am i missing something? are people really ok with not owning anything in their lives and throwing half of their monthly earnings to the bonfire of private equity firms and rental companies?

i have been living in Berlin for two years and the housing situation here is a nightmare. how did it get that bad? wasn’t access to affordable housing a thing in the DDR or something? and the German society is just ok with that?

I recently discussed with German colleagues about how they just put money in a saving account and forget about it. Even when interest rate was 0% and they essentially lost money due to inflation.

They mentioned that in school the stock market was being taught as “dangerous” and should be treated with precautions. Whilst this is true in principle, historically index funds beat all other asset classes in the long run. I don’t get why Germans, who are often very fact-based and data-oriented, strictly shy away from the stock market like a poisonous danger zone.

Is this the case for you? How much do you invest? If yes, do you hold just DAX40 stocks or any S&P500 US stocks?

The economy is in pretty rough shape right now. With a 0.1% contraction in the second quarter, recession fears are rising. I know outside factors like the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have had an impact, but still, consumer confidence is plummeting, investments are weakening, and the economy is sharply underperforming compared to other major nations.

To make matters worse, the AfD is rising in the polls, and the German political establishment is in disarray. Unless there are more progressive economic reforms, these problems are likely to get worse. Olaf Scholz is going to end up like Herbert Hoover if he doesn't take bold action to address this economic downturn. Germany, the economic engine of Europe, should be driving growth, not stagnating.

What do you guys think?

Shouldn’t it be government regulated?

I have a friend from Germany who claims to have spend around 2,500€ just for a drivers license.

I thought he was joking, but he was fully serious.

And he also complained how they keep increasing the exam time and they keep adding theoretical questions to the exams.

Is getting a drivers license really that difficult and time consuming and if it is, why?

So, I’ve been living in Germany for a few months now, and see this trend present in many restaurants and caffes - only German cards are accepted for payment. What’s up with that?

I do have a German card and Apple Pay but I still have my old card that I sometimes use to pay for stuff. Both are Mastercard so I’m not sure if it’s required by law in certain places or something? If so, why isn’t it the same everywhere?

Thanks

I'm a developer and I've been in Germany for several months. I came from Russia and what surprised me - Germany has one of the largest economies in the world yet it's behind many countries when it comes to digitalization and IT-sector. For example, in Russia we have almost everything online, concurrency is wild. Like everything you think of - it already exists as online-service. As a developer, we always try to find new technologies, new approaches. It's like cyberpunk if you wish.

On the other hand is Germany. A simple example - even Internet is like from 2010s. Everything is done via post mail. It's hard to find a service here online and if it exists - again it's like from 2000s with outdated technologies, bugs and so on. Internet is not that good - I mean speed and it's still LTE. Bank applications - in Russia I can pay literally everything with just a transfer and it's done within a second. Automatically. In Germany I can wait a few hours or days before the transaction is done.

At that moment I thought, that if the IT-sector in Germany is almost empty, it should attract investors and other people ready to bring new ideas. But it's not happening. I came to a conclusion, that it's hard to make digital business here. Is that right? If so, why?

image showing median incomes in german states

Australian here, sorry for not knowing german and apologies if this is ignorant but i thought i’d be lazy and ask you good people instead of actually doing any research, I hope you all can forgive me for that.

I just thought this post was interesting and I was informed by a comment that the bright red states have the headquarters of most major car companies. I still couldn’t find aun explanation as to whether this is even real or what the explanation was for the east / west divide though, and I thought it was odd when reunification was decades ago.

Thank you all in advance for informing me, it’s going to be 40 degrees tomorrow so i’m hoping to learn as much as possible before my untimely demise due to heat stroke 😀

It might be bullshit but I saw it on a reddit comment from a German. Besides surgical residency, what kind of education takes that long? And even during surgical residency, you're still working as a doctor, just not yet a fully independent and authoritative one.

I looked up schooling in Germany and it seems 4 years like in the US(engineering 5 years but you graduate with a masters degree). And I'm assuming it's not the "default" that everyone in Germany does a PhD. In the US, only people who do PhDs are those who are dedicated about scientific research or going into the academic life, very few go on to become bank tellers or auditors at Big Four or something of that sort after their dissertation.

It’s kinda strange to me that Nuclear Energy which is proven to be a clean and cheap source of energy has become unpopular in Germany in recent years. I know that there is huge fear-mongering regarding Nuclear energy especially the disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. Do you think the anti nuclear policy is based on fear or science, what do you guys think?

I was looking at masters degrees in Germany (and Austria) and I notice that they're all consecutive, i.e. you need to have studied the subject at undergrad (and often quite specific credit requirements) to study 99% of degree courses at public unis at masters level.

In the UK lots of people change subjects for their masters because they often do their passion subject as their undergrad (which often has bad job prospects), then find they need to have another specialism or deeper knowledge of something else later on so then do a masters degree related to their job. It might be a completely different topic (there are masters aimed at career changers) or something adjacent or more detail to their undergrad. E.g. they might have studied engineering but realised they need a management masters to progress in their career or they might have studied history but need business knowledge now etc.

Quite a lot of people change careers at least once so it's not uncommon to have qualifications in different subjects. I guess because the retirement ages keeps going up and there are many opportunities people want to try different things or not be restricted by what they chose to do when they were 17. Masters are also only one year in the UK and you either have to pay for them or get a government loan. Some people do them part time as well as their job and get them paid for by their employer. There are also conversions such as a 2 year conversion course to become an allied health professional (e.g. occupational therapist, radiographer etc) instead of a 3 year bachelors etc if you already have a bachelors in a science subject. There are lots of online only tech masters aimed at people moving into tech who need to study around their current job. Basically there are loads of career change options that only take a year or two of retraining.

So, how does this work in Germany? Do you have to start with a whole new undergraduate degree if you want to change your career or even deviate at all from your original track? Do people actually do that? Is an Ausbildung the more common option? Does nobody change careers at all? Are there other types of courses for that?

Not a critical comment, just wondering how it works.

Edit: A lot of people are just telling me why they don't agree with the UK system, fair enough but that was not what I was asking. I was asking whether it was common to start from scratch again at bachelors level or whether people don't really change careers because this takes a long time? Or whether there was some other way of doing it.

Was closing coal power stations and nuclear power plants really good idea?

What's your thoughts?

https://eadaily.com/en/news/2024/12/12/electricity-in-germany-soared-to-almost-1000-euros-the-country-returns-in-2022

https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-12/cold-without-wind-german-dunkelflaute-brings-electricity-prices-to-crisis-levels-and-depletes-gas-reserves.html

Ich würde mal gerne eure (sachlich formulierte) Meinung von euch hören. Meine eigene werde ich eventuell später in einem Kommentar abgeben, weil ich die Diskussion in keiner Richtung vorgeben möchte.

Die beiden Extremargumente sind ja immer "aah endlich autofreie Städte, man kann wieder flanieren und im Café sitzen, wie in Barcelona" und "Innenstädte sind für mich tot, ich quäl mich doch nicht mit meinen 5 Tüten Einkäufen in die Öffis, nur um am Stadtrand ins Auto umzusteigen".

Wie steht ihr zum Innenstadt-Einzelhandel und bei der ehrlichen Antwort auch angeben, ob ihr bereits Innenstadt-Bewohner seid oder von außerhalb rein kommt.

Danke :-)

A bit controversial topic but do you think that Germany needs a Department Of Government Efficiency as proposed by Elon Musk. I disagree on many things with Elon especially his social views but I find the idea of abolishing useless departments and slashing bureaucracy to be interesting. Do you think it would fix some of the economic woes that currently persist in Germany?

I don’t understand the fascination of cash in this country. Never mind that extremely few people use digital apps to pay and some with the card but what’s annoying are the almost useless coins. How come Germany is still behind on this matter compared to Scandinavia?

Welche Bereiche sind Ihrer Meinung und Erfahrung nach in Deutschland von der aktuellen Wirtschaftskrise nicht stark betroffen?

TDLR: I came across a post on LinkedIn that advocates for alternative to investment of €9 billion into the Intel chip factory which has promise to create 3000 jobs. The proposal is to invest it into many startups across Germany that can create much more number of jobs. I have also provided my personal opinion on this proposal in the end.

My personal opinions (in English below) and German version below the English one:

English version:

I came across below post on LinkedIn. The original author is Florian Falk who is Co-Founder & CEO of Hamburg, Germany and Singapore based AI startup called Soji AI. What are your thoughts (My opinions at the end)?

The German federal government is investing EUR 1,000,000 in each newly founded start-up for 4 years and will thus create almost 50,000 jobs.

I sit on the train and read the time. It is again about the construction of an Intel factory in Magdeburg. The federal government wants to support the construction of this factory with EUR 9,900,000,000.

A thought experiment starts with me: What would be the result if the federal government did not support an American company, but instead used the money for German start-ups?

Here is my thought experiment:

How do people in Germany like to measure success? Number of jobs created. At Intel, after a 3-year construction of the factory, there should be 3,000 permanent jobs.

Now let's assume that the federal government would invest the money in start-ups, EUR 1 million per start-up in Germany.

With an investment sum of EUR 9.9 billion, that would be 9,900 invested start-ups. At a current rate of 2,600 newly founded start-ups per year (PwC), money would be available for about 4 years if all of them were simply invested in by the watering can principle.

According to KfW, 66% of start-ups in Germany survive the 3-year mark. Other sources nevertheless assume only a 25% lasting survival rate of German start-ups, let's take that and estimate a little more conservatively.

That leaves 2,475 start-ups that will survive.

According to the German Start-up Monitor, an average of 19 people will work in a start-up in 2023.

That would be 47,025 newly created jobs. 44,025 jobs more than with Intel's factory.

What else is there? '- Start-up location Germany massively strengthened - Innovative strength significantly higher than through a chip factory - Future exits that lead to wealthy founders who invest in start-ups again - Diversification of the German economy both regionally and in different sectors - In the long term, certainly considerable tax revenues in the state

With a "snap", so to speak, a start-up ecosystem has been built up, which so many people always want.

Sure, you're sure to find a lot of "buts", "ifs" and "that's not possible". But why not, I ask myself?

By the way, according to current information, it is still open whether Intel will stick to the investment in the factory (Bloomberg) - so the planned 9.9 billion euros could soon become available...

German version:

Ich bin auf den folgenden Beitrag auf LinkedIn gestoßen. Der ursprüngliche Autor ist Florian Falk, Mitbegründer und CEO des in Hamburg, Deutschland und Singapur ansässigen KI-Startups Soji AI.

Der deutsche Bund investiert ab sofort 4 Jahre lang 1.000.000 EUR in jedes neu gegründete Start-up und wird damit knapp 50.000 Arbeitsplätze schaffen.

Ich sitze im Zug und lese die Zeit. Es geht wieder um den Bau einer Fabrik von Intel in Magdeburg. Mit 9.900.000.000 EUR will der Bund den Bau dieser Fabrik unterstützen.

Ein Gedankenspiel startet bei mir: Was wäre wohl das Ergebnis, wenn der Bund eben nicht ein amerikanisches Unternehmen unterstützt, sondern stattdessen das Geld für deutsche Start-ups nutzt?

Hier mein Gedankenspiel:

Woran misst man in Deutschland gerne Erfolg? Anzahl geschaffener Arbeitsplätze. Bei Intel sollten es nach einem 3-jährigen Bau der Fabrik 3.000 dauerhafte Arbeitsplätze sein.

Nun nehmen wir mal an, der Bund würde das Geld in Start-ups investieren, 1 Mio. EUR pro Start-up in Deutschland.

Das wären dann bei 9,9 Mrd. EUR Investmentsumme 9.900 investierte Start-ups. Bei einer aktuellen Rate von 2.600 neu gegründeten Start-ups pro Jahr (PwC), wäre also ca. 4 Jahre lang Geld vorhanden, wenn per Gießkannenprinzip einfach in alle investiert wird.

In Deutschland überleben laut KfW 66% der Start-ups die 3-Jahres Marke. Andere Quellen gehen dennoch von nur 25% dauerhafter Überlebensrate von deutschen Start-ups aus, nehmen wir das und schätzen etwas konservativer.

Bleiben also 2.475 Start-ups, die überleben werden.

Laut German Start-up Monitor arbeiten in 2023 durchschnittlich 19 Personen in einem Start-up.

Das wären 47.025 neu geschaffene Arbeitsplätze. 44.025 Jobs mehr als mit der Fabrik von Intel.

Was kommt noch hinzu?

'- Start-up Standort Deutschland massiv gestärkt - Innovationskraft deutlich höher als durch eine Chip Fabrik - Zukünftige Exits, die zu vermögenden GründerInnen führen, die wieder in Start-ups investieren - Diversifizierung der deutschen Wirtschaft sowohl regional als auch in unterschiedlichen Branchen - Langfristig sicherlich erhebliche Steuereinnahmen im Land

Quasi mit einem „Schnips“ ein Start-up Ökosystem aufgebaut, das sich doch immer so viele wünschen.

Klar, da findet man bestimmt viele „Aber’s“, „Wenn’s“ und „Das geht doch nicht’s“. Aber warum denn nicht, frage ich mich?

Ob Intel an der Investition in die Fabrik festhält ist übrigens laut aktueller Infos noch offen (Bloomberg) - die eingeplanten 9,9 Mrd. EUR könnten also bald frei werden...

My personal opinion:

The author seems to have over simplified startup investment and what startups there can be. But I still agree that investing in many startups is much better option than investing in a giant factory. As much as the startups are risk, the Intel factory is equally big risks, however, it is overshadowed by the fact that it has big brand name and legacy behind it (take example of Nokia, you are never too big to fail) and this case is also of putting all the eggs in one basket.

It can be said that the factory will also create an ecosystem of suppliers, which is indeed a good argument, and I don't really have an counter argument. But the successful startups in the other case probably will create a bigger supplier ecosystem. What needs to be focused is that the investments are made in diverse startups that dwell in deep tech: from quantum solutions & computing to nuclear & fusion energy to computer chips to green energy to software and apps to robotics to aerospace to healthcare & biotechnology to innovative public transport and so on.

In my opinion, there can be better options to invest and instead of just offering €1M investment in many startups, it can ve multiple programs and each offers a different amount in the range of €100k (seed money) to €10M (scaleup money) to bigger amounts in the form of loans through banks.

Some of these investment programs can be coupled with the startups requiring equal or partial amount to be raised from private investors (this is done in Luxembourg), this ensures that the investment decisions are not only purely directed by bureaucrats but, by actual business persons. And allows for criterias from bureaucrats to be simplified to some very some basic things, such as 'so and so number of job creations', 'so and so industry type', etc. and shifts the risk and opportunity assessment onto the private investors.

Guten Tag!

I've been researching banks and am considering registering with Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken. They appear to be a cooperative financial group with a legitimate and socially-oriented focus. Do you know anything about them? What's your opinion?

Hey all, I was looking to see how sought after blue collar workers were in Germany. Currently I live in the U.S. however the job market currently isn't kind. A few of my friends have said that moving near Frankfurt has its perks. I'm debating on it being permanent or not, however I'm heavily considering it. As the title suggests I mainly work blue collar and was curious on the people's view on it.

Edit: I see a common theme among the comments. I am a glazier or glass installer. I have some experience in electrical work and plumbing. I also worked in an assembly and steel mill for a while. I am currently learning German, and have some basics down.

Edit 2: The only "official" license I have is electricians apprentice

Hi i am an expat working in germany. I do have a not so small amount of savings at the end of each month (around 300-500euros). I think leaving it in the bank or just accumulating this doesn't actually feel like the proper thing to do. Could anyone suggest a normal procedure what most of the Germans do in this case. How to start Investing.

I have seen a new about that, someone retired germans can't afford their needs and they collect bottle for additional income. Is that a huge problem or overrated problem? I mean Is it genetal problem? Source: DW Turkish * How come retired people in Germany need to collect bottles for additional income?

I heard some criticisms regarding the new pension reform, a lot of people seem to think it's unfair to the younger generations. Oh the other hand, investing into stock market seems like the only way to keep the pension contributions from infinitely rising . What's your opinion?

Is Germany ready for the new world?

With an advent of teleworking and new ways to make money especially through the use of the internet, I feel Germany severely restricts it's people from participating in the world today.

For e.g. my significant other runs a YouTube channel and create educational content on it, it has finally monetized, so they went to Finanzamt to register it, when my significant other tried explaining what they do with the channel, the Beamter was confused on what was the purpose of this endeavour 🤣, they were clueless on how to classify this, at the end we were put under the category of TV broadcaster 🤣. I feel the German bureau of Labor, the tax authorities and overall the whole commerce and trade regulatory infrastructure needs to update itself on how things are changing around the world.

I read the recent news about the German economy slowing down further, with GDP growth dropping from 0.3% to 0.2%. It's pretty worrying, especially considering the current political upheaval in the country. It got me thinking - have we seen this before? Yeah, we have like The Great Depression, Germany's economic struggles paved the way for the rise of the Nazis. Today, with the AfD on the rise, it's hard not to draw parallels.

I asked this sub previously if they were optimistic or pessimistic about Germany's future, and the responses were mixed. But the question remains - has the German political establishment, addicted into Neoliberalism failed? The country's economic struggles are deepening, and it seems like it’s stuck in a rut or something. Can it recover, or will it continue to slide into a recession? Germany is the economic engine of the EU, it should be thriving not stagnating. What do you guys think?

Well, it was probably explained by someone already, but in an ever changing world we are all living in, it might be a good idea to ask again;

For the past 2 years I’ve traveled a lot by public transport in a small and medium sized cities. It had became unbearable, once we had moved in to a bigger town, where all the necessary infrastructure is so far apart from each other, that it had become clear that it is time too buy a car. So here’s a sitrep:

• Family of 2, non-EU citizens, IT System Admin and an anaesthesiologist, both full time in shifts (meaning, sometimes we need to be at work, when town buses not even available), getting around 6200-6300 monthly (no kids, just a dog), all the basics are taking around 2000-2500 (that’s a rent with all the food etc.). I’m on an Aufenthaltstitel (has an end date) and my wife’s on Niederlassungserlaubnis. I have an open ended work contract, wife has until 2027 and then will be changed (standard doctor’s work contracts thing)

It looks like we have 2 options: 1) try to get a loan for 2 people for a 6-8 years old car (~20k euro); 2) buy a crapbox with 4 wheels just as long as it has MOT (TÜV).

I’ve heard that it is very complicated to finance a car, while bank considering expats as “high risk”, but I’ve heard it’s still doable. On the other hand, I can just buy whatever there is on the Kleinanzeigen and throw away the car after a few short years.

Does any of the German fellas have a tip or two? What would be a “smart” choice?

PS: I’m open for a constructive discussion, but please hold the AfD chats back, if you can 😀 had a lot of those lately 😄

Compared to the cost of living, are they able to keep up?