Why Germany is Rich But Germans are Poor

Despite its reputation, Germany is one of the most unequal countries in the developed world when considering the wealth of its citizens. So how did it get bad? In this video, we'll explain this issue and how it interacts with Germany's wider economy.

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[TurboAutist-sglo]

I know Sweden has rich families but having our top 5% own more than 60% of the wealth and being the worst in the EU at that is insane

[kmjgsdkmjgsd]

This is what happens when you treat 70+ year olds like moral compasses and geniuses, and everyone else like utter trash.

[TippedBalance]

Are you telling me that an economy solely geared towards the top 5% doesn't last nor does it serve the majority of a country?

I'M SHOCKED!!!

[MartinNew]

Because the cost of living is high, even with a high salary, it's not enough; in other words, purchasing power is very low.

[Aaron_We]

One special case Germany has is that after reunification people in former GDR had a lot less personal wealth than people from West Germany and the public wealth from the GDR was largely sold to people or companies private wealth from the west. Because there weren't any measures taken to redistribute wealth and wealth largely builds up over long periods of time that effect still plays a large role

[WooCash]

I live in Germany and my rent is 60% of my wage, and that's still reasonable compared to my friends who send about 70-75% of their wages to a multinational corporations like Vonovia for a rent. We are beyond fucked.

[BenchFox_]

Like in the rest of europe, everyone forgot they needed to spend money to maintain good infrastructure and public services

[NightStrm]

I'd say, Germans often consider stocks too risky GIVEN THAT for most of us, there's not so much extra money left at the end of the month. If you have a lot of money left, it's less of a problem to partially use it for risky things.

[daniil]

Fund the rich, tax the poor
Fund the wealthy, tax the worker
- germany 😅

[billcarson]

Its the reason that is the reason all over the world. Its a system that is designed/working in favor for a small group of rich people. This wont significantly change until the system is changed.

[teekanne]

What bugs me the most is that people confuse correlation with causation. Economics that correlate with poltics most often have the cause years in advance. A countries economy is like a containershit. Steering it takes ages.

[natecar]

My guess is it's probably for the same reason Ireland, the UK and everywhere else is...

[bababababababa]

Crazy how even after 34 years of reunification, East Germany is still much poorer than the west, that gives me no hope for North and South Korea

[tancreddehauteville]

Germany is like a grumpy old man who refuses to spend despite being quite rich.

[Mystic_Edge]

That's peak corruption in germany

[toniderdon]

I'm German, we have 3 problems:
Our salaries are high, but our deductions (not taxes, but "social contributions") are too high. If your employer pays you 6000€, you take home 3000€ - that's 50% deductions.
The first problem is our pension insurance, which is extremely inefficient and can't cope with an ageing population. This eats up around 18% of your salary - soon 22%.
The second problem is our health insurance, which is also extremely inefficient and can't cope with an ageing population. This eats up another 15% of your salary.
The third problem is income tax. As Germany only has a very low property tax - unlike the US and most other nations - it needs to have a crazy high income tax to make up for it. This eats up another 20% of your salary on average, but up to 45%.

One can clearly see how that cant work out. You are basically not working for yourself, you are working to subsidize old people.

[MegaNacin]

As a German this topic makes me very sad. This problem has been known for a long time but strangely there is no political support from the larger voting population in Germany to reform the wealth or the inheritance tax. It's totally right what was stated in the video about the "Mittelstand" argument. Parties opposing these reforms just throw in the argument and people fear that Germany will loose it's economic power because of reforms. Funny enough people start to vote far right parties cause of inequality reasons although these parties don't have any plan to reform these taxes either. I still hope that in the next two years the problem will become so persistent as reforms will be inevitable... but let's see 😬

[max]

Very high rent in germany and near impossible to buy anything.
50-70% of wages going only towards rent is not unusual at all.
The Boomers fucked us.

[PaulStephenRudd-ub]

Our economy is like a flailing fish, fighting for its life. The normal state of the U.S. economy is actually very bad. Because of this it goes into convulsive spasms fighting to grow any way it can out of desperation. Tricks, gimmicks, rule changes try to stimulate the economy and prevent it from falling but they only bring temporary relief to people since, when you factor in inflation we are declining.

[Misterlikeseverythin]

Germany - if you own a house that's probably the same price as a private jet.