Modern buildings like hotels are built to withstand earthquakes of some magnitudes. Wouldn't count on that at a local construction site or a worn down house you might pass on the street.
That "worn down house" might be good until "upper 6". Beyond that it all depends on when it was built and the associated construction standards at the time.
By drowning the economy in crisises (energy costs, inflation, immigration, various climate taxes for industries, road tolls) while ramping up billions for military expenses. A stealthy way of shifting to a military industry. The Bundeswehr spent a lot of money on advertising over the last 6-7 years.
You are getting downvoted, but it is true that young people are getting a very rough deal, and a lot of the people in my circle are looking to emgirate. Friends from other countries and students (mostly know them through academia), are also not looking for long-term opportunities here anymore, which was different 15 years ago.
I would be far less annoyed with paying very high taxes and social contributions (around 50% of my income), if the services provided worked. But this just hasn't been the case for me. The healthcare system is close to breaking apart, and after moving to a new city 6 months ago I have been unable to find doctors willing to take me in. Childcare is constantly closing down due to staff shortages, buying a house is unrealistic unless both partners have good jobs or you inherit, and the jobs market is incredibly rigid and inflexible.
Every single one of these points are worse for young people then for older ones, and the only thing the government seems to get done is giving weapons training to young people and gifting pensioners 180b$/year extra.
I can only explain the downvotes by people who assume I'm somehow against immigrants since I used the term or who actually think that Germany is still worth living in. I have long given up on HN culture anyways.
Yes, the problem is the boomers who keep getting richer for no good reason, under the premise that they are entitled to massive pensions because they have been promised that much by politicians.
Of course, logically it makes no sense, since the whole point of a socialized system is to adjust the wealth of everybody depending on current situation (economic output).
But it was obviously a lie and our social democracy are deeply flawed because they allow anyone to vote regardless of stakes.
Sending young people to military service/war make for a nice distraction because meanwhile they don't get to think about taking the stuff of the elders by force.
It's not really locked down. You can toggle or enable some of the more activist-orientated features. The only limitation I'm aware of is that some apps requiring the strongest Play Integrity setting (ChatGPT, some banks, very few airline apps) just won't work on GrapheneOS.
You're also describing Germany and most of Europe will follow suit. Political elites wanting war will make it so that being against the government will be punishable by law. See UK, see Germany where posts on social media will get you visits by police.
Everything the media has been hammering Russia for is being setup right here in Europe.
Ukrainians had a choice as well which is why many of their men and women escaped and are now living in various European neighbouring countries instead of rotting in a ditch somewhere.
I chuckled because of the s/Russia/Putin/g nonsense everywhere. I'm not laughing at anyone's expense if they forcibly lose their home, no matter where and under which circumstances.
You see, millions are already killed in the biggest war in Europe since WW2 and it looks like this is just the prelude.
Russia is threatening to fight Europe as of yesterday, continue to increase weapon production and militarisation. It is obvious that it just cannot stop as its economy and social order is switching more and more to the war-time. China backs russia up and officially declaring that it cannot allow Russia to lose.
The alliance which was created specifically to stop this scenario is now being neutralised by US withdrawing from it.
And you still call it "Russia/Putin nonsense". Do you live somewhere where you feel isolated from all of this?
Please tell me so I can go there as well. Because at the place where I live - Russians drones are flying over important infrastructure mapping it out without government/military being able to stop it. Russians propaganda fills social media, and politicians are corrupted by russia without hiding it too much.
Also what about that "millions" number? Where did that come from? I can barely find any mentions of numbers exceeding 500.000 people being killed thus far.
Sorry, I meant killed and injured. I don't keep up with the numbers, but few years ago it was at least around half a million from both sides. I extrapolated it for last few years.
You misunderstand. I'm not against reporting about Russia. The oversimplification of reducing everything down to "Putin this, Putin that" is my issue. Imagine me saying everything the EU is doing is explicitly because of Ursel. It's stupid, ignorant and reminds me of Trump Derangement Syndrome which had a similar effect on reporting about US issues.
I live in Germany so I'm fucked either way. I'm also aware of NATO expansion until a point where Russia couldn't ignore it anymore. You think Russia will attack Europe, I think the West is keen on fighting a war against Russia. I don't subscribe to any of the narratives you presented, especially since I think it obvious that its the West that finds itself having to wage a war because their currencies, social order and demographics needing a reset. NATO being a defensive alliance is a joke.
Since we're unlikely to come closer to an understanding I'll refrain from going further.
Honest question: why don't you emigrate to Russia since you seem to admire it so much? They are specifically looking for people who 'share Russian values', and Germany is on the 'white list' - so acquiring citizenship should be really easy and you don't need to live in a country you apparently seem to hate.
> You think Russia will attack Europe, I think the West is keen on fighting a war against Russia.
And the way it was keen on fighting a war is (check notes) _increase economic ties to the point that the whole of Germany's economic growth was dependent on Russian' gas_? Or to reduce military spending year over the year? Or to stop conscription in all countries?
It is completely a wild take for me to hear that the west was keen to fight a war with nuclear power by the means of reducing its fighting abilities to almost zero while the other side militarises? Am I having some crazy dream?
This is the Russian way of putting it. Guess what, NATO doesn't "expand". Each and every NATO member had to apply for membership themselves, after a national decision to do so. Any guesses why all Russian neighbours want to be NATO members?
I didn't say you were. I live in a NATO member myself which is nowhere near Russia and yet keeps baiting Russia and using it as an easy scapegoat for its issues... Now and then it's true. Thankfully I haven't been accused of being a Russian bot for a while. :)
This is wrong. I used to work in cafes when I still lived in the city and two locations where close to hospitals and everyone I talked to complained about the risk of employing people with huge language barriers (mostly Ukrainians and Syrians from what I heard) in health related jobs because it has dire consequences if something gets lost in translation. No one of the higher ups cared and they just had to deal with while already being underpaid, overworked and exhausted.
There just isn't enough people who are local and want to do this job for this pay. This happens in Germany but also in my home country.
In Germany there is a whole industry around recruiting foreign nurses. I work in immigration and a few of my colleagues specialise in that. There are websites and initiatives just for that.
That's only half true. You have lots of trained and experienced people willing to do this job despite the low pay because some of these people wouldn't function in a field where they couldn't help other people, even if they sacrifice their own health and financial situation for it.
If you have a job to offer you can now decide if you pay a German out of your own pocket or if you hire a Ukrainian who will end up being cheaper for you because the state supports you in doing so.
Have seen this with bicycle mechanics, nurses, nursery homes, lots and lots of cafés.
Goes without saying that I like Ukrainian people just as much as I like Germans, Syrians, Iranians, Russians, etc.
Just in case you don't know, Germany gets a minimum wage of 13.90€/h (~16.20 USD) in 2026, and 14.60€/h (~17 USD) in 2027.
Nurses aren't actually paid badly (they get paid above minimum wage), they usually don't complain/protest about wages. The problem stems from being understaffed and consequently bad working conditions. The core issues is hospitals being run like private businesses, which means they are not affording redundancy. It's a systemic problem with the medical system, which has little to do with wages, or immigration.
It doesn’t matter what the wages are, if there aren’t enough people willing to work for them, they aren’t high enough. That’s the core of labor markets.
Importing migrants just worsens the underlying problem. You destroy your own pipeline and eventually run out of migrants. Germany needs to pay more and provide a better work environment instead of just finding people desperate enough it seems like a good deal.
Edit: I just checked and the average German nurse salary is (43k in USD vs 88k USD) less than half the average US RN salary. Crazy!
> Edit: I just checked and the average German nurse salary is (43k in USD vs 88k USD) less than half the average US RN salary,
Where did you get this figure?
23.70€/h (~27.60 USD/h) apparently is the average wage for nurses. Working full-time, 38 hours per week, that's 46,831.2€ (54,492.34 USD) per year. Mind you, half of socialized costs, like health insurance is payed by the employer, so you need to adjust figures accordingly. It's of course a totally ridiculous comparison without adjusting for living costs, etc.. Also typically there are 5-6 weeks of paid vacation per year.
That's below the median income, so not a lot for trained personnel.
Everything else you say is correct, but it applies to all German workers. In that sense, it's a somewhat low-paid job. It feels to me like they're more deserving of their income than a keyboard jockey like me.
I am happy to accept your figure of "slightly more than half" for the sake of this discussion.
> Mind you, half of socialized costs, like health insurance is payed by the employer, so you need to adjust figures accordingly.
Nurses in the US also have half (or more) of costs like health insurance paid for by their employer - in that particular case, almost always much more than half. Half of Social Security retirement tax is paid for by the employer, but additional retirement payments beyond Social Security are usually much less than half. We can probably safely call this a wash.
> It's of course a totally ridiculous comparison without adjusting for living costs, etc..
Germany has overall notoriously high living costs. For instance, the electric rate my German friend is paying in east Germany is 4x(!!!![1]) my rate in the US, and she and her husband pay much more for a small apartment than I do a large house. On top of this, German housing often comes ludicrously unfurnished - most Americans would be surprised to learn that renters are often expected to provide their own kitchen. Germany certainly does not win out on housing costs.
Nurses are underpaid. Pay nurses more.
[1] I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable. Even lower class Americans will happily blow hundreds of dollars keeping their house at 60F in 95F degree heat while cooking in their electric oven and running their electric clothesdryer. While this results in "high" bills around $400 here, that'd be $1600 in Germany. You couldn't live like an American there. Even my personal "high" bills which sometimes approach $200 would cause me to cut back severely - $800 would be way too much.
Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. How many hours do your nurses work for the money? How man vacation days are included.
Btw. the median income in Germany is 52,159 Euro.
> Germany has overall notoriously high living costs.
According to this site, US is 21% more expensive than Germany:
> I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable.
Are you comparing Idaho to Germany? Cause Californians have to pay more for electricity than Germans.
0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany. We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Modern houses are equipped with heat pumps which can do both. Yes, we now widely heat houses with unaffordable electricity!
> Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay.
By the time we're quibbling about deductibles and co-pay, we're not talking about meaningful differences - and of course, it can vary widely. However, when your employer is the medical system, your insurance is usually pretty good.
> How many hours do your nurses work for the money?
36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours.
> How man vacation days are included
This is, as well-known, not federally mandated, and can vary widely. Leave is also often lumped into many different categories. A look at my local, poor rural hospital system says they get 200 hours of PTO a year starting out, or five weeks, plus holidays.
> 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany
Maybe something has changed. This was what I looked at, and that's not what my friend is paying right now. It's only twice as high as California, which is not representative of the US as a whole.
> We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate.
Yes, and having an AC would put a stop to the German obsession with opening windows to stop mold from forming. But even though climate control would be very convenient even if most of the time it's not necessary, Germans don't have it because they can't afford it. Because professions like nursing are paid too little.
Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? How on earth does it make more sense to import people to pump up the labor supply, suppressing wages, so that you have to continue to import people, because there's no reason for a German to go into a low-paid field with a bad work environment?
> 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours.
Didn't expect that, tbh. Not bad.
> Why is there such resistance to just paying people more?
Because I said elsewhere, nurses are mostly happy with their wages, it's the hospital management and de facto working conditions which suck. Higher wages won't fix these working conditions.
We're talking in circles. The way you attract people into a field despite poor management and working conditions is higher wages. That's the basic foundational truth of labor economics.
Simply importing people who are desperate for even a below-market (in Germany) wage means that there is no economic incentive for conditions to improve or for wages to rise, and that your own pipeline will continue to dry up, leaving you totally dependent on foreign labor. Aside from any other issues with migrant labor, what happens when that dries up? This is an extremely foolish, shortsighted policy that can be solved by the simple expedient of paying people more.
> The way you attract people into a field despite poor management and working conditions is higher wages.
People don't want to work in these conditions tho. And the public has to pay these wages. Seriously, you are so damn ignorant thinking American free-market bla bla is the fix for everything. It's probably tough to swallow, but quality of life matters here. Why aren't you paying your field and gastronomy workers 100k instead of exploiting illegals?
People here got other options to improve their lives. It's a democracy, the root issue can be fixed politically. Nurses are also organized in unions. So there isn't even "free market" shit all anyway. These unions demand better working conditions not higher wages.
Maybe you should first check basic foundational truths about economics in your own country, before lecturing others?! Despite all the riches, the median income in the US is lower than Germany. You should pay people better over there.
> It's a democracy, the root issue can be fixed politically.
But it’s not. That’s why we’re having this discussion. And whether you want to have a free market or not, the labor market is still driven by money. People will go into fields that pay more money. People will go into fields that pay more money, even if conditions are bad. Yoy seem to think I’m a free markets guy - economically in most respects it’s fair to say I’m a socialist.
Your political solution right now is total nonsense and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Following ideological commitments right off a cliff and doing it better than anyone else seems to be the German way. Of course, the degree to which Germany or most any modern country could be said to be a “democracy“ is highly questionable.
Certainly if the German people don’t want to pay Germans what makes it worth it for Germans to become nurses, they have a huge intractable problem.
> Despite all the riches, the median income in the US is lower than Germany
According the the US census data, median income in the US is 81k. In Germany, median income USD appears to be 60k.
> Why aren't you paying your field and gastronomy workers 100k instead of exploiting illegals?
I agree employers should be be imprisoned for hiring illegals and even that most migrant worker visas should be abolished. I made great money for many years working in a restaurant and I was shocked to see in other parts of the country it’s just a matter of course that this goes on, undercutting wages and causing all sorts of problems.
Yes, that was sloppy of me. The Census website doesn’t display well on mobile, but I should have recognize the number was too high.
Nevertheless, the article you’re citing still cites American personal income as pretty close to German median income. Subtract taxes and/or adjust for PPP and…
> Nevertheless, the article you’re citing still cites American personal income as pretty close to German median income.
Do you realize how insane this statement is considering the wealth and economic power of America? And as cited above, cost of living is higher, quality of life is lower in the US too. Also why isn't the market correcting itself, hm? You had market deregulation under Clinton, super successful, wasn't it? And where is the money for higher wages coming from?
Listen my point is, before lecturing others on paying people more, mindlessly replaying red scare ideological brainwashing scripts, maybe fix your own damn economy, pay your own people right. You evidently know very little about life in Germany, maybe you should consider possible details and nuances you miss for a strong opinion.
You appear to be assuming I hold a whole plethora of views that have nothing to do with me. (Red scare?? Deregulation??)
I am fully informed about conditions in Germany. Perhaps you are not fully informed about conditions in America. Even us Americans in flyover states, even solidly working class Americans, even some people I know in trailer parks, have more conveniences and luxuries than the average German. Aside for my preferences for most German social norms, I would prefer to live in Mississippi than anywhere in Germany for the greater material comforts.
Correct. It's not great from a labour perspective, but I don't think the goal is wage dumping. I believe the goal is to meet the demand with the available means.
Once the economy starts to collapse even more due to rising energy prices/cost of living they'll find enough people for the front. This would be the first war ever where no one showed up. Not going to happen. Bundeswehr has been whitewashed and propped up for years already in spite of being completely incapable of even providing Germany with defense for a prolonged time.
Many IT projects for freelancers in Germany are Bundeswehr/NATO related because they're among the few who hire people right now because of the economic situation.
Once we reach the point where people have to decide if they enlist in order to to keep on feeding their families, that'll sort itself out.
reply