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It was not boring to me - I didn't know that about Germany. It's a country that prides itself on its socialist policies to my understanding.

dmix 7y ago
Germany has always ranked pretty high in the economic freedom index [1], comparable to the US. The US gov spends nearly as much or more than most 'socialist' healthcare countries, so the myth of US becoming a liberal market hasn't been the trend since the late 1960s with explosion in the size of nation states across the western world. Meanwhile more democratic socialist countries like France, Vietnam, and India rank in the middle. While the full blown socialist countries and just undeveloped economies in Africa with their starving people are at the bottom. There was a study showing the poor have a higher quality of life in the US than in France, despite far superior social support gov systems in France, due to industry, growth, and low prices and high variety for staples, luxuries, and entertainment. Germany, very much like the Japanese, have such a unique work culture it'd be difficult to take their social/economic policies as direct analogies to most other western countries. It just wouldn't work the same without their cohesion and always working hard and following rules regardless of the top down hierarchical systems. The list also correlates heavily with economic success which is sadly a forgotten idea these days when people would rather obsess about the rich instead of asking how to make people less poor. Previously it most often happens through decentralized entrepreneurship and industry. The number of new small businesses has been declining for years. Not to mention the times in history with the most success had a skilled workforce whose ability/skills was closely related to market demand (often through early employment and apprenticeship rather than taking a preordained academic route). So much of the educated youth have degrees and loans completely disconnected from any economic reality... then they blame the economy for not adapting to them. While politicians tell them it's all rich people's fault they don't have state funded back up plans for their poor investments. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom

dmix 7y ago

Germany has always ranked pretty high in the economic freedom index [1], comparable to the US. The US gov spends nearly as much or more than most 'socialist' healthcare countries, so the myth of US becoming a liberal market hasn't been the trend since the late 1960s with explosion in the size of nation states across the western world. Meanwhile more democratic socialist countries like France, Vietnam, and India rank in the middle. While the full blown socialist countries and just undeveloped economies in Africa with their starving people are at the bottom. There was a study showing the poor have a higher quality of life in the US than in France, despite far superior social support gov systems in France, due to industry, growth, and low prices and high variety for staples, luxuries, and entertainment. Germany, very much like the Japanese, have such a unique work culture it'd be difficult to take their social/economic policies as direct analogies to most other western countries. It just wouldn't work the same without their cohesion and always working hard and following rules regardless of the top down hierarchical systems. The list also correlates heavily with economic success which is sadly a forgotten idea these days when people would rather obsess about the rich instead of asking how to make people less poor. Previously it most often happens through decentralized entrepreneurship and industry. The number of new small businesses has been declining for years. Not to mention the times in history with the most success had a skilled workforce whose ability/skills was closely related to market demand (often through early employment and apprenticeship rather than taking a preordained academic route). So much of the educated youth have degrees and loans completely disconnected from any economic reality... then they blame the economy for not adapting to them. While politicians tell them it's all rich people's fault they don't have state funded back up plans for their poor investments. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom