BramSLI1 3 days ago Heres something interesting. Germany doesnt have a minimum wage either. The main difference though is that the German government subsidizes their citizens incomes through a general welfare for those below the poverty line. The government collects taxes from the major corporations in order to provide for this subsidized income. If you left that out then you would be wrong in just saying that Germany doesnt have a minimum wage then why do we? Its an apples to oranges comparison and its a similar situation in Singapore. You have to have the ability to think critically and look at the bigger picture in order to make relevant comparisons. The caller obviously doesnt have or has chosen not to use this ability. Reply · 7 Hide replies Caleb Wheeler 3 days ago The new coalition government in Germany has promised to enact a minimum wage. It was the conservatives concession to the Social Democrats. Also, a lot more Germans are in trade unions than in the U.S. They also have a thing called a workers council, which a lot of companies use in lieu of a union. Both of those push wages up. Reply · 3 BDoug 3 days ago Germany voted in a national minimum wage of 8.5 euros-per-hour (about $11 US) last summer and it goes into effect on January 1, 2015. Previously to that, Germany has relied on its very strong trade union movement (almost all workers are unionized, even in services) to guarantee minimum wages. Also remember that German corporations are required by law to have half the members of their boards of directors made up of workers which tends to make them more generous when it comes to wages. Reply · 5 BDoug 3 days ago +Caleb Wheeler Actually, most companies have both works councils and trade unions. The works councils usually deal with issues specific to the individual businesses like working out business hours and sometimes, in the event of layoffs, deciding the criterion for who gets laid off. US businesses would scream bloody murder if workers had these kinds of power here. The one , two, three punches of national trade unions, works councils, and corporate boards of directors consisting of half workers, give workers in Germany the kind of power and influence that American workers could only dream of. Ironically, these provisions were put into place in occupied, post WWII Germany by the occupying American forces (led by General Dwight David Eisenhower) and enshrined in the American backed constitution Germany adopted. The New Deal lives on in Germany. Reply · 4 kathy kelly 2 days ago how would that be different than pretty much any other country. Pretty much everyone has welfare. Reply · Caleb Wheeler 2 days ago +kathy kelly I think his point was that welfare is conducted on a larger scale in Germany. They spend around 27% of gdp on social care. Thats almost double what the u.s. spends. Reply · BDoug 2 days ago +Caleb Wheeler Yes, and a good example is their very generous unemployment compensation which pays a far higher percentage or your wages than the US, is good for a year, and then after that year you can go on a long-term unemployment plan that has no time limit. While on unemployment, you have health insurance coverage and they even pay in to your social security so that the unemployment will not negatively affect your retirement income. Reply · 2 MrOttopants 2 days ago +kathy kelly No, not all countries do it the same. Examples- German families receive childrens money, regardless of their income. The government cuts them a check for a few hundred Euros per child every month. Preschool is funded by taxes collected by the government. College is essentially free. Unionization is extremely high. Healthcare is universal. By law, you have to pay parents if they choose to take their parental leave. Parental leave is about a year. The government requires that businesses pay a certain percent of the wages to the parent. They have 24 days of required leave time for workers plus they have another ten or so holidays that the states oversee themselves. Instead of paying unemployment, they have programs that pay the business to keep the employee on staff until the business hits an uptick. Workers are commonly part of the board for a business. So, no. Reply · 2 Mike Garnier 2 days ago socialism works when you give money to people who ethnically belong to their country and have patriotic feelings towards it, see Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Germany wait for it... national socialism Reply · kathy kelly 1 day ago +MrOttopants I never said they did, but when you say well they do this and we dont , you should make sure that we actually dont or clarify the differences in the program, which he didnt do. Reply · MrOttopants 1 day ago (edited) +kathy kelly lol. You point to those European social democracies as places that dont have minimum wage, and then you say that all countries have some sort of welfare. You said that all countries do welfare because you wanted to make the point that the US was similar to those countries in that respect. You were trying to make an argument for having no minimum wage based on those countries, and you wanted to equate the US social welfare system with welfare systems of European social democracies. The union participation, and the social benefits of those countries is precisely what allows them to not have a minimum wage. Come on. You just need to drop the whole anti-government crusade. Progressives/liberals dont want a big government, we want an effective and efficient government.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 07:46:52 +0000
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