This is true . What is common is to blame immigrants for problems in society that are generic. The evidence is in. Britain chose Brexit. The USA chose Trump. Time to learn from the mistakes?
HOW ANNOYING.
The thread is about Germany and itâs lacks yet everybody babbles about immigration, foreigners âŠ
Believe me, Germanyâs biggest problem is not the foreigners.
Itâs the over-regulations (something they happily carried into the EU), bureaucracy, rules that even manage to object each other.
An achchitect has to pore over rooms of folders for every blooming centimeter they want to build while for every tiny rule some govenmental department specializes = one gets no-where. Instead these departments send architects and citizens back and forth for years. Until what ever the project was doesnât make sense anymore/is outdated.
The streets, bridges, railways rott away while they tell themselves their the richest country in Europe and everything is wonderful, clean and functioning.
They boast being this wonderful welfare state while there are numerous homeless, others live on peanuts - as we say run on their gingiva (auf dem Zahnfleisch laufen). HartzIV was a joke, no idea if âBĂŒrgergeldâ is any better - probably, as they already want to change it again.
And for all this people pay taxes like in times of the bondmen. Of wages which are a joke if youâre an average person.
So, once all these problems are solved yâall can talk about foreigners.
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The amount of refugees and asylum seekers taken in since 2015 do put a huge burden on the country so that shouldnÂŽt be overlooked. Money that canÂŽt be spent elsewhere?
Most money is spent on retired people. Over 300b per year.
They are also the most important voter block. Nobodyâs gonna win an election against them.
Had written a rather long reply while laying down on the couch, dropped the phone on my nose and deleted everything and now I canât be bothered.
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Was this it?
To me the issues with refugees is also a problem with burocracy
Afew years ago the government created an office to try and get the rampent burocracy under control, they were successful in a few of the little ticket items but to co so the, had to ironically crrate more big ticket burocray.
Just in my line of work; a whole massive government office was supposed to move to a new location in 2020-21, the building is standing but cant be completed untill fire and safety systems are installed. The regulations changed and now the s&s syytems are obsolete.
The new rules put them at odds with the plumbing and electrical bits, the p&e [quote=âSlammer, post:1, topic:142155, full:trueâ]
I made this thread for everybody to pile it on Germany, the BRD.
Feel free to vent your spleen about Germany
Been back now for seven years and I am finding life here exasperating.
My frustration is rooted in the endless burocracy and the lackluster and half-assed way everything seems to be done these days, it is in the relative low wages and high prices that dont seem to reflect the value of day to day items.
Yesterday I got the bill for GEZ, the fee you pay to watch ARD and ZDF, 73âŹâs for three months.
Only I dont have reception for tv or radio in this little corner. I dont have Intetnet, apart from my pre paid cellphone.
I cant get DSL active eventhough the connection is right here in the house. If fibre has been put down, booking copper is not possible and the hook up date has been pushed back from October or November, maybeeee December to January or possibly February.
The first telephone we got back in the seventies took an astonishing five weeks to install and now in 2025 they cant even tell me the year!
And before you start on do this, do that⊠bern there tried it, there is no other option other that wait.
Grr! [/quote]
Eastern European EU members are on the growing path since years, catching up with the western side so their sentiment is way different than Germany where people see year by year only a reverse slope. Maybe the migrants invitation was just a political game to turn the attention into something else�
Yes, thought it was gone after the phone went weee-splat.
Oh⊠Bring it ON!
Not only did some young politician, one so green that his ass needs mowing, suggest that we should be working until 80 on order to finance the pensions.
But it is now being floated that pensioners should serve a mandatory âsocial yearâ before getting their full pension.
Do that to me and Iâll talk vulnerable pensioners into topping themselves for my amusement.
But seriously, the animosity against pensioners being leeches is steadily growing, especially in the demographic of the 20to 40 and the recent additions to Germany.
I am waiting for my first âRentenbescheid.â The letter you get telling just how much pension you will be getting. Normally you get one sent every year, but somehow I fell between the cracks and only recently got a letter to verify one or two odds and sods.
So it is going to get interesting to see whether I have a life as an OAP or fade away in poverty.
On one hand, it is respektlos.
On the other hand Mr. Fratzscher is telling it how it is: some decades ago, 6 workers for every retired person contributing to the system. Soon, 2 workers for every retiree. Nicer words may be used, but no way to hide from the reality of dependency ratio in pay-as-you-go retirement systems.
SPIEGEL: One could also see it differently: the older ones have kept their part of the agreement. You have paid contributions in professional life. Now they want their pension and want to be maintained. And then you say that the old intergenerational contract should no longer apply?
Fratzscher: But, whose idea was that the working age group gets children, pulls them up and at the same time cares for the older ones. But this only works if the balance is right. In recent years, however, life expectancy has increased sharply âŠ
SPIEGEL: ⊠this is not to be accused of the old.
Fratzscher: But it is a fact, as is the fact that they have had far too few children. In the 1960s, six contributors provided a pensioner. Soon there are only two left. Why should only the young stand straight for these life decisions of the baby boomers? The boomers themselves have been denying this responsibility for 20 years.
I guess the issue is believing in âif I do my part and only my part everything will be fineâ.
The issue is we live in a different world that can be better described as âIt is not my responsibility, but it is my problemâ.
Exactly, that the pensions canât be maintained with business as usual has been known for the last 50 years.
Politicians have acknowledged this fact but have been happy to kick this can down the road for future society to deal with and the only solution they came up with was to import more foreigners,
And now we have the salad, as the saying goes becauseâŠ. I money for the pensions and Surprisingly the foreigners donât want to pay into the system .
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Says who? I paid into the system when I was a foreigner. Many (sans papiers) foreigners pay in but cannot take out.
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Ohh, the Spiegel article shows the Grand Canyon between laws and reality. From 1980 to 2010: letâs party!!!
I do pay without complaining. But I see the hazard in the long-term.
Sometimes I think about leaving CH for a few months to cash out both 1st and 2nd pillars, and return a few months later under a new employment. There is a worry on the back of my head about a future policy change where the cashing out is not an option anymore.
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Let me rephrase, those forriners coming into the country without any useful skill, education, or even literacy.
Me, amma a knapsack Jerry too donât forget, but I pay into the system, so I expect a return, and for some bugger to tell me I have to do a social yearâŠ?
Bugger off Herr Fratzsche.
Just read this little gem that seems to have been pushed to one side but if implemented will nuke Germanyâs social contracts.
Merz zeigte sich in einer Rede beim Landesparteitag der Niedersachsen-CDU in OsnabrĂŒck bereit zu einer harten Auseinandersetzung mit dem Koalitionspartner SPD. âIch werde mich durch Worte wie Sozialabbau und Kahlschlag und was da alles kommt, nicht irritieren lassenâ, sagte Merz. âDer Sozialstaat, wie wir ihn heute haben, ist mit dem, was wir volkswirtschaftlich leisten, nicht mehr finanzierbar.â
In a speech at the Lower Saxony CDU state party conference in OsnabrĂŒck, Merz expressed his readiness for a tough confrontation with his coalition partner, the SPD. âI will not allow myself to be irritated by words like social cuts and clear-cutting, and all the other things that come with them,â Merz said. âThe welfare state as we have it today is no longer financially viable with what we are achieving economically.â
Aaaand with that, by by Germany, it was nice knowing you.
Nobody ever mentioned that the pension system is a pure âSchneeballsystemâ (pyramid scheme). Highly illegal, angrily frowned on.
But perfectly okay to âsecureâ old people?
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The ubiquitous problem of access to information. The young generations understandably donât want to participate into the falling system (since they know about the fact), would prefer to take things into their own hands instead, saving and investing
Thatâs why we moved to Switzerland, right?
The system is the same. The handling might be different.
But some foreigners are truly fu**ed even having paid here. This report really broke my heart (in French with German subtitles)
Letâs hope this was sorted properly for after Brexit.
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Noooo, why name a pizzeria Bern?
Beyond the banal, the situation of the 1st pillar is the same as any other country that doesnât have a retirement agreement with Switzerland. The low savings available to cash out reflects the reality of the 1st pillar. The difference between low savings and the minimum monthly payment of 1â260 CHF (2025) are covered by other taxes, more recently the increase in VAT.
Also, the 2nd pillar is from 01.01.1985, like 40 years ago. Bit weird that it wasnât mentioned at all in the reportage.