> Anyway, it still amazes me sometimes how far Germans go with the "lets help the world" mentality. One of the first things, I got asked after arriving in Germa

> Anyway, it still amazes me sometimes how far Germans go with the "lets help the world" mentality. One of the first things, I got asked after arriving in Germany was if I wanted Hartz IV? I already had a fulltime well-paying job, but hey I wouldn't start for a couple months so they wanted to give me money until then! What country does that? So sure, you pay huge taxes, you get safer cities and even "poor" people have apartments, healthcare, food, tv, internet, etc. I find that a bit surprising; one of the downsides of Hartz IV (Germany's guaranteed minimum income scheme) is the hardnosed bureaucracy that tends to go with it. That said, GMI schemes are generally pretty cheap; the welfare budgets of European countries are typically dominated by healthcare spending and pensions, not ensuring that everybody has a minimum standard of living, which generally makes up a relatively small fraction of public spending. As Felix Salmon wrote a while ago [1]: "At the same time, the amount of money that we need to spend in order to feed and clothe ourselves has never been lower. In much of the developed world, basic calorific and shelter needs have been taken care of, with their costs converging to zero. In dozens of countries, we have largely solved the physiological needs at the bottom of Maslow’s pyramid, and indeed the safety needs one level up. Extending that security to all citizens is a matter of political will, not a question of adequate resources." [1] http://fusion.net/story/197297/star-treks-utopia-is-already-here/ http://fusion.net/story/197297/star-treks-utopia-is-already-...