9 ms·

Germans shrug off economic gloom at booming Oktoberfest

69 points by pg_1234 3y ago

protortyp 3y ago
As a local, I'm really looking forward to when this madness is over in a few days, so we can finally use the metro again without that ever-present puke smell.
pg_1234 3y ago
https://archive.ph/Xzva4 https://archive.ph/Xzva4
skymast 3y ago
[dead]
shikshake 3y ago
I had no idea the economy was like that in Germany. I’ve recently been considering moving there from the US so it’s kind of a bummer to learn this.
- peer2pay 3y ago
  It’s hard not to be pessimistic in Germany these days. Population is aging and paying for the retirement money for all existing retirees is already taking up over 25% of government spending. There’s barely money for anything else so taxes and social security payments are poised to go up while already being close to ~50% for most earners. There’s a strong and growing far-right movement full of populist and even neo-nazi ideologies. Infrastructure is still top notch internationally but funding has been cut over the last decades and it’s starting to show. I could go on but I think you get the picture. Many people in my social circle want to leave the country so I would really think twice about moving here.
  - andersa 3y ago
    > Many people in my social circle want to leave the country And go where?
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      France? Belgium? US? UK? Ireland? Austria? Switzerland? Poland? Czechia? Luxembourg? Netherlands? Norway? Sweden? Denmark? There's no perfect country, just one where you have the least amount of compromises. Or where your family unit is.
      - tejinderss 3y ago
        > Ireland Good luck with finding housing here.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        You can say the same thing about Berlin. Every livable tech hub is full.
      - jabradoodle 3y ago
        I wouldn't suggest putting the UK in that list, absolutely crumbling and showing no signs of stopping.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        If you work in tech you'll be fine there.
        alphager 3y ago
        And you'd be fine in Germany. HN paints an overly gloomy picture of Germany. All points mentioned contain a kernel of truth but also a pessimistic linear regression concerning the outlook of the future. We've got a very minor recession going on, that's all. The economy will turn around next year. The energy crisis is of the higher price than usual variety (and is already way past its peak; look at the 5y chart: https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_price https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_pr...). The greenefication of our electrical grid is ongoing and will cost us a ton of money over the next 5-10 years, but will pay off after that (yes, it would have been better to keep the atomic power plants running until then; that's one of the few irrational decision done by the previous conservative government and confirmed by the current government). We had a large immigration spike in 2015 and another one in 2022 (Syria and Ukraine), overfilling the immigration centers. Aging population is a thing, as in any other western country. Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! And we're currently (and for the next decade) in serious need of unskilled labor, so even the 40% of syrian refugees that haven't gotten work yet (many of those because of the slow bureaucracy...) will be needed. It's certainly not all sunshine and rainbows, but it's also certainly not a crumbling country without a future.
  - protortyp 3y ago
    I strongly agree. Much of my social circle went to Amsterdam in hopes of better salaries and the tax benefit for the first few years.
  - lnsru 3y ago
    Well when a refugee with 2 kids gets 1890€ in cash, Kindergeld on top, free health insurance and free housing… I am also becoming very quickly populist and even neo-nazi follower. That’s income level of white collar worker after university studies and few years work experience. This nonsense with uncontrolled immigration must be over asap. Get the people some warm shelter and warm food, don’t throw money at them!
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      > I am also becoming very quickly populist and even neo-nazi follower Yikes. Go read a history book before you end up like your predecessors from the 30s and 40s.
    - killdozer 3y ago
      "Look, you're just FORCING me to become a 'neo-nazi follower' by helping these people too much!"
      - zuzu89 3y ago
        This is what happens when the established parties refuse to do anything about it and don't even address the issue seriously, instead immediately labeling people who see the problem as "Nazis." The obvious conclusion from this is that these people are inevitably supporting parties that see this is an issue.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        It’s a very poor tasteful way of saying anti-immigrant sentiment doesn’t appear in a vacuum. That some auto label such people with this sentiment as neo Nazis is another issue.
      - Gud 3y ago
        A more apt description would be, taking money from Insrus pocket and giving it to someone else. Someone who deliberately broke the rules and exploited a system designed to help people in need. I'd be pissed too if that were to happen to me.
      - 3y ago
  - sneed_chucker 3y ago
    The far-right movements are a completely predictable and preventable result of the immigration policy of the last 2 decades.
  - nicbou 3y ago
    The same is true everywhere else, and there a mix of unrest and despondency grows from it. Society has failed this generation the world over.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >I had no idea the economy was like that in Germany. Addiction to Russian gas, over-bureaucratic system that's super inefficient with tax-money meaning most goes to waste, an ageing population hoarding all the wealth and burdening the welfare system, uncontrolled unskilled immigration further burdening the welfare system and pushing rents up, clueless boomer leaders not investing in innovation and capturing new areas of the economy, refusing to build more real-estate because environment further pushing housing up, politics based on ideology not reality, a clueless and arrogant voter base thinking everything is perfect and none of the issues above need addressing, will do that to you. Though, that's most of Europe, not just Germany.
  - vkou 3y ago
    Why is an aging population an issue? Labour participation and productivity is up over the decades, society can produce more than enough widgets to keep everyone comfortable, despite the aging population causing a regression-to-historic-mean in labour participation.
    - flutas 3y ago
      I've done no research and don't have a stake in the game, so I'm blindly just copy/pasting another comment on here. But if it's accurate I could see it being an issue. > Population is aging and paying for the retirement money for all existing retirees is already taking up over 25% of government spending. There’s barely money for anything else so taxes and social security payments are poised to go up while already being close to ~50% for most earners.
      - pgeorgi 3y ago
        The tax/social contributions stuff can be cherry picked to become very high and very low to support any point people want to make. There are employer contributions in Germany that are recently counted in such calculations to prove a point, while leaving costs for "benefits" in US companies off the table when doing the comparison. Some like to add the VAT to the "what life costs here", which is a 19% (except for necessities, which are at 7%). If you refuse to accept such calculations that mix up tax brackets (popular error in that space), that immediately filters out 90% of them.
- angra_mainyu 3y ago
  I'd wait a bit, at least until end of Q1 2024 to see which place makes the most sense socioeconomically. That said, I strongly recommend the Balkans (e.g: Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, etc.) if you have a remote source of income: very safe, great people, fantastic culture, in the big cities English is widely spoken, low cost-of-living, active tech communities, and you're usually surrounded by tons of beautiful nature and again, some of the best people ever. Not to mention, setting up your own company usually allows you to operate in a low tax/tax-optimized fashion. For what it's worth, I've lived all over Europe (including Germany) and the Balkans really must be the best place in Europe - as long as you're earning remotely, local wages are unfortunately ridiculously low.
  - konschubert 3y ago
    Serbia is preparing to invade Kosovo: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/30/europe/kosovo-tensions-military-buid-up-explainer-intl/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/30/europe/kosovo-tensions-mi...
    - angra_mainyu 3y ago
      I follow the news closely as I'm in the area, nothing's going to happen aside from the usual posturing, Serbia's in no rush to be once again on the sharp end of NATO's pointy stick. Even Vucic made it clear: https://www.koha.net/en/arboretum/393870/Serbia-will-not-bring-military-forces-to-Kosovo/ https://www.koha.net/en/arboretum/393870/Serbia-will-not-bri...
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > you're usually surrounded by tons of beautiful nature and again Also very high pollutions levels: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Horalek/publication/281092107/figure/fig1/AS:284602586419200@1444865952557/European-map-showing-the-interpolation-result-for-the-Delta-values-of-PM-10-annual.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Horalek/publication...
    - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
- amelius 3y ago
  There was some discussion about it a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172818
- ivix 3y ago
  Why on earth would you live your life by a sub single digit percentage swing in an abstrusely calculated macroeconomic statistic?
- tbeiwhsj 3y ago
  [flagged]
- eigenspace 3y ago
  Honestly, the gloom over Germany’s economy is fairly overblown. Germany is facing challenges, but they're by no means as apocalyptic as people make them out to be. It’s not really a German recession, but instead a global manufacturing recession. Germany’s economy is highly exposed to manufacturing, and so it shows up more in the country-wide economic stats. If you look at almost any major manufacturing country right now, their manufacturing sector is also in recession. Many other economic sectors of Germany are doing just fine, especially services. Unemployment is also very very low, so the country is well positioned to re-absorb any jobs that may be lost if some manufacturing companies go under, and those jobs may end up going into more productive companies or sectors anyways. I moved here from Canada two months ago and I’m really liking it so far.
- Barrin92 3y ago
  We're currently in a war, a complete energy transition, global supply chain disruptions all hitting an export driven economy at the same time, and yet we're talking about GDP stagnation or decline of a fraction of a percent. People are truly dramatic these days, if you had asked me five years ago what the toll of something like this would be I'd have guessed it'd be ten times as bad. Give it a few years and don't base your long term decisions on stuff like this, Germany has always been resilient and able to adapt, if a little slowly at times. The 'sick man of Europe' debate is not new and the cup gets passed around every once in a while.
sambazi 3y ago
folks are still scrambling for beers at more than twice the normal price
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  Don't confuse tourists spending all-in, with the locals' purchasing power.
  - sambazi 3y ago
    good point
daniel-s 3y ago
I think that this is relevant. German industry has collapsed after the natural gas input from Russia got cut off. https://youtu.be/22M813tN9zk https://youtu.be/22M813tN9zk
- standardUser 3y ago
  A major economy is facing a minor recession in the aftermath of a once-in-a-generation energy shock and a once-in-a-generation inflation spike. If history tells us anything, it's that major economic powers are phenomenally robust.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    A lot of former major global economies have fallen off their peaks and never recovered. Britain used to rule the world and now ...
    - standardUser 3y ago
      ...and now Britain is a first-world economy with a very high standard of living and home to one of the greatest financial centers in the history of the world.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        And how much of that financial center wealth ends up working for the average Brit?
        magicpin 3y ago
        How did being a major empire work for the average Brit?
        profunctor 3y ago
        Won them two world wars when losing is famously bad for the economy.
mschuster91 3y ago
Munich-born dude here. I'm glad when it's finally. fucking. over. even though it wasn't as bad as it used to be this year in public transport, no idea why - usually all kinds of trains are packed with people drunk out of their mind. The problem is that a lot of prime real estate is taken over by an army of hotels that are only at ~50-60% load on average [1] but packed during Oktoberfest and the Bauma trade fair with prices skyrocketing to hundreds, even thousands of euros per night [2]. On top of that come all the more or less legal AirBnBs which are just as much of a goldmine, with Oktoberfest yielding enough to pay for a whole year worth of rent. Fuck that completely unsustainable shit. I'm sick of the exploding rents, cost of living in this shithole of a city, and by the looks of it I'll be out in a year. [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/319560/umfrage/bettenauslastung-der-hotellerie-in-muenchen/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/319560/umfrag... [2] https://www.merkur.de/lokales/muenchen/oktoberfest/oktoberfest-ansturm-auf-die-hotels-der-grosse-preis-check-in-der-tz-92485321.html https://www.merkur.de/lokales/muenchen/oktoberfest/oktoberfe...
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > a lot of prime real estate is taken over by an army of hotels that are only at ~50-60% load on average Isn’t this a textbook case for Airbnb (or something akin to it)? Residents live year round, except during the festival, when they rent out their homes? Put another way, would the hotels be open to long-term leases which black out the festival?
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    > Isn’t this a textbook case for Airbnb (or something akin to it)? Residents live year round, except during the festival, when they rent out their homes? I lived above an AirBnB until the actual landlord shut that shit down. AirBnB is a fucking pest even without Oktoberfest, but during it it's even worse. NO ONE wants hordes of drunkards stomping through the stairwell at 03:00 in the morning. There's a reason accomodation providers are a regulated business. > Put another way, would the hotels be open to long-term leases which black out the festival? Who can afford that? Even at 50€ a night it's 1500€ a month with barely more than a bed and a shower.
elzbardico 3y ago
Panis et Circenses, but the neoliberal version with less bread.
- xenonite 3y ago
  Plant based hyper-processed is all the hype now, which is sort of the same. Feeding, not nourishment.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    It's not like meat would be better - for capitalist reasons, a lot of traditional breeds of cows, pigs and poultry are nearing extinction because production has optimized to a very few select breeds that produce the "most" meat, at the cost of the animal's welfare (especially with chicken that have issues standing upright) and the taste.
    - mharig 3y ago
      Not only the taste of meat is affected: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-aND-NUTRITION-LOSS/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-aN... And the nutritional value of animal products may be affected, too: I live in South America. The lard I buy here from local peasants, who 'breed' an old pig race, has a liquid fraction, even in the fridge. This indicates to a high amount of unsaturated fatty acids. The industrial lard is completely solid at that temperature.
      - kelipso 3y ago
        Well, either that or they are adulterating it with some cheap vegetable oil.
secondcoming 3y ago
The Tourist Oktoberfest in Munich is good to experience once, but I have no intention to ever go again. Queueing in the hope you can get into a tent, asshole bouncers, and massive crowds took the shine off a bit. You get a table and never leave until you're kicked out. The cost of the beer doesn't include the massive tips you're expected to give the beer women either (which they deserve) The lack of a hangover after copious amounts of beer was quite a nice surprise though.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > The lack of a hangover after copious amounts of beer was quite a nice surprise though. That's because it's actual, high quality beer that's been brewed right in Munich - in fact, being brewed inside Munich city borders is a requirement to be allowed on the Oktoberfest, and there are only a handful of qualifying beer breweries in the first place [1]. For those wishing to go: keep in mind that the beer served on Oktoberfest is an even stronger variety than regular beer which is in itself way stronger than what is called beer in other places of this world. And for heavens sake don't forget to eat beforehand and during a tent visit. [1] https://www.tz.de/muenchen/wiesn/oktoberfest-wiesn-festbier-giesinger-braeu-91753346.html https://www.tz.de/muenchen/wiesn/oktoberfest-wiesn-festbier-...
helpfulContrib 3y ago
> shrug .. Oktorberfest Germans are exceptionally good at kicking back, drinking a few beers, and disconnecting from the real world, even if it is just for 6 or 8 hours or so. They can do it with an extraordinary insouciance that I do not believe is easily observable, elsewhere in the Western sphere. I remember, arriving for my first year of many in a German town, to the raucous cacophony of a Karnival (im Rührgebiet) wherein a mass of teenagers, whom I would ordinarily have deemed far too irresponsible for the drunkenness and tomfoolery on display gleefully smashed their freshly emptied bottles of local beers in the village streets for all and sundry to enjoy. It was extraordinary - definitely not a riot, but rather a very well organized and town-supported explosion of pent-up energy. The glass was all impeccably removed within hours of the jubilations' end. This was a regular thing, a kind of festival, and nobody really minded the puke. The Rührpott weather would sort it out, ho ho. And its the same throughout the German state, which is accustomed to so much gloom but yet produces so much beauty, life and vitality. I dare you to find the fertility of Münich or Köln or Frankfurt, in summer time, elsewhere .. it is palpable.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >I dare you to find the fertility of Münich or Köln or Frankfurt, in summer time, elsewhere Your take feels weird, as if only Germany has great nightlife. I don't get what you were trying to prove with this point. Most big European cities are vibrant in the summer, some even all year round, and some even better than the German cities you mentioned. Even Belgrade is friggin awesome to visit and party in.
- dgellow 3y ago
  > I dare you to find the fertility of Münich or Köln or Frankfurt, in summer time, elsewhere How can you not mention Berlin? Splendid city to experience in spring and summer.
- tetris11 3y ago
  German drinking culture is certainly different. Pubs don't exist. Yeah sure you might have a Kneipe or a Biergarten here and there, but mostly, you go to your friends house to drink there or you sit around in a circle on the pavement (but never on the kerb…) outside a closed bar. There's a weird street energy there, but it's not intense, just conversationally pleasant. Maybe you get a Kebap on the way home, but only if you're waiting for your train. The UK by contrast has a different energy. Pubs almost every corner, fancy ones with fireplaces and sofas, high heels and bare legs no matter the (often chill-inducing) weather, kebab shops surging with a strange camraderie, singing in the streets, and most importantly, people sitting on the kerb.
tempodox 3y ago
The Oktoberfest is the largest annual drug festival in the world, but cannabis is still illegal in Germany.
- zuzu89 3y ago
  total Bavarian victory
- dgellow 3y ago
  Next year, maybe :) https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/cannabis-legalisierung-2213640 https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/cannabis-le...
dauertewigkeit 3y ago
I honestly do not see how the two things are related. Spending 15€ once instead of 8€ once is not really a sign of anything. You can do that even as an unemployed person on Bürgergeld. What is worrying about the German economy is also not the current inflation but the long term outlook: the energy prices that will never be competitive, the 20 years of technological lag within almost all industries due to lack of investment and extremely risk averse financial climate, and the ever aging population, which now Germans are starting to realize, won't be so easily solved by immigration, neither illegal nor legal.
gumballindie 3y ago
All good things come to an end, and so does the german economic miracle. Other countries in the eu need to capture a larger share of the market.

69 points by pg_1234 3y ago

As a local, I'm really looking forward to when this madness is over in a few days, so we can finally use the metro again without that ever-present puke smell.

pg_1234 3y ago

https://archive.ph/Xzva4 https://archive.ph/Xzva4

skymast 3y ago

[dead]

shikshake 3y ago

I had no idea the economy was like that in Germany. I’ve recently been considering moving there from the US so it’s kind of a bummer to learn this.

peer2pay 3y ago
It’s hard not to be pessimistic in Germany these days. Population is aging and paying for the retirement money for all existing retirees is already taking up over 25% of government spending. There’s barely money for anything else so taxes and social security payments are poised to go up while already being close to ~50% for most earners. There’s a strong and growing far-right movement full of populist and even neo-nazi ideologies. Infrastructure is still top notch internationally but funding has been cut over the last decades and it’s starting to show. I could go on but I think you get the picture. Many people in my social circle want to leave the country so I would really think twice about moving here.
- andersa 3y ago
  > Many people in my social circle want to leave the country And go where?
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    France? Belgium? US? UK? Ireland? Austria? Switzerland? Poland? Czechia? Luxembourg? Netherlands? Norway? Sweden? Denmark? There's no perfect country, just one where you have the least amount of compromises. Or where your family unit is.
    - tejinderss 3y ago
      > Ireland Good luck with finding housing here.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        You can say the same thing about Berlin. Every livable tech hub is full.
    - jabradoodle 3y ago
      I wouldn't suggest putting the UK in that list, absolutely crumbling and showing no signs of stopping.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        If you work in tech you'll be fine there.
        alphager 3y ago
        And you'd be fine in Germany. HN paints an overly gloomy picture of Germany. All points mentioned contain a kernel of truth but also a pessimistic linear regression concerning the outlook of the future. We've got a very minor recession going on, that's all. The economy will turn around next year. The energy crisis is of the higher price than usual variety (and is already way past its peak; look at the 5y chart: https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_price https://ycharts.com/indicators/germany_natural_gas_border_pr...). The greenefication of our electrical grid is ongoing and will cost us a ton of money over the next 5-10 years, but will pay off after that (yes, it would have been better to keep the atomic power plants running until then; that's one of the few irrational decision done by the previous conservative government and confirmed by the current government). We had a large immigration spike in 2015 and another one in 2022 (Syria and Ukraine), overfilling the immigration centers. Aging population is a thing, as in any other western country. Turns out that immigration is one of the things that counteracts it! And we're currently (and for the next decade) in serious need of unskilled labor, so even the 40% of syrian refugees that haven't gotten work yet (many of those because of the slow bureaucracy...) will be needed. It's certainly not all sunshine and rainbows, but it's also certainly not a crumbling country without a future.
- protortyp 3y ago
  I strongly agree. Much of my social circle went to Amsterdam in hopes of better salaries and the tax benefit for the first few years.
- lnsru 3y ago
  Well when a refugee with 2 kids gets 1890€ in cash, Kindergeld on top, free health insurance and free housing… I am also becoming very quickly populist and even neo-nazi follower. That’s income level of white collar worker after university studies and few years work experience. This nonsense with uncontrolled immigration must be over asap. Get the people some warm shelter and warm food, don’t throw money at them!
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    > I am also becoming very quickly populist and even neo-nazi follower Yikes. Go read a history book before you end up like your predecessors from the 30s and 40s.
  - killdozer 3y ago
    "Look, you're just FORCING me to become a 'neo-nazi follower' by helping these people too much!"
    - zuzu89 3y ago
      This is what happens when the established parties refuse to do anything about it and don't even address the issue seriously, instead immediately labeling people who see the problem as "Nazis." The obvious conclusion from this is that these people are inevitably supporting parties that see this is an issue.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      It’s a very poor tasteful way of saying anti-immigrant sentiment doesn’t appear in a vacuum. That some auto label such people with this sentiment as neo Nazis is another issue.
    - Gud 3y ago
      A more apt description would be, taking money from Insrus pocket and giving it to someone else. Someone who deliberately broke the rules and exploited a system designed to help people in need. I'd be pissed too if that were to happen to me.
    - 3y ago
- sneed_chucker 3y ago
  The far-right movements are a completely predictable and preventable result of the immigration policy of the last 2 decades.
- nicbou 3y ago
  The same is true everywhere else, and there a mix of unrest and despondency grows from it. Society has failed this generation the world over.
FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>I had no idea the economy was like that in Germany. Addiction to Russian gas, over-bureaucratic system that's super inefficient with tax-money meaning most goes to waste, an ageing population hoarding all the wealth and burdening the welfare system, uncontrolled unskilled immigration further burdening the welfare system and pushing rents up, clueless boomer leaders not investing in innovation and capturing new areas of the economy, refusing to build more real-estate because environment further pushing housing up, politics based on ideology not reality, a clueless and arrogant voter base thinking everything is perfect and none of the issues above need addressing, will do that to you. Though, that's most of Europe, not just Germany.
- vkou 3y ago
  Why is an aging population an issue? Labour participation and productivity is up over the decades, society can produce more than enough widgets to keep everyone comfortable, despite the aging population causing a regression-to-historic-mean in labour participation.
  - flutas 3y ago
    I've done no research and don't have a stake in the game, so I'm blindly just copy/pasting another comment on here. But if it's accurate I could see it being an issue. > Population is aging and paying for the retirement money for all existing retirees is already taking up over 25% of government spending. There’s barely money for anything else so taxes and social security payments are poised to go up while already being close to ~50% for most earners.
    - pgeorgi 3y ago
      The tax/social contributions stuff can be cherry picked to become very high and very low to support any point people want to make. There are employer contributions in Germany that are recently counted in such calculations to prove a point, while leaving costs for "benefits" in US companies off the table when doing the comparison. Some like to add the VAT to the "what life costs here", which is a 19% (except for necessities, which are at 7%). If you refuse to accept such calculations that mix up tax brackets (popular error in that space), that immediately filters out 90% of them.
angra_mainyu 3y ago
I'd wait a bit, at least until end of Q1 2024 to see which place makes the most sense socioeconomically. That said, I strongly recommend the Balkans (e.g: Serbia, Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, etc.) if you have a remote source of income: very safe, great people, fantastic culture, in the big cities English is widely spoken, low cost-of-living, active tech communities, and you're usually surrounded by tons of beautiful nature and again, some of the best people ever. Not to mention, setting up your own company usually allows you to operate in a low tax/tax-optimized fashion. For what it's worth, I've lived all over Europe (including Germany) and the Balkans really must be the best place in Europe - as long as you're earning remotely, local wages are unfortunately ridiculously low.
- konschubert 3y ago
  Serbia is preparing to invade Kosovo: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/30/europe/kosovo-tensions-military-buid-up-explainer-intl/index.html https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/09/30/europe/kosovo-tensions-mi...
  - angra_mainyu 3y ago
    I follow the news closely as I'm in the area, nothing's going to happen aside from the usual posturing, Serbia's in no rush to be once again on the sharp end of NATO's pointy stick. Even Vucic made it clear: https://www.koha.net/en/arboretum/393870/Serbia-will-not-bring-military-forces-to-Kosovo/ https://www.koha.net/en/arboretum/393870/Serbia-will-not-bri...
- qwytw 3y ago
  > you're usually surrounded by tons of beautiful nature and again Also very high pollutions levels: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Horalek/publication/281092107/figure/fig1/AS:284602586419200@1444865952557/European-map-showing-the-interpolation-result-for-the-Delta-values-of-PM-10-annual.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jan-Horalek/publication...
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
amelius 3y ago
There was some discussion about it a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172818 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37172818
ivix 3y ago
Why on earth would you live your life by a sub single digit percentage swing in an abstrusely calculated macroeconomic statistic?
tbeiwhsj 3y ago
[flagged]
eigenspace 3y ago
Honestly, the gloom over Germany’s economy is fairly overblown. Germany is facing challenges, but they're by no means as apocalyptic as people make them out to be. It’s not really a German recession, but instead a global manufacturing recession. Germany’s economy is highly exposed to manufacturing, and so it shows up more in the country-wide economic stats. If you look at almost any major manufacturing country right now, their manufacturing sector is also in recession. Many other economic sectors of Germany are doing just fine, especially services. Unemployment is also very very low, so the country is well positioned to re-absorb any jobs that may be lost if some manufacturing companies go under, and those jobs may end up going into more productive companies or sectors anyways. I moved here from Canada two months ago and I’m really liking it so far.
Barrin92 3y ago
We're currently in a war, a complete energy transition, global supply chain disruptions all hitting an export driven economy at the same time, and yet we're talking about GDP stagnation or decline of a fraction of a percent. People are truly dramatic these days, if you had asked me five years ago what the toll of something like this would be I'd have guessed it'd be ten times as bad. Give it a few years and don't base your long term decisions on stuff like this, Germany has always been resilient and able to adapt, if a little slowly at times. The 'sick man of Europe' debate is not new and the cup gets passed around every once in a while.

sambazi 3y ago

folks are still scrambling for beers at more than twice the normal price

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
Don't confuse tourists spending all-in, with the locals' purchasing power.
- sambazi 3y ago
  good point

daniel-s 3y ago

I think that this is relevant. German industry has collapsed after the natural gas input from Russia got cut off. https://youtu.be/22M813tN9zk https://youtu.be/22M813tN9zk

standardUser 3y ago
A major economy is facing a minor recession in the aftermath of a once-in-a-generation energy shock and a once-in-a-generation inflation spike. If history tells us anything, it's that major economic powers are phenomenally robust.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  A lot of former major global economies have fallen off their peaks and never recovered. Britain used to rule the world and now ...
  - standardUser 3y ago
    ...and now Britain is a first-world economy with a very high standard of living and home to one of the greatest financial centers in the history of the world.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      And how much of that financial center wealth ends up working for the average Brit?
      - magicpin 3y ago
        How did being a major empire work for the average Brit?
        profunctor 3y ago
        Won them two world wars when losing is famously bad for the economy.

mschuster91 3y ago

Munich-born dude here. I'm glad when it's finally. fucking. over. even though it wasn't as bad as it used to be this year in public transport, no idea why - usually all kinds of trains are packed with people drunk out of their mind. The problem is that a lot of prime real estate is taken over by an army of hotels that are only at ~50-60% load on average [1] but packed during Oktoberfest and the Bauma trade fair with prices skyrocketing to hundreds, even thousands of euros per night [2]. On top of that come all the more or less legal AirBnBs which are just as much of a goldmine, with Oktoberfest yielding enough to pay for a whole year worth of rent. Fuck that completely unsustainable shit. I'm sick of the exploding rents, cost of living in this shithole of a city, and by the looks of it I'll be out in a year. [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/319560/umfrage/bettenauslastung-der-hotellerie-in-muenchen/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/319560/umfrag... [2] https://www.merkur.de/lokales/muenchen/oktoberfest/oktoberfest-ansturm-auf-die-hotels-der-grosse-preis-check-in-der-tz-92485321.html https://www.merkur.de/lokales/muenchen/oktoberfest/oktoberfe...

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> a lot of prime real estate is taken over by an army of hotels that are only at ~50-60% load on average Isn’t this a textbook case for Airbnb (or something akin to it)? Residents live year round, except during the festival, when they rent out their homes? Put another way, would the hotels be open to long-term leases which black out the festival?
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > Isn’t this a textbook case for Airbnb (or something akin to it)? Residents live year round, except during the festival, when they rent out their homes? I lived above an AirBnB until the actual landlord shut that shit down. AirBnB is a fucking pest even without Oktoberfest, but during it it's even worse. NO ONE wants hordes of drunkards stomping through the stairwell at 03:00 in the morning. There's a reason accomodation providers are a regulated business. > Put another way, would the hotels be open to long-term leases which black out the festival? Who can afford that? Even at 50€ a night it's 1500€ a month with barely more than a bed and a shower.

elzbardico 3y ago

Panis et Circenses, but the neoliberal version with less bread.

xenonite 3y ago
Plant based hyper-processed is all the hype now, which is sort of the same. Feeding, not nourishment.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  It's not like meat would be better - for capitalist reasons, a lot of traditional breeds of cows, pigs and poultry are nearing extinction because production has optimized to a very few select breeds that produce the "most" meat, at the cost of the animal's welfare (especially with chicken that have issues standing upright) and the taste.
  - mharig 3y ago
    Not only the taste of meat is affected: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-aND-NUTRITION-LOSS/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-aN... And the nutritional value of animal products may be affected, too: I live in South America. The lard I buy here from local peasants, who 'breed' an old pig race, has a liquid fraction, even in the fridge. This indicates to a high amount of unsaturated fatty acids. The industrial lard is completely solid at that temperature.
    - kelipso 3y ago
      Well, either that or they are adulterating it with some cheap vegetable oil.

secondcoming 3y ago

The Tourist Oktoberfest in Munich is good to experience once, but I have no intention to ever go again. Queueing in the hope you can get into a tent, asshole bouncers, and massive crowds took the shine off a bit. You get a table and never leave until you're kicked out. The cost of the beer doesn't include the massive tips you're expected to give the beer women either (which they deserve) The lack of a hangover after copious amounts of beer was quite a nice surprise though.

mschuster91 3y ago
> The lack of a hangover after copious amounts of beer was quite a nice surprise though. That's because it's actual, high quality beer that's been brewed right in Munich - in fact, being brewed inside Munich city borders is a requirement to be allowed on the Oktoberfest, and there are only a handful of qualifying beer breweries in the first place [1]. For those wishing to go: keep in mind that the beer served on Oktoberfest is an even stronger variety than regular beer which is in itself way stronger than what is called beer in other places of this world. And for heavens sake don't forget to eat beforehand and during a tent visit. [1] https://www.tz.de/muenchen/wiesn/oktoberfest-wiesn-festbier-giesinger-braeu-91753346.html https://www.tz.de/muenchen/wiesn/oktoberfest-wiesn-festbier-...

helpfulContrib 3y ago

> shrug .. Oktorberfest Germans are exceptionally good at kicking back, drinking a few beers, and disconnecting from the real world, even if it is just for 6 or 8 hours or so. They can do it with an extraordinary insouciance that I do not believe is easily observable, elsewhere in the Western sphere. I remember, arriving for my first year of many in a German town, to the raucous cacophony of a Karnival (im Rührgebiet) wherein a mass of teenagers, whom I would ordinarily have deemed far too irresponsible for the drunkenness and tomfoolery on display gleefully smashed their freshly emptied bottles of local beers in the village streets for all and sundry to enjoy. It was extraordinary - definitely not a riot, but rather a very well organized and town-supported explosion of pent-up energy. The glass was all impeccably removed within hours of the jubilations' end. This was a regular thing, a kind of festival, and nobody really minded the puke. The Rührpott weather would sort it out, ho ho. And its the same throughout the German state, which is accustomed to so much gloom but yet produces so much beauty, life and vitality. I dare you to find the fertility of Münich or Köln or Frankfurt, in summer time, elsewhere .. it is palpable.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>I dare you to find the fertility of Münich or Köln or Frankfurt, in summer time, elsewhere Your take feels weird, as if only Germany has great nightlife. I don't get what you were trying to prove with this point. Most big European cities are vibrant in the summer, some even all year round, and some even better than the German cities you mentioned. Even Belgrade is friggin awesome to visit and party in.
dgellow 3y ago
> I dare you to find the fertility of Münich or Köln or Frankfurt, in summer time, elsewhere How can you not mention Berlin? Splendid city to experience in spring and summer.
tetris11 3y ago
German drinking culture is certainly different. Pubs don't exist. Yeah sure you might have a Kneipe or a Biergarten here and there, but mostly, you go to your friends house to drink there or you sit around in a circle on the pavement (but never on the kerb…) outside a closed bar. There's a weird street energy there, but it's not intense, just conversationally pleasant. Maybe you get a Kebap on the way home, but only if you're waiting for your train. The UK by contrast has a different energy. Pubs almost every corner, fancy ones with fireplaces and sofas, high heels and bare legs no matter the (often chill-inducing) weather, kebab shops surging with a strange camraderie, singing in the streets, and most importantly, people sitting on the kerb.

tempodox 3y ago

The Oktoberfest is the largest annual drug festival in the world, but cannabis is still illegal in Germany.

zuzu89 3y ago
total Bavarian victory
dgellow 3y ago
Next year, maybe :) https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/cannabis-legalisierung-2213640 https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/cannabis-le...

dauertewigkeit 3y ago

I honestly do not see how the two things are related. Spending 15€ once instead of 8€ once is not really a sign of anything. You can do that even as an unemployed person on Bürgergeld. What is worrying about the German economy is also not the current inflation but the long term outlook: the energy prices that will never be competitive, the 20 years of technological lag within almost all industries due to lack of investment and extremely risk averse financial climate, and the ever aging population, which now Germans are starting to realize, won't be so easily solved by immigration, neither illegal nor legal.

gumballindie 3y ago

All good things come to an end, and so does the german economic miracle. Other countries in the eu need to capture a larger share of the market.