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Germany's autobahn bridges falling apart
- sumsome 2y agoi hope this motivates all those guys who transitioned from engineering into finance to get back and do some actual work
- constantcrying 2y agoIt will motivate these people to leave Germany and do finance elsewhere. It is not a country which has particularly much to offer if you are making decent money.
- sva_ 2y agoThe incentives are stacked up really weird here. There are a lot of situations in which earning more money just means paying more tax and getting less social benefits, so your income stays about the same. I'm personally leaving next year. But there are many other reasons.
- csunbird 2y agoWhy was this downvoted? The current system of providing benefits to “poor” in Germany absolutely kills any incentive to earn more than 3k gross income per month. Anyone earning more than that actually starts to earn less, as the benefits immediately go away (e.g. rent support) and leaving you with less money on the table. A family of 4 (2 unemployed adults and 2 kids) qualify for 2k to 3k Eur (net) benefits per month, meanwhile any “working” adult get slapped with 51% effective tax rate without any benefits at all. Basically you share your income with another family just because they do not feel like working.
- majewsky 2y ago> meanwhile any “working” adult get slapped with 51% effective tax rate without any benefits at all This number is demonstrably false. I just checked my payslip from last month. Gross salary is around 7000 euros, and net salary is around 4300 euros, giving an effective tax rate of 39%. And that's only if you consider health insurance, care insurance, unemployment insurance, and the statutory pension plan "taxes". I don't mean to enter into a debate into what constitutes a tax, but in many other countries, these types of insurances are handled privately, so the tax rate will "look different" without meaningfully describing the difference in actual expendable income. Effective tax rate on my payslip just for taxes that are called "tax" is around 20%. If you are counting statutory insurances into your understanding of tax rate, then the part of "without any benefits at all" is just ludicrous hyperbole, or we have a very different understanding of the word "benefit".
- sumsome 2y agoI never thought about it this way. This explains quite a lot. I guess the only people who stay are those who don't have the creativity or desire to enjoy their wealth beyond just making it, whether they like their jobs or not, which, for some reason, does strike me as quite 'German'.
- alephnerd 2y agoHow does a local government finance local infrastructure development? - They issue bonds to be sold to financiers at banks like JPMC, RBC, etc. - They get their debt serviced by financiers at banks like JPMC, RBC, etc
- rwmj 2y agoThe debt brake, forcing balanced budgets, sounds like a good idea but actually turns out to be a terrible idea in practice. https://www.dw.com/en/what-is-germanys-debt-brake/a-67587332 https://www.dw.com/en/what-is-germanys-debt-brake/a-67587332 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67624009 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67624009
- JanSt 2y agoGovernment spending is still exploding [1] because of high social spending. You can spend every Euro only once. Government decided to prioritize like it did. Tax income is very high. [1]https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/75248/umfrage/deutschland-ausgaben-des-staates-2008-bis-2013/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/75248/umfrage...
- generic92034 2y agoAnd still all other G7 countries have a much higher debt level. So there is really no excuse to neglect critical infrastructure for an ideology of austerity.
- constantcrying 2y ago>So there is really no excuse to neglect critical infrastructure for an ideology of austerity. They neglect infrastructure to focus on social security. If they wanted to find the money, they trivially could.
- generic92034 2y agoOf course it is not trivial at all, if you consider voting power (-> cannot cut tax money going into pensions) and legal limitations (-> cannot cut Bürgergeld/Grundsicherung by much, as it is not allowed to go below the Existenzminimum (minimal amount of money required to sustain a citizen)). Especially if you are looking at the real requirements (military, infrastructure, etc.) going by the tune of trillions. And again, German debt levels are way lower than any other G7 country's. So there is no excuse.
- okasaki 2y agoI can't scroll down on this page? Firefox on GNU/Linux.
- affenkopf 2y agoOpen it in a priviate Tab. I think a Addon, hide the Cookie-Wall.
- ibbtown 2y agoI think it's adblock, blocking away the gdpr consent question
- okasaki 2y agoInteresting. It works fine in chrome with ublock and I don't see any consent modal.
- treve 2y agoIt's a white screen for me on Firefox on Android. Seems that the autobahn is not the only thing falling apart in Germany.
- qwertox 2y agoNo issues with Firefox on Ubuntu and on Android. In both cases with uBlock enabled.
- m0llusk 2y agoOdd. I had no problems reading and scrolling the page using Firefox 126.0 on a recent Debian 12 install.
- wxtr 2y agoWell, Germany had money for Covid shenanigans (a lot of which went to friends and family, see various mask procurement scandals). It has money for a WW1-style trench warfare in the East which has been a stalemate for 2 years. It has money to refuse cheap energy via the remaining Nordstream-2. So, let the bridges fall apart! (The above does not mean that I am in favor of the aggressor. As far as I'm concerned, the aggressor can get the hell out of the occupied territories. At some point though one needs to consider whether it is possible to make progress militarily.)
- constantcrying 2y agoGermany's number one expenditure is it's social security system. Maintaining that is it's single biggest focus.
- mextex 2y ago[flagged]
- hnbad 2y agoIf you remove those who are too young to be in employment (i.e. children and minors) and those who are beyond retirement age and those who are too ill or disabled to work, the lion's share of the social security system exists to subsidize companies unwilling to pay their workers a living wage. Are you saying the government should drastically raise the minimum wage in order to cut back on social security expenses?
- constantcrying 2y ago>the lion's share of the social security system exists to subsidize companies unwilling to pay their workers a living wage. What? That totally isn't true. Minimum wage is high enough already. It absolutely is a "living wage". >Are you saying the government should drastically raise the minimum wage in order to cut back on social security expenses? No, they should drastically cut back on taxes and social spending.
- sva_ 2y agoThe problem seems to be that it is much easier to get funding for building infrastructure rather than for maintaining it.
- alephnerd 2y agoMaintenance of infrastructure is also harder to finance, because it's not a large single lump sum but an inconsistent stream of multiple grants and tenders, and it becomes the local government's responsibility, who in turn have a smaller pot of funds.
- yorwba 2y agoMaintenance of autobahn bridges is the responsibility of the state-owned Autobahn GmbH, not local governments.
- georgiapardales 2y ago[dead]
- randerson 2y agoAm I correct in that driving at very high speed reduces the risk of dying in a bridge collapse? (Even though speed contributes to the bridge failing faster, so a tragedy of the commons.) At high speed you spend less time on the bridge, and may have enough forward momentum to carry you over a developing crack. OTOH if you fall through a collapsing bridge, you could die no matter what your speed.
- Havoc 2y agoThe high speed is way more likely to kill you than the off chance of it collapsing while you're on it
- chgs 2y agoOn the other hand if a bridge in front of you collapses, the slower you got the more chance of stopping in time
- smegsicle 2y agoif you go fast enough you don't need the bridge you can just ramp over it and land safely on the other side
- majewsky 2y agoDer Postillon (the German counterpart of The Onion) suggested this a decade ago already. :) https://www.der-postillon.com/2014/11/lander-ersetzen-marode-brucken-durch.html https://www.der-postillon.com/2014/11/lander-ersetzen-marode...
- boyka 2y agoGermany decided to place the vast majority of freight transport on the autobahn instead of on rails as most countries do. I guess this is going to have a self-reinforcing effect with autobahns being increasingly congested and badly maintained.
- npstr 2y agoThere is plenty of money for bridges in this country if would stop taking it away from productive citizens that create value and giving it to unproductive citizens that just further reduces willingness to pick up a job. Working full-time vs living on benefits roughly evens out here in Germany, so I fully understand fellow citizens who stop working. Not only that, it justifies giant government departments that deal with determining each citizens needs and generally administering this redistribution that adds absolutely zero value. We need to fix these incentives.
- saagarjha 2y ago> Working full-time vs living on benefits roughly evens out here in Germany, so I fully understand fellow citizens who stop working. Source?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- blueflow 2y agoMinimum wage around 1300 EUR per month. If you are on benefits you get maybe like 500 EUR and the gov pays your rent. Plus you get bonuses for kids, so if you are a single mom with several kids (increases your benefits) and no qualifications, working is not economical. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing, i imagine if you do not work, you can spend more time with the kids.
- Havoc 2y agoIsn't this just a question of how carefully countries are checking for this? I was under the impression that most western countries are facing issues like this