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Jesus, you people are certainly something... > We can probably safely call this a wash. Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. How

Jesus, you people are certainly something... > We can probably safely call this a wash. Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. How many hours do your nurses work for the money? How man vacation days are included. Btw. the median income in Germany is 52,159 Euro. > Germany has overall notoriously high living costs. According to this site, US is 21% more expensive than Germany: https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/united-states https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/germany/unite... > I used to be baffled as to why Germans typically have no AC, only small appliances, often no clothesdryer, etc. Then after learning this I realized that for an average person, running American-style appliances would be totally unaffordable. Are you comparing Idaho to Germany? Cause Californians have to pay more for electricity than Germans. 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany. We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Modern houses are equipped with heat pumps which can do both. Yes, we now widely heat houses with unaffordable electricity! https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-viel-kosten-die-Kilowattstunden,strompreis182.html https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Strompreis-aktuell-So-vi...

Amezarak 11mo ago
> Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. By the time we're quibbling about deductibles and co-pay, we're not talking about meaningful differences - and of course, it can vary widely. However, when your employer is the medical system, your insurance is usually pretty good. > How many hours do your nurses work for the money? 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours. > How man vacation days are included This is, as well-known, not federally mandated, and can vary widely. Leave is also often lumped into many different categories. A look at my local, poor rural hospital system says they get 200 hours of PTO a year starting out, or five weeks, plus holidays. > 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany Maybe something has changed. This was what I looked at, and that's not what my friend is paying right now. It's only twice as high as California, which is not representative of the US as a whole. https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f1740e66f7d2d94d3fab14/472B63F073F071307366337C94F8C870/r0540-data.png https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f17... > We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Yes, and having an AC would put a stop to the German obsession with opening windows to stop mold from forming. But even though climate control would be very convenient even if most of the time it's not necessary, Germans don't have it because they can't afford it. Because professions like nursing are paid too little. Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? How on earth does it make more sense to import people to pump up the labor supply, suppressing wages, so that you have to continue to import people, because there's no reason for a German to go into a low-paid field with a bad work environment?
- jijijijij 11mo ago
  > 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours. Didn't expect that, tbh. Not bad. > Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? Because I said elsewhere, nurses are mostly happy with their wages, it's the hospital management and de facto working conditions which suck. Higher wages won't fix these working conditions.
  - Amezarak 11mo ago
    We're talking in circles. The way you attract people into a field despite poor management and working conditions is higher wages. That's the basic foundational truth of labor economics. Simply importing people who are desperate for even a below-market (in Germany) wage means that there is no economic incentive for conditions to improve or for wages to rise, and that your own pipeline will continue to dry up, leaving you totally dependent on foreign labor. Aside from any other issues with migrant labor, what happens when that dries up? This is an extremely foolish, shortsighted policy that can be solved by the simple expedient of paying people more.
    - jijijijij 11mo ago
      > The way you attract people into a field despite poor management and working conditions is higher wages. People don't want to work in these conditions tho. And the public has to pay these wages. Seriously, you are so damn ignorant thinking American free-market bla bla is the fix for everything. It's probably tough to swallow, but quality of life matters here. Why aren't you paying your field and gastronomy workers 100k instead of exploiting illegals? People here got other options to improve their lives. It's a democracy, the root issue can be fixed politically. Nurses are also organized in unions. So there isn't even "free market" shit all anyway. These unions demand better working conditions not higher wages. Maybe you should first check basic foundational truths about economics in your own country, before lecturing others?! Despite all the riches, the median income in the US is lower than Germany. You should pay people better over there.
      - 11mo ago

Amezarak 11mo ago

> Does it tho? Cause in Germany there are no deductibles or co-pay. By the time we're quibbling about deductibles and co-pay, we're not talking about meaningful differences - and of course, it can vary widely. However, when your employer is the medical system, your insurance is usually pretty good. > How many hours do your nurses work for the money? 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours. > How man vacation days are included This is, as well-known, not federally mandated, and can vary widely. Leave is also often lumped into many different categories. A look at my local, poor rural hospital system says they get 200 hours of PTO a year starting out, or five weeks, plus holidays. > 0.23€/kWh is the current price for electricity in Germany Maybe something has changed. This was what I looked at, and that's not what my friend is paying right now. It's only twice as high as California, which is not representative of the US as a whole. https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f1740e66f7d2d94d3fab14/472B63F073F071307366337C94F8C870/r0540-data.png https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/862768/b159d13929f17... > We don't have ACs, because we got well insulated homes and live in a rather cold climate. Yes, and having an AC would put a stop to the German obsession with opening windows to stop mold from forming. But even though climate control would be very convenient even if most of the time it's not necessary, Germans don't have it because they can't afford it. Because professions like nursing are paid too little. Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? How on earth does it make more sense to import people to pump up the labor supply, suppressing wages, so that you have to continue to import people, because there's no reason for a German to go into a low-paid field with a bad work environment?

jijijijij 11mo ago
> 36-40 hours is a typical workweek. Around here, it's 36 hours. Didn't expect that, tbh. Not bad. > Why is there such resistance to just paying people more? Because I said elsewhere, nurses are mostly happy with their wages, it's the hospital management and de facto working conditions which suck. Higher wages won't fix these working conditions.
- Amezarak 11mo ago
  We're talking in circles. The way you attract people into a field despite poor management and working conditions is higher wages. That's the basic foundational truth of labor economics. Simply importing people who are desperate for even a below-market (in Germany) wage means that there is no economic incentive for conditions to improve or for wages to rise, and that your own pipeline will continue to dry up, leaving you totally dependent on foreign labor. Aside from any other issues with migrant labor, what happens when that dries up? This is an extremely foolish, shortsighted policy that can be solved by the simple expedient of paying people more.
  - jijijijij 11mo ago
    > The way you attract people into a field despite poor management and working conditions is higher wages. People don't want to work in these conditions tho. And the public has to pay these wages. Seriously, you are so damn ignorant thinking American free-market bla bla is the fix for everything. It's probably tough to swallow, but quality of life matters here. Why aren't you paying your field and gastronomy workers 100k instead of exploiting illegals? People here got other options to improve their lives. It's a democracy, the root issue can be fixed politically. Nurses are also organized in unions. So there isn't even "free market" shit all anyway. These unions demand better working conditions not higher wages. Maybe you should first check basic foundational truths about economics in your own country, before lecturing others?! Despite all the riches, the median income in the US is lower than Germany. You should pay people better over there.
    - 11mo ago