> It is free money for everyone. Everyone obviously excluding the people who work full-time and who are paying taxes so that "everyone" can live of Bürgergeld.
Oh wow, the exact thing people have been saying would happen has happened. Turn's out Quasi-UBI is a drain on tax paying citizens after all. Amazing.
German here, our country is broken beyond recognition due to 40 years of terrible political decisions independent of party or political side.
I cannot even name one thing that is not broken beyond belief. The conservative government has added the debt ceiling to our Constitution requiring a 2/3 vote to change it, thereby making investments like the Inflation Reduction Act in the US utterly impossible. However, they are needed for dozens of reasons, not just the collapsing infrastructure which will directly impact our economy.
Conservatives, Greens, Liberals and Social Democrats have all completely failed at running this country for 40+ years. Russian-supported fascists AfD are obviously not an alternative.
We are coasting on the gains, relationships and industries established before 1990. This is where our standing and wealth comes from and we are simply riding on that high until it pops.
I can go deeply into all of the troubles but Ill keep it simple: the state of the military is entirely representative of the state of ALL other sectors. That should be relatable to non-Germans. I am not exaggerating for karma, my deepest worry is the condition of the real estate / housing market. This is material for a complete shit show, it honestly scares me.
>We are coasting on the gains, relationships and industries established before 1990. This is where our standing and wealth comes from and we are simply riding on that high until it pops.
And more and more of that is either going bankrupt or is being outsourced to China. Whole sectors are step by step becoming non-competitive. Manufacturing, which has been the most important wealth generator for the lower middle class, is going away. Engineering is only relevant if you can innovate, which for many, many reason doesn't really happen. In Germany a very experienced Software developer makes a pittance compared to what you can in the US with much less experience, even before taxes.
Of course it doesn't really help that much of the population is not particularly inclined to do anything engineering/scientific/manufacturing related and actively looks down on that.
>my deepest worry is the condition of the real estate / housing market
Honestly, I am "optimistic" that multiple big manufacturers will fail before that, together with their suppliers.
> I cannot even name one thing that is not broken beyond belief. The conservative government has added the debt ceiling to our Constitution requiring a 2/3 vote to change it
Good. You'd see a government without this restriction spend more money on pension benefits faster than you'd think possible.
> thereby making investments like the Inflation Reduction Act in the US utterly impossible
This is not true. Germany has a spending problem, not a tax income problem. Never before have we had as much taxes in the Governments pockets as we do now.
Oh wow, the exact thing people have been saying would happen has happened. Turn's out Quasi-UBI is a drain on tax paying citizens after all. Amazing.