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Is Germany once again the sick man of Europe?

46 points by itzehoe 3y ago

jfkimmes 3y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20230817111254/https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/08/17/is-germany-once-again-the-sick-man-of-europe https://web.archive.org/web/20230817111254/https://www.econo...
- archo 3y ago
  and : https://archive.is/sbjrs https://archive.is/sbjrs
mrcartmeneses 3y ago
When a newspaper article is headlined with a question the answer is always no
- Darmody 3y ago
  [flagged]
gsky 3y ago
How many outside professionals know German language. No wonder many won't prefer Germany.
- the_common_man 3y ago
  The public services and service industry is particularly brutal to non German speakers. The unfriendliness is astounding if you don't speak german
  - orwin 3y ago
    Not my experience in Munich, but French are quite 'rude' too compared to southern Europeans and Anglos, so I would understand why people would think so.
    - n_ary 3y ago
      Using Munich, a city entirely non-representative of the rest of the country is a bad idea. Munich in my experience feels like a modern post—current Germany entirely.
      - orwin 3y ago
        I don't know Germany very well, so I bow to your expertise. That's the issue with anecdata, missing context (and why I like being corrected).
      - wink 3y ago
        Now I'm curious how you think it is non-representative? If we're going off waiting times for government stuff it seems to be 10x better than Berlin but 3x worse than any small town where I have friends.
  - nicbou 3y ago
    Even if you do speak German, it's horrendously slow. You can't sit idle for months because this or that office has no appointments to do this or that thing. Things that can be done online elsewhere must be done in person, by appointment. The appointments are hard to get, come weeks later, and only trigger a 2-8 week wait. Language is just icing on the cake.
    - jwestbury 3y ago
      I think slow appointments are a thing across the western world right now (and possibly elsewhere, but my knowledge is lacking). I'm currently trying to get my driving license in the UK, as a US immigrant. This means I need to go through the same process as a new driver. The wait was about a month between application and approval for my provisional license, then 1.5 months to take a theory test, then 2 months to take a practical test -- but that was choosing to drive four hours to a test centre with a test available, and if I'd wanted to take one in London, it would have been ~6 months, which is long enough that my American license would have expired and I'd be left unable to drive at all in the interim. (There's still a decent chance this happens, because if I fail the test, it's a month before I can reschedule, and then I probably have to schedule multiple months out again.) Wait times were pretty bad in the US, too, before we left last year. It's not a government thing, but we had foundation work done on our house last year, and the lead time was about eight months between signing the contract and the work being carried out. Permitting alone took several months for what was relatively straightforward work on a single-family dwelling.
      - arprocter 3y ago
        The 6 months expiring thing happened to me - the only amusing thing was the confused look on someone's face after I passed the provisional test and then got in my car by myself and drove off I always found it a little backwards how you can just arrive at Heathrow with a license from anywhere else and jump behind the wheel, but after 6 months you magically lose the ability to drive. Best of luck
      - nicbou 3y ago
        The same thing happened to me in Germany. It got me to start a website about bureaucracy, and now I live from it. Broken bureaucracy is a safe bet. My job is secure for the decades to come.
  - jamil7 3y ago
    Don’t worry, they’re unfriendly if you speak German too.
- n_ary 3y ago
  The primary issue of language is that, the large movers and shakers strictly enforce the language in upper level and so it flows down and below. For the smaller shops who opens their doors to speaking common language(English), the quality of pay is sub-par compared to COL, so there is nothing attractive for talents to be there.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
the_common_man 3y ago
> Germany has liberalised its immigration rules, but the visa process is still glacial and the system favours refugees over professionals who might want to settle in the country. A big issue for professionals to move is they have to learn German.
- wageslave99 3y ago
  I've always thought about having simple dialects of languages: limited vocabulary, only three tenses, no declinations (in the languages they have, i.e. German) and only regular verbs (in the languages they have, i.e. Spanish). Would it be possible?
  - eastbound 3y ago
    Isn’t English this language? The past exists but the future barely doesn’t, there are no declinations, every noun can also be a verb. However, you have to learn every combination of “t”, “ght”, “i”, “ou” mixed up together.
    - wageslave99 3y ago
      English has its own issues. It is not phonetic and there is no official pronunciation. It also has inconsistencies like using auxiliar verbs to negate (I do not think this vs I think not this). However, maybe a standardised pronunciation and the removal of some issues could make Neo-English a good and interesting language.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    You've more or less described how and why English became the lingua franca of the modern era. English can be used for basic communication satisfactorily with only a passing understanding of the language.
    - wageslave99 3y ago
      English has many issues (non-phonetic, auxiliar verbs, big lexicon, etc.) I was aiming for a kind of artificial language with a natural language foundations.
mildmotive 3y ago
> Added to this are worsening geopolitics, the difficulty of eliminating carbon emissions and the travails of an ageing population. Worsening geopolitics and an ageing population are more immideate problem compared to the inability to eliminate (not reduce) carbon emissions. Or am I missing something? Can someone explain to me why ”eliminating carbon emissions” was sandwiched between the other two issues?
- jeroenvlek 3y ago
  I suspect because of the also mentioned "own goal" of eliminating nuclear power despite not having green alternatives.
  - PurpleRamen 3y ago
    Germany has more than enough alternatives for nuclear power. The situation would have been even better if not for some brain farts sabotaging the movement to alternatives for various reasons. The big problem is that has Germany has big dependencies on coal, gas and gasoline, for industry, heating, and cars. Nuclear power can't replace this at all. Which is why Germany is shifting around usages and started investing big in hydrogen.
    - jeroenvlek 3y ago
      Yes, but they could have kept nuclear until the reactors were end of life to have more time for the transition. Instead, they frantically closed them and now coal consumption increased. Case in point: Lützerath.
      - PurpleRamen 3y ago
        They did, most German reactors are ancient and were past the recommended life-time. And coal consumption did not increase because of the closing down of nuclear reactors.
        3y ago
hliyan 3y ago
The anecdotal evidence the author supplies: economic growth is slow, trains are late, IT investment as a % of GDP is half that of US and France, business license takes 120 days to acquire. Nowhere does it seem to talk about living standards of the population. As if the economy is its own end and the population is just an epiphenomenon.
- dathos 3y ago
  That’s what economists do, look at numbers outside the big context that is earth
- lynx23 3y ago
  What seems to have been missed is that almost all large projects germany tried to push through in the past 10 years or so have turned out to be a massive fuckup. Digital drivers licence, stuttgart21, the list goes on.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > business license takes 120 days to acquire. That's bullshit. A Gewerbeanmeldung for a one-person startup or a GbR (same, just with more than one person) takes one DIN A4 sheet of paper per person, and about half an hour of waiting at the city authority. An LLC (UG, GmbH, AG) takes more effort to form, yes (including raising 12.500€ of capital for the GmbH/AG), but you can easily transition from an existing Einzelunternehmen/GbR to a LLC.
  - littlecranky67 3y ago
    > That's bullshit. A Gewerbeanmeldung for a one-person startup or a GbR (same, just with more than one person) takes one DIN A4 sheet of paper per person Now that is bs. Because you also need to register with the tax authorities (Finanzamt) to get your tax id after that. Oh, and if you want to do your VAT declarations ("Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung") yourself, don't forget to request a digital certificate for ELSTER, which is sent - yes- via snail mail. And good luck if you want a EU VAT id, which is another separate step/appointment. And when you want to pay out first dividends you are in for a surprise when the tax account asks all of the shareholders/owners of the GbR/GmbH for their proof of church membership (for dividends tax), which you have to request individually from the Finanzamt just to send it back to them later...
nicbou 3y ago
This article is not saying anything at all. It's just a bunch of vague, loosely related complaints thrown together, as if the author built their thesis from reading reddit comments about Germany, but never stepped foot there. It's a real Gish gallop.
neovialogistics 3y ago
We should be thankful that Betteridge's law of headlines applies here because Germans have a historical trend of coming up with internationally unpopular policies when they feel like they're in an economic downturn.
- the-dude 3y ago
  Are you summoning Godwin here?
LatteLazy 3y ago
No, the UK is.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bgdam 3y ago
As an immigrant (and a very well paid one paying obnoxiously high taxes), I've recommended every single person asking if they should move from India to Germany to not to. The only upgrade is in cleaner air to breathe and safety from crime. If you're in the higher earning bracket in India, then you get these there itself. So then moving to Germany from India is like stepping back into 1996. Every single thing is so obsolete. Nothing is digitized. Everything requires a giant stack of actual paperwork to be taken to an office where the whims of the clerk dictate everything. A million rules exist in the hopes that they cover all possible scenarios, but inevitable they don't and if you happen to have a scenario which is not covered, you're shit out of luck because the clerk is sure as shit not going to put their ass on the line and make a decision not explicitly present in the rule book. You pay through the nose for health insurance, but when you need to find a doctor, none can take you because their quota of public insurance patients is done for the quarter. If I paid the same amount in insurance in India, I'd have a helicopter flown out every time I stubbed my toe. And then there's the wait time for everything. Appointment for visa extension: 8 months. Driving license conversion: 1 year. German exam: 5 months. What, you want the results for your exam also? Better wait another year then. Honestly Germany is a shit show, and if I hadn't already invested so much time, money and energy into this god forsaken country, I'd be out of here in a heartbeat. But the worst part of all this is - the vast majority of Germans think this is all acceptable and okay. If you go to the /r/germany or /r/de subreddits, any thread with genuine complaints will be drowned in responses from native Germans who naively believe that Germany is a great country to live in because they either don't have these problems, or they know how to work the system and get their results. So there is no voting pressure to get things to change. So long as the omas and opas get their pension, Germany will stay as it is for ever - there is no need to change in their view.
- skrebbel 3y ago
  Great Schnitzel though
- wklm 3y ago
  Your case is a classic example of sunk cost fallacy
houl 3y ago
> a series of reforms in the early 2000s ushered in a golden age Who did the reforms? -- Cabinet Schröder. Who did nothing since then? -- Cabinet Merkel.
- DocTomoe 3y ago
  Never touch a running system. Who rolled back many of the things Schröder implemented? -- Cabinet Scholz
Closi 3y ago
Anecdotally my experience dealing with German companies being in the UK is that they can be highly detail-oriented and process driven, to the point where they can be hard to work with if you are outside Germany. It seems that progressing fast with high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity isn't common, while other western companies seem happier to proceed faster with a looser brief and to solve problems flexibly as they come along. Of course this won't be a universal truth and it might just be my personal experience, and it might also be a benefit in many situations, but I've always felt Germany has a different work culture compared to other European and Western countries.
probably_wrong 3y ago
As a foreigner living in Germany for the best part of a decade, I tend to agree with the article that the situation is not dire but, at the same time, it does need work. The train situation is a good starting point: an industry that used to be great and has been in slow decline for years without anyone doing anything other than shrugging and saying "well, that's how it is" or "yeah, but we are still better than X". I cannot speak for major macroeconomic trends but, as an individual, I can say that getting a doctor's appointment, an apartment, internet (not just the speed, but also getting the actual connection), a mandatory appointment at the "Bürgeramt" (and don't get me started on my citizenship application!) and (of course) traveling by train have been getting slightly more frustrating every year. I know some of it is part of wider, world-wide tendencies (thanks, AirBnB), but it's also fair to recognize that the German government is getting asleep at the wheel. I actually appreciate that the government tends to err on the side of caution, but I also have to recognize that there's a line between "caution" and "paralyzed". I don't need to pay my taxes with Venmo, but I do need an apartment that I can actually afford to rent.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  The train situation is also a great example of how to get some of the worst parts of private and public. It was privatized, but is 100% owned by the government … And FWIW, getting an appointment (both doctors and Bürgeramt) has been getting better and better every year here. Bürgeramt is now fully online, you can even pay by credit card, I’ve had an online diagnosis with a skin doctor that my health insurance paid for via OAuth, I can now have other appointments via websites. This was Partially driven by COVID, partially because it’s simply advancing.
- wink 3y ago
  The train discussion is often interesting with people who have lived somewhere where trains/public transport is spotty at best or nonexisting. Sure, it's nice to be able to take a train, but if my experience is that I'm never on time and also not sure if it will start or arrive at all, what good does it do? I don't want to miss my flight in another city, so am I gonna take the train? Or the one before that? Oh, I was taking the first one of the day, that's bad luck.
lproven 3y ago
Betteridge's Law of Headlines applies.
DocTomoe 3y ago
As a German ... I find it interesting that the Economist starts using 'sick man of Europe' the very same day a high-ranking conservative politician begins using that language [1], which has been absent since the early 2000s. Coincidence, or a coordinated effort to bring in a new narrative? [1] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/wir-sind-der-kranke-mann-der-welt-cdu-generalsekretar-linnemann-will-eine-agenda-2030-fur-deutschland-10327171.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/wir-sind-der-kranke-mann...
littlecranky67 3y ago
I'm currently in the process of moving my business (one-man show, incorporated LLC doing IT/SW Eng.) out of Germany. The amount of bureaucracy running even the smallest of companies with no office at all (work out of home) is hilarious. So much you need to get an accountant/tax advisor, but even then they will pass-through a lot of the bureaucracy. I need to put down excel sheets for every day of a business trip I do, mark whether its been longer or shorter than 8 hours, arrival/leave day etc. And double pay attention that the hotel you stayed didn't include breakfast, or at least had it separate on the invoice. If getting a company car, you are in for some real tax hell. On top of that, the accountant charges ~5.000€/year for this single-person business (personal income tax declaration included). And no, it is not just an expensive accountant, as in Germany accountant prices are regulated just as lawyer fees are (they can max. give you 20% discount). Meanwhile, when I talk to my friends in Spain they pay less than 1.000€/year for accounting for an LLC (S.L.) with not even close the bureaucracy. And bear in mind, I'm german and speak the language, but even I struggle to keep up with all tax- and business regulations. On top of that, we have the highest tax load and social insurance is also amongst the top price ranges, while waiting months for a doctors appointment.
- wink 3y ago
  Hmm, this does not match my experience (but it's been a while). I'm not saying it's been great but maybe it's because I didn't file a single business trip or hotel stay. FWIW I also have to file those now as you described as an employee, so while it's not helping that is not unique to running a business :P
  - littlecranky67 3y ago
    You have to file those as an employee just because your employer has to do the same beauraucracy. Sounds in the end you stopped doing business :P There is tons of examples where a solo-enterpreneur is drowned in these regulations (corporate car or even e-bike (!), calculation of privateley used square meter space in the homeoffice, separation of heating cost for your home office etc.). Don't even get me started about the beaurocracy hell if I had employees, there are so many regulations and rules.
mantas 3y ago
It's funny that everybody is focusing on how Germans won't change language to something else to attract muh migrants. But there's no talk about local culture. How do we raise next generation to go do real jobs? Instead of dreaming to become tiktokers or whatever is fancy at the moment. Few migrants won't fix anything if locals sit on their asses. Especially if local culture pushes 2nd/3rd gen migrants the same way. We need to use state propaganda machine (which is already very well greased in EU) to make it fancy to be engineer, doctor and so on. And then make sure those professions let people build a nice life. Universities have to be geared towards that as well.
mitjam 3y ago
For context: This refers to an Economist special published in 1999 ("The sick man of the euro") which fuelled a public discourse in Germany on what needs to be improved leading up to the labor market reforms under chancellor Schröder ("Hartz IV" etc.). This fixed the most imminent problem of the time (high unemployment rate, inflexible labor market) and led to a stronger economic period in Germany. This time, the underlying problems are probably much harder to tackle: 1. Germany's economic model depends on high worker productivity, strong education, cheap energy (still large industry base). All of these have structural weaknesses. 2. The public discourse is very much focussed on climate change, allowing little room for other discourses. Don't get me wrong: I believe the climate change discourse is globally the most important discourse of our time; it is just that there is little room left for other broad social discourses in Germany, at the moment. 3. No immediate pressure comparable to the high unemployment rate at the time. The German economy is getting comparably weaker, slowly but steadily. (Boiling frog problem) That the economy is getting weaker, is eg. visible in GDP constant prices growth rate stats. It is yet not as severe as last time (between 2003 and 2006, Germany was last in G7, even behind Japan, and Italy with base year 1999), but the gap between the best performing G7 countries (US, Canada), number 3 (UK) and Germany is widening. Since 2017 Germany has fallen behind France, too (except in 2020). (see https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/April/weo-report?c=156,132,134,136,158,112,111,&s=NGDP_R,&sy=1999&ey=2028&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/Ap...)
- wink 3y ago
  > little room left for other broad social discourses in Germany, at the moment Now you can call me a pessimist, but if we look back at the last 2 decades, did any social discourse really bring out anything positive? The right-wing politicians are gaining more platform and more supporters, even the so-called social democrats brought us things like Hartz IV, the populists are always at work to call in less taxation for rich people by lying to poorer und uneducated people "they want to increase taxes! You'd get 10€ less per month!" while failing to admit they would maybe get 1000€ or 10k€ less per month)
  - mitjam 3y ago
smcl 3y ago
How can Germany be the "sick man" of Europe when the UK continues to UK?
- jacknews 3y ago
  Exactly, it seems hypocritical for a British-based publication to be calling out another nation. Britain is the perennial 'sick man', except, I guess it's no longer 'of Europe'.
simonblack 3y ago
If you end up paying multiple times more for energy than you were a couple of years back, it's natural that exports are lower and imports are higher. That means de-industrialisation of the country in a major way, because there's no way you can remain competitive on the world stage. Germany was the major bread-winner and subsidiser for the whole of the EU, so it's not really that 'Germany is the sick man of Europe', it's more that 'Europe is the sick man of the West'.
quattrofan 3y ago
[dead]

46 points by itzehoe 3y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20230817111254/https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/08/17/is-germany-once-again-the-sick-man-of-europe https://web.archive.org/web/20230817111254/https://www.econo...

archo 3y ago
and : https://archive.is/sbjrs https://archive.is/sbjrs

mrcartmeneses 3y ago

When a newspaper article is headlined with a question the answer is always no

Darmody 3y ago
[flagged]

gsky 3y ago

How many outside professionals know German language. No wonder many won't prefer Germany.

the_common_man 3y ago
The public services and service industry is particularly brutal to non German speakers. The unfriendliness is astounding if you don't speak german
- orwin 3y ago
  Not my experience in Munich, but French are quite 'rude' too compared to southern Europeans and Anglos, so I would understand why people would think so.
  - n_ary 3y ago
    Using Munich, a city entirely non-representative of the rest of the country is a bad idea. Munich in my experience feels like a modern post—current Germany entirely.
    - orwin 3y ago
      I don't know Germany very well, so I bow to your expertise. That's the issue with anecdata, missing context (and why I like being corrected).
    - wink 3y ago
      Now I'm curious how you think it is non-representative? If we're going off waiting times for government stuff it seems to be 10x better than Berlin but 3x worse than any small town where I have friends.
- nicbou 3y ago
  Even if you do speak German, it's horrendously slow. You can't sit idle for months because this or that office has no appointments to do this or that thing. Things that can be done online elsewhere must be done in person, by appointment. The appointments are hard to get, come weeks later, and only trigger a 2-8 week wait. Language is just icing on the cake.
  - jwestbury 3y ago
    I think slow appointments are a thing across the western world right now (and possibly elsewhere, but my knowledge is lacking). I'm currently trying to get my driving license in the UK, as a US immigrant. This means I need to go through the same process as a new driver. The wait was about a month between application and approval for my provisional license, then 1.5 months to take a theory test, then 2 months to take a practical test -- but that was choosing to drive four hours to a test centre with a test available, and if I'd wanted to take one in London, it would have been ~6 months, which is long enough that my American license would have expired and I'd be left unable to drive at all in the interim. (There's still a decent chance this happens, because if I fail the test, it's a month before I can reschedule, and then I probably have to schedule multiple months out again.) Wait times were pretty bad in the US, too, before we left last year. It's not a government thing, but we had foundation work done on our house last year, and the lead time was about eight months between signing the contract and the work being carried out. Permitting alone took several months for what was relatively straightforward work on a single-family dwelling.
    - arprocter 3y ago
      The 6 months expiring thing happened to me - the only amusing thing was the confused look on someone's face after I passed the provisional test and then got in my car by myself and drove off I always found it a little backwards how you can just arrive at Heathrow with a license from anywhere else and jump behind the wheel, but after 6 months you magically lose the ability to drive. Best of luck
    - nicbou 3y ago
      The same thing happened to me in Germany. It got me to start a website about bureaucracy, and now I live from it. Broken bureaucracy is a safe bet. My job is secure for the decades to come.
- jamil7 3y ago
  Don’t worry, they’re unfriendly if you speak German too.
n_ary 3y ago
The primary issue of language is that, the large movers and shakers strictly enforce the language in upper level and so it flows down and below. For the smaller shops who opens their doors to speaking common language(English), the quality of pay is sub-par compared to COL, so there is nothing attractive for talents to be there.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

the_common_man 3y ago

> Germany has liberalised its immigration rules, but the visa process is still glacial and the system favours refugees over professionals who might want to settle in the country. A big issue for professionals to move is they have to learn German.

wageslave99 3y ago
I've always thought about having simple dialects of languages: limited vocabulary, only three tenses, no declinations (in the languages they have, i.e. German) and only regular verbs (in the languages they have, i.e. Spanish). Would it be possible?
- eastbound 3y ago
  Isn’t English this language? The past exists but the future barely doesn’t, there are no declinations, every noun can also be a verb. However, you have to learn every combination of “t”, “ght”, “i”, “ou” mixed up together.
  - wageslave99 3y ago
    English has its own issues. It is not phonetic and there is no official pronunciation. It also has inconsistencies like using auxiliar verbs to negate (I do not think this vs I think not this). However, maybe a standardised pronunciation and the removal of some issues could make Neo-English a good and interesting language.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  You've more or less described how and why English became the lingua franca of the modern era. English can be used for basic communication satisfactorily with only a passing understanding of the language.
  - wageslave99 3y ago
    English has many issues (non-phonetic, auxiliar verbs, big lexicon, etc.) I was aiming for a kind of artificial language with a natural language foundations.

mildmotive 3y ago

> Added to this are worsening geopolitics, the difficulty of eliminating carbon emissions and the travails of an ageing population. Worsening geopolitics and an ageing population are more immideate problem compared to the inability to eliminate (not reduce) carbon emissions. Or am I missing something? Can someone explain to me why ”eliminating carbon emissions” was sandwiched between the other two issues?

jeroenvlek 3y ago
I suspect because of the also mentioned "own goal" of eliminating nuclear power despite not having green alternatives.
- PurpleRamen 3y ago
  Germany has more than enough alternatives for nuclear power. The situation would have been even better if not for some brain farts sabotaging the movement to alternatives for various reasons. The big problem is that has Germany has big dependencies on coal, gas and gasoline, for industry, heating, and cars. Nuclear power can't replace this at all. Which is why Germany is shifting around usages and started investing big in hydrogen.
  - jeroenvlek 3y ago
    Yes, but they could have kept nuclear until the reactors were end of life to have more time for the transition. Instead, they frantically closed them and now coal consumption increased. Case in point: Lützerath.
    - PurpleRamen 3y ago
      They did, most German reactors are ancient and were past the recommended life-time. And coal consumption did not increase because of the closing down of nuclear reactors.
      - 3y ago

hliyan 3y ago

The anecdotal evidence the author supplies: economic growth is slow, trains are late, IT investment as a % of GDP is half that of US and France, business license takes 120 days to acquire. Nowhere does it seem to talk about living standards of the population. As if the economy is its own end and the population is just an epiphenomenon.

dathos 3y ago
That’s what economists do, look at numbers outside the big context that is earth
lynx23 3y ago
What seems to have been missed is that almost all large projects germany tried to push through in the past 10 years or so have turned out to be a massive fuckup. Digital drivers licence, stuttgart21, the list goes on.
mschuster91 3y ago
> business license takes 120 days to acquire. That's bullshit. A Gewerbeanmeldung for a one-person startup or a GbR (same, just with more than one person) takes one DIN A4 sheet of paper per person, and about half an hour of waiting at the city authority. An LLC (UG, GmbH, AG) takes more effort to form, yes (including raising 12.500€ of capital for the GmbH/AG), but you can easily transition from an existing Einzelunternehmen/GbR to a LLC.
- littlecranky67 3y ago
  > That's bullshit. A Gewerbeanmeldung for a one-person startup or a GbR (same, just with more than one person) takes one DIN A4 sheet of paper per person Now that is bs. Because you also need to register with the tax authorities (Finanzamt) to get your tax id after that. Oh, and if you want to do your VAT declarations ("Umsatzsteuervoranmeldung") yourself, don't forget to request a digital certificate for ELSTER, which is sent - yes- via snail mail. And good luck if you want a EU VAT id, which is another separate step/appointment. And when you want to pay out first dividends you are in for a surprise when the tax account asks all of the shareholders/owners of the GbR/GmbH for their proof of church membership (for dividends tax), which you have to request individually from the Finanzamt just to send it back to them later...

nicbou 3y ago

This article is not saying anything at all. It's just a bunch of vague, loosely related complaints thrown together, as if the author built their thesis from reading reddit comments about Germany, but never stepped foot there. It's a real Gish gallop.

neovialogistics 3y ago

We should be thankful that Betteridge's law of headlines applies here because Germans have a historical trend of coming up with internationally unpopular policies when they feel like they're in an economic downturn.

the-dude 3y ago
Are you summoning Godwin here?

LatteLazy 3y ago

No, the UK is.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bgdam 3y ago

As an immigrant (and a very well paid one paying obnoxiously high taxes), I've recommended every single person asking if they should move from India to Germany to not to. The only upgrade is in cleaner air to breathe and safety from crime. If you're in the higher earning bracket in India, then you get these there itself. So then moving to Germany from India is like stepping back into 1996. Every single thing is so obsolete. Nothing is digitized. Everything requires a giant stack of actual paperwork to be taken to an office where the whims of the clerk dictate everything. A million rules exist in the hopes that they cover all possible scenarios, but inevitable they don't and if you happen to have a scenario which is not covered, you're shit out of luck because the clerk is sure as shit not going to put their ass on the line and make a decision not explicitly present in the rule book. You pay through the nose for health insurance, but when you need to find a doctor, none can take you because their quota of public insurance patients is done for the quarter. If I paid the same amount in insurance in India, I'd have a helicopter flown out every time I stubbed my toe. And then there's the wait time for everything. Appointment for visa extension: 8 months. Driving license conversion: 1 year. German exam: 5 months. What, you want the results for your exam also? Better wait another year then. Honestly Germany is a shit show, and if I hadn't already invested so much time, money and energy into this god forsaken country, I'd be out of here in a heartbeat. But the worst part of all this is - the vast majority of Germans think this is all acceptable and okay. If you go to the /r/germany or /r/de subreddits, any thread with genuine complaints will be drowned in responses from native Germans who naively believe that Germany is a great country to live in because they either don't have these problems, or they know how to work the system and get their results. So there is no voting pressure to get things to change. So long as the omas and opas get their pension, Germany will stay as it is for ever - there is no need to change in their view.

skrebbel 3y ago
Great Schnitzel though
wklm 3y ago
Your case is a classic example of sunk cost fallacy

houl 3y ago

> a series of reforms in the early 2000s ushered in a golden age Who did the reforms? -- Cabinet Schröder. Who did nothing since then? -- Cabinet Merkel.

DocTomoe 3y ago
Never touch a running system. Who rolled back many of the things Schröder implemented? -- Cabinet Scholz

Closi 3y ago

Anecdotally my experience dealing with German companies being in the UK is that they can be highly detail-oriented and process driven, to the point where they can be hard to work with if you are outside Germany. It seems that progressing fast with high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity isn't common, while other western companies seem happier to proceed faster with a looser brief and to solve problems flexibly as they come along. Of course this won't be a universal truth and it might just be my personal experience, and it might also be a benefit in many situations, but I've always felt Germany has a different work culture compared to other European and Western countries.

probably_wrong 3y ago

As a foreigner living in Germany for the best part of a decade, I tend to agree with the article that the situation is not dire but, at the same time, it does need work. The train situation is a good starting point: an industry that used to be great and has been in slow decline for years without anyone doing anything other than shrugging and saying "well, that's how it is" or "yeah, but we are still better than X". I cannot speak for major macroeconomic trends but, as an individual, I can say that getting a doctor's appointment, an apartment, internet (not just the speed, but also getting the actual connection), a mandatory appointment at the "Bürgeramt" (and don't get me started on my citizenship application!) and (of course) traveling by train have been getting slightly more frustrating every year. I know some of it is part of wider, world-wide tendencies (thanks, AirBnB), but it's also fair to recognize that the German government is getting asleep at the wheel. I actually appreciate that the government tends to err on the side of caution, but I also have to recognize that there's a line between "caution" and "paralyzed". I don't need to pay my taxes with Venmo, but I do need an apartment that I can actually afford to rent.

Semaphor 3y ago
The train situation is also a great example of how to get some of the worst parts of private and public. It was privatized, but is 100% owned by the government … And FWIW, getting an appointment (both doctors and Bürgeramt) has been getting better and better every year here. Bürgeramt is now fully online, you can even pay by credit card, I’ve had an online diagnosis with a skin doctor that my health insurance paid for via OAuth, I can now have other appointments via websites. This was Partially driven by COVID, partially because it’s simply advancing.
wink 3y ago
The train discussion is often interesting with people who have lived somewhere where trains/public transport is spotty at best or nonexisting. Sure, it's nice to be able to take a train, but if my experience is that I'm never on time and also not sure if it will start or arrive at all, what good does it do? I don't want to miss my flight in another city, so am I gonna take the train? Or the one before that? Oh, I was taking the first one of the day, that's bad luck.

lproven 3y ago

Betteridge's Law of Headlines applies.

DocTomoe 3y ago

As a German ... I find it interesting that the Economist starts using 'sick man of Europe' the very same day a high-ranking conservative politician begins using that language [1], which has been absent since the early 2000s. Coincidence, or a coordinated effort to bring in a new narrative? [1] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/wir-sind-der-kranke-mann-der-welt-cdu-generalsekretar-linnemann-will-eine-agenda-2030-fur-deutschland-10327171.html https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/wir-sind-der-kranke-mann...

littlecranky67 3y ago

I'm currently in the process of moving my business (one-man show, incorporated LLC doing IT/SW Eng.) out of Germany. The amount of bureaucracy running even the smallest of companies with no office at all (work out of home) is hilarious. So much you need to get an accountant/tax advisor, but even then they will pass-through a lot of the bureaucracy. I need to put down excel sheets for every day of a business trip I do, mark whether its been longer or shorter than 8 hours, arrival/leave day etc. And double pay attention that the hotel you stayed didn't include breakfast, or at least had it separate on the invoice. If getting a company car, you are in for some real tax hell. On top of that, the accountant charges ~5.000€/year for this single-person business (personal income tax declaration included). And no, it is not just an expensive accountant, as in Germany accountant prices are regulated just as lawyer fees are (they can max. give you 20% discount). Meanwhile, when I talk to my friends in Spain they pay less than 1.000€/year for accounting for an LLC (S.L.) with not even close the bureaucracy. And bear in mind, I'm german and speak the language, but even I struggle to keep up with all tax- and business regulations. On top of that, we have the highest tax load and social insurance is also amongst the top price ranges, while waiting months for a doctors appointment.

wink 3y ago
Hmm, this does not match my experience (but it's been a while). I'm not saying it's been great but maybe it's because I didn't file a single business trip or hotel stay. FWIW I also have to file those now as you described as an employee, so while it's not helping that is not unique to running a business :P
- littlecranky67 3y ago
  You have to file those as an employee just because your employer has to do the same beauraucracy. Sounds in the end you stopped doing business :P There is tons of examples where a solo-enterpreneur is drowned in these regulations (corporate car or even e-bike (!), calculation of privateley used square meter space in the homeoffice, separation of heating cost for your home office etc.). Don't even get me started about the beaurocracy hell if I had employees, there are so many regulations and rules.

mantas 3y ago

It's funny that everybody is focusing on how Germans won't change language to something else to attract muh migrants. But there's no talk about local culture. How do we raise next generation to go do real jobs? Instead of dreaming to become tiktokers or whatever is fancy at the moment. Few migrants won't fix anything if locals sit on their asses. Especially if local culture pushes 2nd/3rd gen migrants the same way. We need to use state propaganda machine (which is already very well greased in EU) to make it fancy to be engineer, doctor and so on. And then make sure those professions let people build a nice life. Universities have to be geared towards that as well.

mitjam 3y ago

For context: This refers to an Economist special published in 1999 ("The sick man of the euro") which fuelled a public discourse in Germany on what needs to be improved leading up to the labor market reforms under chancellor Schröder ("Hartz IV" etc.). This fixed the most imminent problem of the time (high unemployment rate, inflexible labor market) and led to a stronger economic period in Germany. This time, the underlying problems are probably much harder to tackle: 1. Germany's economic model depends on high worker productivity, strong education, cheap energy (still large industry base). All of these have structural weaknesses. 2. The public discourse is very much focussed on climate change, allowing little room for other discourses. Don't get me wrong: I believe the climate change discourse is globally the most important discourse of our time; it is just that there is little room left for other broad social discourses in Germany, at the moment. 3. No immediate pressure comparable to the high unemployment rate at the time. The German economy is getting comparably weaker, slowly but steadily. (Boiling frog problem) That the economy is getting weaker, is eg. visible in GDP constant prices growth rate stats. It is yet not as severe as last time (between 2003 and 2006, Germany was last in G7, even behind Japan, and Italy with base year 1999), but the gap between the best performing G7 countries (US, Canada), number 3 (UK) and Germany is widening. Since 2017 Germany has fallen behind France, too (except in 2020). (see https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/April/weo-report?c=156,132,134,136,158,112,111,&s=NGDP_R,&sy=1999&ey=2028&ssm=0&scsm=1&scc=0&ssd=1&ssc=0&sic=0&sort=country&ds=.&br=1 https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/Ap...)

wink 3y ago
> little room left for other broad social discourses in Germany, at the moment Now you can call me a pessimist, but if we look back at the last 2 decades, did any social discourse really bring out anything positive? The right-wing politicians are gaining more platform and more supporters, even the so-called social democrats brought us things like Hartz IV, the populists are always at work to call in less taxation for rich people by lying to poorer und uneducated people "they want to increase taxes! You'd get 10€ less per month!" while failing to admit they would maybe get 1000€ or 10k€ less per month)
- mitjam 3y ago

smcl 3y ago

How can Germany be the "sick man" of Europe when the UK continues to UK?

jacknews 3y ago
Exactly, it seems hypocritical for a British-based publication to be calling out another nation. Britain is the perennial 'sick man', except, I guess it's no longer 'of Europe'.

simonblack 3y ago

If you end up paying multiple times more for energy than you were a couple of years back, it's natural that exports are lower and imports are higher. That means de-industrialisation of the country in a major way, because there's no way you can remain competitive on the world stage. Germany was the major bread-winner and subsidiser for the whole of the EU, so it's not really that 'Germany is the sick man of Europe', it's more that 'Europe is the sick man of the West'.

quattrofan 3y ago

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