@@juanchoja Is "not-being-a-pensioner" enough of a defined characteristic to make politicians pay attention to their interests and to tell politicians how to address those interests? I think not. Meanwhile, being a pensioner means that you are specifically interested in government transfers to pensioners and laws which protect your pension fund -- very specific, easy to identify and address.
That is mad. But don't forget: as the Netherlands has found out - as long as people can own their own homes or have reasonable rent, then all you need is a good pensions payout to live comfortable to the ends of your days. Here in the UK, the State Pension is very low so people need wealth to have comfortable retirements. Sweden has good pensions?
A large portion of German extra wealthy families are literal unpersecuted n4zis. It honestly doesn’t make it much worse than already is, just to paint the picture more whole.
I think that's the case for almost all modern countries, the idea that such a small percentage of people own most of the wealth in a country, really shows how the current system we are living under isn't working, and maybe what we've been seeing over the last few years are the cracks starting to open up with people getting angry, protest voting and such, and personally, I think it's only going to get worse until governments start clamping down on the rich elites and big corporations. What I mean by that, immigration and all the other complaining is really a sideshow to what the real problem is in society, from cost of living, inequality, housing being so expensive and so many other things like that, yet with all that, I get the impression that governments are blind to what's going on in western countries, so I expect things to get worse before the wake-up call kicks in, and the irony is, things getting worse will ironically hit the rich elites and corporations much harder in the long run, so if they are smart, they'll nip it in the bud and come back down to earth before the public gets really angry at how things are going, until then, enjoy the show and the potential revolution that could be on its way if they don't wake up. Also, if you really want to thank anyone for why this is happening, you can thank the internet, as that is opening peoples eyes and exposing how screwed up the system is in favour of the rich elites and big corporations.
A percentage of our salary goes to pensions, but its not very much and almost nothing from the state. It's mostly private pensions. Our public pensions system is tied to inflation. @@danguee1
It honestly doesn't mean all that much. Indicators of wealth inequality are almost always inherently flawed because they consider debt as negative wealth. As most persons either don't have any assets or have a negative balance (more debt than assets, think of very poor people like Donald Trump or someone who has just bought their first house with a mortgage), by construction only a small fraction of the population will show up as having any wealth. With the end result that that small fraction will appear to own a very large fraction of the country's total wealth. As an example of the ways in which this is broken, if suddenly houses became more affordable in country X such that more people were able to buy them with mortgages, country x's wealth inequality would actually increase.
It's so baffling to me a 7 or so minute video explains the core problems of german politics, yet the german politcs cant seem to get their head around it
@@SparSchwabe i absolutely agree, ITS BLATANT corruption when you remove Things Like inheritance tax or wealth tax. But democracy is too hard for people and Nobody wants to hear that theres structural Problems and we'd need to so structural changes
Politicians aren't as incompetent as people think. People need to realize that just because politicians get voted in by people doesn't mean they actually work FOR the people. As long as lobbyism exists and the rich are being catered to this will never change.
I live in Germany and my rent is 60% of my wage, and that's still reasonable compared to my friends who send about 70-75% of their wages to a multinational corporations like Vonovia for a rent. We are beyond fucked.
Insane. I feel like I am just hearing this from everyone everywhere lately. That however is still an outlier. Luckily in my area its only about 50%, less with roommates and what now, which is fine until we start looking at having a family, which feels impossible.
And the requirements and applications for getting a building permit will depending on your local autority cost you your sanity and requiere a seemingly endless number of opinions of certified experts on several subjects. As if building a house or an appartment isn't hard enough already, its as if the government wants to keep people from building appartments. Germany is over regulated. I'm not allowed to repair the roof of my house because the local autority has rejected my application for changing some shingles and pieces of wood in my roof. There's water running in, they don't give a shit. They say my roof repair is substantial for them to justify needing a building permit, which I won't get because I can't afford to set up a pond for the fireguards to take water from to extinguish a fire on my property because the community built the fire hydrant like 8 m too far from my property
One special case Germany has is that after reunification people in former GDR had a lot less personal wealth than people from West Germany and the public wealth from the GDR was largely sold to people or companies private wealth from the west. Because there weren't any measures taken to redistribute wealth and wealth largely builds up over long periods of time that effect still plays a large role
@@TheNurahh Yes, after quite some paperwork proving that you actually worked in the east at that time, getting (by comparison) less of a pension from it, even though since the unification, eastern german workers paid their taxes, in any kind, just as anybody else to the "western" state.
They sold the east to the west, instead of giving the east to easteners. Privatisation is Russia also was bad, but at least people got the houses and apartments they lived in for free, and got some money for state companies being sould.
I live there and neither me or my friends are millionairs or billionaires. But we are all doing pretty well. I bet, that most countries would like to trade their problems with ours. This video is like most ... just fokusing on the points, that fit the agenada. There are poor in Germany, but Germans are not poor in general, as the headline suggests. At least you will not go bancrupt here, because you have to go to hospital and you will not go bancrupt, because your kids want to go to university.
I’m from Portugal, and currently in my girlfriend’s town in Turkey. I live in Germany and it’s by far the cheapest country I’ve been to except for Eastern European countries. Funny you say that but I drive to work everyday in my working class neighborhood in Thüringen and I always see brand new cars, you rarely see old cars in Germany.
I'm German, we have 3 problems: Our salaries are high, but our deductions (not taxes, but "social contributions") are too high. If your employer pays you 6000€, you take home 3000€ - that's 50% deductions. The first problem is our pension insurance, which is extremely inefficient and can't cope with an ageing population. This eats up around 18% of your salary - soon 22%. The second problem is our health insurance, which is also extremely inefficient and can't cope with an ageing population. This eats up another 15% of your salary. The third problem is income tax. As Germany only has a very low property tax - unlike the US and most other nations - it needs to have a crazy high income tax to make up for it. This eats up another 20% of your salary on average, but up to 45%. One can clearly see how that cant work out. You are basically not working for yourself, you are working to subsidize old people.
your numbers are not correct for every tax bracket. What salary are you basing this on? For someone making 60K+ this should be like 12% pension insurance and more taxes. Deductions always eat 40 to 50% though.
@@dhidhi1000 Pension insurance is always fixed at 18% of your total wage (total wage is NOT brutto, brutto is a bit lower than total wage, netto is what you get after all deductions). Income tax is the only thing that varies. Pension insurance is always 18% and health insurance is always 15%
Yep it’s really sad. And the old people aren’t even grateful for it. Calling us nazis because unlike them we are somewhat patriotic. Or having nothing else to do the whole day except to stare at your apartment and find ways of critiquing your lifestyles
To declare wealth a secrete information and part of privacy is fine to me, as well as not taxing savings... but, c'mon, when it comes to income and property, they should be taxed accordingly.
exactly. also, if you are a rich banker, you can just commit fraud and financial crimes as much as you want. chances are slim that anyone is going to do anything about it. maybe even the chancellor will put in a good word for you... just don't do it if you are a small business owner. the finanzamt will destroy your life.
I'd say, Germans often consider stocks too risky GIVEN THAT for most of us, there's not so much extra money left at the end of the month. If you have a lot of money left, it's less of a problem to partially use it for risky things.
@@chrisr4769 if you invest in the MSCI world and you know for sure, you won't need that money in the near future for at least 10 years or so, you're basically guaranteed a profit, yes. But that connects back to the fact that most people don't have that much money left over at the end of the month as I said.. and hence aren't ready to put their money somewhere where they can't access it instantly without the risk of loss.
So basically on PPP scale, Germans are paid abysmally low. E.g. if a testing engineer is paid 2200 Euro in Frankfurt, where CoL is 2000 Euro, he is basically on a SLAVE WAGE, as he is paid barely enough for an existence.
Everythings way too expensive these days. I'm a young guy but sill remember times when the prices of essential stuff like food were way lower, sometimes even half the cost of now
Its the reason that is the reason all over the world. Its a system that is designed/working in favor for a small group of rich people. This wont significantly change until the system is changed.
@@roundthoughts4644The European welfare states are sustained by the capitalist system. Without capitalism, Europe would not be able to survive, especially considering its reliance on exports and dependence on energy imports. The problem is idiotic, short-sighted energy policy, economic mismanagement and bungling of the migrant crisis by European leaders.
@@aenorist2431 I don’t think it’s about the politicians, depending on the leadership some of the issues of capitalism like economic crisis, unequalness and waste might be temporarly fought back, but in the end they always re-emerge, they are simply inherent to the capitalist system at large, and the logic that comes with it.
Morning: Getting Ready (Utilities) Electricity, Water, Heating: Utilities in Germany are subject to a value-added tax (VAT) of 19%. Whether you're turning on the lights, heating water for a shower, or using the internet, part of your bill is taxes. Buying Breakfast (Grocery Store) Food: Basic foodstuffs VAT rate of 7% - 19%. Commuting (Public Transport, Car) Fuel (Gasoline): If you drive to work, taxes play a big role in your fuel costs. The price of gasoline or diesel includes not only VAT (19%) but also energy taxes and eco-taxes. Car Insurance: Car insurance is taxed at 19%. Public Transport: If you use the bus or train VAT rate of 7%. During the Day: At Work (Income Tax, Social Security) Income Tax (Einkommensteuer) and Social Security Contributions: 14% to 45%,depending on your income level. I dont get a great Salary and still pay 38% (its very fast to get the high tax rates) Church Tax (Kirchensteuer): you can leave the church so its on you i guess lol Lunch Break: Eating Out (Restaurants) Restaurants: If you grab lunch at a restaurant or café, you'll pay 19% VAT on your meal. Some takeaways or ready-to-eat items might be taxed at the reduced rate of 7% (depending on how they are consumed lol). Afternoon Activities: Shopping (Clothes, Electronics, etc.) Consumer Goods: Whether you buy clothes, electronics, or household items, they are taxed at the full 19% VAT rate. Insurance: If you pay for health, life, or property insurance, those premiums often include a specific tax depending on the type of insurance. Entertainment (Cinema, Gym, etc.) Leisure Activities: Going to the cinema, joining a gym, or buying concert tickets is subject to VAT at 19%. Some cultural services might have a reduced rate (like museums or books at 7%). Evening: Grocery Shopping (Supermarket) Alcohol, Tobacco: If you buy beer, wine, cigarettes, or spirits, these products are heavily taxed. Alcohol is subject to VAT (19%) and alcohol excise taxes. Cigarettes and other tobacco products face high excise duties. End of the Day: Rent or Mortgage (Property-Related Taxes) Property Taxes (Grundsteuer): If you own property, you pay an annual property tax, based on the value of the land. Rental Payments: If you're renting, the landlord's property tax is often factored into the rental price. Television/Radio (GEZ Fee) Every household in Germany must pay the broadcasting fee (Rundfunkbeitrag), which is a flat monthly fee (currently around €18 or smth) to fund public broadcasters like ARD and ZDF. This is a fixed charge unrelated to how much you use these services. It also makes "Entertainment" Stuff that only a few thousand people watch but costs millions per episode. It build a new headquater with chairs that alone cost 2.000€ each. And you guessed it: they´re comlaining about having no money. They alone got 9 billion Euros last year from taxpayers... There are countrys with a smaller gdp than what they get. Some people just have no shame So in conclusion: You get to work they tax you You work and they take up to half your salary. You eat bread and drink water they tax you You rent because you can't afford to buy a house so they tax you You buy a house they tax you you own it they tax you you sell it they tax you you give it to your kids they tax you You save money in stocks they tax the dividents (from money you already paid taxes on when earning it hellooooo) All of this while germanys retirement plan (which you pay like 300 - 400€ a month for) is collapsing and young generations know they are getting scammed out of a liveable income when they retire. Bridges literally collapse (carolabridge a few days ago) No School works properly, No public Transport works properly. There is just no way to build wealth in this country as a normal worker. When you buy a House, you get taxed less when being the countrys biggest Real Estate holder than a normal worker. Its insane. And the Government is fighting for month now where they can get even more money from because german efficiency is a joke now. All while they saying "this is the best germany of all times" in our faces and laughing at us. Yes there are good things coming out of these taxes like almost free university and going to the doctor without thinking about money but the negatives just get bigger year by year and they call you right wing for criticizing everything now. I just want my money better spent man...
Same as in other countries? Half of what you suggest is lowering taxes on wealth which would if anything exacerbate inequality further. If you want to cut taxes in Germany it should either be the VAT on basic and healthy food items (like the minister for agriculture suggested cutting the VAT for legumes to 0 % - which would be a good idea) or the income tax. Preferrably you would actually just raise the "Grundfreibetrag" (the ammount of tax free income - from any source, including capital income - you can have). This distributes the tax cut evenly across all tax payers while most systems that right-wing parties suggest usually give 90+ % of the tax cuts to the wealthiest people.
@@tobi2731 I'm with you there. The best tax cuts would be in everyday items like food, clothing and Energy. People with a low income would be helped especially as it's a big part of their Budget. I also see the Grundfreibetrag as a good tool to get people to keep some more of there money. When it comes to wealth, i would like to see some cuts to help people buy there own first home or buy there own first Apartment. Like tax cuts on the first home thats for self use and not to rent it out. Maybe cuts to the property tax outright or let the property tax begin low so people can focus in paying the loan more and let it rise slowly over the years to the original Tax rate. That would Help building wealth without targeting the already very wealthy too much imo. Right now its cheaper if you are a big housing company and thats wrong in my opinion.
@@deutscherrapblog7014 I take it we are not completely on opposing ends here but I still have some respectfull disagreements with you here. First of all one thing we left unmentioned is where to find the headroom for tax cuts. If you cut spending to give to private households (which have a tendency to save money) this has a further deflationary effect and I think we are already have a Japan style economic stagnation in the making in Europe (fuelled especially by Germany). This is maybe a bit abstract but if you look at the fiscal balances between the private sector (households and buisnesses), the public sector and trade balance it all adds up to zero, so at least one of them has to run a deficit. For Germany for the longest time it was the rest of the world (manifested in the trade surplus) but this looks less and less certain for the future and it was never sustainable to go like this forever anyway (basically France, UK and USA made a lot of the debt so the Germans could save). I think you could cut some taxes and debt-fund the tax cuts provided the argument is that it will stimulate demand in the right sectors (so for instance not create even more demand for housing, leading to a bigger housing bubble). However of course any ammount of debt above 3,5 % (or whatever excactly the consitution allows) would clash with current political orthodoxy. And I get that there are also other issues associated further down the line as we move closer to a state run command economy but I believe it's the only way to keep the ship afloat right now and if you look at France, China, USA, UK, India, Italy, Japan, etc. everyone operates like that (by running huge debt). It's just Germany that believes in cutting debt among the global big players. I think home buyers tax incentive is misplaced. To have access to it you already have to be somewhat wealthy. It's a tax cut that systematically exlcudes the poorer section of society. I would say maybe a rebate only for appartments is okay because you can argue the social lopsidedness of it is offset by multifamily housing being a lot more sustainable than single family housing. I don't know if there are studies like that in the EU but what they find in the USA is that people in appartments subsidize those who live in single family homes as infrastructure costs are way higher for single family homes (so in reality the people in appartments should pay less taxes and the single family home ones more - but they all pay the same). This could also add demand for multi family home construction - which Germany really needs to get going. It lacks way behind all neighbouring countries. If you look at Denmark right now the market has completely shifted from single family to multifamily (over half of newly constructed units are multifamily) and they are building a lot. If you adjust for population Denmark would hit the 400.000 new homes yearly target that the SPD set - but Germany fails it spectacularly right now. Also what I would do with the property tax is actually change it to a 100 % land value tax so that only the land value is taxed, not the home on top (Baden-Württemberg is actually doing that) and then increase it and pour all additional revenue into increasing the Grundfreibetrag so that it's "aufkommensneutral". The advantage of this is that such a tax actually incentivizes efficient use of land. So if you live in a self-owned appartment with 50 other people for instance, you pay just 1/50th of the property tax according to the share of land that belongs to you. If you occupy a big plot of valuable land alone (like a Villa in central Berlin), you pay a lot. How luxurious your interior or whatever is, is nobodys buisness then, just how valuable your land is. Estonia and Denmark do this but in my mind you could make this tax significantly higher (and then lower other taxes) to make it more efficient. Milton Friedmann once called a land value tax the least bad tax and I actually agree with him here.
@@tobi2731 what a load of BS. DEFLATION? what country are you living in and where do you go shopping ? , because it's clearly not Germany. Yeah , just racking up huge debts , has worked so great in the past in German history , and the US , UK , France , Italy , Japan all don't have any significant problems whatsoever because of that. A huge debt burdens the annual budget by large interest payments - money that doesn't buy literally anything , no infrastructure or services , just neutralizes ever increasing interest. Talking like that , you are an agent of the banks. Incentivize multi-family homes ? - way over 70% of the German population already live in cities ( urbanization rate ) , the vast majority ALREADY in multi family housing , mostly in tiny appartments. What do you mean by " one guy living together with 50 other people in a self-owned appartment " ? Real world example ? Btw what imaginary "villas in central Berlin" are you talking about ? Schloss Bellevue or Bundeskanzleramt ? What's your take on the artificial population growth brought in from outside , that artificially increases housing demand , so the banks & real estate corporations flourish ? What's your take on the exodus of academics and well educated in exchange for the unsophisticated in over 2 and a half decades now since 1998 , and the subsequent lowering of national median IQ ? Beneficial to a high developed , knowledge & innovation based , value-added economy ? Btw taxing property one already payed for ( with taxed income ) and got taxed through "Grunderwerbssteuer" ( real estate transaction tax ) - is at the very least - triple taxation , that clearly violates property rights. P.S. nice try about slipping in that quote/reference at the end there , as if that would lend any credence to the BS.
What bugs me the most is that people confuse correlation with causation. Economics that correlate with poltics most often have the cause years in advance. A countries economy is like a containershit. Steering it takes ages.
Yup. So many people are completely unaware and will blame the current government for issues caused by the previous one or even the one before that. It is extremely annoying seeing people vote for the very same people who have caused the issues they complain about time and time again.
@@drdewott9154 Exactly. We now have to support asylum seekers and event their kids who came 2015. They are still here, do not work, but live, eat, sh..., go to school... We cannot get rid of them, they are the burden from the past...
Not everyone, but, I would say, those who promote neoliberal policies are rarely touched by their longterm-consequences. I think what we're bad at, though, is voting based on strategic interests rather than group-affiliation.
problem is the ideology that drives politics rn and the phenomena that laws to not vanish but accumulate and at the same time competence and decision making is crippled
Not even close. Like the rest of Europe they forgot that innovation drives the economy. Germany was putting out worse cars every year while Tesla was leading the EV revolution. Every India like that an old Europeans company lost the lead to an American or Asian company. Also to work hard has value is totally forgotten. Europes biggest pride is how little it works these days. Great for days off but bad for an economy.
Like the rest of Europe they forgot that innovations drive the economy. When the pride of your country is your government benefits and days off instead of the accomplishment you got from working hard it is over
The sad thing is that the discontent about this state of affairs is directed towards those who are even more vulnerable instead of those who caused and benefited from it.
Spaniards are wealthier than Germans because Franco built millions of houses for everybody so today almost every Spaniard is a proprietor. Of course you cannot say this...
As a German this topic makes me very sad. This problem has been known for a long time but strangely there is no political support from the larger voting population in Germany to reform the wealth or the inheritance tax. It's totally right what was stated in the video about the "Mittelstand" argument. Parties opposing these reforms just throw in the argument and people fear that Germany will loose it's economic power because of reforms. Funny enough people start to vote far right parties cause of inequality reasons although these parties don't have any plan to reform these taxes either. I still hope that in the next two years the problem will become so persistent as reforms will be inevitable... but let's see 😬
The issue is that Mittelstand is often intentionally confused with family-owned. The Quandt-Klatten family owns 46.7% of BMW, but BMW is not the Mittelstand, it is a multinational gigacorporation and its owners by merit of inheritance are hoarding wealth like Smaug sitting on a mountain of gold. Conservative politicians argue in bad faith to protect that kind of people.
@@hammerth1421 thy even have their own lobby organisation named "family-owned companies trust", funded mostly big companies like Henkel, Merck (EMD) oder Conrad Electronics, telling everyone that taxing the rich or raising wealth taxes or fixing common tax loopholes (and so on) will hurt family owned companies. Sadly they are very influential.
Ever since Germany's industry has become the no.1 in Europe (around 1900) this has been the case. Germany had a less developed consumer economy than Britain and France despite having a larger industry. Mass production only became a thing after WWII.
Europeans are just not as industrious as Americans and Asians. Those that are ambitious move to the USA to earn more and then move back to retire. You just can't make money in Europe with all the taxes and insane bureaucracy.
Our Pension is a damn snowball System xD Germany has this stupid „Schwarze Null“ (Black Zero) Which means dont have a Surplus or minus at the end of the year so our Schools, public buildings, Infrastructure etc are degrading cause there is no Money at German didnt take Any Loan at the Low interest rate time…. Stupidity
That Germany is rich is a big misconception for pp who don't or haven't lived in Germany. In Germany, mid-sized and large companies, the government/ politicians, and an elite class of ppl is reach - not the "normal" ppl or workers. Basically, the only way to attain wealth in Germany is by inheritance. This combined with ultra-low social mobility means nothing changes.
Its less relevant for the uk because even though wealth inequality is still high between the bottom 10% and top 10%, median brits have around 2.3x the wealth ($163k vs c.$71k) of median germans so the issue is less relevant for brits than say income poverty in the bottom 10% which is quite high in Britain ... and actually its pretty much the same story for france, italy etc which all do quite well on median wealth despite much lower pre-tax incomes
@@magivkmeister6166 I did a bus tour through Italy 15 years ago. The north-south devide was like night and day. The moment you went south of Rome, it was like being in a totally different country.
@@FAL87 Genie coefficients are 10% of population owning genie value rather than 1%. I am presuming you are talking about the genie values gited in the video tho.
Germany is very much a society where people prefer to "own nothing and be happy." In election after election they vote to uphold social safety nets over the freedom to build wealth. They also suffer from a bad case of climate hysteria where the people voted to get rid of their nuclear power plants. It is not corruption. They voted for this. Germany made its bed and now they have to lay in it.
@@Novusod getting rid of old nuclear power plants (that needed massive investments to keep them running safely) and to go for more sustainable energy sources had nothing to do with climate change. and yeah, climate change is the most important challenge.
@@aboomination897 Coal isn't a more sustainable energy source 😂 they had to start up multiple lignite plants last winter to cope with the demand previously covered by clean, safe nuclear energy... Not to mention the amount of natural gas you are reliant on
@@Novusod that sounds like a neoliberal tirade par excellence. It's true people voted for this, but it is not necessarily true that some minor power plants (with not more than a few percent share in the total electricity production) and a social security net are the causes for this. Imho it was explained perfectly in the video: It's simply a problem of wealth distribution, especially since so many people are part of the lower middleclass. Tax the rich! And I wouldn't call it climate hysteria, given what happened in fukushima.
Germany has a huge Problem with lobbyism. Politicians have huge salaries and often no knowledge about their field of work. Another problems are elders we have way to many of them, and they have a big voting Power so no politician is trying to change anything about Our "Rentensystem"
Imagine letting in almost 2 million people and giving them social benefits from day 1 without any prior contributions. Over 70% of them don't work, they just chill at the expense of the German taxpayer. We call it: Bürgergeld & chill!
The problem is, that the systems are designed to hold people in their place, instead of letting them move up. And I do not speak about the education system, that it where it starts, though. It's like everywhere, retirees are catered too to the maximum, since they have the votes. The "working class" is protected, as long as they accept that they will barely, or moderately getting by, and will likely have severe problems when they retire - since what they pay into the systems now, is used up by the current retirees. King are as always the people who's main "job" is to be someone who has inherited wealth. Especially since you pay much less taxes, if you let your invested money work, instead of working yourself. And most people pay these taxes anyway, because it is easy to avoid that, if you do not have inherited a real value producing business / company. In that case, you get taxed to death with the rest. And then we have the people with high capabilities, and ambitions, who are stifled by bureaucracy, and are supposed to pay for most of the "tax party" with ridiculous rates, even if starting out. They are supposed to innovate, and build businesses. But under these conditions, they just leave the country, and build somewhere else, where they actually have a chance for a fair risk / reward ratio in what they are doing. And why wouldn't they, especially in the many digital occupations that would be needed badly to make Germany competitive again, but have no need to sit in Germany and to endure the system for that.
yes exactly, you said everything what i couldn't put in words. Germany is stuck for decades now and I see no initiative from anyone to at least try to change the system. I think especially young people are desperate and make questionable voting choices because of that. It's so sad to see because while I do not agree with this voiting choices myself, I understand why people may be inclined to vote the way they do. The truth is no matter who you will vote for in Germany, there is nothing that will change fundamentally and the parties that say they want things to change are just using populistic rhetoric but have no realistic plans...
I started a business a year ago and the amount of bullshit that was coming from politics to my business literally crushed my business and I fear that I can't repay my loan. Just for clarification I build an engineering firm that deals with sustainable heating and I was dependent on the government funds. Within a year they changed the funds more than I have a fingers and my business is about to go bankrupt, because the fund is only a third of what it used to be and that WITHIN A YEAR of business, for a couple of months we had no funds at all and we didn't even vote new or change the government in charge! I build my business on these funds and now I have to think of a whole new business model and I'm fcking tired of this shitshow called Germany. I was planning on getting pregnant, but I have to postpone that for atleast 2 years to figure out how to survive on peanuts and repay my firm loan while paying 25% more income tax on top of my salary as an employee just because I earn money to keep my business afloat. Maybe I won't survive this... at the moment I almost made black figures so far which is good for a business that is 1 year old, but it's going down significantly, because the government changes it's mind every two weeks about how much it wants or doesn't want to fund sustainable heating. It's like playing casino, it's unbelievable.
Wealth inequality is much like corruption. You can't eliminate it completely and below a certain level it's fine, but if it gets out of control it can bring a country down.
I was shocked by the prices in Frankfurt. Normal homes selling for 3mln euros. An Indian fried was going back to Delhi, and we calculated that instead of buying that house you could have lived in a 5 stars hotel there for over 100 years
@@apc9714I'm gonna guess they were in fact NOT normal homes considering i just looked and found a great one for 500k in less than 2 pages. Sure thats still a lot but i dont know why you felt the need to lie about it
I suspect a lack of property ownership among the over 40s is a huge part of the problem. 20 years ago, property was cheap in most German cities, but at that time, few people in their 20s even considered buying property. Since then, property prices have risen astronomically everywhere, and in most of Europe except for Germany, there are a significant percentage of over 40s who bought property and now have a six figure net worth as a result, despite having modest incomes. The majority of German over 40s missed out on this bonanza. They are looking at poverty in retirement, with most of their income eaten up by rising rents. I.e.they are nearly as f**ked as Gen Z.
I am a young adult from Germany and i want to thank you guys so much. All of the points you mentioned are so true and it is extremely frustrating to see all these problems (and the politicians who do nothing about it). And at the end of the day, these are the structural problems that weaken the center and help the far right win elections...
Isn’t the whole populist movement a result of the working class being squeezed economically? And didn’t the working class having absolutely zero economic power contribute to the rise of fascism an populism in the 1930s?
the biggest single factor which caused the rise of fascism was the austerity politic in reaction to the great depression, which hurt lower incomes most and economic stagnation or even downfall is what leads people to vote for extreme options with easy solutions, be it left or right add some populists who point at immigrants/jews/unemployed/minorities and you have history reapting itself again and again and again
Not sure if it is actually _working class_ in the classical definition (people with jobs in factories / producing industry) vs. lower middle class people that are afraid of loosing out: Postworkers, Tellers, Cashiers, Backoffice people, Small business owners /struggling self-employed people (hairdressers etc.). And interestingly, these people actually had a lot to do with what happened in the 1930s, whereas the _by definition_ working class was comparably staunchly communist/social democrat until the bitter end...
Lower-level service workers are working class, though, even if they don’t perform manual labor in the traditional sense. So cashiers, postworkers and stuff like that would be working class, whereas small business owners and self-employed people are more likely to be lower middle class. I think lower middle class refers to those with a higher education, yet lower pay compared to upper middle class people.
@@LarthVUsually the scare of the Communist Revolution spreading to Germany is left out of the picture. Especially small business owners and farmers feared the worst as rumors about what happened to their Russian counterparts were spreading.
I think attributing the populist movements just to economic forces is false. Sure it plays a part, but the fact of the matter is that mass immigration is unpopular and is the main cause of the populist right's rise. No avoiding that fact.
one thing you do not adress is that the yellow part of traffic light is all about not spending. I hear a lot from teh german in teh rural area that they do not befeit from germany, they only have the german taxes but nothing from their taxes. and indeed, because of teh FDP saving spree, most of teh public services have disappeared from rural areas. and the eastern state of germany are more rural than the former west. these are the states where the youth flee to find a job somewhere else, there is nothing left there and people are not happy with the politics of saving them to poverty.
If half of german adults don't own property, they most likely pay a rent to another one. If they both earn 4 000 € per month from working and the rent is 1 000 €, the one who owns property have in total 5000 € per month and the other 3000 €, which is already a wealth inequality of 40% between two germans who have the same salary. But a lot of germans prefer to pay a rent all their life and have a 80 K€ car
To be fair a large amount of people that "own property" really don't. They took a loan for that property and the bank is the true owner of the home until it's paid for which is usually around when it is time to retire. You can't say the person owning property have 1000 more because they have to pay off that loan too. Even if you rent an apartment out your monthly loan payment will be higher than the rent you get for someone living there.
@@zjeee Even if you become owner with the money of the bank, you will still be able to get your loan spendings back if you decide to sell your house at the same price you bought it, which means that housing hasn't cost your anying appart from the interest rate of the loan. Here is where wealth become to stack up but for that you need to have a stable job and a pretty good faith into future which is not the case in germany since they are woke-ecologic-pessimistic for the most part
If we compare EU vs US post 2008 the largest difference is the stability pact limiting government spending. US just does what it takes to make the economy grow. It's counterintuitive, but to save Europe we need to spend significantly. You're not gonna get in front of this by saving money. Just my 2 cents, thanks for the vid.
I've tried having this conversation with my friend who works at the EU. There is a total fear of debt and debt sharing here in the Netherlands. If i'm being honest, I don't understand it.
First question, does this take into account pension wealth (which is often ignored when it comes to wealth, Germany has good pensions generally speaking), and secondly I’d make the point that while many Germans do not own the houses they live in, protections for renters are quite strong, giving them a strong leg to stand on
What?! The entire German model that allowed it to become an industrial powerhouse is based on capitalism. Germany was built on capitalism, which also fuels its(and much of the EU's) welfare states. @@kenseitakesi4521
Why every person who critizies capitalism is called communist? Communist countries do not exist anymore. China is very capitalist and in North Korea Kim family is on the dame level as god while communism should be atheist.
@@drscopeify Are you saying we cant improve our system? Maybe we can improve it so much even, that it is unrecognizable to what we see as capitalism today.
We spend around €1000 on groceries a month, which is about a third more than it was up to 2020. The inflation is not letting up and a lot of the industry is taking advantage of it - we know their earnings are also going up.
Germany imports poor people. These people rarely have skills that are needed in the German employment market. And then Germany taxes employees very heavily. It is hardly possible to achieve a certain level of wealth through work alone. That's why the German state is rich, but the citizens are not.
@ RollerCoaster-ok7qw "The Bell Curve" in action Importing "poor" (uneducated and unskilled) people only works if: 1.) There are low-skill jobs for them that also contribute to the tax base (i.e. low-skill factory jobs) -- Not owning a business that contributes to an underground economy or living on the dole and spending one's stipend to support that underground economy) 2.) The social welfare state is non-existent or very limited 3.) Personal taxation rates are low (because there is no social welfare state) *In other words: Integrate,* [1] *work hard, contribute to the* *tax base or leave!* (In other words, the USA in the late 1800's/early 1900's.) _______________________________ 1.) INTEGRATE Learn the language and integrate in other ways such as learning about the laws, etc.
the title "why is Germany rich and it's citizens poor" is slightly wrong. it should read "Germany is rich because it's citizens are poor". Germany is world champion in wage dumping for more than two decades now.
Germany is slowly becoming a third world country. I moved to Germany 9 years ago and the decline is insane. Thank God I left. I would live in Germany again only in a place without poor migrants around me and would never work for a German company or choose to be a tax resident in the country. Cologne has 'weapon-free zones', a lot of homelessness, poverty and open drug use like California. The most infuriating thing of all is that liberal left wing Germans deny all of this and say the only issues with the country are the AfD and climate change, it is beyond absurd.
das Hauptproblem ist Korruption und Nepotismus, das sage ich als moderner Mensch. Die AFD ist einfach nur der Bauernfänger, der besagtes Clientel wie Kaffeesatz einsammelt. Dich offensichtlich auch, zumal du deren Feindbild zu 100% erfüllst und als erster in den Flieger gesetzt werden würdest.
The percentage of the population holding equities is completely irrelevant, since only the top strata of income earners tend to make significant capital gains. A median salaried worker is not going to change his or life with the pittance of disposable income they have for investment; if you want people to have more wealth, then salary rises must outstrip inflation.
US boomers? are those rent conglomerates foreign or domestic? some of those have spread all over world, at least western world. Pension funds commonly also buy housing which ironically raises rents but promises to pay you pension 50 years from now.
the boomers created a lot of that wealth but the government fucked them a lot more than younger generations. Just a taste of the future that you are experiencing
Thanks for stating that. Nobody ever talks about the unequility of German. It's one of the most misunderstood concepts of the western world, that Germans are supposed to be wealthy. And when you know that 60% of your income goes into taxes, you might even better understand, that we are not happy with the government spending it on China, Peru and People that come here to live off of social security. The median german has not much and what he has is hard earned.
True. It's often overlooked how insanely powerful lobbyists of the car industry, housing industry and pharmaceutical industry are here. I remember a friend asking a local Bundestag representative of the CDU why there are so few busses running in the city and he openly admitted that he couldnt propose that because it would take less than 24 hours for BMW/Mercedes/VW lobbyists to show up at his office and demand that he retracts the peoposal.
yes, thank you. It's crazy right. I have a driving teacher in Germany who believes to his bone that somehow he is entitled to make enough money to buy a house. He probably never used his brain in his life from what I could tell from the conversations
Bruh its not about taxing a guy that work hard and smart and makes good money for that. Its about taxing guy from top that gets its money from manipulating prices of standard goods like food and housing. Look how big companies raised to power. There is no big company that didnt kill someone to do this or stole a lot of money from people
Yes, it's becoming an investors vs workers reality. In USA for example, many people made and are making a shitton of money from different boom periods, even during covid. Some of these people decided to make investments with the money they're earning into stocks, businesses, real estate and other options. Some did not. The gap is being astronomical now, between people who made investments and those that did not, almost 100x.
In Germany if you are poor or work in a job that is not well paid in other countries you can have a much better live because there is a lot of support and the minimum wage is not that bad. My boyfriend and I are both engineers and worked really hard. German School and University take ages so I only started working at almost 27 years old. My boyfriend was a year older because he had to do some internships to get a good job. we were both not slow or anything and were both among the very best students in our majors and so we both ended up with very good jobs for our age making us earn 70-85k each which is already top 10% of the population. After taxes it is maybe half. We still save a lot of money because we live in an old and tiny apartment, spend little money on food and usually go backpacking for vacation. Still, buying an apartment in our city seems impossible and we work a lot.if I want to get help for cleaning I have to pay the cleaning lady 17-20€ which almost is my hourly rate after taxes. Paying someone for helping out with future kids while working less seems impossible. And after al those taxes the prospectives for retirement are bad wo you have to additionally invest yourself. Without inheritance it just doesn't feel like you can work your way up in Germany. We both did everything right, we studied something in demand and were really good at it and got good jobs and work hard and earn well. With 30/32 we still barely have a down payment for an apartment and then there would be no money left to take a time of when we have kids. it would bot even be a fancy apartment just a simple one with 2-3 bedrooms.
I hate to be that immigrant who complains about their host country but... Germany is inconceivably inefficient. The year is 2024 and today, I sent a fax to my previous tax office to confirm that I have moved address within the jurisdiction of another tax office. It's the same city, just 20 minutes down the road. They do not share information with each other and so I had to complete a 30 page document explaining my 'new' economic activity to the next office. Furthermore, with inflation eating my salary, I had to take on a 2nd freelance job on top of my current salaried position. Due to the current tax rules, my 2nd minimum wage job is taxed at 50% as apparently, this combination of income types is not encouraged. It's also very unfair when it comes to maternity leave. As far as I'm aware, Women who work for themselves still get zero help from the government when their children are born. It's such a shame that this system is so rigid as it's an amazing country with incredible people.
Capitalism systematically favors the rich. You need progressive taxation, redistribution, and strong unions to counterbalance that and keep inequality from spiraling out of control. Once the countries of the West started dismantling their social safety nets and labor protections, the current situation was inevitable, and it will keep getting worse until we restore the "social" in "social democracy." But, alas, we seem to be steadily moving toward fascism instead, or fake-labor like in the UK.
@@MarianneExJohnson Be careful, calling for strong unions and a counterbalance to capital owners can be considered as dangerous bolshevik rhetoric nowadays.
literally almost every country in Europe (i would say all in western Europe) has progressive taxation and redistribution, with lots of money on welfare. Maybe the problem is the opposite, there is no more capitalism in Europe. Who has money does not invest anymore, better a beach somewhere
The reason is because people are literally taxed the most ever in history. Families decades ago could literally raise their family of 5 by just one parent having a job. Let's not ignore that before the 20th century there was the head tax. Most of the taxes today didn't exist before. That's what you sacrifice for progress. Even if you apply "progressive taxes" and "equity" you will just bring everyone down to the level of the poor but the billionaires would still be billionaires that's what you get for siding with bourgeoisie to abolish the monarchy, you just get oligarchy. Then this guy Marx made the "Utopian" delusion as he saw the oligarch problem with "democracy".
In Germany, we increased the spendings in our safety nets, it is our biggest spending theme, we haven't dismanteled our labour protections. What the hell are you talking about?
What you missed is that before Corona, life in Germany was cheap that is why the majority was not really complaining beside the housing situation. Now that we have become one of the most expensive country to live in, inequalities are exacerbated! One thing that should be done is stocks revenues on sales or dividends should be tax free under 100K€ capital, this would drive more people to the stock market and will enable low income people to grow their savings. And I would tax the capital the same amount than income tax above lets say 200K€. Today you pay 26% for capital and up above 40% in income tax depending on your revenue.
As a German living in London, I wonder if high real estate prices and ownership rates in the UK make it seem more equal wealth-wise but effectively people struggle to renovate and maintain their houses. In the UK a cottage where pipes freeze in winter can cost £1m whereas in Germany no one wants that and would cost half.
Thank you for speaking about this! I would give the video a superlike if I could. The salaries here in Germany are far too low for the costs of everything! I spoke with people from other countries on a wedding and they make less money but they also pay less for everything. It feels really bad. I spoke to a dentist who owns two buildings and multiple cars and travels a lot although making less them me and my colleagues here for example.
That is simply not true. 84 percent of people wish to have his or her own real estate. We are simply forced to rent instead of owning our houses and flats due to astronomic high housing prices. Bigger cities have even reached a scenario where one whole minimim wage salary can not afford to rent a normal flat of the size for a family of 3.
Of course you could argue that from both sides, home ownership is low because many Germans have so little wealth, and are unable to buy. Probably self reinforcing
@@ArturoSubutex I agree with that 100%. There are places in Germany where it‘s exactly the same, like in Berlin Munich Frankfurt or Cologne. I was just talking about bigger cities in general, in Germany that is every city above the population of 100 000 inhabitants.
If you are part of the lower income class that has to work in an expensive city like Frankfurt and you need an apartment somewhere close to your working place, then the rent will eat a lot of your earnings (after taxes and healthcare already ate a lot of it). But the situation gets even more socially poisonous. Reasonable priced apartments are in high demand and Landlords can decide who they give the apartment to, now you as lower income worker that has to collect money yourself from month to month has to compete with a legal or illegal migrant that gets his apartment paid by the state. The low income worker can go broke, the state does not. You have to go to look an apply for apartments, the other one might even have a government worker do it for him. You can see the social poison that spread here with MAYBE good intentions. Whatever the plan behind this is, but it is intentional. More and more of the native Germans seem to be upset with this situation as it can be seen in the polls.
If you really believe that "with a legal or illegal migrant that gets his apartment paid by the state" is the cause of the issues, then you deserve to earn a low income.
@@mortallychallenged1436 But you implied that. Before you imply such unfounded ideas, ask yourself “What’s the percentage of foreigners in Germany, and what’s the percentage of these foreigners that relies on government help for housing? What’s the impact of this percentage on the German housing market? The only way to find effective solutions is to be truthful and honest, not by blaming others.
@@nm577 I blamed the government for creating conditions that cause unfair competition on the housing market which then causes social tensions. I did not imply that the migrants are at fault despite 47,3 percent (rougly 1.900.000) of Bürgergeld receivers are foreigners (despite being 15% of the population). It was called unemployment money before So much for "unfounded ideas". To nail the the point deeper. If you receive Bürgergeld you are ordered to live in a "reasonable" apartment which, if you check the list(square meters and rent) for each city in Germany, it means it is the apartments for low income people. Why are you ordered to do so? Because the state pays your rent. Now Bürgergeld is not the only form of support. Then there is "Grundleistungen nach dem AsylbLG" for all those whos migrant status got rejected or is unclear, which also includes the rent and more. Similar rules to Bürgergeld. How many? estimated 3.100.000. Both of these social programs are roughly 5.000.000 migrants. These low income groups of foreigners are roughly 6% of the total population. How much of the German population is low income? 16%. So pretending that there isn't a problem because Redditards or the media propaganda machine told us so, is not helping the issue. And the problem gets worse in bigger cities as this is the place where they are concentrated (which is why I gave Frankfurt as example). As the rent prices then exploded our government introduced various changes via the "Mietpreisbremse" (a brake for the rent prices), somewhat dictating what a landlord can demand. Didn't work because then the landlord offered apartments with furniture in it, for which they demanded rent for maintenance. Also at some places landlord could not maintain buildings (repair, energy, taxes,...) with the price the government wanted to dictate. Also it reduced the motivation for building of apartment complexes that would be suitable for low income people as the state dictates top quality apartments, but the Landlord can't really benefit from it due dictated rent limits. After this the government started to force migrants into smaller cities and villages with no support or programs to integrate them into society. Which then caused problems as you can imagine. Also the rent prices then went up there, supply and demand... Migrants wanting a better life, I have no issue with that. Low income native Germans wanting a better life, I have no issue with that. Government creating toxic conditions, I have a problem with that.
You did not refer to the price controls on the apartments. which creates an increase in rental prices for apartments and a decrease in output. Housing prices in themselves create inequality.
Our economy is like a flailing fish, fighting for its life. The normal state of the U.S. economy is actually very bad. Because of this it goes into convulsive spasms fighting to grow any way it can out of desperation. Tricks, gimmicks, rule changes try to stimulate the economy and prevent it from falling but they only bring temporary relief to people since, when you factor in inflation we are declining.
People believe their currency has the worth it does because they have no other option. Even in a hyper inflationary environment, individuals must continue to use their hyper-inflationary currency since they likely have minimal access to other currencies or gold/silver coins.
Inflation is gradually going to become part of us and due to that fact any money you keep in cash or in a low-interest account declines in value each year. Investing is the only way to make your money grow and unless you have an exceptionally high income, investing is the only way most people will ever have enough money to retire.
Zachery M Demers is the licensed FA I work with, I can't speak much about him you should make a search with his name, you'd find the necessary details to schedule an appointment.
So sad and true. Speaking as a German, even earning €100,000+ per year and being in the top 10% percent of earners, you can work hard your entire life and still only achieve average wealth. Without rich parents and inheriting money, owning a house or property is nearly impossible.
In Germany, Nobody talks about COLD PROGRESSION: and a refusal by various governments to reform the tax code is another reason. Cold progression mean the effect that due to inflation, salaries rise nominally (abeit inadequate to cover inflation) but the tax code progressively levies higher tax loads on higher incomes, hence less and less of the extra money stays with the people. Example: in the 60s you needed to earn 19x times the basic cost of living to be in the highest tax bracket. Nowadays it is enough to earn double the average income to be labelled a ‘high earner’ and levied the max tax rate.
It's actually the opposite... Germanys aggressive tax policies make it almost impossible to build wealth, while they literally have a working example in Switzerland on how to do it. Lower income taxes MASSIVELY, cut them in half frankly and abolish capital gains tax. Incentivize investments and re-introduce the wealth tax but cap it at like 0.5% at 10M or something.
Thank you, it is funny how the experts tend to ignore the obvious. I tried investing the tax and other charges on the profit I made was 30% and they are wondering why people dont invest.
@@samad4895 well these "experts" are usually politically motivated ,if one pays close attention. they never advocate for economical freedom and property rights , only for more "redistribution". Tells us everything we need to know about their agenda. Unfortunately after a short phase , whithin the last 10 (?) the informational online space environment has been filled with these establishment propagandists so as to drown out the few early online low tax low debt advocates........
Not only do the yields on cash reduce real value but the taxes are nominal meaning you can pay capital gains in germany although you've become poorer. And with over 3 trillion euros in German savings accounts this is a lot a huge amount of wealth being lost to taxes and inflation
The metrics and countries Germany is being measured against are different. USA is more than 8 times Germany size. USA has never had world wars destroy the buildings and had to rebuild. Germany also is different because they are more cautious with their money. USA is a spending economy and it only does well if citizens spend all their money. Germany saves, I remember when I studied for a year in Germany and the way the banks handled accounts and the set up, told me that the country bases its economics on savings more so than spending.
The video is so great that I still haven't watched it. Just devouring the really lively comment section. It is a real feast for someone who spends a lot of time on politics.
You can't grow an economy when you overtax workers and then use the money to bribe pensioners for votes
3 місяці тому+7
Well yes, but as mentioned in the video Germany is nearly last place in the OECD and less than 50% of Germans own houses(a lot of them still pay off their houses), while in Spain or Italy for instance something like 80 or 90% of ppl own their own houses. If you look on some statistics Germans are not in the richest but poorest of Europeans, as mentioned in the Video like 40% of Germans have basically 0€ in total whealty or in other words have loans or break even (in other countrys this class probably still owns housing, but in Germany housing is way too expensive or in regions without jobs).
Yes home ownership is a poor metric, Chinese home ownership is more than 90% but what people don't realize is YOU don't own your home if you are still paying off that loan, the bank does. The minute you cannot afford the loan payments anymore that home goes to the bank to be sold.
@@zjeee the problem is that Germans have also a much higher private debt than for example people in Italy. So the difference in home ownership is not associated to less private debt.
Very interesting, thanks. So much we need to improve on. Infrastructure being a main point. And there we have FDP Lindner not wanting to spend on anything.
The main problem is that people are voting against their own interests. Lower income taxes, higher (any) wealth taxes, higher financial transaction taxes (FTT), higher inheritance taxes... are usually center-left policies - but people vote for conservative or right-wing parties.
Because if you vote center left you get a whole lgbtqi+ and open borders package plus you are a nazi if you think streets should be clean and safe. So yeah...
true, our education system isn't the best either, it's antiquated and classist. it's crazy how little my fellow germans know about taxes and stuff, how the state gets money. we aren't told in school. we only learn crap in school. i went to school 20 years ago, did my abitur, and most of the stuff i learned was pretty useless. they randomly infodump on you for 12/13 years, after which you are left to navigate the neoliberal hellscape by yourself. therefore, it's hard for a lot of germans to make informed political decisions. germans aren't smarter than say americans when it comes to politics. and even tho everyone seems obsessed about what happens with their taxes, they have no problem with the fact that a lot of rich people simply don't pay their share. they would rather s**t on the weak or unemployed and blame them for everything, as if it would start raining money if these people wouldn't exist.
Capital tax is by far less common than capital gains tax, Germany is not the exception. Capital tax leads to liquidity issues for a large group of people for whom most of their assets are represented by the home they live in. Of course on the other side capital gains tax leads people to lock in the value of an asset by never selling it. So it's a trade-off between how much you want to force people to liquidate or invest assets. Recently the Netherlands has been changing tax laws because their capital gains tax was effectively a capital tax. So people who were trying to save up money saw their savings shrink each year, whereas people who invested paid almost no tax on the profits. Is it bad? It depends on what's the right balance between people's savings rate and investing back into the economy.
@@Hello-uk5xp True but you have to take the countries gdp / minimal wages in aswell as an example Germanys GDP in 2022 4 trillion $ Romanias GDP in 2022 300 billion $ Germanys minimal wage (before taxes) 1.900€ Romanias minimal wage (before taxes) 740 € now tell me how does Germany have an 12 - 13 times higher GDP but people here only get two and a half times more as in Romania eventhough cost of living in Germany is way higher then in Romania a country were almost everyone of its citizens say its one of the most corrupt countries in the world ?
@@algorithm6360 since the dissolution of the ussr to be exact. before that you had to treat the working class well to avoid any kind of soviet sympathy. now you dont even have to look like you care for workers.
No every mainstream party in Germany likes to tax and spend on Pensioners and immigrants who have children in other countries.and send our tax welfare money home (for example to Turkey) We need AFD and BSW to take over and save this country from a economic death.
They're all socialist with the exception of the AfD and maybe the FDP . Socialism is Germany's biggest problem, actually they invented socialism. Even when they tried nationalism they called it national-SOCIALISM.
it is important to state, the german constitutional court did not rule out a wealth tax, only said properties and shares have to be viewed equally. it theoretically could‘ve been healed, if the valuation basis for properties had been updated
Don´t forget germanys education system, after the age of 10 you are basically seperated into 3 different forms of school based on your "abilities". Ofcourse no one can seriously determine your abilities at that age and its basically a classicist system from the 20th century to seperate people based on their background and supposed function in society.
If you perform well in secondary, you can rank up, and vice versa. It's reasonable. I think many traditional German methods still work well, what makes them worst is their new mental state, their new lifestyles :))
In the 80s and 90s when we were going on holidays to Italy the German tourists always had the biggest cars compared to other European countries - Mercedes, BMW, Audis.
As an immigrant in Germany, I have always wondered why Germany does not have a sovereign wealth fund. All that austerity from constitutional break on deficit and the pension pot could have been invested in assets worldwide like Canada, Australia and the Middle eastern countries. For example, an annualized return of 7% over a period of 20 years for a 300€ billion fund would have been enough to secure the living standards for a couple of generations. At least! There are enough bright and smart people in the country to generate that kind of return. Easily! This risk averseness has done no one any good. By no one I mean the majority hard working tax payers.
@@shauncameron8390 And then what will happen? The rich will just take their money and move elsewhere. Just look at New York losing their wealthy residents to states like Florida due to their policies. I would just prefer smaller government and less government spending = less money needed = lower taxes. Stop sending foreign aid, stop all these social programs, shrink the military, shrink government employees. Less money needed to run government, less need to overtax your citizens. Do we really need to send all that aid money to foreign conflicts all over the world? Gaza, Israel, Ukraine etc.
I mean you know who to not vote for then. The only reason we dont have a wealth tax in the moment is because the CDU and FDP would block any attempt at reintroducing it. The tax was originally scrapped because wealth taxes are unconstitutional but rather because the one we had was preferential to individuals vs companies, it was never intended to be fully scrapped, but rather the state was supposed to remodel it. The CDU just refused and continues to refuse to do that.
The "Abgeltungssteuer", the tax for Profits on Stocks and stuff is about 27 %. The tax for an "upper class" employee is 42 % at around 66k € a year. Oh, an the employee has to pay hefty social security too, where the state health insurance is usually far more expensive for less service than the private health insurance. If this doesn't explain anything wrong with the system, I don't know what will. This basically incentivize to get out of the lower-middle class asap and then ditch any kind of meaningful, productive work.
the german government already seizes the money and distributes it to the rich. during corona they spend millions of taxpayer euros on useless masks, and again, the minister ordering the masks and the guy selling the masks are good buddies. and then these were the wrong masks. not the first or last time millions of german taxpayer euros were wasted on nothing, except making a rich friend richer.
And here I thought, maybe it has something to do with German politicians openly talking about creating a low wage sector for the past 30 years. But no, it must be the lack of wealth tax.
This is what happens when you treat 70+ year olds like moral compasses and geniuses, and everyone else like utter trash.
1/4 of the German population is pensioners. no politician would dare doing anything that isnt in the boomers interest
Rich and powerful 70+ year olds*
@@sebastiangruenfeld141 What about the other 3/4 majority?
Same happend in your neighbour country Niederlande. We need to boycot boomers voting/politics
@@juanchoja Is "not-being-a-pensioner" enough of a defined characteristic to make politicians pay attention to their interests and to tell politicians how to address those interests? I think not. Meanwhile, being a pensioner means that you are specifically interested in government transfers to pensioners and laws which protect your pension fund -- very specific, easy to identify and address.
I know Sweden has rich families but having our top 5% own more than 60% of the wealth and being the worst in the EU at that is insane
That is mad. But don't forget: as the Netherlands has found out - as long as people can own their own homes or have reasonable rent, then all you need is a good pensions payout to live comfortable to the ends of your days. Here in the UK, the State Pension is very low so people need wealth to have comfortable retirements. Sweden has good pensions?
A large portion of German extra wealthy families are literal unpersecuted n4zis.
It honestly doesn’t make it much worse than already is, just to paint the picture more whole.
I think that's the case for almost all modern countries, the idea that such a small percentage of people own most of the wealth in a country, really shows how the current system we are living under isn't working, and maybe what we've been seeing over the last few years are the cracks starting to open up with people getting angry, protest voting and such, and personally, I think it's only going to get worse until governments start clamping down on the rich elites and big corporations.
What I mean by that, immigration and all the other complaining is really a sideshow to what the real problem is in society, from cost of living, inequality, housing being so expensive and so many other things like that, yet with all that, I get the impression that governments are blind to what's going on in western countries, so I expect things to get worse before the wake-up call kicks in, and the irony is, things getting worse will ironically hit the rich elites and corporations much harder in the long run, so if they are smart, they'll nip it in the bud and come back down to earth before the public gets really angry at how things are going, until then, enjoy the show and the potential revolution that could be on its way if they don't wake up.
Also, if you really want to thank anyone for why this is happening, you can thank the internet, as that is opening peoples eyes and exposing how screwed up the system is in favour of the rich elites and big corporations.
A percentage of our salary goes to pensions, but its not very much and almost nothing from the state. It's mostly private pensions. Our public pensions system is tied to inflation. @@danguee1
It honestly doesn't mean all that much.
Indicators of wealth inequality are almost always inherently flawed because they consider debt as negative wealth. As most persons either don't have any assets or have a negative balance (more debt than assets, think of very poor people like Donald Trump or someone who has just bought their first house with a mortgage), by construction only a small fraction of the population will show up as having any wealth. With the end result that that small fraction will appear to own a very large fraction of the country's total wealth.
As an example of the ways in which this is broken, if suddenly houses became more affordable in country X such that more people were able to buy them with mortgages, country x's wealth inequality would actually increase.
It's so baffling to me a 7 or so minute video explains the core problems of german politics, yet the german politcs cant seem to get their head around it
Politicians aren't going to fix a corrupt system that makes them rich.
Don't assume incompetence when corruption is the more viable/realistic option
@@SparSchwabe i absolutely agree, ITS BLATANT corruption when you remove Things Like inheritance tax or wealth tax. But democracy is too hard for people and Nobody wants to hear that theres structural Problems and we'd need to so structural changes
True
Politicians aren't as incompetent as people think. People need to realize that just because politicians get voted in by people doesn't mean they actually work FOR the people. As long as lobbyism exists and the rich are being catered to this will never change.
I live in Germany and my rent is 60% of my wage, and that's still reasonable compared to my friends who send about 70-75% of their wages to a multinational corporations like Vonovia for a rent. We are beyond fucked.
Thats pretty normal. In Russia you pay at least 60% and most have less than $150 per month for living.
Insane. I feel like I am just hearing this from everyone everywhere lately. That however is still an outlier. Luckily in my area its only about 50%, less with roommates and what now, which is fine until we start looking at having a family, which feels impossible.
And the requirements and applications for getting a building permit will depending on your local autority cost you your sanity and requiere a seemingly endless number of opinions of certified experts on several subjects. As if building a house or an appartment isn't hard enough already, its as if the government wants to keep people from building appartments.
Germany is over regulated. I'm not allowed to repair the roof of my house because the local autority has rejected my application for changing some shingles and pieces of wood in my roof. There's water running in, they don't give a shit. They say my roof repair is substantial for them to justify needing a building permit, which I won't get because I can't afford to set up a pond for the fireguards to take water from to extinguish a fire on my property because the community built the fire hydrant like 8 m too far from my property
Wait till you hear about Portugal☠️☠️☠️☠️
Really, I would not have thought it was that bad. Is the problem on the salary side? or both? How much do you pay for what size and where?
One special case Germany has is that after reunification people in former GDR had a lot less personal wealth than people from West Germany and the public wealth from the GDR was largely sold to people or companies private wealth from the west. Because there weren't any measures taken to redistribute wealth and wealth largely builds up over long periods of time that effect still plays a large role
Simply and beautifully explained :)
People from the GDR didn't pay any taxes, but still received retirement pensions after the reunification.
@@TheNurahh Yes, after quite some paperwork proving that you actually worked in the east at that time, getting (by comparison) less of a pension from it, even though since the unification, eastern german workers paid their taxes, in any kind, just as anybody else to the "western" state.
They sold the east to the west, instead of giving the east to easteners. Privatisation is Russia also was bad, but at least people got the houses and apartments they lived in for free, and got some money for state companies being sould.
Yeah would be interesting to see the rankings just from former West Germany
Are you telling me that an economy solely geared towards the top 5% doesn't last nor does it serve the majority of a country?
I'M SHOCKED!!!
Liberalism is a secularised form of Calvinism and Protestantism. All money and wealth must go to the church elders. All of it.
Did you even watch the video?
I live there and neither me or my friends are millionairs or billionaires. But we are all doing pretty well. I bet, that most countries would like to trade their problems with ours. This video is like most ... just fokusing on the points, that fit the agenada. There are poor in Germany, but Germans are not poor in general, as the headline suggests. At least you will not go bancrupt here, because you have to go to hospital and you will not go bancrupt, because your kids want to go to university.
@@tbk2010 Nah it was too long, can you give me the TLDR?
@@richymoto they're trying to console the British by pretending Germany is in the same kleptocratic mess we are in.
Because the cost of living is high, even with a high salary, it's not enough; in other words, purchasing power is very low.
Food is nowhere as cheap as in Germany
@@Ravachol71 This is not true we literally have the highest food prices out all our neighbours minus Switzerland and Luxemburg
I’m from Portugal, and currently in my girlfriend’s town in Turkey. I live in Germany and it’s by far the cheapest country I’ve been to except for Eastern European countries. Funny you say that but I drive to work everyday in my working class neighborhood in Thüringen and I always see brand new cars, you rarely see old cars in Germany.
Bro, in Austria we pay more than you. France and Spain the same. Australia and Canada are way more expensive
@@RafaelCosta-je8vn there you go. its because you live in thuringia.
I'm German, we have 3 problems:
Our salaries are high, but our deductions (not taxes, but "social contributions") are too high. If your employer pays you 6000€, you take home 3000€ - that's 50% deductions.
The first problem is our pension insurance, which is extremely inefficient and can't cope with an ageing population. This eats up around 18% of your salary - soon 22%.
The second problem is our health insurance, which is also extremely inefficient and can't cope with an ageing population. This eats up another 15% of your salary.
The third problem is income tax. As Germany only has a very low property tax - unlike the US and most other nations - it needs to have a crazy high income tax to make up for it. This eats up another 20% of your salary on average, but up to 45%.
One can clearly see how that cant work out. You are basically not working for yourself, you are working to subsidize old people.
your numbers are not correct for every tax bracket. What salary are you basing this on? For someone making 60K+ this should be like 12% pension insurance and more taxes. Deductions always eat 40 to 50% though.
@@dhidhi1000 Pension insurance is always fixed at 18% of your total wage (total wage is NOT brutto, brutto is a bit lower than total wage, netto is what you get after all deductions).
Income tax is the only thing that varies. Pension insurance is always 18% and health insurance is always 15%
it's called modern slavery
@@aymaneelassali1656
In Germany's case, the people are slaves to the state.
Yep it’s really sad. And the old people aren’t even grateful for it. Calling us nazis because unlike them we are somewhat patriotic. Or having nothing else to do the whole day except to stare at your apartment and find ways of critiquing your lifestyles
Fund the rich, tax the poor
Fund the wealthy, tax the worker
- germany 😅
and every other country on the globe ,work taxes should be lower , capital taxes should be higer!
Capitalism *
To declare wealth a secrete information and part of privacy is fine to me, as well as not taxing savings... but, c'mon, when it comes to income and property, they should be taxed accordingly.
exactly. also, if you are a rich banker, you can just commit fraud and financial crimes as much as you want. chances are slim that anyone is going to do anything about it. maybe even the chancellor will put in a good word for you... just don't do it if you are a small business owner. the finanzamt will destroy your life.
Tell me you’re a left wing populist without telling me that
I'd say, Germans often consider stocks too risky GIVEN THAT for most of us, there's not so much extra money left at the end of the month. If you have a lot of money left, it's less of a problem to partially use it for risky things.
Buying the market is basically guaranteed returns in the long-term, so I'd argue it isn't very risky.
@@chrisr4769 if you invest in the MSCI world and you know for sure, you won't need that money in the near future for at least 10 years or so, you're basically guaranteed a profit, yes. But that connects back to the fact that most people don't have that much money left over at the end of the month as I said.. and hence aren't ready to put their money somewhere where they can't access it instantly without the risk of loss.
So basically on PPP scale, Germans are paid abysmally low. E.g. if a testing engineer is paid 2200 Euro in Frankfurt, where CoL is 2000 Euro, he is basically on a SLAVE WAGE, as he is paid barely enough for an existence.
@@val-schaeffer1117CoL isnt 2000 in Frankfurt tho lmao
@@dudu28r81 Or yes it is. Maybe not in your ghetto WG in Höchst or Offenbach.
Everythings way too expensive these days. I'm a young guy but sill remember times when the prices of essential stuff like food were way lower, sometimes even half the cost of now
Saying Germany is expensive is hilarious when you’ve been to countries like the U.S., Canada, Australia, Switzerland or even the UK
@@afjo972 We earn less in germany and have less purchasing power, please inform yourself.
@@afjo972 You can't compare - different living costs, taxes, salaries and so on.
@@afjo972well we have no money to go those countries to see the prices
@@ajwad379 bro thats a huge lie, the living standart is as high as never in germany
You can remove "Germany" and put more or less any "rich" country in the titel.
Its the reason that is the reason all over the world. Its a system that is designed/working in favor for a small group of rich people. This wont significantly change until the system is changed.
I sadly don’t think we will ever see criticism of the wider economic system on this channel, it seems to be decidedly pro capitalist.
That is called capitalism
*until the physiology of the politicians perpetuating this system is changed in an irreversible way.
@@roundthoughts4644The European welfare states are sustained by the capitalist system. Without capitalism, Europe would not be able to survive, especially considering its reliance on exports and dependence on energy imports. The problem is idiotic, short-sighted energy policy, economic mismanagement and bungling of the migrant crisis by European leaders.
@@aenorist2431 I don’t think it’s about the politicians, depending on the leadership some of the issues of capitalism like economic crisis, unequalness and waste might be temporarly fought back, but in the end they always re-emerge, they are simply inherent to the capitalist system at large, and the logic that comes with it.
In Short:
Income tax for the middle class is too high
Or taxes on the rich(and corporations) are too low
@@jarnomon1comunist
@@redactedcomment709 Propaganda victim :*
@@redactedcomment709🫵😹
@@redactedcomment709that's not communism that's being reasonable
Morning:
Getting Ready (Utilities)
Electricity, Water, Heating: Utilities in Germany are subject to a value-added tax (VAT) of 19%. Whether you're turning on the lights, heating water for a shower, or using the internet, part of your bill is taxes.
Buying Breakfast (Grocery Store)
Food: Basic foodstuffs VAT rate of 7% - 19%.
Commuting (Public Transport, Car)
Fuel (Gasoline): If you drive to work, taxes play a big role in your fuel costs. The price of gasoline or diesel includes not only VAT (19%) but also energy taxes and eco-taxes.
Car Insurance: Car insurance is taxed at 19%.
Public Transport: If you use the bus or train VAT rate of 7%.
During the Day:
At Work (Income Tax, Social Security)
Income Tax (Einkommensteuer) and Social Security Contributions: 14% to 45%,depending on your income level. I dont get a great Salary and still pay 38% (its very fast to get the high tax rates)
Church Tax (Kirchensteuer): you can leave the church so its on you i guess lol
Lunch Break:
Eating Out (Restaurants)
Restaurants: If you grab lunch at a restaurant or café, you'll pay 19% VAT on your meal. Some takeaways or ready-to-eat items might be taxed at the reduced rate of 7% (depending on how they are consumed lol).
Afternoon Activities:
Shopping (Clothes, Electronics, etc.)
Consumer Goods: Whether you buy clothes, electronics, or household items, they are taxed at the full 19% VAT rate.
Insurance: If you pay for health, life, or property insurance, those premiums often include a specific tax depending on the type of insurance.
Entertainment (Cinema, Gym, etc.)
Leisure Activities: Going to the cinema, joining a gym, or buying concert tickets is subject to VAT at 19%. Some cultural services might have a reduced rate (like museums or books at 7%).
Evening:
Grocery Shopping (Supermarket)
Alcohol, Tobacco: If you buy beer, wine, cigarettes, or spirits, these products are heavily taxed. Alcohol is subject to VAT (19%) and alcohol excise taxes. Cigarettes and other tobacco products face high excise duties.
End of the Day:
Rent or Mortgage (Property-Related Taxes)
Property Taxes (Grundsteuer): If you own property, you pay an annual property tax, based on the value of the land.
Rental Payments: If you're renting, the landlord's property tax is often factored into the rental price.
Television/Radio (GEZ Fee)
Every household in Germany must pay the broadcasting fee (Rundfunkbeitrag), which is a flat monthly fee (currently around €18 or smth) to fund public broadcasters like ARD and ZDF. This is a fixed charge unrelated to how much you use these services. It also makes "Entertainment" Stuff that only a few thousand people watch but costs millions per episode. It build a new headquater with chairs that alone cost 2.000€ each. And you guessed it: they´re comlaining about having no money. They alone got 9 billion Euros last year from taxpayers... There are countrys with a smaller gdp than what they get. Some people just have no shame
So in conclusion:
You get to work they tax you
You work and they take up to half your salary.
You eat bread and drink water they tax you
You rent because you can't afford to buy a house so they tax you
You buy a house they tax you
you own it they tax you
you sell it they tax you
you give it to your kids they tax you
You save money in stocks they tax the dividents (from money you already paid taxes on when earning it hellooooo)
All of this while germanys retirement plan (which you pay like 300 - 400€ a month for) is collapsing and young generations know they are getting scammed out of a liveable income when they retire. Bridges literally collapse (carolabridge a few days ago) No School works properly, No public Transport works properly. There is just no way to build wealth in this country as a normal worker. When you buy a House, you get taxed less when being the countrys biggest Real Estate holder than a normal worker. Its insane. And the Government is fighting for month now where they can get even more money from because german efficiency is a joke now. All while they saying "this is the best germany of all times" in our faces and laughing at us. Yes there are good things coming out of these taxes like almost free university and going to the doctor without thinking about money but the negatives just get bigger year by year and they call you right wing for criticizing everything now. I just want my money better spent man...
Agreed !
Good comment ! 👍
But don't expect anything from TLDR !
Establishment mouthpieces who want to keep us poor !
Same as in other countries? Half of what you suggest is lowering taxes on wealth which would if anything exacerbate inequality further. If you want to cut taxes in Germany it should either be the VAT on basic and healthy food items (like the minister for agriculture suggested cutting the VAT for legumes to 0 % - which would be a good idea) or the income tax. Preferrably you would actually just raise the "Grundfreibetrag" (the ammount of tax free income - from any source, including capital income - you can have). This distributes the tax cut evenly across all tax payers while most systems that right-wing parties suggest usually give 90+ % of the tax cuts to the wealthiest people.
@@tobi2731 I'm with you there. The best tax cuts would be in everyday items like food, clothing and Energy. People with a low income would be helped especially as it's a big part of their Budget. I also see the Grundfreibetrag as a good tool to get people to keep some more of there money. When it comes to wealth, i would like to see some cuts to help people buy there own first home or buy there own first Apartment. Like tax cuts on the first home thats for self use and not to rent it out. Maybe cuts to the property tax outright or let the property tax begin low so people can focus in paying the loan more and let it rise slowly over the years to the original Tax rate. That would Help building wealth without targeting the already very wealthy too much imo. Right now its cheaper if you are a big housing company and thats wrong in my opinion.
@@deutscherrapblog7014 I take it we are not completely on opposing ends here but I still have some respectfull disagreements with you here. First of all one thing we left unmentioned is where to find the headroom for tax cuts. If you cut spending to give to private households (which have a tendency to save money) this has a further deflationary effect and I think we are already have a Japan style economic stagnation in the making in Europe (fuelled especially by Germany). This is maybe a bit abstract but if you look at the fiscal balances between the private sector (households and buisnesses), the public sector and trade balance it all adds up to zero, so at least one of them has to run a deficit. For Germany for the longest time it was the rest of the world (manifested in the trade surplus) but this looks less and less certain for the future and it was never sustainable to go like this forever anyway (basically France, UK and USA made a lot of the debt so the Germans could save). I think you could cut some taxes and debt-fund the tax cuts provided the argument is that it will stimulate demand in the right sectors (so for instance not create even more demand for housing, leading to a bigger housing bubble). However of course any ammount of debt above 3,5 % (or whatever excactly the consitution allows) would clash with current political orthodoxy. And I get that there are also other issues associated further down the line as we move closer to a state run command economy but I believe it's the only way to keep the ship afloat right now and if you look at France, China, USA, UK, India, Italy, Japan, etc. everyone operates like that (by running huge debt). It's just Germany that believes in cutting debt among the global big players.
I think home buyers tax incentive is misplaced. To have access to it you already have to be somewhat wealthy. It's a tax cut that systematically exlcudes the poorer section of society. I would say maybe a rebate only for appartments is okay because you can argue the social lopsidedness of it is offset by multifamily housing being a lot more sustainable than single family housing. I don't know if there are studies like that in the EU but what they find in the USA is that people in appartments subsidize those who live in single family homes as infrastructure costs are way higher for single family homes (so in reality the people in appartments should pay less taxes and the single family home ones more - but they all pay the same). This could also add demand for multi family home construction - which Germany really needs to get going. It lacks way behind all neighbouring countries. If you look at Denmark right now the market has completely shifted from single family to multifamily (over half of newly constructed units are multifamily) and they are building a lot. If you adjust for population Denmark would hit the 400.000 new homes yearly target that the SPD set - but Germany fails it spectacularly right now.
Also what I would do with the property tax is actually change it to a 100 % land value tax so that only the land value is taxed, not the home on top (Baden-Württemberg is actually doing that) and then increase it and pour all additional revenue into increasing the Grundfreibetrag so that it's "aufkommensneutral". The advantage of this is that such a tax actually incentivizes efficient use of land. So if you live in a self-owned appartment with 50 other people for instance, you pay just 1/50th of the property tax according to the share of land that belongs to you. If you occupy a big plot of valuable land alone (like a Villa in central Berlin), you pay a lot. How luxurious your interior or whatever is, is nobodys buisness then, just how valuable your land is. Estonia and Denmark do this but in my mind you could make this tax significantly higher (and then lower other taxes) to make it more efficient. Milton Friedmann once called a land value tax the least bad tax and I actually agree with him here.
@@tobi2731 what a load of BS.
DEFLATION?
what country are you living in and where do you go shopping ? , because it's clearly not Germany.
Yeah , just racking up huge debts , has worked so great in the past in German history , and the US , UK , France , Italy , Japan all don't have any significant problems whatsoever because of that.
A huge debt burdens the annual budget by large interest payments - money that doesn't buy literally anything , no infrastructure or services , just neutralizes ever increasing interest.
Talking like that , you are an agent of the banks.
Incentivize multi-family homes ? - way over 70% of the German population already live in cities ( urbanization rate ) , the vast majority ALREADY in multi family housing , mostly in tiny appartments.
What do you mean by " one guy living together with 50 other people in a self-owned appartment " ?
Real world example ?
Btw what imaginary "villas in central Berlin" are you talking about ?
Schloss Bellevue or Bundeskanzleramt ?
What's your take on the artificial population growth brought in from outside , that artificially increases housing demand , so the banks & real estate corporations flourish ?
What's your take on the exodus of academics and well educated in exchange for the unsophisticated in over 2 and a half decades now since 1998 , and the subsequent lowering of national median IQ ?
Beneficial to a high developed , knowledge & innovation based , value-added economy ?
Btw taxing property one already payed for ( with taxed income ) and got taxed through "Grunderwerbssteuer" ( real estate transaction tax ) - is at the very least - triple taxation , that clearly violates property rights.
P.S. nice try about slipping in that quote/reference at the end there , as if that would lend any credence to the BS.
What bugs me the most is that people confuse correlation with causation. Economics that correlate with poltics most often have the cause years in advance. A countries economy is like a containershit. Steering it takes ages.
Yup. So many people are completely unaware and will blame the current government for issues caused by the previous one or even the one before that. It is extremely annoying seeing people vote for the very same people who have caused the issues they complain about time and time again.
"containershit" 💩
containershit 😆
@@drdewott9154 Exactly. We now have to support asylum seekers and event their kids who came 2015. They are still here, do not work, but live, eat, sh..., go to school... We cannot get rid of them, they are the burden from the past...
Besides, having no wealth does not mean you are poor.... this whole video is not great
Like in the rest of europe, everyone forgot they needed to spend money to maintain good infrastructure and public services
Not everyone, but, I would say, those who promote neoliberal policies are rarely touched by their longterm-consequences. I think what we're bad at, though, is voting based on strategic interests rather than group-affiliation.
I wouldn't even say the rest of europe, neglect of infrastructure seems to be a nigh-global issue.
problem is the ideology that drives politics rn and the phenomena that laws to not vanish but accumulate and at the same time competence and decision making is crippled
Not even close. Like the rest of Europe they forgot that innovation drives the economy. Germany was putting out worse cars every year while Tesla was leading the EV revolution. Every India like that an old Europeans company lost the lead to an American or Asian company. Also to work hard has value is totally forgotten. Europes biggest pride is how little it works these days. Great for days off but bad for an economy.
Like the rest of Europe they forgot that innovations drive the economy. When the pride of your country is your government benefits and days off instead of the accomplishment you got from working hard it is over
The sad thing is that the discontent about this state of affairs is directed towards those who are even more vulnerable instead of those who caused and benefited from it.
You refer to Asylm seekers I guess. Well our pension funds, which we don´t get in the future are used to put people up.
Spaniards are wealthier than Germans because Franco built millions of houses for everybody so today almost every Spaniard is a proprietor. Of course you cannot say this...
As a German this topic makes me very sad. This problem has been known for a long time but strangely there is no political support from the larger voting population in Germany to reform the wealth or the inheritance tax. It's totally right what was stated in the video about the "Mittelstand" argument. Parties opposing these reforms just throw in the argument and people fear that Germany will loose it's economic power because of reforms. Funny enough people start to vote far right parties cause of inequality reasons although these parties don't have any plan to reform these taxes either. I still hope that in the next two years the problem will become so persistent as reforms will be inevitable... but let's see 😬
No only do the right-wing parties have no plans to fix inequality, they think inequality is a good thing. That's inherent to conservatism, after all.
The issue is that Mittelstand is often intentionally confused with family-owned. The Quandt-Klatten family owns 46.7% of BMW, but BMW is not the Mittelstand, it is a multinational gigacorporation and its owners by merit of inheritance are hoarding wealth like Smaug sitting on a mountain of gold. Conservative politicians argue in bad faith to protect that kind of people.
@@hammerth1421 thy even have their own lobby organisation named "family-owned companies trust", funded mostly big companies like Henkel, Merck (EMD) oder Conrad Electronics, telling everyone that taxing the rich or raising wealth taxes or fixing common tax loopholes (and so on) will hurt family owned companies. Sadly they are very influential.
bs
cant wait for more taxes to go to refugees
Ever since Germany's industry has become the no.1 in Europe (around 1900) this has been the case. Germany had a less developed consumer economy than Britain and France despite having a larger industry. Mass production only became a thing after WWII.
That wasn´t at 1900. It was around 800.
My guess is it's probably for the same reason Ireland, the UK and everywhere else is...
GNI vs GDP?
Dont tell that to those in the UK that blame BREXIT you might hurt their feelings.
taxes and migrants which get most of the money for decades and the whole world in a kickback scam.
@@slcainehmierz7681yes it's the migrants for sure.. not the rich and powerful siphoning off all the surplus 🙄
Europeans are just not as industrious as Americans and Asians. Those that are ambitious move to the USA to earn more and then move back to retire. You just can't make money in Europe with all the taxes and insane bureaucracy.
Germany is like a grumpy old man who refuses to spend despite being quite rich.
lol
The grumpy old man got
rich by working hard,
saving his money and
on a personal level
living frugally
Our Pension is a damn snowball System xD
Germany has this stupid „Schwarze Null“ (Black Zero)
Which means dont have a Surplus or minus at the end of the year so our Schools, public buildings, Infrastructure etc are degrading cause there is no Money at German didnt take Any Loan at the Low interest rate time….
Stupidity
@@here_we_go_again2571 and being bailed out by enemies turned friends after a bunch of really bad decisions
@@MrTohawkdon't mention the ***!
Either of them.
That Germany is rich is a big misconception for pp who don't or haven't lived in Germany. In Germany, mid-sized and large companies, the government/ politicians, and an elite class of ppl is reach - not the "normal" ppl or workers. Basically, the only way to attain wealth in Germany is by inheritance. This combined with ultra-low social mobility means nothing changes.
My dad as an immigrant who started with 0 at age 26 will retire with three homes.
As a Swede I'm in chock that we are in the leaderboard of elitism in Europe
You could change the name of this video to any major economy in Europe, especially the UK
Its less relevant for the uk because even though wealth inequality is still high between the bottom 10% and top 10%, median brits have around 2.3x the wealth ($163k vs c.$71k) of median germans so the issue is less relevant for brits than say income poverty in the bottom 10% which is quite high in Britain ... and actually its pretty much the same story for france, italy etc which all do quite well on median wealth despite much lower pre-tax incomes
Crazy how even after 34 years of reunification, East Germany is still much poorer than the west, that gives me no hope for North and South Korea
North Korea has far better demographics and also mineral resources, so that might not be as problematic.
Italy has been unified for more than 150 years, and the South is still poorer than the North. Some divides may never be bridged.
@@magivkmeister6166 But the divide isn't related to that, from what I understand. The divide started much later.
@@magivkmeister6166 I did a bus tour through Italy 15 years ago. The north-south devide was like night and day. The moment you went south of Rome, it was like being in a totally different country.
Not crazy...Back than when the wall came down in a discussion about reunification my whole class predicted that..and we where 14 years old.
Not great to see my country of Sweden to be at the very top of wealth inequality. That’s not what we used to be about.
This is wrong question. The correct one is: "Why are ALL so-called developed and democratic countries rich but their inhabitants so poor???"
Because the population is not poor, it just think that having a living standard far higher that anywhere in the world is not good enough for them.
@@zesky6654 thats not right. in germany as example one percent of germanys people owning one third of its wealth.
@@FAL87 Genie coefficients are 10% of population owning genie value rather than 1%. I am presuming you are talking about the genie values gited in the video tho.
the third world has even worse inqualities but i agree that great wealth has been siphoned aka stolen by elites.
As a German I have to say: One of your best videos ever! Thank you!
That's peak corruption in germany
Germany is very much a society where people prefer to "own nothing and be happy."
In election after election they vote to uphold social safety nets over the freedom to build wealth.
They also suffer from a bad case of climate hysteria where the people voted to get rid of their nuclear power plants.
It is not corruption. They voted for this. Germany made its bed and now they have to lay in it.
@@Novusod getting rid of old nuclear power plants (that needed massive investments to keep them running safely) and to go for more sustainable energy sources had nothing to do with climate change. and yeah, climate change is the most important challenge.
@@aboomination897 Coal isn't a more sustainable energy source 😂 they had to start up multiple lignite plants last winter to cope with the demand previously covered by clean, safe nuclear energy... Not to mention the amount of natural gas you are reliant on
@@Novusod that sounds like a neoliberal tirade par excellence. It's true people voted for this, but it is not necessarily true that some minor power plants (with not more than a few percent share in the total electricity production) and a social security net are the causes for this.
Imho it was explained perfectly in the video: It's simply a problem of wealth distribution, especially since so many people are part of the lower middleclass. Tax the rich!
And I wouldn't call it climate hysteria, given what happened in fukushima.
Germany has a huge Problem with lobbyism. Politicians have huge salaries and often no knowledge about their field of work. Another problems are elders we have way to many of them, and they have a big voting Power so no politician is trying to change anything about Our "Rentensystem"
Imagine letting in almost 2 million people and giving them social benefits from day 1 without any prior contributions. Over 70% of them don't work, they just chill at the expense of the German taxpayer. We call it: Bürgergeld & chill!
The problem is, that the systems are designed to hold people in their place, instead of letting them move up. And I do not speak about the education system, that it where it starts, though. It's like everywhere, retirees are catered too to the maximum, since they have the votes. The "working class" is protected, as long as they accept that they will barely, or moderately getting by, and will likely have severe problems when they retire - since what they pay into the systems now, is used up by the current retirees.
King are as always the people who's main "job" is to be someone who has inherited wealth. Especially since you pay much less taxes, if you let your invested money work, instead of working yourself. And most people pay these taxes anyway, because it is easy to avoid that, if you do not have inherited a real value producing business / company. In that case, you get taxed to death with the rest.
And then we have the people with high capabilities, and ambitions, who are stifled by bureaucracy, and are supposed to pay for most of the "tax party" with ridiculous rates, even if starting out.
They are supposed to innovate, and build businesses. But under these conditions, they just leave the country, and build somewhere else, where they actually have a chance for a fair risk / reward ratio in what they are doing.
And why wouldn't they, especially in the many digital occupations that would be needed badly to make Germany competitive again, but have no need to sit in Germany and to endure the system for that.
yes exactly, you said everything what i couldn't put in words. Germany is stuck for decades now and I see no initiative from anyone to at least try to change the system. I think especially young people are desperate and make questionable voting choices because of that. It's so sad to see because while I do not agree with this voiting choices myself, I understand why people may be inclined to vote the way they do. The truth is no matter who you will vote for in Germany, there is nothing that will change fundamentally and the parties that say they want things to change are just using populistic rhetoric but have no realistic plans...
I started a business a year ago and the amount of bullshit that was coming from politics to my business literally crushed my business and I fear that I can't repay my loan. Just for clarification I build an engineering firm that deals with sustainable heating and I was dependent on the government funds. Within a year they changed the funds more than I have a fingers and my business is about to go bankrupt, because the fund is only a third of what it used to be and that WITHIN A YEAR of business, for a couple of months we had no funds at all and we didn't even vote new or change the government in charge! I build my business on these funds and now I have to think of a whole new business model and I'm fcking tired of this shitshow called Germany. I was planning on getting pregnant, but I have to postpone that for atleast 2 years to figure out how to survive on peanuts and repay my firm loan while paying 25% more income tax on top of my salary as an employee just because I earn money to keep my business afloat. Maybe I won't survive this... at the moment I almost made black figures so far which is good for a business that is 1 year old, but it's going down significantly, because the government changes it's mind every two weeks about how much it wants or doesn't want to fund sustainable heating. It's like playing casino, it's unbelievable.
Wealth inequality is much like corruption. You can't eliminate it completely and below a certain level it's fine, but if it gets out of control it can bring a country down.
I think this has a lot to do with the unaffordability to own a house in Germany.
The unaffordablity of owning a house is the consequence of such a system.
Why Germany has a huge Wealth in total but most people are only left with Breadcrumbs? The short answer is: Late Stage Capitalism.
Communism is gay
@@Joker-no1uhDon't threaten people with good things
No. The answer is standard socialist fare.
It's not about Capitalism it's about tax rates, if anything Germany pretty socialist compared to countries like the US.
@@zjeee There is no such thing as "pretty socialist". Germany operates under capitalism. "Socialism is when taxes" is bs.
Germany - if you own a house that's probably the same price as a private jet.
I was shocked by the prices in Frankfurt. Normal homes selling for 3mln euros. An Indian fried was going back to Delhi, and we calculated that instead of buying that house you could have lived in a 5 stars hotel there for over 100 years
@@apc9714I'm gonna guess they were in fact NOT normal homes considering i just looked and found a great one for 500k in less than 2 pages. Sure thats still a lot but i dont know why you felt the need to lie about it
I suspect a lack of property ownership among the over 40s is a huge part of the problem. 20 years ago, property was cheap in most German cities, but at that time, few people in their 20s even considered buying property. Since then, property prices have risen astronomically everywhere, and in most of Europe except for Germany, there are a significant percentage of over 40s who bought property and now have a six figure net worth as a result, despite having modest incomes.
The majority of German over 40s missed out on this bonanza. They are looking at poverty in retirement, with most of their income eaten up by rising rents.
I.e.they are nearly as f**ked as Gen Z.
This. Doesn't make sense to be 'wealthy' as other nations but being cash poor and house rich.
I am a young adult from Germany and i want to thank you guys so much. All of the points you mentioned are so true and it is extremely frustrating to see all these problems (and the politicians who do nothing about it). And at the end of the day, these are the structural problems that weaken the center and help the far right win elections...
Reason Nr 1 is Migration by far
Isn’t the whole populist movement a result of the working class being squeezed economically?
And didn’t the working class having absolutely zero economic power contribute to the rise of fascism an populism in the 1930s?
the biggest single factor which caused the rise of fascism was the austerity politic in reaction to the great depression, which hurt lower incomes most
and economic stagnation or even downfall is what leads people to vote for extreme options with easy solutions, be it left or right
add some populists who point at immigrants/jews/unemployed/minorities and you have history reapting itself again and again and again
Not sure if it is actually _working class_ in the classical definition (people with jobs in factories / producing industry) vs. lower middle class people that are afraid of loosing out: Postworkers, Tellers, Cashiers, Backoffice people, Small business owners /struggling self-employed people (hairdressers etc.).
And interestingly, these people actually had a lot to do with what happened in the 1930s, whereas the _by definition_ working class was comparably staunchly communist/social democrat until the bitter end...
Lower-level service workers are working class, though, even if they don’t perform manual labor in the traditional sense. So cashiers, postworkers and stuff like that would be working class, whereas small business owners and self-employed people are more likely to be lower middle class.
I think lower middle class refers to those with a higher education, yet lower pay compared to upper middle class people.
@@LarthVUsually the scare of the Communist Revolution spreading to Germany is left out of the picture. Especially small business owners and farmers feared the worst as rumors about what happened to their Russian counterparts were spreading.
I think attributing the populist movements just to economic forces is false. Sure it plays a part, but the fact of the matter is that mass immigration is unpopular and is the main cause of the populist right's rise. No avoiding that fact.
We used to have low rents in Germany - especially in Berlin...being hip and liked has its dark side...rents exploded the past years.
one thing you do not adress is that the yellow part of traffic light is all about not spending. I hear a lot from teh german in teh rural area that they do not befeit from germany, they only have the german taxes but nothing from their taxes. and indeed, because of teh FDP saving spree, most of teh public services have disappeared from rural areas. and the eastern state of germany are more rural than the former west. these are the states where the youth flee to find a job somewhere else, there is nothing left there and people are not happy with the politics of saving them to poverty.
If half of german adults don't own property, they most likely pay a rent to another one.
If they both earn 4 000 € per month from working and the rent is 1 000 €, the one who owns property have in total 5000 € per month and the other 3000 €, which is already a wealth inequality of 40% between two germans who have the same salary. But a lot of germans prefer to pay a rent all their life and have a 80 K€ car
To be fair a large amount of people that "own property" really don't. They took a loan for that property and the bank is the true owner of the home until it's paid for which is usually around when it is time to retire.
You can't say the person owning property have 1000 more because they have to pay off that loan too. Even if you rent an apartment out your monthly loan payment will be higher than the rent you get for someone living there.
@@zjeee Even if you become owner with the money of the bank, you will still be able to get your loan spendings back if you decide to sell your house at the same price you bought it, which means that housing hasn't cost your anying appart from the interest rate of the loan. Here is where wealth become to stack up but for that you need to have a stable job and a pretty good faith into future which is not the case in germany since they are woke-ecologic-pessimistic for the most part
Assuming landlords work lol
If we compare EU vs US post 2008 the largest difference is the stability pact limiting government spending. US just does what it takes to make the economy grow.
It's counterintuitive, but to save Europe we need to spend significantly. You're not gonna get in front of this by saving money.
Just my 2 cents, thanks for the vid.
Europe is already spending a shitton of money on Poland and Hungary and losing tens of billions of Euro every year on them.
It depends what kind of spending. Investing in renewable energies, infrastructure, and R&D yes. But giving money away with no clear porpoise not.
@@fungo6631 Not on Poland. That county is catching up fast. And Hungary's money is cut everytime they get fined again.
@@fungo6631 The investment in Poland is working out though. And their investment in their own military is a good thing for all of Europe.
I've tried having this conversation with my friend who works at the EU. There is a total fear of debt and debt sharing here in the Netherlands. If i'm being honest, I don't understand it.
First question, does this take into account pension wealth (which is often ignored when it comes to wealth, Germany has good pensions generally speaking), and secondly I’d make the point that while many Germans do not own the houses they live in, protections for renters are quite strong, giving them a strong leg to stand on
Saving money equals wealth, not wealth inequality
everythings too expensive
Because of capitalism
What?! The entire German model that allowed it to become an industrial powerhouse is based on capitalism. Germany was built on capitalism, which also fuels its(and much of the EU's) welfare states. @@kenseitakesi4521
@@kenseitakesi4521 what are you a communist? LOL
Why every person who critizies capitalism is called communist? Communist countries do not exist anymore. China is very capitalist and in North Korea Kim family is on the dame level as god while communism should be atheist.
@@drscopeify Are you saying we cant improve our system? Maybe we can improve it so much even, that it is unrecognizable to what we see as capitalism today.
We spend around €1000 on groceries a month, which is about a third more than it was up to 2020. The inflation is not letting up and a lot of the industry is taking advantage of it - we know their earnings are also going up.
Germany imports poor people. These people rarely have skills that are needed in the German employment market. And then Germany taxes employees very heavily. It is hardly possible to achieve a certain level of wealth through work alone. That's why the German state is rich, but the citizens are not.
and then for no reason at all... people voted afd
Good bugz
I think your confusing the problem with the solution
@ RollerCoaster-ok7qw
"The Bell Curve" in action
Importing "poor" (uneducated
and unskilled) people only works
if:
1.) There are low-skill jobs for
them that also contribute to
the tax base (i.e. low-skill
factory jobs) -- Not owning a
business that contributes to
an underground economy or
living on the dole and spending
one's stipend to support that
underground economy)
2.) The social welfare state
is non-existent or very limited
3.) Personal taxation rates are
low (because there is no social
welfare state)
*In other words: Integrate,* [1]
*work hard, contribute to the*
*tax base or leave!*
(In other words, the USA in the
late 1800's/early 1900's.)
_______________________________
1.) INTEGRATE
Learn the language and integrate
in other ways such as learning
about the laws, etc.
@@Wertzuio what is afd platform in this regard. taxation and such?
the title "why is Germany rich and it's citizens poor" is slightly wrong. it should read "Germany is rich because it's citizens are poor". Germany is world champion in wage dumping for more than two decades now.
Germany is slowly becoming a third world country. I moved to Germany 9 years ago and the decline is insane. Thank God I left. I would live in Germany again only in a place without poor migrants around me and would never work for a German company or choose to be a tax resident in the country. Cologne has 'weapon-free zones', a lot of homelessness, poverty and open drug use like California. The most infuriating thing of all is that liberal left wing Germans deny all of this and say the only issues with the country are the AfD and climate change, it is beyond absurd.
das Hauptproblem ist Korruption und Nepotismus, das sage ich als moderner Mensch. Die AFD ist einfach nur der Bauernfänger, der besagtes Clientel wie Kaffeesatz einsammelt. Dich offensichtlich auch, zumal du deren Feindbild zu 100% erfüllst und als erster in den Flieger gesetzt werden würdest.
The percentage of the population holding equities is completely irrelevant, since only the top strata of income earners tend to make significant capital gains. A median salaried worker is not going to change his or life with the pittance of disposable income they have for investment; if you want people to have more wealth, then salary rises must outstrip inflation.
In Germany, more than half of wealth are generated by inheritance
That's not wealth generation, that's moving of wealth.
Good one. Wealth studies have come a long way. Thank you
Very high rent in germany and near impossible to buy anything.
50-70% of wages going only towards rent is not unusual at all.
The Boomers fucked us.
US boomers? are those rent conglomerates foreign or domestic? some of those have spread all over world, at least western world. Pension funds commonly also buy housing which ironically raises rents but promises to pay you pension 50 years from now.
you have high rent due to immigration. Supply and demand, there is more demand for houses than there is actual houses.
TOO EASY
the boomers created a lot of that wealth but the government fucked them a lot more than younger generations. Just a taste of the future that you are experiencing
Thanks for stating that. Nobody ever talks about the unequility of German. It's one of the most misunderstood concepts of the western world, that Germans are supposed to be wealthy. And when you know that 60% of your income goes into taxes, you might even better understand, that we are not happy with the government spending it on China, Peru and People that come here to live off of social security. The median german has not much and what he has is hard earned.
When the rich get richer, we all know what happens to the poor...
It's capitalism and lobbyists supporting the rich.
True. It's often overlooked how insanely powerful lobbyists of the car industry, housing industry and pharmaceutical industry are here. I remember a friend asking a local Bundestag representative of the CDU why there are so few busses running in the city and he openly admitted that he couldnt propose that because it would take less than 24 hours for BMW/Mercedes/VW lobbyists to show up at his office and demand that he retracts the peoposal.
Feels weird how many people in the comments believe that foolishness/laziness should have equal wealth to smartness/hard work.
yes, thank you. It's crazy right. I have a driving teacher in Germany who believes to his bone that somehow he is entitled to make enough money to buy a house. He probably never used his brain in his life from what I could tell from the conversations
Bruh its not about taxing a guy that work hard and smart and makes good money for that. Its about taxing guy from top that gets its money from manipulating prices of standard goods like food and housing. Look how big companies raised to power. There is no big company that didnt kill someone to do this or stole a lot of money from people
Yes, it's becoming an investors vs workers reality. In USA for example, many people made and are making a shitton of money from different boom periods, even during covid. Some of these people decided to make investments with the money they're earning into stocks, businesses, real estate and other options. Some did not. The gap is being astronomical now, between people who made investments and those that did not, almost 100x.
In Germany if you are poor or work in a job that is not well paid in other countries you can have a much better live because there is a lot of support and the minimum wage is not that bad. My boyfriend and I are both engineers and worked really hard. German School and University take ages so I only started working at almost 27 years old. My boyfriend was a year older because he had to do some internships to get a good job. we were both not slow or anything and were both among the very best students in our majors and so we both ended up with very good jobs for our age making us earn 70-85k each which is already top 10% of the population. After taxes it is maybe half. We still save a lot of money because we live in an old and tiny apartment, spend little money on food and usually go backpacking for vacation. Still, buying an apartment in our city seems impossible and we work a lot.if I want to get help for cleaning I have to pay the cleaning lady 17-20€ which almost is my hourly rate after taxes. Paying someone for helping out with future kids while working less seems impossible. And after al those taxes the prospectives for retirement are bad wo you have to additionally invest yourself. Without inheritance it just doesn't feel like you can work your way up in Germany. We both did everything right, we studied something in demand and were really good at it and got good jobs and work hard and earn well. With 30/32 we still barely have a down payment for an apartment and then there would be no money left to take a time of when we have kids. it would bot even be a fancy apartment just a simple one with 2-3 bedrooms.
I hate to be that immigrant who complains about their host country but... Germany is inconceivably inefficient. The year is 2024 and today, I sent a fax to my previous tax office to confirm that I have moved address within the jurisdiction of another tax office. It's the same city, just 20 minutes down the road. They do not share information with each other and so I had to complete a 30 page document explaining my 'new' economic activity to the next office. Furthermore, with inflation eating my salary, I had to take on a 2nd freelance job on top of my current salaried position. Due to the current tax rules, my 2nd minimum wage job is taxed at 50% as apparently, this combination of income types is not encouraged. It's also very unfair when it comes to maternity leave. As far as I'm aware, Women who work for themselves still get zero help from the government when their children are born. It's such a shame that this system is so rigid as it's an amazing country with incredible people.
You sent a fax? :D Your are really 120% integrated :))
Thank you for sharing.
Capitalism systematically favors the rich. You need progressive taxation, redistribution, and strong unions to counterbalance that and keep inequality from spiraling out of control. Once the countries of the West started dismantling their social safety nets and labor protections, the current situation was inevitable, and it will keep getting worse until we restore the "social" in "social democracy." But, alas, we seem to be steadily moving toward fascism instead, or fake-labor like in the UK.
@@MarianneExJohnson Be careful, calling for strong unions and a counterbalance to capital owners can be considered as dangerous bolshevik rhetoric nowadays.
literally almost every country in Europe (i would say all in western Europe) has progressive taxation and redistribution, with lots of money on welfare. Maybe the problem is the opposite, there is no more capitalism in Europe. Who has money does not invest anymore, better a beach somewhere
The reason is because people are literally taxed the most ever in history. Families decades ago could literally raise their family of 5 by just one parent having a job. Let's not ignore that before the 20th century there was the head tax. Most of the taxes today didn't exist before. That's what you sacrifice for progress. Even if you apply "progressive taxes" and "equity" you will just bring everyone down to the level of the poor but the billionaires would still be billionaires that's what you get for siding with bourgeoisie to abolish the monarchy, you just get oligarchy. Then this guy Marx made the "Utopian" delusion as he saw the oligarch problem with "democracy".
In Germany, we increased the spendings in our safety nets, it is our biggest spending theme, we haven't dismanteled our labour protections. What the hell are you talking about?
Communism is gay
What you missed is that before Corona, life in Germany was cheap that is why the majority was not really complaining beside the housing situation.
Now that we have become one of the most expensive country to live in, inequalities are exacerbated!
One thing that should be done is stocks revenues on sales or dividends should be tax free under 100K€ capital, this would drive more people to the stock market and will enable low income people to grow their savings. And I would tax the capital the same amount than income tax above lets say 200K€.
Today you pay 26% for capital and up above 40% in income tax depending on your revenue.
I don't agree or not entiery sure but for me worse is in the UK,they invested in costly green transformation
I like that you got out of your way to create a visual specifically for the german consitutional court judge at 4:13.
As a German living in London, I wonder if high real estate prices and ownership rates in the UK make it seem more equal wealth-wise but effectively people struggle to renovate and maintain their houses. In the UK a cottage where pipes freeze in winter can cost £1m whereas in Germany no one wants that and would cost half.
Thank you for speaking about this! I would give the video a superlike if I could. The salaries here in Germany are far too low for the costs of everything! I spoke with people from other countries on a wedding and they make less money but they also pay less for everything. It feels really bad. I spoke to a dentist who owns two buildings and multiple cars and travels a lot although making less them me and my colleagues here for example.
One of the main reasons for this is probably because home ownership is so low and so many Germans rent rather than owning their own home.
Because building ist so expensive. Too many regulations
That is simply not true. 84 percent of people wish to have his or her own real estate. We are simply forced to rent instead of owning our houses and flats due to astronomic high housing prices. Bigger cities have even reached a scenario where one whole minimim wage salary can not afford to rent a normal flat of the size for a family of 3.
Meanwhile here in France with a minimum wage you can’t afford a flat for a family of 1.
Of course you could argue that from both sides, home ownership is low because many Germans have so little wealth, and are unable to buy. Probably self reinforcing
@@ArturoSubutex I agree with that 100%. There are places in Germany where it‘s exactly the same, like in Berlin Munich Frankfurt or Cologne. I was just talking about bigger cities in general, in Germany that is every city above the population of 100 000 inhabitants.
It is significant that the prosperous federal states in Germany have or had a conservative government!
If you are part of the lower income class that has to work in an expensive city like Frankfurt and you need an apartment somewhere close to your working place,
then the rent will eat a lot of your earnings (after taxes and healthcare already ate a lot of it).
But the situation gets even more socially poisonous.
Reasonable priced apartments are in high demand and Landlords can decide who they give the apartment to,
now you as lower income worker that has to collect money yourself from month to month has to compete with a legal or illegal migrant that gets his apartment paid by the state.
The low income worker can go broke, the state does not.
You have to go to look an apply for apartments, the other one might even have a government worker do it for him.
You can see the social poison that spread here with MAYBE good intentions.
Whatever the plan behind this is, but it is intentional.
More and more of the native Germans seem to be upset with this situation as it can be seen in the polls.
If you really believe that "with a legal or illegal migrant that gets his apartment paid by the state" is the cause of the issues, then you deserve to earn a low income.
@@nm577 I never wrote that it is the cause of the issues.
@@mortallychallenged1436 But you implied that. Before you imply such unfounded ideas, ask yourself “What’s the percentage of foreigners in Germany, and what’s the percentage of these foreigners that relies on government help for housing? What’s the impact of this percentage on the German housing market?
The only way to find effective solutions is to be truthful and honest, not by blaming others.
@@nm577 I blamed the government for creating conditions that cause unfair competition on the housing market which then causes social tensions.
I did not imply that the migrants are at fault despite 47,3 percent (rougly 1.900.000) of Bürgergeld receivers are foreigners (despite being 15% of the population).
It was called unemployment money before
So much for "unfounded ideas".
To nail the the point deeper.
If you receive Bürgergeld you are ordered to live in a "reasonable" apartment which,
if you check the list(square meters and rent) for each city in Germany,
it means it is the apartments for low income people.
Why are you ordered to do so? Because the state pays your rent.
Now Bürgergeld is not the only form of support.
Then there is "Grundleistungen nach dem AsylbLG" for all those whos migrant status got rejected or is unclear, which also includes the rent and more.
Similar rules to Bürgergeld.
How many? estimated 3.100.000.
Both of these social programs are roughly 5.000.000 migrants.
These low income groups of foreigners are roughly 6% of the total population.
How much of the German population is low income? 16%.
So pretending that there isn't a problem because Redditards or the media propaganda machine told us so, is not helping the issue.
And the problem gets worse in bigger cities as this is the place where they are concentrated (which is why I gave Frankfurt as example).
As the rent prices then exploded our government introduced various changes via the "Mietpreisbremse" (a brake for the rent prices), somewhat dictating what a landlord can demand.
Didn't work because then the landlord offered apartments with furniture in it, for which they demanded rent for maintenance.
Also at some places landlord could not maintain buildings (repair, energy, taxes,...) with the price the government wanted to dictate.
Also it reduced the motivation for building of apartment complexes that would be suitable for low income people as the state dictates top quality apartments,
but the Landlord can't really benefit from it due dictated rent limits.
After this the government started to force migrants into smaller cities and villages with no support or programs to integrate them into society.
Which then caused problems as you can imagine.
Also the rent prices then went up there, supply and demand...
Migrants wanting a better life, I have no issue with that.
Low income native Germans wanting a better life, I have no issue with that.
Government creating toxic conditions, I have a problem with that.
You did not refer to the price controls on the apartments. which creates an increase in rental prices for apartments and a decrease in output. Housing prices in themselves create inequality.
Our economy is like a flailing fish, fighting for its life. The normal state of the U.S. economy is actually very bad. Because of this it goes into convulsive spasms fighting to grow any way it can out of desperation. Tricks, gimmicks, rule changes try to stimulate the economy and prevent it from falling but they only bring temporary relief to people since, when you factor in inflation we are declining.
People believe their currency has the worth it does because they have no other option. Even in a hyper inflationary environment, individuals must continue to use their hyper-inflationary currency since they likely have minimal access to other currencies or gold/silver coins.
Inflation is gradually going to become part of us and due to that fact any money you keep in cash or in a low-interest account declines in value each year. Investing is the only way to make your money grow and unless you have an exceptionally high income, investing is the only way most people will ever have enough money to retire.
How can i get started when it comes to investing and passive income?
Zachery M Demers is the licensed FA I work with, I can't speak much about him you should make a search with his name, you'd find the necessary details to schedule an appointment.
Only 111 upvotes? This is some Poundland-grade scam bot work.
So sad and true. Speaking as a German, even earning €100,000+ per year and being in the top 10% percent of earners, you can work hard your entire life and still only achieve average wealth. Without rich parents and inheriting money, owning a house or property is nearly impossible.
i ve been to berlin you can see it at first glance
In Germany, Nobody talks about COLD PROGRESSION: and a refusal by various governments to reform the tax code is another reason. Cold progression mean the effect that due to inflation, salaries rise nominally (abeit inadequate to cover inflation) but the tax code progressively levies higher tax loads on higher incomes, hence less and less of the extra money stays with the people. Example: in the 60s you needed to earn 19x times the basic cost of living to be in the highest tax bracket. Nowadays it is enough to earn double the average income to be labelled a ‘high earner’ and levied the max tax rate.
It's actually the opposite...
Germanys aggressive tax policies make it almost impossible to build wealth, while they literally have a working example in Switzerland on how to do it. Lower income taxes MASSIVELY, cut them in half frankly and abolish capital gains tax. Incentivize investments and re-introduce the wealth tax but cap it at like 0.5% at 10M or something.
Thank you, it is funny how the experts tend to ignore the obvious. I tried investing the tax and other charges on the profit I made was 30% and they are wondering why people dont invest.
Switzerland is what Germany should have been
@@samad4895 well these "experts" are usually politically motivated ,if one pays close attention.
they never advocate for economical freedom and property rights , only for more "redistribution".
Tells us everything we need to know about their agenda.
Unfortunately after a short phase , whithin the last 10 (?) the informational online space environment has been filled with these establishment propagandists so as to drown out the few early online low tax low debt advocates........
@@BennyDeeDev Germany was ahead of Switzerland until 1970... then well Germany was more Germany and basically is half of what it could be rn.
Ah yes, abolish the capital gains tax, the only one that doesn't take from the working poor
Not only do the yields on cash reduce real value but the taxes are nominal meaning you can pay capital gains in germany although you've become poorer. And with over 3 trillion euros in German savings accounts this is a lot a huge amount of wealth being lost to taxes and inflation
The metrics and countries Germany is being measured against are different. USA is more than 8 times Germany size. USA has never had world wars destroy the buildings and had to rebuild. Germany also is different because they are more cautious with their money. USA is a spending economy and it only does well if citizens spend all their money. Germany saves, I remember when I studied for a year in Germany and the way the banks handled accounts and the set up, told me that the country bases its economics on savings more so than spending.
The video is so great that I still haven't watched it. Just devouring the really lively comment section.
It is a real feast for someone who spends a lot of time on politics.
You can apply the same to the UK and Italy, probably all the world at this point.
I think the average Italian is richer than the average German. Home ownership also is very high in Italy and very low in Germany.
You can't grow an economy when you overtax workers and then use the money to bribe pensioners for votes
Well yes, but as mentioned in the video Germany is nearly last place in the OECD and less than 50% of Germans own houses(a lot of them still pay off their houses), while in Spain or Italy for instance something like 80 or 90% of ppl own their own houses. If you look on some statistics Germans are not in the richest but poorest of Europeans, as mentioned in the Video like 40% of Germans have basically 0€ in total whealty or in other words have loans or break even (in other countrys this class probably still owns housing, but in Germany housing is way too expensive or in regions without jobs).
Yes home ownership is a poor metric, Chinese home ownership is more than 90% but what people don't realize is YOU don't own your home if you are still paying off that loan, the bank does. The minute you cannot afford the loan payments anymore that home goes to the bank to be sold.
@@zjeee the problem is that Germans have also a much higher private debt than for example people in Italy. So the difference in home ownership is not associated to less private debt.
Very interesting, thanks. So much we need to improve on. Infrastructure being a main point. And there we have FDP Lindner not wanting to spend on anything.
The main problem is that people are voting against their own interests. Lower income taxes, higher (any) wealth taxes, higher financial transaction taxes (FTT), higher inheritance taxes... are usually center-left policies - but people vote for conservative or right-wing parties.
Because if you vote center left you get a whole lgbtqi+ and open borders package plus you are a nazi if you think streets should be clean and safe. So yeah...
Yeah because the left wing parties all come with the rotten policy of immigration or atleast low worth immigration
true, our education system isn't the best either, it's antiquated and classist. it's crazy how little my fellow germans know about taxes and stuff, how the state gets money. we aren't told in school. we only learn crap in school. i went to school 20 years ago, did my abitur, and most of the stuff i learned was pretty useless. they randomly infodump on you for 12/13 years, after which you are left to navigate the neoliberal hellscape by yourself. therefore, it's hard for a lot of germans to make informed political decisions. germans aren't smarter than say americans when it comes to politics. and even tho everyone seems obsessed about what happens with their taxes, they have no problem with the fact that a lot of rich people simply don't pay their share. they would rather s**t on the weak or unemployed and blame them for everything, as if it would start raining money if these people wouldn't exist.
@@warcrimeconnoisseur5238
With debt, inflation, higher crime, etc. as side-effects.
Capital tax is by far less common than capital gains tax, Germany is not the exception. Capital tax leads to liquidity issues for a large group of people for whom most of their assets are represented by the home they live in. Of course on the other side capital gains tax leads people to lock in the value of an asset by never selling it. So it's a trade-off between how much you want to force people to liquidate or invest assets. Recently the Netherlands has been changing tax laws because their capital gains tax was effectively a capital tax. So people who were trying to save up money saw their savings shrink each year, whereas people who invested paid almost no tax on the profits. Is it bad? It depends on what's the right balance between people's savings rate and investing back into the economy.
I completely agree
Hesse isn't rich it's Frankfurt which takes the average to extremely high numbers. Hesse itself is very poor if you go outside the Frankfurt area.
Ehm, not really. A lot of people from outside Frankfurt work their but life out of Frankfurt. Its not poor here.
Germany has become like Azerbaijan
Rich country but poor people
isn’t almost every country rich, but the people living in it are poor🤔
@@Hello-uk5xp True but you have to take the countries gdp / minimal wages in aswell as an example
Germanys GDP in 2022 4 trillion $
Romanias GDP in 2022 300 billion $
Germanys minimal wage (before taxes) 1.900€
Romanias minimal wage (before taxes) 740 €
now tell me how does Germany have an 12 - 13 times higher GDP but people here only get two and a half times more as in Romania eventhough cost of living in Germany is way higher then in Romania a country were almost everyone of its citizens say its one of the most corrupt countries in the world ?
@@Hello-uk5xp Sadly my detailed answer gets deleted by UA-cam but just compare GDP to minimal wages by countries
THANK you so much for this video, thats something nobody ever talks about
GrüneSpdFdpCduCsuAfD every party is neoliberal… that s the real problem since the 80s.
@@algorithm6360 since the dissolution of the ussr to be exact. before that you had to treat the working class well to avoid any kind of soviet sympathy. now you dont even have to look like you care for workers.
This
Real problem is people voting right not left. Then surprised pickachu face right is gibing the elites more money
No every mainstream party in Germany likes to tax and spend on Pensioners and immigrants who have children in other countries.and send our tax welfare money home (for example to Turkey)
We need AFD and BSW to take over and save this country from a economic death.
They're all socialist with the exception of the AfD and maybe the FDP . Socialism is Germany's biggest problem, actually they invented socialism. Even when they tried nationalism they called it national-SOCIALISM.
it is important to state, the german constitutional court did not rule out a wealth tax, only said properties and shares have to be viewed equally.
it theoretically could‘ve been healed, if the valuation basis for properties had been updated
Don´t forget germanys education system, after the age of 10 you are basically seperated into 3 different forms of school based on your "abilities". Ofcourse no one can seriously determine your abilities at that age and its basically a classicist system from the 20th century to seperate people based on their background and supposed function in society.
If you perform well in secondary, you can rank up, and vice versa. It's reasonable. I think many traditional German methods still work well, what makes them worst is their new mental state, their new lifestyles :))
In the 80s and 90s when we were going on holidays to Italy the German tourists always had the biggest cars compared to other European countries - Mercedes, BMW, Audis.
Because the Spitzenverdiener or top income begins at relatively low start. From 66.671 Euro the tax is 42%.
"Kalte Progression"
thats for taxable income, which is more like 80k income depending on family status
As an immigrant in Germany, I have always wondered why Germany does not have a sovereign wealth fund. All that austerity from constitutional break on deficit and the pension pot could have been invested in assets worldwide like Canada, Australia and the Middle eastern countries.
For example, an annualized return of 7% over a period of 20 years for a 300€ billion fund would have been enough to secure the living standards for a couple of generations. At least! There are enough bright and smart people in the country to generate that kind of return. Easily!
This risk averseness has done no one any good. By no one I mean the majority hard working tax payers.
Simply, too much taxes on income instead of wealth making it impossible to create wealth if you are part of the working class.
This is what is meant by "tax the rich."
@@shauncameron8390 And then what will happen? The rich will just take their money and move elsewhere. Just look at New York losing their wealthy residents to states like Florida due to their policies.
I would just prefer smaller government and less government spending = less money needed = lower taxes. Stop sending foreign aid, stop all these social programs, shrink the military, shrink government employees. Less money needed to run government, less need to overtax your citizens.
Do we really need to send all that aid money to foreign conflicts all over the world? Gaza, Israel, Ukraine etc.
I mean you know who to not vote for then. The only reason we dont have a wealth tax in the moment is because the CDU and FDP would block any attempt at reintroducing it. The tax was originally scrapped because wealth taxes are unconstitutional but rather because the one we had was preferential to individuals vs companies, it was never intended to be fully scrapped, but rather the state was supposed to remodel it. The CDU just refused and continues to refuse to do that.
@@kinalbrien6357 SPD has been part of the government for 22 of the last 26 years. If you want to blame someone - blame them.
@@dissect123 No, ill actually blame the people who were and are actually blocking a work over of our wealth tax. The CDU and FDP.
The "Abgeltungssteuer", the tax for Profits on Stocks and stuff is about 27 %. The tax for an "upper class" employee is 42 % at around 66k € a year. Oh, an the employee has to pay hefty social security too, where the state health insurance is usually far more expensive for less service than the private health insurance. If this doesn't explain anything wrong with the system, I don't know what will. This basically incentivize to get out of the lower-middle class asap and then ditch any kind of meaningful, productive work.
Let’s have the government seize all that wealth, and then spend or redistribute it. That has worked so well for all the other countries that tried it.
lets go full Venezuela!
Ikr! TLDR propagating full communism now lmao!
TLDR’s answer to everything
Very dim comment.
the german government already seizes the money and distributes it to the rich. during corona they spend millions of taxpayer euros on useless masks, and again, the minister ordering the masks and the guy selling the masks are good buddies. and then these were the wrong masks. not the first or last time millions of german taxpayer euros were wasted on nothing, except making a rich friend richer.
And here I thought, maybe it has something to do with German politicians openly talking about creating a low wage sector for the past 30 years. But no, it must be the lack of wealth tax.
“Criris” on the thumbnail
Because there were no Problems before?
@@Ceasar178Yeah exactly, this socialist doesn't know what hes talking about.
@@Ceasar178 my man I just pointed out a spelling mistake they had on their previous thumbnail, relax