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> I lost my job in Germany and got one year of unemployment benefits, no savings needed. I'm glad you were able to get those benefits. I think in general it is

> I lost my job in Germany and got one year of unemployment benefits, no savings needed. I'm glad you were able to get those benefits. I think in general it is a good system. You say no savings needed. By that you mean you personally did not need to save that money. But somebody did. Unless the German government is printing money they would have to get that money from somewhere. If they don't have it now they would have gone to the bond markets. In which someone will have to save for it in the future. Again this is not a bad thing. I think it is important to point that someone will have to foot the bill. In some cases it will be a future generation (depending on how much the government is having to borrow). This is usually in the form of taxes. Which presumably many would pay. Including those who did not receive any direct benefit during the crisis. You could argue that it is for the greater good. And many would agree. I personally do think there is something to learn from the position taken by GP. After all in the eurozone we regularly see contrasts between the frugal north (Germany, Netherlands, etc) and the spendthrift south (Italy, Greece, etc). Whether as individuals, companies, nations perhaps we could think about how to best to manage our resources to be able to weather the storms that may come our way.

lm28469 6y ago
> But somebody did. Of course, that's why I pay tax. I actually had saved money anyway, but the peace of mind you get from getting unemployment money is priceless. At the end, as I said, it's exactly like a car or health insurance. Almost no one can pay for a cancer treatment or a major car accident with no insurance, but not everyone will have to go through that in their life time so we all chip in and make the world a better place. There will always be people gaming the system, we should obviously take care of that in a way but it shouldn't be the focus. It's always easy to say "I" save, "I'm" frugal. Yeah ok, we're software engineers, project managers, &c. and make 3-10x the minimum wage regardless of the country we live in. We spend dozens of hours every few months on this site debating about how the new $4k macbook keyboard suck while most people wouldn't be able to afford one if they saved for a year... I don't think most of us are equipped for this discussion. I'm not sure about "the frugal north" vs "the spendthrift south", maybe system wise, but having lived in france, germany, california and greece I can say people as individual mostly live the same life and want the same things. tbf I think the GP has a point about senseless consumption &c. but the whole "if you saved money you wouldn't need help" is bs on every level. Even I and my, so far, privileged life can see that as an individual things can quickly turn bad and spin out of your control.

lm28469 6y ago

> But somebody did. Of course, that's why I pay tax. I actually had saved money anyway, but the peace of mind you get from getting unemployment money is priceless. At the end, as I said, it's exactly like a car or health insurance. Almost no one can pay for a cancer treatment or a major car accident with no insurance, but not everyone will have to go through that in their life time so we all chip in and make the world a better place. There will always be people gaming the system, we should obviously take care of that in a way but it shouldn't be the focus. It's always easy to say "I" save, "I'm" frugal. Yeah ok, we're software engineers, project managers, &c. and make 3-10x the minimum wage regardless of the country we live in. We spend dozens of hours every few months on this site debating about how the new $4k macbook keyboard suck while most people wouldn't be able to afford one if they saved for a year... I don't think most of us are equipped for this discussion. I'm not sure about "the frugal north" vs "the spendthrift south", maybe system wise, but having lived in france, germany, california and greece I can say people as individual mostly live the same life and want the same things. tbf I think the GP has a point about senseless consumption &c. but the whole "if you saved money you wouldn't need help" is bs on every level. Even I and my, so far, privileged life can see that as an individual things can quickly turn bad and spin out of your control.