough money, you will have to borrow some, you will have to go into debt, unless you are able to reduce your expenses otherwise.
During the entire time of this coalition you had the finance minister saying that the debt brake is holy, therefore restricting in cash those in the coalition which his party disliked the most, always saying: "But the debt brake." - well knowing that those affected by the constrained cash flow would get bad publicity because they can't do their job, corrected: because they're personally unfit to do what they should do, because "they are losers". All this, while not proposing a real solution to the problem.
They suggested to decrease government spending, which is - of course - something every government should strive for, but this is something which cannot be done in a few years if it means to reduce bureaucracy. This requires modification of laws, which always is a slow process, and firing officials, which is a no-go for absolutely every party.
Their reasonable expectation of lowering financial support for those who are too lazy to work or are illegal immigrants, which are able to live without working because of it's better for them to just cash-in from the government, isn't something which would free up a significant amount of cash. Nevertheless it's something which should be done to send a signal.
Cheap gas had become the foundation of Germany's economy, which is why the USA and other European countries rightly always pointed out that Germany is too reliant on Russian gas. So it's kind odd if now the opposition blames the current government for all the problems. There are also enough videos which show the finance minister saying that the automotive industry has no problems in competitiveness. This was pre-pandemic, post Dieselgate. Because that was what the automotive industry paid him for to say. And now they are surprised that they are collapsing.
> "Schuldenbremse". "Debt"+"brake", brake as in what forces a car to stop.
No. Schuldenbremse limits the amount of new debt that can be taken on per year. So the correct comparison is that it's a limit on how quickly the car can accelerate.
> Let's assume your important car breaks down because of a strange, non-technical reason, which isn't covered by any insurance. If you don't have enough money, you will have to borrow some, you will have to go into debt, unless you are able to reduce your expenses otherwise.
Again, no. Your example describes a one-time expense, and the German Schuldenbremse has exemptions for that. Increased military spending is a running expense, and if the energy price problem is to be solved through subsidies, that's also a running expense.
Germany has been gutting the military and breaking their obligations toward NATO for decades, believing that the US would forever be footing the bill. With that "peace" dividend – or rather, through their parasitic behaviour – they funded generous social programs. They can keep funding all of this by increasing debt (again: not a one-time increase, but debt increasing every year), like Argentina did. Or they can admit they have a structural problem and act in a fiscally responsible way, like Lindner was advocating for.
People who already have property would not be happy because the government would spend huge money on a program they are not interested. And it could make the houses prices lower (which could be not popular for people, who already paying a loan). Would attract people who are renting though.
As a home owner in Germany: it is important to me that my fellow citizens have a place to live than whether I earn 15% more or less with rent.
Also: If there is too much pressure, my risk of even harsher messures will rise, e.g. expropriation has happened before.
Right, the high percent of people owning the houses gives extra stability to the country. It keeps prices reasonable and gives overall more options (wanna change a city for a new job? wanna start a family? need some space for your extra hobby, which could give you some money potentially?). Sadly, not many people connect all the dots.
A sign of bureaucratic death spiral is when nothing gets done because someone would be upset.
It is pretty simple, parties estimated how many votes and influence they could get. And decided it is too little. The only way is to be more noisy (protests, pressing politicians to do it).
It's unbelievably bad government behaviour. Allow mass immigration, to enjoy the boost in tax revenues and GDP, while dumping all the costs and fallout on the people.
Rents skyrocketed, utility bills getting more expensive, waiting twice as long for a doctor? Well that's not my problem, is it pleb?
It'd be one thing if they were actively clearing the path for it to minimise impact. Preemptively clearing land and building hospitals etc.
But that would imply something about these people that they definitely are not. Ruled by the worst among us.
I invite anybody to show me any credible evidence the immigration has a positive Net Present Value (NPV). The purpose was the destruction of the status quo, not improved tax revenues and GDP, but rather its replacement with a compliant, desperate, and above all else, an obedient population.
Poland saw net increase of GDP by 1-2% solely due to immigrants in 2023. And that number is from their own Warsaw institute, not some outside entity. In the same time period Poland saw immense monetary inflow from immigrants, who had to spend their money in the country, far more than any spending on those same immigrants.
And this is super short term data. Imagine how much better they are in long term, after assimilating and finding good jobs, founding businesses etc. Poland was losing population and in general not topping development charts, but immigrants fill this gap and boost the economy.
PS: an anecdote - I'm now an adult immigrant in Poland. I'm paying approximately 39.5% of tax now, a crazy rent to the Polish citizen landlord and all local products and services. I won't be eligible for Polish pension for two more decades, and after that I'll probably get some minimal one because I've started too late. I'm also paying some incredible sum to the healthcare system (included in those 39.5%) while not using it much. Statistically the most ill human groups are kids and elderly. Immigrants skip the kids stage themselves and elderly part is very far into future, so they are net gain in the healthcare system.
I guess the parent poster is talking about refugees/asylum seekers and similar conditions rather than qualified immigrants such as students and professional workers, which might be the main source of foreigners in Poland, unlike Germany.
That was implied, yes. The problem is that every time, like clockwork, when migrants are "dealt with" it means country is tightening professional legal immigration, and doing jack shit about illegal ones. Example - Canada has a problem with illegal migrants, to combat that they cut legal (and quite hard and complex) immigration path which Ukrainians used, maybe others too. They are also constantly raising the number of points for permanent residence (which includes education and work among other things, so is kinda for professionals). USA has a problem with migrants, it restricts H1B professional visa criteria which was very restricted in the first place.
PS: I don't mean that these restrictions are bad, maybe they are needed. I mean that often it seems that anti immigration ire is directed on the ones can be found the easiest, legal migrants who can be sent home with a flick of the pen, without getting from the comfy chair.
Completely agree. IMO, first thing should be done is to properly label, distinguish and group these terminologies about different types of immigration and foreigners. Then, have a solid policy especially on (initially) illegal immigration.
Research by Cato Institute: https://www.cato.org/blog/fiscal-impact-immigration-united-s...
“To put their impact in perspective, in 2018, the average per capita fiscal contribution of first-generation immigrants was $16,207. In contrast, the average drain was $11,361, resulting in a net positive fiscal impact of $4,846 per immigrant in 2012 dollars. Multiplied by the number of immigrants present in 2018 (45.4 million), this amount results in a cumulative net fiscal impact of +$220 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that number is 1.2 percent of U.S. GDP in 2018 ($18.7 trillion in 2012 dollars) and 3.7 percent of all 2018 government spending ($6.031 trillion in 2012 dollars). The former number is roughly in line with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2006–2018 estimates, which are 1 percent for the United States and between plus or minus 1 percent for most OECD countries”
And
”The Cato Model finds that immigrant individuals who arrive at age 25 and who are high school dropouts have a net fiscal impact of +$216,000 in net present value terms over the next 30 years, which does not include their descendants. Including the fiscal impact of those immigrants’ descendants reduces those immigrants’ net fiscal impact to +$57,000. By comparison, native-born American high school dropouts of the same age have a net fiscal impact of −$32,000 that drops to −$177,000 when their descendants are included (Table 31).”
I think this one is more credible when talking about Germany: https://inquisitivebird.xyz/p/the-effects-of-immigration-in-...
"The report finds that the total net contribution in 2018 by native Danish people was +41 billion DKK. The contribution of immigrants and their descendants was net negative at -24 billion DKK (Table b)"
You get skilled workers that you didn’t have to raise and educate, and their presence in the country is tied to their employment. Many will leave long before they need to use your healthcare system or collect a pension.
The greatest cost is that they also have expectations like shelter and functional services. Germany failing to meet this expectation was not caused by immigration. Immigration is not to blame for Germany failing to modernise its bureaucracy and its infrastructure.
Living in a migration heavy, booming German city I have to remind everyone that:
1. Migration is not distributed equally, it will mainly affect metropolitan areas
2. Metropolitan areas are usually doing well economically, but housing can become an issue. Not only due to foreigners, but also because people move in from the countryside and tourists need accomodation
3. Metropolitan areas are also not voting right wing
That means the areas voting against immigration are the ones who experience its impacts the least, except for the fact that young people tend to migrate away from these places. If that comes as a surprise to you you didn't look at the numbers.
The argument against migration in Germany isn't rational or economic, it is emotional¹.
The next question woud be whether these right wing parties are actually gonna reduce migration numbers. They don't have any incentive to do so as people vote them based on that — people who vote based on emotion not based on track record. So it happens that under some right wing governments migration numbers are actually higher than under other governments before and after.
¹: I recall seeing a German family on the subway who in shock proclaimed: "Oh mh god, there are so many foreigners" as she clutched her bag. I, a blonde blue eyed guy, asked her how she knew I was Austrian and that she does not need to worry since I have rode with that subway for 6 years and never seen or heard of any crime being committed, but whether she trusts me as an foreigner is another question — usually they mean: brown people.
> The purpose was the destruction of the status quo, not improved tax revenues and GDP, but rather its replacement with a compliant, desperate, and above all else, an obedient population.
I invite you to provide any credible evidence to this statement.
US has generally done alright? It comes down to who the immigrants are and how much money are they making. If they are in high value industries like tech how can they not generate any value?
There is no mass immigration
Not yet, but it's already big enough to notice the problems it brings.
The problems are that it becomes visible and hence it generates fear of the unknown which some politicians (populists or demagogues is probably a better description) easily exploit.
That really is the core of the issue - and it’s a big one, not easy to solve.
We should remind the Germans to be incredibly wary of any ideology which puts the blame of economic hardship on an ethnic minority.
Proof?
Exactly, we're going to sit here and buy "region locked dvds" and get exposed to competition from "wherever", it is just ridiculous. The capitalists need serious punishment.
Haha, yeah, forget it. Too much bureaucracy.
But I agree, doing something like this would address quite a few issues people have.
Which party would tackle that though? I can't think of any.
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As a german imo the real problem is that we replaced reasoning with ideology.
There are sometimes complex connections between cause and effect. It is not enough to just have the right intention.
This.
Just had a longer discussion with my wife just now why this is.
So many discussions in Germany revolve around ideology and not what’s best in the situation right now.
Very vague content free statement.
Best is subjective, some care about human rights, some care about their children, some care about people other than themselves and others don't care and frame everything they don't care about as ideology.
I am not the OP, but comparing the following news reveals a lot of bad ideology.
https://www.politico.eu/article/nuclear-reactors-germany-inv...
https://montelnews.com/news/652d5434-12f1-459b-bec5-8c1236f3...
Here are the devastating results of that bad ideology:
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart....
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l...
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l...
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l...
https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy_pie/chart.htm?l...
These are not "the results", this is a particular aspect of the whole story. What about the price? The total energy in TWh?
(Spoiler: I checked these data in the same site you linked, and the ideology still looks bad.)
Not really
Governments should always be primarily rational and utilitarian rather than ideological.
These categories don't exclude each other
IMHO usually they conflict with each other more often than not.
not really
Same in the US. Especially in the party that now lost. Maybe believing in some equality fairyland where everything is fair and equal doesn’t work. Doesn’t work for the US and doesn’t work for Germany. You need to let crazy people do crazy things (within the law of course). Many inventors were “crazy” at the time including Einstein, Turing and DaVinci to name a few. Maybe in 50 years we will talk about the government that forced Turing to take medication against his homosexuality in the same way as the woke politicians who supported cancel culture. A culture that has caused many academics to lose their job and caused even more academics to fear speaking up.
Germany is in a really dire situation now by the way. Car production is about 17% of GDP and sales for all their brands are declining steadily. Especially Chinese sales are going down fast. Relatedly, Xiami is now one of the fastest cars on the Nordschleife. But the German government doesn’t seem to have any solutions. Yes close power plants. Oh wait they have now the highest electricity prices in the whole of Europe.
And this is while their education system is fine. Young German engineers are great I think. I’ve seen many great German open source developers. Especially of course the creators of Typst.
> And this is while their education system is fine. Young German engineers are great I think.
German education system is not as fine as it used to be. It might still be fine at the later high school and university levels, but earlier school classes now often have a majority of kids that don't speak German, holding the whole class back. In parts of problem cities like Berlin there are even classes where no kid speaks German. We don't have enough teachers and the ones who are still there are frustrated and overworked.
> but earlier school classes now often have a majority of kids that don't speak German, holding the whole class back
Nope, that's not the problem. My wife is a teacher. Schools where teachers don't go on the toilet because it's so fucked up. That's the problem. But we need to reduce money there, because we need more tax breaks.
"Car production is about 17% of GDP"
Not sure where you got this number. Actually it's been between 4% and 5% for the last couple of years.
Thanks. I think you’re right.
This is my source: https://tradingeconomics.com/germany/exports-by-category
295B for “vehicles other than railway, tramway”.
I don’t know where the 17% on that page comes from. It’s indeed 6% if you compare it to GDP (4.4T).
> Same in the US. Especially in the party that now lost.
I'd say it's the same in both parties
> You need to let crazy people do crazy things (within the law of course).
Yeah, like stripping away LGBT rights or abortion? The far-right, no matter if we are talking about the US, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Argentinia, Israel or the UK, has clearly stated what they want to do, and they have shown in more than enough cases (Argentinia, USA, UK) that they are willing to throw the entire nation under the bus for their ideological bullshit! And the people have suffered horribly for the foolishness of their fellow countrymen.
> like stripping away LGBT rights or abortion?
These are ideological battles which are specular to those of the left. All these laws to extend and protect LGBT rights? Marginally useful only to a small minority (which should be already protected in its fundamental rights by the normal laws) but great to avoid talking about difficult issues: how to go against established interests to improve the economy, how to modernise administration so that is more efficient and cheaper, etc.
It seems strange to associate abortion as something only the left cares about. It's been a very big talking point for the right for a long time.
I agree, I also think it's fundamentally different from other "minority" rights. Anyway, I think the state referendums have proven the voters are going to defend abortion, whatever the right says about it.
> I agree, I also think it's fundamentally different from other "minority" rights.
Both result in completely preventable deaths. In the case of LGBT in massive youth suicide rates compared to non-LGBT youth, in the case of abortion bans deaths from medical complications of which there have been a few very widely publicised cases since Roe v Wade fell.
> Anyway, I think the state referendums have proven the voters are going to defend abortion, whatever the right says about it.
The problem is, when the federal government does things like revoke the certification of mifepristone (abortion pill) or levonorgestrel (plan b), there's jack shit the states can do. If they go and classify it as scheduled drugs, grey-importing or shipping it around the country will be a serious federal crime now.
And yes, that is the strategy. They already tried with mifepristone [1], they will try again now that they actually control the FDA and can just do it themselves instead of asking for a court order, and plan b is already dropping massively due to restrictions of states [2].
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2qq1wqw3w2o
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-26/plan-b-us...
> which are specular to those of the left
Are we cosplaying Hellen Keller? The only ones who are upset about the current state of those minorities are conservatives. Not those on the left, the left doesn't care and has moved on. The right is the only one propping up the "culture war" (your dreaded "ideology"). I don't understand how you guys can't see it, it's so obvious.
Conservatives are always cosplaying Helen Keller when it suits them and not when it doesn't - just like everything else they could possibly do. It's an ideology of "how do I win this next sparring matc?" not one of consistency.
It has been a whole campaign based on the needs of the 0.whatever% part of the population, I’ve always been a respectful member of society thinking that lgbt people have the rights to be whatever they want and everyone has the right to define himself, I’ve been even to a gay pride, but now they’ve broken my balls, a bunch of people can’t just monopolize the debate for everyone
I don’t know about you, but I actually watched interviews with Trump and he mostly seems to indicate that he doesn’t want a nation-wide ban on abortion. It should be up for individual states to decide. Although I’m in favor of more choice for women, I don’t think Trump’s stance is completely unreasonable. There are already more than enough federal rules and some states want to be more strict. But you make it sound like Trump wants to strip away abortion rights. Please give me a recent interview in which he himself clearly said that. Otherwise it seems someone else came up with that narrative.
> he doesn’t want a nation-wide ban
I guess he’s too old now but it still must be pretty personal to him.
[flagged]
>like stripping away LGBT rights
Not even a week ago a new law was signed that enables anyone to legally change there sex yearly while making it a finable offense up to 10.000€ to state reality.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Determination_Act_(Germ...
I think crazy people is very fitting.
> Not even a week ago a new law was signed that enables anyone to legally change there sex yearly while making it a finable offense up to 10.000€ to state reality.
First of all, that's Germany, not the US. Second, the only people who will realistically be using this right are trans people whose legal situation has been defined by a very old law that has been partially declared unconstitutional multiple times for years now.
Of course, there will be trolls abusing it - but it's expensive, so TBH I do not expect more than a dozen dumbasses going through with it. Even name change after a marriage is a huge fucking deal of bureaucracy. I went through that one just a year ago. Banks, authorities, association memberships of all kinds, billing changes for tons of services, new name => new card => new CC number, probably the associated effort cost me well over 5000€ if I include the value of my time, and probably around 1000€ in travel (dual citizenship) and fees for new documents. And for fucks sake it's a smokescreen anyway. There was nothing stopping creeps from invading women's toilets, installing cameras or outright raping women before, and such cases were on the regular. The new SBGG changes absolutely nothing, sexual coercion, rape and other abusive behavior were and will remain crimes.
None of this addresses the problem of making reality illegal not to mention that there is a monumental difference between illegally installing cameras and being legally physically in women spaces. If you want to play dress up and be called something else good for you but forcing people by law to lie is tyranny.
> None of this addresses the problem of making reality illegal.
Recognizing that trans people exist in reality and providing them legal backing for it is not new. Trans (or gender-nonconforming, third gender or whatever you want to call it) people have been a thing for millennia. Even back in old Greece their existence was recognized [1], the Talmud has regulations on their status in society [2], various Southern Asian countries have some sort of legal recognition for them for centuries [3].
"Reality" is a societal definition, and nature alone provides a lot of interesting edge cases such as various sport stars who pass for females in all aspects including having vaginas but have chromosome sets (or hormonal levels) typically associated with males.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgynos
[2] https://www.talmudology.com/jeremybrownmdgmailcom/2019/6/17/...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)
>"Reality" is a societal definition
Reality can be whatever crazy people want it to be
Given that I just posted evidence of non-binary people over millennia and at a large enough scale to warrant inclusion into legal systems, it's hard to call non-binary people "crazy" - they have always been a staple of humanity.
I'm sure glad 99.99% of people are now lawfully punished for not lying because of 0.01% crazy people
Crazy people have been trying to reshape reality to fit their two-gender ideology for thousands of years and it has never worked.
It did bring us the most well known historical atrocity though.
made up claims as expected. Yeah how could people use 2 sexes when there are.....2 biological sexes...the horror.
To the people downvoting me again. Please come with arguments instead of just clicking the “I disagree” button. I’ll happily be proven wrong but I need someone to do it. Just clicking “I disagree” doesn’t add anything to the discussion. Thank you.
“Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.”
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It's ok to downvote without comment if someone is not following the posted rules: Please "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says"
Your response included the statement: "The left wants to chemically castrate gay teenagers and ban single-sex gay spaces." - I don't think that's a response made to the strongest plausible interpretation of mschuster91's post.
Perhaps it's time to integrate LLMs into politics. Not sure that I'm even joking at this point.
No, it is this attitude, which was even reflected in the speeches the party leaders gave after the breakup, accusing each other of "ideology", that is the problem. Every single party in germany claims to stand for "reasoning", "pragmatism" and accuses others of "ideology". People brandmark anything they disagree with as ideology, as in "heizungsideologie" for example. (The idea that gas heating should be replaced with heay pumps.) Voting for people who are the quietest about expressing their own beliefs and loudest about denouncing other beliefs as "ideology" is exactly how germany got into this mess.
I think you have a very special definition of reasoning only you can understand.
My point doesn't rely on any definition of reasoning, just that every party claims to stand for it.
Nope. They‘re absolutely right.
"Gesinnungsethik" - We had the purest ideas, never mind the results. A real scourge. For some reason, it seems to be most popular with those with the highest education and the corresponding parties. Intelligent people doing stupid things on the regular, that takes ideology.
I don’t think there was ever much reasoning. What changed is the scale at which emotions can be exploited nowadays. I just obliterates any reasoning happening…
As a German I'm quite happy with this, because the coalition was doomed to fail from the start.
On that note, I read the paper of Lidner and IMHO he has good points. Germany does not have an issue with income but with spending. We spend way too much for social stuff, especially pensions. The idea proposed by the SDP would fuck every following generation over pretty hard.
And to loose the debt break to funnel that money to the Ukraine is brain dead.
Why does no one tackle overflowing spending for social stuff, insane bureaucracy, abysmal education.
I'm a bit concerned about new elections. That will probably make the CxU the major party, with probably SPD as a junior partner. However, IMHo the whole German political landscape is just FUBAR.
CDU/CSU=old guys sprinkled with new guys that are both corrupt. Scheuer, Spahn, Dobrindt et al. Merz as chancellor. Yeah fuck.
SPU=Give money from the middle class so poor, so they don't have to work that match
FDP=Unfortunately I do not own a Porsche, but generally speaking I find the ideas proposed by Lidner in his paper quite sound
Grüne=Ivory tower and out of touch with working people
AFD=Crude mix between Nazis and just braindead people
BSW=???
+ all the other smaller parties that are just useless
I pay the max amount possible for public healthcare (~1,1k€?) and pay about 1k+ in wage tax. That's just outright insane.
In the meantime, my ex wife gets paid a flat + utilities + some other stuff.
This is all fucked. The EU needs to get stronger, by having a Ungarn Exit and stopping the idiotic expansion to Moldova and the other states that will bring nothing to the table. Instead, they should be made partner, with some benefits, butno voting rights. Oh, and please no Schengen for all of them.
With the shit also going on with the US election this is all just shit.
I don't think the issue is spending on social stuff. There are more issues like tax evasion - even supported by the ministry of Lindner [1]. But I think the biggest issue is spending money by employing more and more governance worker. I heard that the Kanzleramt employs more people than most of the big companies in Germany.
Also, you wrote CDU is corrupt, but FDP feels as corrupt as CDU. At least it looks like working for FDP lead ministry pays off [2][3].
It just feels morally wrong to try to cut social spending when they can't cut spending on their side. Also, pensions for governance worker are pretty high too.
(sorry for German sources)
[1] https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/politik/gerda-hofmann-finanzm...
[2] https://www.merkur.de/politik/schuldenbremse-bundeshaushalt-...
[3] https://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/finanzministerium--...
My comment was written with a bit of rage, I might have missed some things. So I agree with wealth tax and tackling tax evasion. Yes, I also should've added corruption to FDP, good catch! Mövenpick. Also look at the absolute dog shit minister that is Wissing. I also agree with reducing spending on their side.
I edited my comment also a little bit because I wrote in rage. It really feels frustrating the political landscape (voting the "least evil" party).
I think you can also do this before someone replys, so no luck there.
Honestly I have no clue who to vote for. I guess we will get a GroKo again, which is utterly retarded, SPD has to go to. Their pension packet is just insane.
Germany told everyone that they needn't worry about their pensions. The government has got your back. We take care of it.
Norbert Bluem - "Your pension is safe!"
Shortly after they introduced legislation that would make pensioners pay tax on their pension income. Something that was "not a thing" before. They also basically told those people that would now have to pay tax on their pension income that they "should've had private pension plans already anyway".
Oh and they introduced multiple ways to help insurance companies steal people's money. "Riester Renter" and such. Not a good deal at all. Oh and there's no way to save money in a tax advantaged way without using insurance companies. No self-serve investment 401k or RRSP. It's all employer and insurance tied.
Way to fuck over your population.
As another German, I fully agree about the political landscape in Germany being FUBAR.
I'm an entrepreneur with a small business and the FDP is closest to my personal views in theory. In reality, they are just a bit lighter shade of green-socialism than the other parties. Lindner's paper is a joke. Germany needs much more radical changes than he proposed to ensure a prosperous future, but even his very tame suggestions now caused a government collapse.
My payment for public healthcare is also at the maximum around 1k€/month and similar wage taxes. A few days ago I used an unemployment payment / "Bürgergeld" calculator and found out that if I stopped working and instead just got married and had 1-2 kids, I'd have more income after taxes than now. This is completely unsustainable, but nobody in politics talks about it.
New elections won't make a difference, other than taking away some time and focus from the people in power to do more harm to the country. There simply is nobody sensible to vote for.
Germany, and all of the EU in general, needs to hit absolute rock bottom first for new and sensible political parties to emerge.
Personally, I don't want to be around for the ride down, so I'm preparing to leave the sinking ship. Unfortunately thats not easy with enormous exit taxes and much of the western world in a similarly bad state. The US honestly seems like the best option right now.
> My payment for public healthcare is also at the maximum around 1k€/month and similar wage taxes [...]
> and found out that if I stopped working and instead just got married and had 1-2 kids, I'd have more income after taxes than now
That's not possible. Either you lied or didn't fill out the Bürgergeld calculator correctly.
If you make enough money to get to the Jahresarbeitsentgeltgrenze so you pay the maximum of 843.53€ for public healthcare, then you at least should get 3.213€ a month "auf die Hand". If you get you apartment payed and 563€ if you are alone or 506€ if you are married. Yes you get "extra" money if you have kids, but FUNFACT: Kids cost money.
All political landscape is FUBAR. But in part that because there are unlimited different opinions but only a handful of party's. I don't know how Cum-Ex Scholz could get Chancellor and I am ashamed of it, but with E-Fuel-Porsche Linder... You know his company before politics, which he ran into ground was funded in part by the KFW? He wasted more of our money than a village of people getting Bürgergeld.
Yeah sure, the german car industry will be great again with this E-Fuel bullshit and then with lesser taxes the profits will trickle down to everyone.
Have fun with more poverty and richer Billionaires.
> Lindner's paper is a joke. Germany needs much more radical changes than he proposed to ensure a prosperous future, but even his very tame suggestions now caused a government collapse.
I wouldn't call it a joke, but rather a starting point. I agree that more radical changes are required. But then again, who will do them? Which party? Yeah, there is none
"Are you male and the wrong job or you might like other men? Much less good. "
Could you explain what you're talking about here? "It sucks to be poor", that makes sense. But being gay doesn't matter imo and I fail to see how other (western) countries are much different.
I generally have similar feelings about your other points, but don't have personal experience there.
Donald Trump and especially the people that voted for him are not so sweet on gays (well I guess some might tolerate gay women on a porn site, but not so much living right next to them). It would absolutely not surprise me if after the repeal of abortion rights, gay marriage rights will be next. Now to be fair, some of the states did vote for better abortion rights after the repeal (and during this presidential election), so there's that. But the tendencies and what Trump stands for in general don't bode well. I wouldn't bet on it so to speak.
That said, we are talking about this in context of Germany, where you are correct in that women's rights are less enshrined than one might think of in such a country. And especially in AfD country you don't want to be seen going off to party at CSD. Being gay in the middle of Berlin I guess is akin to being gay in the middle of a metro city in California, while being gay in the middle of the Thuringian forest is like being gay in the middle of certain "flyover states".
Most people aren’t moving into any of the red states, though (maybe Texas)?
And with the all states right thing that they are pushing hopefully Trump will be dead by them time they have enough political capital to restrict stuff on a Federal level.
That's objectively not true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Annual_population_growth_... .
Hoping someone is dead is very much in poor taste imo.
"And with the all states right thing that they are pushing hopefully Trump will be dead by them time they have enough political capital to restrict stuff on a Federal level."
This sentence doesn't make any sense to me, 'states rights' is a federalistic concept, it's inherently against adding new restrictions at the federal level.
Did you paste the wrong link? That’s a population growth map, not immigration specifically? Also it’s from 2022…
I mean you might be right or wrong but declining population in California doesn’t mean that a lot of immigrants are moving there (and I of course wasn’t talking about all immigrants in general but rather people who might be on HN which aren’t exactly a random sample).
> Hoping someone is dead is very much in poor taste imo
Is it? Much more extreme rhetoric is perfectly normalized and accepted these days in the US these days..
> Huh? Can you speak more about that?
If you give up residency in Germany and own company shares over 1%, you are taxed as if you sold them at the current value.
For private companies, this value is calculated by the tax authority with a procedure called "Vereinfachtes Ertragswertfahren" ("simplified income approach"), where they basically take the average post-tax profit of the last three years and multiply it by 13,75.
The tax you pay on that varies based on your personal circumstances (personal tax rate, church tax etc) but is around 30%.
So, the tax authority values your small company with 100k€ average yearly profit at 1,37m€ and wants you to pay roughly 400k€ exit tax for the privilege of moving out of Germany.
You already paid around 50k€ corporate tax per year to get to that 100k€ post-tax profit. And to pay out the 100k€ as dividends from the company to yourself, you pay another 25% capital gains tax on it, being left with 75k€. So to afford the exit tax, you'd have to save 100% of your profits for roughly 5 years, or less if you are able to save something from your regular salary.
This is very hard to afford under most circumstances, even with installments, and means that Germany quickly becomes a prison for even mildly successful entrepreneurs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriation_tax#Germany https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vereinfachtes_Ertragswertverfa...
Thanks for the clarifications, since I don't think this is widely known (outside of entrepreneurial circles). That makes a lot of sense then.
So, as a "regular bloke" you can leave Germany for better pastures, no problem. But if you are "independently wealthy-ish", they really want to keep you there, to pay more taxes / employ people that pay taxes. Or take the money anyway, make sure they get their "capital gains taxes" so to speak?
25% capital gains tax is actually not that bad other than that Germany has no equivalent of an RRSP and TFSA. Capital gains are taxed as regular income in Canada for example. Your marginal tax rate is quite probably gonna be greater than 25%. To be fair, you only get taxed on half of the gains in many cases. Quoting https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-ca/learn/capital-gains-tax-c...:
Like, if I was to sell my investments and move to Germany from Canada :) and let's say I had your 5 year example worth of 100k profit i.e. capital gains, to dispose of, even if you made zero other money that year for example would mean you pay $113,685 of taxes that year (in Ontario, just to make an example). That's an average tax rate of ~22.75%, marginal rate of ~53.5%.Like it does sound like Canadian departure tax basically. And it's not just about companies as the example above shows. That was just me owning stocks. Any Canadian leaving has to pay departure tax. Basically, when you leave Canada you have to pay tax on any of your investments. A "deemed disposition". Pay taxes as if you had sold, even if you keep ownership. Which if you think about it, makes some sense. For all the country knows, you've accumulated wealth without ever paying capital gains tax, because you never sold and now you leave the country (potentially never to come back but who knows?!), and sell shortly after leaving. Leaving to a country with no capital gains taxes. A year later you come back and retire in Canada like you always planned. Deemed disposition prevents that. Makes sense actually. If you do stay in the other country afterwards, that's none of Canada's business any longer.
The good thing here is that we do have the RRSP and TFSA. So hopefully before leaving Canada I would've paid myself dividends over the years, in a tax efficient way and put those into a TFSA to grow tax free and I won't have to pay departure tax on that (or anything in an RRSP). And an RRSP would AFAIK even be tax sheltered as a "retirement account" under Canada - Germany tax treaties.
(fun thought experiment to move from each of these countries to the other :) )
> Pay taxes as if you had sold, even if you keep ownership. Which if you think about it, makes some sense.
It does make some sense, yea. The draconic thing is taxing you on a fictitious sale. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was delayed until you actually sell the shares. There are actually ways to delay it, but they require a collateral.
For example if you can reasonably prove that it is a temporary absence up to 7 years when moving outside the EU, you don't have to pay the exit tax, but need to have collateral.
If you move inside the EU, the exit tax actually clashes with the EU's free movement directive and I think there are pending court cases for this up to high levels.
So if you move within the EU, you can delay indefinitely without interest, but they will still require a collateral. And if you want to leave Germany, you'll usually also want to leave the EU for the same reasons...
Switzerland is an option because due to various bilateral agreements, it is treated similarly as other EU countries.
Its funny that you mention this Canadian departure tax on stock holdings. Because just a few weeks ago the German government actually enhanced the exit tax and it now also applies if you own more than 1% OR 500k€ in a _single_ investment fund.
Supposedly this is to close loopholes around creating family-owned investment funds to get around the exit tax.
But as we all know, once a new tax is there, it will never go away. Easy enough to lower the limit or apply it to all holdings in the future.
Not just stock holdings. Any investments. Except for your primary residence, if you sell it before leaving. So e.g. you're not safe just because you didn't own stock and instead created a real estate investment empire :) If you keep your primary residence and rent it out for example (presumably because you do want to come back and retire in Canada?), then capital gains will accrue from the date you leave Canada.
Fictitious sale = deemed disposition. Same thing. If you can't pay the tax from cash you have lying around you will have to actually sell some of the investments.
Now I do get that selling a business might not be as easy as selling (part of) a liquid stock. But take the real estate example again. Selling your real estate empire seems much harder than selling some of your NVDA shares to pay the tax. If you aren't prepared to sell your business though and you want to hold onto it, why would the government be inclined to believe that you really want to leave and never come back so to speak?
> If you aren't prepared to sell your business though and you want to hold onto it, why would the government be inclined to believe that you really want to leave and never come back so to speak?
No idea. And for a corporation (GmbH) in Germany, it would actually be trivial to track and control this, since the ownership transfer is only possible through a notary public and only becomes legal fact after its published in the public company register. So put a flag on it, and when that transfer shows up, just block it until the exit tax from when you left is paid.
I'm not sure we understood the same thing there, given you said "no idea".
My point is that it's very understandable that the government doesn't just trust that you'll pay your departure tax at some future later point, once you've been able to sell your business, in say like 5 years from now, or maybe 7 or like never ;)
I'm not trying to argue that everything is rosy. Just trying to see both sides so to speak. In a non-ideal world. Where not everyone is like you, who'd actually pay his taxes as soon as they were able to sell but they just really really want to leave like now.
Oh, yea I misread that a bit and my "no idea" doesn't really fit there.
I agree with your point that the government generally doesn't trust me to pay at some point in the future. Blocking the ownership transfer for a corporation like I mentioned above would be one way to ensure it though.
But there's no incentive for them to do that.
In the end the Nazi's had the right ideal, your laziness is causing capital outflow, and this hits you in the face, later. It's time to critically examine the capital outflow and inflow of Europe, and act accordingly.
Oh, and the speech by Scholz was just taken from a drawer, so it has been written for quite some time. So overall this is just shady: Lidner wanted structured new elections but now Scholz forced this to be some shit show. Also the 4 points mentioned by Scholz are mostly shit:
1. Subventions for VW/other car manufactures: good to secure jobs, but eventually against strengthen of the German economy because we keep failed shot living for some time that is also doomed to fail
2. Energy price, how will he do it without screwing over private households?
3. Pensions: Yeah, the proposed pension packet would screw over newer generations tremendously, just to secure some votes from old people
4. More money for the Ukraine. Use that money to invest in to European Level defense
4. what part of money sent to ukraine is actually investment to eu defence? trying tactics and seeing arms in actios and then selling these to aravia and asia because of good reviews.
3. all young screwed with inflation money printing, and laws protecting rich to be rich, not poor become rich. so i doubt any coutry is different now.
2. check out nuclear in france and canada. they are fine. and... it was russia. ao de does not wants to fight it again?
1. yeah, exactly this, as i worked in that oart of de industry for a while.
TBH, I'm not sure I can parse your comment correctly, but I'll try anyway: 1. I also work for some subsidiary of VW and honestly them going down is no surprise. It's mismanagement on all levels
2. I'm not sure nuclear is a good think. Sure, no CO2, but waste. Also, building them is just ridiculously expensive.
3. Unfortunately true! But the plans of the SPD were really insane IMHO
4. What I meant is that instead of sending anything to the Ukraine just invest in EU level defense.
What surprised me is not that it happened, but that it happened now. Since it didn’t happen years earlier, I expected the coalition to last until the next election to at least give some semblance of stability.
The FDP has always had its finger on the self destruction button in this coalition and perhaps they wanted to get some especially, ehm, daring policy through with its politically quite different partners.
So, destabilized democracies seems to be the theme of the early 21st century: the UK (Brexit), the US (twice) and now rumbles from Germany. Great
This is not destabilizing this democracy. The FDP has done that same thing before - twice! In 1966 and 1982.
Abandoning a non-functioning government and calling new elections is part of democracies. Just ask the Italians (68 governments in 76 years), or recently the French and the Brits.
> Just ask the Italians (68 governments in 76 years)
When each and every government is non-functioning, I'd say that democracy is already destabilised or broken.
The coalition falling apart isn't really the problem. The problem is that with the strength of AfD and BSW, and the other parties' unwillingness to work with them, it will likely be impossible to form any coalition with a majority next year, which is sure to be destabilizing simply through how dysfunctional the government will be. Again.
The problem is that the far right is ready to exploit that situation with their broken populist rhetoric and look to gain massively from it. Currently, they are the second biggest faction behind the conservatives in the polls. All the moderate parties have so little support that the only coalition government options are the ones that couldn't stop this growing trend of disillusionment and protest voting in the past.
I wish the US democracy had this feature. We have to just suffer through it for 4 years.
You have midterms for the Congress though?! That's ever 2 years and actually very frequent for a legislature
Only for the house. Senate is every 6 years.
The point though is that we don't have a good mechanism to remove a government that isn't meeting expectations. Impeachment exists, but it is very difficult and has never succeeded at removing a sitting president.
> Just ask the Italians (68 governments in 76 years)
For 50 years Italy was ruled by the same party. Governments changed just to allow more people from the same party to be ministers.
What is unstable about the US?
In a stable democracy, whenever there are elections, the losers accept that the elections were fair and they lost. If there are reasons to believe that the elections were not fair, or if the losers refuse to admit that the elections were fair and they lost, the system is unstable.
Peaceful transition of power is the most important factor in the long-term stability of any system of governance. Whenever a leader loses legitimacy or dies, there must be a process to select a successor. If the outcome of the process is contested, the system is at a high risk of collapsing in the power struggles of its elites. It's far more common for a state to fail due to internal power struggles than external threats.
He left office. He wasn't kicked out (other than the election of course), it's not like Secret Service had to drag him out of the Oval. He left. He also went through the whole process again and we know how that turned out.
To imply that the US is an "unstable democracy" is laughable.
The US was already unstable in 2000. Once courts get involved in determining the outcome of elections, it's a sure sign that the system is no longer functioning properly.
Instability does not mean that a collapse is imminent. It means that further shocks may cause a collapse more easily than in a stable system. It makes a collapse more likely in the long term, which in this context means something like a human lifetime.
Let’s see if we still laugh in a couple of years…
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Trump's followers raid the capitol last time (with his approval)? Seems unstable from the outside
One of them was shot and more than 600 were sent to prison. Seems stable enough to me.
Stable democracies hand over to new governments without bloodshed. Any amount of violence in the process is too much to count as stable.
Stable democracies can preserve themselves even against undue influence. Even if you think Jan 6 was a carefully calculated and orchestrated attempt at a "kill the elected leaders and install sycophants in their place" style coup d'état - or perhaps especially if you think that - the result proved the US's stability.
Pretty safe bet those in prison will be pardoned, and I wouldn't be shocked if the dead traitor got a posthumous medal.
How about send to prison the main culprit behind it?
> Starting at 11:58, from behind a bulletproof shield, President Trump gave a speech, declaring that he would "never concede" the election, criticizing the media, and calling for Pence to overturn the election results.
Just reading about the whole thing again on Wikipedia is appalling beyond belief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito....
At no point did those Jan6 people have the ability to actually overthrow the US government. Let's not exaggerate their ability to take over all US armed forces and government operations. Jan6 was more a barnacle on the leviathan that is the US government.
They absolutely had the opportunity to give the president an excuse to stay in power.
“The electoral ballots have been compromised, Congress is in disarray with its leadership killed. I’m staying in office for the duration of this emergency, and the states will decide on a process to select new electors, or the House of Representatives will elect the next president per its Constitutional authority.”
Virginia and Maryland were on the brink of invading DC (had the government continued to resist deploying the National Guard and the riot got even more out of hand) with all the bizarre consequences of that…
To be fair it’s not like the mob was that determined and capable to actually murder Pence etc. (at least there weren’t any clear signs of it). They scattered immediately after the first guns were fired (I mean those close enough to witness it). So more people might have died but it would have primarily been the rioters rather than anyone else..
...or just permanent state of emergency, and voila. Very common way to do the democracy to dictatorship transition. "Many such cases"
January 6th was an excuse for pence to not certify so in the fight for certification it would be thrown to the supreme Court that trump owns
Lindner was out of line, did a solo act and Scholz took it personally, his ego was insulted, so he fired him. Lindner did it on purpose. He either knows what he's doing (ace under the sleeve) or is a total idiot.
Lindner was forced to do it. FDP has been under the 5% barrier in polls for months now, down from 11,4%. If they stayed in the coalition until the next regular election, they would most likely not even get into parliament again. At least with this move, they have a better chance.
> total idiot
This. Basically all public economists agree on Lindner's ideas and behaviour to be nonsensical. So he either is an idiot or a puppet.
> Political analyst Thu Nguyen, Deputy Director at the Berlin-based think tank Jacques Delors Centre, said it was not meant to be in a comment on social media.
?
As I understand Trump is more isolationist and less neo-con interventionist than Biden/Harris is. So why does the article state 'increased geo-political challanges' after a Trump win?
Because Europe cannot put trust in US help for Ukraine. Thus, Germany has to do more. (and they can only do more if they spend money and the [now ex-]finance minister does not want to) Also, if the US raises its tariffs wrt to Europe, then the German economy is in even more trouble.
Because Russia will conquer eastern Europe and China Taiwan.
Funny how this discussion is allowed but I have not been able to read anything about the US election on here
A discussion with now 8000 comments has been on the front page for most of the day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42057647
it's not much of a discussion, it's the side that lost (which corresponds to the bulk of the HN community) not acknowledging anything unsound about their beliefs or approach or misalignment with the electorate, and instead continuing with the same talking points that lost the election. Which is fine, they can do that, that can be a heartfelt belief, but it's not a discussion that's going anyplace or illuminating anybody.
> not acknowledging anything unsound about
Except the top comments are the complete opposite of that…
And that’s exactly the reason I like HN and actually read comments here unlinke on other platforms like Reddit where the quality of comments in average are bad
I have a tangential question, especially to the native Germans in this thread.
I've been living in Germany for a while now and have been trying to understand German politics in that time, including this whole concept of coalition governments and the crisis the Ampel is facing. Due to the latter, I came across this: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-could-face-snap-election/a-704...
In this article are statements such as (emphasis mine):
> Brandt called for a vote of confidence in the Bundestag with the aim of losing it, so that his chancellorship could be reconfirmed by voters in fresh elections.
> [Kohl] called for a vote of confidence, which he, too, deliberately lost on December 17, 1982.
> Schröder called for a vote of confidence, which he deliberately lost on July 1, 2005.
I just can't wrap my head around these in so many levels. The easier of these questions would be, how can a chancellor deliberately lose a vote of confidence? What makes the action deliberate exactly?
Brandt is a more complicated case to the point where I am, honestly, having a hard time putting my bewilderment into words. I'll try nonetheless: How can a chancellor expect voters in fresh elections to bolster their chancellorship, just right after losing a vote of confidence? I can only interpret this as some kind of political flex, basically telling the Bundestag that "I may not have your confidence but I still have mandate from the people".
(If it is, then, well, weird flex but ok, as we used to say a few years ago. It is a reason after all, even if I find it a bit absurd.)
Perhaps what adds to my confusion is, in Kohl's section we read: "Because Kohl's coalition of the CDU/CSU and FDP came to power through a vote of no confidence and not a general election, Kohl wished for additional legitimacy through a general election" which to me implies that Brandt's strategy would not have consolidated his position as strongly; indeed, the article notes his maneuver was fiercely criticized at the time.
I know I'm an idiot when it comes to German politics so I'd be glad if someone can make sense of my bewilderment. I know there is a lot of subtlety and context I am missing here and I'm sure I'm confusing one thing for another. But I strongly feel like this would go a long way to helping me understand the current machinations of the Ampel.
> How can a chancellor expect voters in fresh elections to bolster their chancellorship, just right after losing a vote of confidence?
I'd say in general, because his party has gained in the polls since the original election that put him in office.
In Brandt's case, he probably indeed thought that voters would reward him for this "political flex" and selflessness for the benefit of the country. Asking for the vote and thereby risking his own career, but also resolving the stalemate in government after they had their majority dramatically reduced.
I'm guessing that Scholz has a similar idea, but with how much the SPD already lost in polls since the last election, I don't see it going well for them and him. In fact, a majority of people are very unhappy with the government and have been in favor of new elections for months now. His plan of getting "critical" bills passed before Christmas with this minority government won't work. Opposition parties would be suicidal to work with him. So I'd say, the longer Scholz waits, the worse the SPD results will be. He needs to ask for the vote immediately, not in 2 months.
> I just can't wrap my head around these in so many levels. The easier of these questions would be, how can a chancellor deliberately lose a vote of confidence? What makes the action deliberate exactly?
Just openly telling your coalition to not vote for you.
> How can a chancellor expect voters in fresh elections to bolster their chancellorship, just right after losing a vote of confidence?
I don't think saying "I came into power, but I'am not sure, if you really want me so please vote for me." will have negative effects on your election results.
> I can only interpret this as some kind of political flex, basically telling the Bundestag that "I may not have your confidence but I still have mandate from the people".
The chancellor gives up on forming the government, but it's the parliament's to vote for a new election.
It's frustrating to watch governments constantly argue over what they should do to help the economy when what they should be arguing about is what they should undo to stop hindering the economy.
In Germany, it seems somewhat obvious: a more efficient bureaucracy. Everything is bogged down in red tape and bureaucratic processes, most of which are completely archaic and actively hostile to digitalisation.
I am a strong proponent of regulation, but the kind that involves computers, not faxes.
Less human rights, less worker rights, less long term thinking, more slavery
i once was working for bosch contractor. they have team of 2-3 people doing in half year less work than i am in one month, and yet payed 2x less.
de lead of that 2-3 team was putting some integration tests ignored and unignored several times during that time as stabilisation effort, sure they were not stabilized.
team we dependent on for car data lagged behind for month all time, and people were pieced off when i was going to sent prs to their code to speed up things.