That's no surprise. Berlin loves free things that others have paid for. They're pretty much the only capital city in the developed world that's a burden and not a benefit to the country as a whole. It's pretty embarrassing. Then they do things like free daycare paid for by other states in the country while those states can't offer it.
2) > Then they do things like free daycare paid for by other states in the country while those states can't offer it.
Look up "Länderfinanzausgleich" and then look up daycare programs and compare them. None of the net payers get even remotely the same even though they're the ones actually paying for it.
It is more of demonstration how strong other cities in Germany are and how Berlin almost stopped existing (economically speaking) for 70 years than of being a burden in my view, but this is a detail you can throw in any conversation with berlin people to drive them nuts =)
2/ true example, yes. Then check what Germany pays to get power from the north down to Bavaria. And who pays for this? Unfair all around. I’m of course holding every single Bavarian personally responsible for this.
I dislike how you generalise from economical examples to the character of berlin inhabitants. It’s obviously wrong but also just not nice.
You're spending your own money. I'm pretty sure that if there was one member of your family that didn't have money for food or medicine, you'd spend it there instead of donating it, wouldn't you?
If you've absorbed the American teaching that "if you just work hard you'll be successful", then you'd have to believe the opposite: "if you're not successful that means you're lazy".
> So what are some of the best talking points to "sell" solar and wind to the unconvinced?
Ensure that the prices decrease for people with existing contracts. The hatred comes from people being told that it's better and cheaper now while the price is significantly higher than before.
If I didn't have solar panels on my roof that basically cover all my energy needs, I'd be absolutely furious seeing politicians pat themselves on the back for shutting down nuclear power plants and talking about how energy is now cheaper at some foreign exchange where I can not buy while I pay more and more every month.
Nope. They pay more than they were with the "old" energy mix of more gas and nuclear.
Telling people it could be worse isn't really something to be proud of.
I personally now have solar panels on the roof and a heat pump so we only use electricity and don't rely on gas. Germany's strategy is really beneficial to households like my own. Unless you're relatively well off or on benefits, you're losing big time. The costs are constantly increasing with people telling others to just take money (you don't have) to install some solar panels on the house (you don't own) or buy an electric car (you can't afford).
The whole point of this website is to show that the price of electricity is year-to-date 22% cheaper than it would be in a gas-dominated grid without renewables.
So I don't know where you're getting the "No" from?
You could argue that maybe investing all those subsidies into nuclear would have been cheaper, but that would have had a lot of path dependencies that simply did not pan out in Europe.
And economists agree that schemes similar to ETS is the most economically efficient way to achieve carbon targets.
So, if you want to say: "I don't think governments should have agreed to the Paris agreement" then you should just say that, rather than attack various highly efficient ways of achieving those goals.
I don't support it because it doesn't work (at least for me, I guess there's some middleman in the grand scheme of things who is profiting off of this). E.g. Texas has a high share of renewables too without carbon taxes and with much cheaper electricity.
If my electricity prices are no longer linked to gas prices, I can have cheaper electricity - my provider only produces green energy. But in the past raising gas prices would have also raised my prices, regardless. So yes, regular consumers can profit from this.
> my provider only produces green energy. But in the past raising gas prices would have also raised my prices, regardless. So yes, regular consumers can profit from this.
It's one single grid. You get coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and everything else. If you buy from a provider, you get that mix.
Well, the electrons arriving in your home will the same as your neighbours, regardless of which supplier you choose. But by choosing a different supplier you can steer which energy sources will be used to feed that grid, so it still makes a difference, just not exactly where you live.
What if the whole point of the strategy was to incentivize households to become more like yours?
An energy transition isn't just some big centralized state planned enterprise. It's also the sum of people putting up their own solar (on the balcony if they're renters!) etc.
An 800W plug-in solar system for your balcony can be had for 200 euros these days, breakeven is super quick.
People understand that this has nothing to do with the wellbeing of any teenager, right? This is only about establishing a mechanism to prevent individuals from doing things online. Why do people fall for the "protect the children"-lines again and again?
These church-owned entities in Germany are almost 100% government fincanced [1], while abusing a loophole in the German constitution to discriminate their employees for religious reasons. For example, the Catholic ones are notorious for firing employees that get divorced. This system is an absolute disgrace, but the churches are still too powerful in German society and have so far been able to block any attempt at fixing the constitution.
It’s not uncommon in the U.S. either. Providence Health is a Catholic nonprofit that owns 51 hospitals, including several of the big ones in Seattle. It was a big deal when they bought Swedish and people were afraid they would stop offering abortions even in cases of medical necessity.
Parent edited their comment. It used to just say “In Germany.” as if to dismiss the comment for not being about the United States.
I was not intending to say that Catholic healthcare providers in the U.S. are notorious for firing employees who get divorced. In fact, Providence got caught in controversy for firing an employee who refused to provide contraceptives on personal religious grounds.
I am not fine with government funds being used to support "prayer" as a means to a more healthy end. In fact I think this arguably violates the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.
Germany’s constitution (the Basic Law) does protect freedom of opinion and expression, but it explicitly allows restrictions via “general laws” to protect personal honor, youth, and human dignity.
Recent enforcement shows how this plays out: police raids have targeted individuals posting “hate speech” or “extremist” content online. What constitutes hate speech or extremist content is “conveniently” interpreted at times.
The OP claimed that people's homes got raided for "daring to insult the ruling class", your source claims that people's homes got raided for posting extremist racist speech online. Unless you believe in some ridiculous conspiracy where ZE JEWS CONTROL ZE BANKS, this has absolutely no relation to your ability to insult the ruling class: Black people and Muslims are not "the ruling class".
And if you do believe in such a conspiracy, please post your personal information such that I can forward it to the relevant agencies and have your house raided. Because we have been through that shit in this country and have no desire to ever see it again.
Your comment has been debunked countless times. This man's home was not raided for his antisemitism (which is really damn bad!) but for calling a guy an idiot [1]. I suggest you stop spreading lies.
That's a different case though. The Habeck meme thing happened somewhere near Bamberg, the CBS article recounts "state police [...] raided this apartment in northwest Germany".
Look, I'm not saying that the police or the ministry of the interior never abuse their power, far from it. (There was also the Andy Grote case a few years back.) But please remember that the original claim we are discussing, from a few comments up in this chain, was that Germany has neither "Freiheit noch Sicherheit" right now. It's ridiculous rabble-rousing to insinuate that because of these outlier events, while concerning, Germany has neither freedom nor security.
Germany does have limited Freedom. I won't move an inch in this matter. The exact paragraph behind the Habeck or Grote case is now being abused by the literal thousands each year. And violent crime is on the rise, we are currently back at a 2005 level. It is very easy to find sources on this matter.
Your claim is blatantly false. Any claim of the contrary is wrong. I won't go as far as to insult you in the way you did. I was talking about violent crime, which is indeed on the rise [1] (here sourced by the far right "Tagesschau" \irony), you are linking a study on crime, which includes non-violent crime such as petty theft. Violent crime is at a level not seen for 15 years. I suggest you read the comments of people thoroughly before embarassingly accusing them of spreading propaganda - which can be disproven with a 5 second google search.
No place has absolute freedom, not sure what you are rambling about. Making up some extra categories that suit your own narrative doesn't change reality.
You are making typical argument shifting excuses. No one is talking about "absolute freedom" no matter how that is defined, notwithstanding even your infantile attempt at using insult in your absence of rational argument.
Please don't paint an - given wired and unjust - incident as the norm and not as am exception.
Extrapolation from one local incident to Germany is unfree is like extrapolation from one politically motivated murder, that a country is in a civil war...
Sure, I have painted the incident, let‘s paint the norm. Just two ministers of the last government have sued 1400 people using 188 StGB [1]. An FDP politician sues 250 people this way in a month alone. We have seen an increase of lawsuits using this paragraph of 215% in the last three years.
Propaganda is painting this as something different than it is.
Here we consider speech for what it is: something you can express freely, within the limits of civil society. If you pass those limits, then you incur in problems.
Germany let someone speak freely a tad too much in the twenties and thirties, and they don't want to make that mistake again.
I understand the point of "absolute free speech", and I would subscribe to it if it wasn't that groups like AfD, or Trump's flavor of conservatism, hide behind it to achieve their authoritarian goals. To avoid that authoritarian result, you have to police certain types of speech like Germany does.
I say it again, it's nasty and needs a very strong set of counterbalances, which Germany - unlike the US - still has. Therefore this remains a much more freer country than Say-whatever-you-like-on-Rogan America. Freedom for us is free healthcare, a welfare state, an ethics-based concept of societal rights and obligations.
We don't market ourselves as the beacon of free speech and FREEDOM by making both empty words fueled by extreme individualism. We still believe in Solidarität and on social-oriented policies, both on the right and left side of the isle. We have ferocious political battles about topics that are too violently policed, by the way, like right now about Palestine and Israel, and people take to the streets FREELY, despite some despicable police brutality episodes. We do have the contradictions and complexities of any modern western society.
Yet we don't have too many runaway billionaires that are more powerful than governments, and we are still ALL a bit better off because of that.
It's boring, but it works.
AfD is against all this, and it is because it's provenly funded by Russia and other enemies of the west. They appeal to the Volk, but in reality are infested by double-standards, hate, and a specific type of political individualism and authoritarian views that need to be stopped with all legal and societally-acceptable means possible.
It’s worth remembering who actually made the strategic choices that strengthened Russia’s hand and left Germany dependent and militarily weak. Those weren’t the AfD’s doing — they came from the CDU–SPD coalition governments, the same lineup that’s currently in power again.
• 2011: Under Angela Merkel (CDU) and the SPD coalition, Germany decided to abolish nuclear power after Fukushima, dismantling one of the few sources of domestic energy independence.
• 2011–2015: The same governments backed and defended Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2, tying Germany’s critical infrastructure even closer to Russian gas — despite repeated warnings from Eastern European neighbors.
• 2011: The abolition of compulsory military service further weakened Germany’s defense capacity and NATO readiness.
These weren’t minor policy missteps — they systematically made Germany more vulnerable to Russian influence.
And it’s also worth noting a historical irony: Angela Merkel’s family moved from West Germany to East Germany in 1954, one of the very few families to go in that direction. Between 1949 and 1961, roughly 2.7 to 3 million East Germans fled the communist East for the capitalist West — virtually nobody went the other way.
> Yet we don't have too many runaway billionaires that are more powerful than governments, and we are still ALL a bit better off because of that. It's boring, but it works.
A literal millionare is chancellor.
> reedom for us is free healthcare,
Last I looked I paid 10k a year for government mandated healthcare. Where can I apply for the free one?
I wonder what is the point of debating like this on the internet.
I say billionaires, you mention a "millionaire" chancellor.
We don't have anything against becoming rich. But if you think that Herr Merz, who I haven't voted for and politically dislike, is anything close to a tycoon, well I think we're swinging in two very different planes of reality.
He's a high-income lawyer who invested and has a net-worth of about 15 millions. If you think that's anything close to problematic, I don't know what to say. Maybe you should research the order-of-magnitude differences there are between a millionaire and a billionaire.
Re: free healthcare: if you have the means, and you work, you rightfully PAY INTO THE SYSTEM. If you can't and you are poor, it is free for you.
That is how a social-democratic society work.
The system is not perfect and could be better, but that is what "Free" healthcare is.
Also, we're so good at freedom that we do have private healthcare, so you could have payed into that system and gotten yourself your little indivisualim-tingling services.
You are arguing with a person who doesn't care what people say, facts are just other's propaganda against their emotionally held beliefs, the story is set in their head and thats it. Not a discussion really. Usual avoiding of hard facts that challenge their fantasies.
A fairly typical behavior I've seen countless times in topics about russian war in Ukraine in recent years. No point at all, a wasted time.
> facts are just other's propaganda against their emotionally held beliefs,
This is dishonest at best. It's a matter of opinion. I rarely - if ever - think of anyone who disagrees with me as spreading "propaganda". This is a dangerous narrative you have built in your head. I suggest you stop.
> But if you think that Herr Merz, who I haven't voted for and politically dislike, is anything close to a tycoon, well I think we're swinging in two very different planes of reality.
Of course I don't. I actually like his history, he is a successful man. But he is again so far removed from my own situation that I do not trust him to do what is best for me.
> If you think that's anything close to problematic, I don't know what to say. Maybe you should research the order-of-magnitude differences there are between a millionaire and a billionaire.
It is problematic. Yes, he studied and worked hard. But he has been wealthy for a larger part of his life than he has not been.
> e: free healthcare: if you have the means, and you work, you rightfully PAY INTO THE SYSTEM. If you can't and you are poor, it is free for you.
So it's not free.
> The system is not perfect and could be better, but that is what "Free" healthcare is.
I too, can redefine words beyond their meanings to fit my narrative.
> Also, we're so good at freedom that we do have private healthcare, so you could have payed into that system and gotten yourself your little indivisualim-tingling services.
You forget that people with chronic illnesses can just be declined of that option.
I’m far more concerned about a government led by people who have no formal education beyond high school, have never worked outside of politics, lack subject-matter expertise in the fields they oversee, and can’t even speak a foreign language — yet are sent abroad to represent the country — than I am about a self-made millionaire serving as chancellor.
Germany’s economy feels like a freight train rolling downhill — momentum without direction, and no one in the cabin who knows how to steer.
And no, the health care system is not “working.” It suffers from systemic distortion and ideological decision-making. Doctors face strict budget caps and fixed, low reimbursement rates for treating regular patients, but those limits don’t apply when treating certain publicly funded cases — where compensation is higher. That incentive structure inevitably leads to unequal treatment. I’ve experienced it firsthand with my own child and couldn’t believe it. As in: they denied taking my kid in but took in two “publicly funded cases” while I was there.
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