Andy has obviously not been to Germany. I have lived in Munich for 15 years. There is no levelling up. If politicians tell you, they are lying. Most if not all German politicians, are selfserving and do not care about the people. You can be a patriot if you come from Ukraine (1.5m have) but if you are German patriot you are called a nazi. I helped 8 old people during the pandemic in Munich. They worked 70 years but their pension is €600. Around the corner from us 2 ex boardmembers of the Landesbank receive €25.000 per month although they dumped about 10bn of bad debt on the German people. Politicians are in for the money. Period. European Parliament is even worse. But the UK has the same problem.
I have been to Germany (as an American):
Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Erlangen (Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, St, Anton, Lech).
Have I seen all of Germany? Of course not! Who has?
The reality is that East Germany is much better thanks to unification.
All in all it has been a great success.
I have been to Germany (as an American): Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Erlangen (Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, St, Anton, Lech).
On $10 a day? God be with the days.
I met an American in Munich once and he wanted to know if he was in Germany or Austria!
I have been to Germany (as an American): Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Erlangen (Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, St, Anton, Lech).
On $10 a day? God be with the days.
I met an American in Munich once and he wanted to know if he was in Germany or Austria!
I would second that. I have often been surprised by the sudden changes you see as you travel through Germany. And it’s not just in the East…I remember a couple of years back a distinctly pot-holed and weed covered autobahn up in the NW.
I have been to Germany (as an American):
Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Erlangen (Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, St, Anton, Lech).
Have I seen all of Germany? Of course not! Who has?
The reality is that East Germany is much better thanks to unification.
All in all it has been a great success.
I would second that. I have often been surprised by the sudden changes you see as you travel through Germany. And it’s not just in the East…I remember a couple of years back a distinctly pot-holed and weed covered autobahn up in the NW.
Funnily enough Patriots are called Nazis in all the other western nations as well.
R Meinen
1 year ago
Andy has obviously not been to Germany. I have lived in Munich for 15 years. There is no levelling up. If politicians tell you, they are lying. Most if not all German politicians, are selfserving and do not care about the people. You can be a patriot if you come from Ukraine (1.5m have) but if you are German patriot you are called a nazi. I helped 8 old people during the pandemic in Munich. They worked 70 years but their pension is €600. Around the corner from us 2 ex boardmembers of the Landesbank receive €25.000 per month although they dumped about 10bn of bad debt on the German people. Politicians are in for the money. Period. European Parliament is even worse. But the UK has the same problem.
Roger Inkpen
1 year ago
A rather defeatist article. No, Britain is not Germany. But today’s Germany is not the West Germany is was for 40 years before taking on the economic basket case in the east.
The author will have seen Berlin before reunification – a shining temple to capitalism, beautifully kept and spotlessly clean. Even then of course it was sucking money from the west, but German prosperity isn’t really built on richer parts contributing to poorer parts.
Of course we have that with London generating most of the wealth and sharing it around the land. But that’s not working, with or without ‘levelling up’. What we need is a stronger sense of ownership within those poorer regions. Give them the chance to set their own taxes, like VAT, and set levels of public sector pay that reflect local living costs, not always keeping up with more expensive parts.
That needs strong, accountable, democratic institutions devolved from Westminster.
Or should we just muddle on?
Just after reunification I was working for a West German company.
Like many in that period, their objective was to buy up East German companies and use them to branch out into all ex-soviet territories — the East German employees all spoke Russian and understood the ex-Soviet territories.
I suspect many East German factories closed down simply because their new owners were not interested in their production. They wanted the office workers to be their Eastern European branch office, and the blue collar workers to make service networks.
This did pay off. Germany quickly dominated the whole Eastern European marketplace.
East German factories closed because the new managements would have had to pay BMW wages to workers building Trabants. The output of East German factories was only marketable in East Europe and even then only until those markets started to buy Western and Asian products. To pay West German wages companies needed to produce Western standard goods in factories equipped with the same machinery as Western factories.
East German factories closed because the new managements would have had to pay BMW wages to workers building Trabants. The output of East German factories was only marketable in East Europe and even then only until those markets started to buy Western and Asian products. To pay West German wages companies needed to produce Western standard goods in factories equipped with the same machinery as Western factories.
I always thought your suggestion is a brilliant idea. When the Wall came down and money was pouring into East Germany, I wondered why they couldn‘t lower taxes and make business regulations easier to settle there. Nowadays the leftwing/green chaotic City of Berlin is sucking in money from successfully governed Conservative “Länder”. We can also see the same happening in the US. Thousands of middle and smaller companies are leaving California to settle in Tennessee, Texas or Florida, because of their business friendly environment and taxes. This in my opinion would be the real levelling up. Many Americans cynically call California a Socialist Republic with their high income taxes, business unfriendly red tapes as Governor Newsom and many Mayors of major cities seem to come up monthly with “brilliant” new socialist concepts. Latest one is to charge big companies “exit taxes”, who want to leave the State, and the council of San Francisco wants to pay every Afro American a million in Reparations.
There is no clearer argument for the U.S. voters in the 2024 election, which will likely be between the governor of California (D) and the governor of Florida (R).
Over the last several years, the former had the largest number of people leave the state and the latter had the largest number of people moving into the state. People have already voted with their feet. At this rate, California will need to build a wall to keep people in.
There is no clearer argument for the U.S. voters in the 2024 election, which will likely be between the governor of California (D) and the governor of Florida (R).
Over the last several years, the former had the largest number of people leave the state and the latter had the largest number of people moving into the state. People have already voted with their feet. At this rate, California will need to build a wall to keep people in.
Just after reunification I was working for a West German company.
Like many in that period, their objective was to buy up East German companies and use them to branch out into all ex-soviet territories — the East German employees all spoke Russian and understood the ex-Soviet territories.
I suspect many East German factories closed down simply because their new owners were not interested in their production. They wanted the office workers to be their Eastern European branch office, and the blue collar workers to make service networks.
This did pay off. Germany quickly dominated the whole Eastern European marketplace.
I always thought your suggestion is a brilliant idea. When the Wall came down and money was pouring into East Germany, I wondered why they couldn‘t lower taxes and make business regulations easier to settle there. Nowadays the leftwing/green chaotic City of Berlin is sucking in money from successfully governed Conservative “Länder”. We can also see the same happening in the US. Thousands of middle and smaller companies are leaving California to settle in Tennessee, Texas or Florida, because of their business friendly environment and taxes. This in my opinion would be the real levelling up. Many Americans cynically call California a Socialist Republic with their high income taxes, business unfriendly red tapes as Governor Newsom and many Mayors of major cities seem to come up monthly with “brilliant” new socialist concepts. Latest one is to charge big companies “exit taxes”, who want to leave the State, and the council of San Francisco wants to pay every Afro American a million in Reparations.
Last edited 1 year ago by Stephanie Surface
Roger Inkpen
1 year ago
A rather defeatist article. No, Britain is not Germany. But today’s Germany is not the West Germany is was for 40 years before taking on the economic basket case in the east.
The author will have seen Berlin before reunification – a shining temple to capitalism, beautifully kept and spotlessly clean. Even then of course it was sucking money from the west, but German prosperity isn’t really built on richer parts contributing to poorer parts.
Of course we have that with London generating most of the wealth and sharing it around the land. But that’s not working, with or without ‘levelling up’. What we need is a stronger sense of ownership within those poorer regions. Give them the chance to set their own taxes, like VAT, and set levels of public sector pay that reflect local living costs, not always keeping up with more expensive parts.
That needs strong, accountable, democratic institutions devolved from Westminster.
Or should we just muddle on?
SIMON WOLF
1 year ago
Any Brit who has ever followed their soccer team to an away European match will tell you Germany is the best country for organising soccer matches for away fans.The worst region is Southern Italy.
SIMON WOLF
1 year ago
Any Brit who has ever followed their soccer team to an away European match will tell you Germany is the best country for organising soccer matches for away fans.The worst region is Southern Italy.
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago
Read “The American Occupation of Germany” by Peterson. Turns out the Yankee occupiers were Clue Less, so the Germans rebuilt their politics and their nation based on pre-1933 ideas.
Then one fine day in 1948, Ludwig Erhard told the Yankee occupiers that he was going to reform the currency and the economy, and the Yanks said, er, well, OK then.
Poor bloody Germans.
Christopher Chantrill
1 year ago
Read “The American Occupation of Germany” by Peterson. Turns out the Yankee occupiers were Clue Less, so the Germans rebuilt their politics and their nation based on pre-1933 ideas.
Then one fine day in 1948, Ludwig Erhard told the Yankee occupiers that he was going to reform the currency and the economy, and the Yanks said, er, well, OK then.
Poor bloody Germans.
Galvatron Stephens
1 year ago
German reunification has completely failed. The West resents the taxes and the East resents the loser status.
Galvatron Stephens
1 year ago
German reunification has completely failed. The West resents the taxes and the East resents the loser status.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Germany is a ghastly place: I once spent 3 weeks there, and within 2 days I was aching to get back…..
I’ve spent a lot of time in Germany for work, and whilst I agree I would not imagine going there for a holiday, the Germans themselves do like it!
It has all the right things, much of it is very neat, you would tick lots of boxes if you were into that sort of thing. And yet it somehow seems that German character is all about being…character less!
I remember a joke I was once told in French: If you tell an Italian what a nice garden they have, they’ll say ‘yes, we like to keep it nice so we can eat out here in the summer’. If you tell a French person what a nice garden they have, they will point out the best places to make love on a summer evening. If you tell a German what a nice garden they have, they’ll use it as an excuse to spend half an hour explaining why German gardens are so much better than other European gardens.
They take a pride in being neat, tidy and orderly. Whatever floats your boat…
Which are some of the qualities needed for for advanced high quality high value manufacturing. California State Government can afford to enact high taxation policies at present because the state has so many high tech companies with high profit margins. How long the high value companies paying high wages will stay in California is debatable.
Which are some of the qualities needed for for advanced high quality high value manufacturing. California State Government can afford to enact high taxation policies at present because the state has so many high tech companies with high profit margins. How long the high value companies paying high wages will stay in California is debatable.
What’s the purpose of the constant German bashing on this site? I have a German mom, French dad and an American husband. I’ve spent the majority of my life outside of Germany. 10 years in Paris and 22 and counting in the US – Chicago, Seattle, now Boston. Currently I’m in Hamburg and think that the quality of life here is higher than in the US, even though I’ve always lived in affluent parts of the respective American cities. Germany feels cleaner, safer, better maintained, high quality is standard (e.g. everyone drives a BMW, Audi or Mercedes, every home has Bosch appliances, all brands that are considered luxury in the US but are standard here). And the food quality, i.e. the quality of groceries and produce is also much superior to the US. I only buy expensive organic stuff in the US and still the quality absolutely sucks. What’s up with that?
I really have to say that after 22 years, I’m sick and tired of living in America, sick and tired of the dilapidated buildings right outside the expensive neighborhoods I’ve called home. We are paying horrendously high property taxes to live right next to a slum. America is depressing and frightening, the violence and poverty is everywhere, even in well-to-do areas it’s right beneath the surface or just a short distance away. There is something very wrong with the soul of America that I find extremely disturbing.
Yes, I agree that there is something extremely disturbing about the soul of America. IMO, it’s due to the decades long lurch to the Godless left, which will turn America into East Germany some day.
Any orgnisation or country ends up being controlled by the weakest links. In Germany it is the defeatist submisssive mentality towards Russia.In the USA the low level of numeracy( in the bottom third schools), literacy and absence of the self discipline needed to achieve a painstaking attention to detail, an eye for quality, precision and accuracy required for advanced manufacturing. America appears to lurch from a Prussian style discipline to a complete lack of it : what is missing is resilient self discipline and an attitude of ” If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well”.
What appears to be a massive influence in Americ post 1960s is crass materialism, a worship of Mammon which undermines the eye for quality. Quanity is not quality.
Compare American and German cars and white goods. In the 1960s and 1970s many German cars were often lumpen, lacking elan. However, from the late 1970s styling and quality greatly improved.
Any orgnisation or country ends up being controlled by the weakest links. In Germany it is the defeatist submisssive mentality towards Russia.In the USA the low level of numeracy( in the bottom third schools), literacy and absence of the self discipline needed to achieve a painstaking attention to detail, an eye for quality, precision and accuracy required for advanced manufacturing. America appears to lurch from a Prussian style discipline to a complete lack of it : what is missing is resilient self discipline and an attitude of ” If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well”.
What appears to be a massive influence in Americ post 1960s is crass materialism, a worship of Mammon which undermines the eye for quality. Quanity is not quality.
Compare American and German cars and white goods. In the 1960s and 1970s many German cars were often lumpen, lacking elan. However, from the late 1970s styling and quality greatly improved.
Yes, I agree that there is something extremely disturbing about the soul of America. IMO, it’s due to the decades long lurch to the Godless left, which will turn America into East Germany some day.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Germany for work, and whilst I agree I would not imagine going there for a holiday, the Germans themselves do like it!
It has all the right things, much of it is very neat, you would tick lots of boxes if you were into that sort of thing. And yet it somehow seems that German character is all about being…character less!
I remember a joke I was once told in French: If you tell an Italian what a nice garden they have, they’ll say ‘yes, we like to keep it nice so we can eat out here in the summer’. If you tell a French person what a nice garden they have, they will point out the best places to make love on a summer evening. If you tell a German what a nice garden they have, they’ll use it as an excuse to spend half an hour explaining why German gardens are so much better than other European gardens.
They take a pride in being neat, tidy and orderly. Whatever floats your boat…
What’s the purpose of the constant German bashing on this site? I have a German mom, French dad and an American husband. I’ve spent the majority of my life outside of Germany. 10 years in Paris and 22 and counting in the US – Chicago, Seattle, now Boston. Currently I’m in Hamburg and think that the quality of life here is higher than in the US, even though I’ve always lived in affluent parts of the respective American cities. Germany feels cleaner, safer, better maintained, high quality is standard (e.g. everyone drives a BMW, Audi or Mercedes, every home has Bosch appliances, all brands that are considered luxury in the US but are standard here). And the food quality, i.e. the quality of groceries and produce is also much superior to the US. I only buy expensive organic stuff in the US and still the quality absolutely sucks. What’s up with that?
I really have to say that after 22 years, I’m sick and tired of living in America, sick and tired of the dilapidated buildings right outside the expensive neighborhoods I’ve called home. We are paying horrendously high property taxes to live right next to a slum. America is depressing and frightening, the violence and poverty is everywhere, even in well-to-do areas it’s right beneath the surface or just a short distance away. There is something very wrong with the soul of America that I find extremely disturbing.
Nicky Samengo-Turner
1 year ago
Germany is a ghastly place: I once spent 3 weeks there, and within 2 days I was aching to get back…..
Andy has obviously not been to Germany. I have lived in Munich for 15 years. There is no levelling up. If politicians tell you, they are lying. Most if not all German politicians, are selfserving and do not care about the people. You can be a patriot if you come from Ukraine (1.5m have) but if you are German patriot you are called a nazi. I helped 8 old people during the pandemic in Munich. They worked 70 years but their pension is €600. Around the corner from us 2 ex boardmembers of the Landesbank receive €25.000 per month although they dumped about 10bn of bad debt on the German people. Politicians are in for the money. Period. European Parliament is even worse. But the UK has the same problem.
I have been to Germany (as an American):
Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Erlangen (Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, St, Anton, Lech).
Have I seen all of Germany? Of course not! Who has?
The reality is that East Germany is much better thanks to unification.
All in all it has been a great success.
I have been to Germany (as an American): Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Erlangen (Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, St, Anton, Lech).
On $10 a day? God be with the days.
I met an American in Munich once and he wanted to know if he was in Germany or Austria!
I have been to Germany (as an American): Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Erlangen (Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, St, Anton, Lech).
On $10 a day? God be with the days.
I met an American in Munich once and he wanted to know if he was in Germany or Austria!
I would second that. I have often been surprised by the sudden changes you see as you travel through Germany. And it’s not just in the East…I remember a couple of years back a distinctly pot-holed and weed covered autobahn up in the NW.
Funnily enough Patriots are called Nazis in all the other western nations as well.
I have been to Germany (as an American):
Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz, Erlangen (Vienna, Salzburg, Innsbruck, St, Anton, Lech).
Have I seen all of Germany? Of course not! Who has?
The reality is that East Germany is much better thanks to unification.
All in all it has been a great success.
I would second that. I have often been surprised by the sudden changes you see as you travel through Germany. And it’s not just in the East…I remember a couple of years back a distinctly pot-holed and weed covered autobahn up in the NW.
Funnily enough Patriots are called Nazis in all the other western nations as well.
Andy has obviously not been to Germany. I have lived in Munich for 15 years. There is no levelling up. If politicians tell you, they are lying. Most if not all German politicians, are selfserving and do not care about the people. You can be a patriot if you come from Ukraine (1.5m have) but if you are German patriot you are called a nazi. I helped 8 old people during the pandemic in Munich. They worked 70 years but their pension is €600. Around the corner from us 2 ex boardmembers of the Landesbank receive €25.000 per month although they dumped about 10bn of bad debt on the German people. Politicians are in for the money. Period. European Parliament is even worse. But the UK has the same problem.
A rather defeatist article. No, Britain is not Germany. But today’s Germany is not the West Germany is was for 40 years before taking on the economic basket case in the east.
The author will have seen Berlin before reunification – a shining temple to capitalism, beautifully kept and spotlessly clean. Even then of course it was sucking money from the west, but German prosperity isn’t really built on richer parts contributing to poorer parts.
Of course we have that with London generating most of the wealth and sharing it around the land. But that’s not working, with or without ‘levelling up’. What we need is a stronger sense of ownership within those poorer regions. Give them the chance to set their own taxes, like VAT, and set levels of public sector pay that reflect local living costs, not always keeping up with more expensive parts.
That needs strong, accountable, democratic institutions devolved from Westminster.
Or should we just muddle on?
Levelling up will cost real money, and not gov papers about Florence or Jericho.
Just after reunification I was working for a West German company.
Like many in that period, their objective was to buy up East German companies and use them to branch out into all ex-soviet territories — the East German employees all spoke Russian and understood the ex-Soviet territories.
I suspect many East German factories closed down simply because their new owners were not interested in their production. They wanted the office workers to be their Eastern European branch office, and the blue collar workers to make service networks.
This did pay off. Germany quickly dominated the whole Eastern European marketplace.
East German factories closed because the new managements would have had to pay BMW wages to workers building Trabants. The output of East German factories was only marketable in East Europe and even then only until those markets started to buy Western and Asian products. To pay West German wages companies needed to produce Western standard goods in factories equipped with the same machinery as Western factories.
Sounds like another one of those inconvenient facts.
Sounds like another one of those inconvenient facts.
East German factories closed because the new managements would have had to pay BMW wages to workers building Trabants. The output of East German factories was only marketable in East Europe and even then only until those markets started to buy Western and Asian products. To pay West German wages companies needed to produce Western standard goods in factories equipped with the same machinery as Western factories.
I always thought your suggestion is a brilliant idea. When the Wall came down and money was pouring into East Germany, I wondered why they couldn‘t lower taxes and make business regulations easier to settle there. Nowadays the leftwing/green chaotic City of Berlin is sucking in money from successfully governed Conservative “Länder”. We can also see the same happening in the US. Thousands of middle and smaller companies are leaving California to settle in Tennessee, Texas or Florida, because of their business friendly environment and taxes. This in my opinion would be the real levelling up. Many Americans cynically call California a Socialist Republic with their high income taxes, business unfriendly red tapes as Governor Newsom and many Mayors of major cities seem to come up monthly with “brilliant” new socialist concepts. Latest one is to charge big companies “exit taxes”, who want to leave the State, and the council of San Francisco wants to pay every Afro American a million in Reparations.
They are proposing $5 million
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/us/san-francisco-reparations-proposal-reaj/index.html
There is no clearer argument for the U.S. voters in the 2024 election, which will likely be between the governor of California (D) and the governor of Florida (R).
Over the last several years, the former had the largest number of people leave the state and the latter had the largest number of people moving into the state. People have already voted with their feet. At this rate, California will need to build a wall to keep people in.
They are proposing $5 million
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/19/us/san-francisco-reparations-proposal-reaj/index.html
There is no clearer argument for the U.S. voters in the 2024 election, which will likely be between the governor of California (D) and the governor of Florida (R).
Over the last several years, the former had the largest number of people leave the state and the latter had the largest number of people moving into the state. People have already voted with their feet. At this rate, California will need to build a wall to keep people in.
Levelling up will cost real money, and not gov papers about Florence or Jericho.
Just after reunification I was working for a West German company.
Like many in that period, their objective was to buy up East German companies and use them to branch out into all ex-soviet territories — the East German employees all spoke Russian and understood the ex-Soviet territories.
I suspect many East German factories closed down simply because their new owners were not interested in their production. They wanted the office workers to be their Eastern European branch office, and the blue collar workers to make service networks.
This did pay off. Germany quickly dominated the whole Eastern European marketplace.
I always thought your suggestion is a brilliant idea. When the Wall came down and money was pouring into East Germany, I wondered why they couldn‘t lower taxes and make business regulations easier to settle there. Nowadays the leftwing/green chaotic City of Berlin is sucking in money from successfully governed Conservative “Länder”. We can also see the same happening in the US. Thousands of middle and smaller companies are leaving California to settle in Tennessee, Texas or Florida, because of their business friendly environment and taxes. This in my opinion would be the real levelling up. Many Americans cynically call California a Socialist Republic with their high income taxes, business unfriendly red tapes as Governor Newsom and many Mayors of major cities seem to come up monthly with “brilliant” new socialist concepts. Latest one is to charge big companies “exit taxes”, who want to leave the State, and the council of San Francisco wants to pay every Afro American a million in Reparations.
A rather defeatist article. No, Britain is not Germany. But today’s Germany is not the West Germany is was for 40 years before taking on the economic basket case in the east.
The author will have seen Berlin before reunification – a shining temple to capitalism, beautifully kept and spotlessly clean. Even then of course it was sucking money from the west, but German prosperity isn’t really built on richer parts contributing to poorer parts.
Of course we have that with London generating most of the wealth and sharing it around the land. But that’s not working, with or without ‘levelling up’. What we need is a stronger sense of ownership within those poorer regions. Give them the chance to set their own taxes, like VAT, and set levels of public sector pay that reflect local living costs, not always keeping up with more expensive parts.
That needs strong, accountable, democratic institutions devolved from Westminster.
Or should we just muddle on?
Any Brit who has ever followed their soccer team to an away European match will tell you Germany is the best country for organising soccer matches for away fans.The worst region is Southern Italy.
Any Brit who has ever followed their soccer team to an away European match will tell you Germany is the best country for organising soccer matches for away fans.The worst region is Southern Italy.
Read “The American Occupation of Germany” by Peterson. Turns out the Yankee occupiers were Clue Less, so the Germans rebuilt their politics and their nation based on pre-1933 ideas.
Then one fine day in 1948, Ludwig Erhard told the Yankee occupiers that he was going to reform the currency and the economy, and the Yanks said, er, well, OK then.
Poor bloody Germans.
Read “The American Occupation of Germany” by Peterson. Turns out the Yankee occupiers were Clue Less, so the Germans rebuilt their politics and their nation based on pre-1933 ideas.
Then one fine day in 1948, Ludwig Erhard told the Yankee occupiers that he was going to reform the currency and the economy, and the Yanks said, er, well, OK then.
Poor bloody Germans.
German reunification has completely failed. The West resents the taxes and the East resents the loser status.
German reunification has completely failed. The West resents the taxes and the East resents the loser status.
Germany is a ghastly place: I once spent 3 weeks there, and within 2 days I was aching to get back…..
I’ve spent a lot of time in Germany for work, and whilst I agree I would not imagine going there for a holiday, the Germans themselves do like it!
It has all the right things, much of it is very neat, you would tick lots of boxes if you were into that sort of thing. And yet it somehow seems that German character is all about being…character less!
I remember a joke I was once told in French: If you tell an Italian what a nice garden they have, they’ll say ‘yes, we like to keep it nice so we can eat out here in the summer’. If you tell a French person what a nice garden they have, they will point out the best places to make love on a summer evening. If you tell a German what a nice garden they have, they’ll use it as an excuse to spend half an hour explaining why German gardens are so much better than other European gardens.
They take a pride in being neat, tidy and orderly. Whatever floats your boat…
Hmmm, stereotyping after a few months of work there?
Which are some of the qualities needed for for advanced high quality high value manufacturing. California State Government can afford to enact high taxation policies at present because the state has so many high tech companies with high profit margins. How long the high value companies paying high wages will stay in California is debatable.
Hmmm, stereotyping after a few months of work there?
Which are some of the qualities needed for for advanced high quality high value manufacturing. California State Government can afford to enact high taxation policies at present because the state has so many high tech companies with high profit margins. How long the high value companies paying high wages will stay in California is debatable.
After 3 weeks of course it is enough time to know a country and her population.
What’s the purpose of the constant German bashing on this site? I have a German mom, French dad and an American husband. I’ve spent the majority of my life outside of Germany. 10 years in Paris and 22 and counting in the US – Chicago, Seattle, now Boston. Currently I’m in Hamburg and think that the quality of life here is higher than in the US, even though I’ve always lived in affluent parts of the respective American cities. Germany feels cleaner, safer, better maintained, high quality is standard (e.g. everyone drives a BMW, Audi or Mercedes, every home has Bosch appliances, all brands that are considered luxury in the US but are standard here). And the food quality, i.e. the quality of groceries and produce is also much superior to the US. I only buy expensive organic stuff in the US and still the quality absolutely sucks. What’s up with that?
I really have to say that after 22 years, I’m sick and tired of living in America, sick and tired of the dilapidated buildings right outside the expensive neighborhoods I’ve called home. We are paying horrendously high property taxes to live right next to a slum. America is depressing and frightening, the violence and poverty is everywhere, even in well-to-do areas it’s right beneath the surface or just a short distance away. There is something very wrong with the soul of America that I find extremely disturbing.
Yes, I agree that there is something extremely disturbing about the soul of America. IMO, it’s due to the decades long lurch to the Godless left, which will turn America into East Germany some day.
Any orgnisation or country ends up being controlled by the weakest links. In Germany it is the defeatist submisssive mentality towards Russia.In the USA the low level of numeracy( in the bottom third schools), literacy and absence of the self discipline needed to achieve a painstaking attention to detail, an eye for quality, precision and accuracy required for advanced manufacturing. America appears to lurch from a Prussian style discipline to a complete lack of it : what is missing is resilient self discipline and an attitude of ” If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well”.
What appears to be a massive influence in Americ post 1960s is crass materialism, a worship of Mammon which undermines the eye for quality. Quanity is not quality.
Compare American and German cars and white goods. In the 1960s and 1970s many German cars were often lumpen, lacking elan. However, from the late 1970s styling and quality greatly improved.
Any orgnisation or country ends up being controlled by the weakest links. In Germany it is the defeatist submisssive mentality towards Russia.In the USA the low level of numeracy( in the bottom third schools), literacy and absence of the self discipline needed to achieve a painstaking attention to detail, an eye for quality, precision and accuracy required for advanced manufacturing. America appears to lurch from a Prussian style discipline to a complete lack of it : what is missing is resilient self discipline and an attitude of ” If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well”.
What appears to be a massive influence in Americ post 1960s is crass materialism, a worship of Mammon which undermines the eye for quality. Quanity is not quality.
Compare American and German cars and white goods. In the 1960s and 1970s many German cars were often lumpen, lacking elan. However, from the late 1970s styling and quality greatly improved.
Maybe you need to get out of the cities and into the country.
Yes, I agree that there is something extremely disturbing about the soul of America. IMO, it’s due to the decades long lurch to the Godless left, which will turn America into East Germany some day.
Maybe you need to get out of the cities and into the country.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Germany for work, and whilst I agree I would not imagine going there for a holiday, the Germans themselves do like it!
It has all the right things, much of it is very neat, you would tick lots of boxes if you were into that sort of thing. And yet it somehow seems that German character is all about being…character less!
I remember a joke I was once told in French: If you tell an Italian what a nice garden they have, they’ll say ‘yes, we like to keep it nice so we can eat out here in the summer’. If you tell a French person what a nice garden they have, they will point out the best places to make love on a summer evening. If you tell a German what a nice garden they have, they’ll use it as an excuse to spend half an hour explaining why German gardens are so much better than other European gardens.
They take a pride in being neat, tidy and orderly. Whatever floats your boat…
After 3 weeks of course it is enough time to know a country and her population.
What’s the purpose of the constant German bashing on this site? I have a German mom, French dad and an American husband. I’ve spent the majority of my life outside of Germany. 10 years in Paris and 22 and counting in the US – Chicago, Seattle, now Boston. Currently I’m in Hamburg and think that the quality of life here is higher than in the US, even though I’ve always lived in affluent parts of the respective American cities. Germany feels cleaner, safer, better maintained, high quality is standard (e.g. everyone drives a BMW, Audi or Mercedes, every home has Bosch appliances, all brands that are considered luxury in the US but are standard here). And the food quality, i.e. the quality of groceries and produce is also much superior to the US. I only buy expensive organic stuff in the US and still the quality absolutely sucks. What’s up with that?
I really have to say that after 22 years, I’m sick and tired of living in America, sick and tired of the dilapidated buildings right outside the expensive neighborhoods I’ve called home. We are paying horrendously high property taxes to live right next to a slum. America is depressing and frightening, the violence and poverty is everywhere, even in well-to-do areas it’s right beneath the surface or just a short distance away. There is something very wrong with the soul of America that I find extremely disturbing.
Germany is a ghastly place: I once spent 3 weeks there, and within 2 days I was aching to get back…..