On the original topic:

Germany heavily subsidies manufacturing companies, making the products less expensive than in other parts in Europe.

On the topic of China:

China could tank the US in less than a month by imposing an embargo.

Yes Merkel knew it and she hasn't done anything against it. Thats a fact. She knew that the germans are spied and what has she done? Nothing! What did Mr Pofalla (from the same party as Ms Merkel)? He told that the affair has ended3.

As Steinbrück pleases himself in saying (in an attempt to sound intellectuaI): Pacta sunt servanda.

Which means no more and no less than the government Merkel cannot simply revoke the "absolute cooperation without restrictions" that the government Schröder has asserted, nor can she unilaterally break the treaties.

Not without serious consequences, anyway. Merkel is not the brightest gem, but she is smart enough to know this. Some others aren't.

Yeah, ya know what guys, if we are going to keep this open how about toning down the xenophobia a bit eh?

Phantom, you brought up a point that should be on everyone's mind.

The national socialists appeal obviously to xenophobic factions among them. If they ever find a central leader who embodies both their idealisms and also has charisma, then they would likely swell in numbers and influence in Germany, would they not? Even from the outside (I live in America), it appears that they sway politics in Germany far beyond what their numbers would suggest. Does this sound familiar from history?

You folk living in Germany, do you see evidence of far reaching national socialism influence in Germany? This year Merkel made a public statement that there must be much better assimilation in Germany, evidently referring to Turks and other minorities (Who struggle with the German language, for example.) even at the second thru forth generation descendants of immigrant workers. Is there a backlash in Germany against, what we often call here in the USA, "liberal" movements in the European Union? Was Merkel's statement genuine or merely appeasing the sentiments of the youth and the national socialists? Perhaps there is even a counter-backlash to the socialist rhetoric.

Are these issues to be viewed as evidence of future cultural changes in Germany?

I didnt read the whole thread, but too many people in Germany are just uninterested in politics and always give their vote to the conservatives who do nothing, if not forced to by some lobbyists. Extremist lunatics are imho a rare thing compared to US.

The sad thing is, the conservatives are making Germany into something more akin to Bangladesh. They blocked a minimum wage for ages and there are people only having 3€/h. Yesterday the news was about some chinese textile manufacturers, with illegal workers living inside those mold-infested buildings with no air flow, burning down in Germany. That it looks like Germany was in good shape is only cause of profiting from Greece and other nations influencing the € so it gets easier to export goods.

The conservatives are so stupid that the week before the elections they told people should not lend votes to their traditional partners the liberals (that do even less than them besides backstabbing themselves in fights for being minister). That resulted in the liberals not getting into parliament first time after like 30 or 40 years and a kind of deadlook, cause of the left party noone wants to cooperate with as they are the result of east german communists and forbidden west german communists uniting with some backstabbers from the social democrats (although theoretically social democrats+left+greens would have had enough seats). The conservatives had to beg on both the greens and the social democrats (these are known to have less of a backbone and now seem to have given in to be fooled the second time after they already did 8 years ago and then lost half of their % in the next elections 4 years ago).

Now there will be the Bavarian conservatives (thats like the Quebec of Germany where they have their own conservative party) getting their stupid motorway toll thats illegal in European law because they want to only apply it to non-germans and the social democrats enabling the 8.50€ minimum wage for the poor people. Otherwise nothing will change in next 4 years and Merkel can keep her hands on the chancellor chair while CDU+CSU+SPD pretend to be friends.

There's no such thing as widespread xenophobia (or at least I wouldn't want to believe this), except for a minor few misled jobless young people. There exist roughly 193 (give or take one or two) countries, and you are a foreigner in 192 of them (give or take one or two).

However, there sure are more or less strong resentments against certain groups (and not only in Germany!).

Most people (including me) in most countries (including Germany) welcome foreigners. There is nothing wrong with foreigners living and working in your country, as long as it still remains your country. That probably sounds odd, but I find no better way to word it.

The thing with the "trouble Turks" (of which most are not Turks, btw.) is, like you mentioned, that they live here for 20-30 years with two or three generations, and the only German word they know is "Sozialhilfe" (welfare). Well, actually they may know a few more words. They also know "Wohngeld" (another welfare), and the teenagers know "Gib Jacke, sonst auf Fresse". Other than that, they give a fuck about Germany, they don't respect the culture or the law, and in fact they live by their own laws and values. This includes stuff like "look at my sister and I'll kill you (but I'll fuck every German girl I see, they're all whores anyway)" and pouring gasoline over young women and lighting them, and other scary stuff. Some openly state that they want to destroy the state and build a muslim state instead. There exists quarters (or should one say ghettos?) where the police does not dare to enter in some cities and where they live by "their own law" whatever it is.

With them come the 15-19 year old "trouble Turks" that will beat up children in school, carry knives, sell drugs, and do pretty much everything that's illegal. This is the most prominent one. He's actually trying to get back again now with a big media hype about what a poor guy he is and how he regrets his sins, after having expelled some years ago. Because hey, if you do that kind of thing in Turkey, they'll teach you how to behave, and Turkish prisons are not the Club Med.

During the time I worked downtown, some 15 years ago I've regularly had people (most of the time Albanians, but generally pretty much every nationality) in emergency care who came with one or several quite deep and large cuts after a "discussion" or a "controversy" about some petty thing. Not rarely, you would suture that same guy again 20 minutes later when he'd come back with another, even bigger wound. Or, he and his "friend" would come together, both wounded. Sometimes one of them unconscious. And seriously, these guys are not people, they're beasts -- they refuse local anesthetics in fear you might knock them out and call the police. Getting a deep cut that goes all over your arm sutured is really painful, and they don't even blink. You don't want to meet these in a dark alley.

And, with them come hate preachers that run organizations which you can only call "terrorist groups" founded by social welfare. But hey, the socialists say that running a terror group does not contradict receiving welfare at the same time, these are orthogonal.

Then, on the other hand there are the "good Turks", or the "good foreigners" in general. Those live here for 20-30 years (or maybe considerably less time), been working hard all their lives, and not few are doing the kind of work no one else wants to do. They still do their own cultural thing at home (which is fine!) but they respect that the country around them has a different culture. They're good neighbours. They learned the language (sometimes with a strong accent, but still) and they respect the law. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them.

Ironically, not rarely I've heard these refer to the others as "fucking foreigners, they don't belong here". Which is a somewhat funny thing to hear from a foreigner.

What's recently happening doesn't help improve the situation, though. For example, a court ruled not long ago that a Rom family has the right to receive unemployment insurance because they're jobless and there's no perspective for them to get a job anyway. Now the thing is, the unemployment insurance is something that every employed person has to pay, and the expectation is that you receive payments when you lose your job (of course the hope is that you never need it). The expectation is not that any random foreigner who has never paid for that insurance comes to your place and shouts "I have no work, feed me". Some people see this as a troublesome invitation to every layabout all over Europe, others see it as hostile to foreigners, since the only logical consequence of this is to expel a foreigner who doesn't have a job.

If nothing else, it is in any case a troublesome decision from a financial point of view. Helmut Kohl (the worst ever conservative politician in the history of the republic, I think he was a socialist in disguise) did a similar thing in the 1990s. First, he practically forced the reunion with no consideration as to what is and what lies ahead, gave away free gifts as if there was no tomorrow, allowed most equities in the east to be more or less "legally stolen", and then he did the Sudeten thingie, which basically granted anyone who ever had as much as a German shepherd the German nationality and a full pension claim. Turned out that after the reunion both east and west wished it had never happened, and turned out that if you divide a cake into a lot more pieces, then every piece gets a lot smaller. Surprise. Except they only realized after none of the cake was left. Which is why we have a very very uncertain situation with pensions now.

It's twice troublesome insofar as it's about Roms, so the next thing that will inevitably come up is the Nazi card. Again. The problem with that is the more often you play the Nazi card, the more you fester hate and thus feed the Neonazis (so basically you're telling history to repeat itself). And contrary to how it worked in the past, people are not willing to take the Nazi card any more. It's more and more resulting in the exact opposite reaction.
On the other hand, a French Mayor from the south-west who was faced with a quite serious "Rom situation" last summer (a few hundred of them plundering houses and occupying camping sites and public places) stated that if the Germans had only worked more thoroughly back then, he wouldn't have this trouble now. That statement caused a bit of controversy and likely wasn't very favorable for his career as you can imagine (or maybe it will turn out very favorable, who can tell...). But the mere fact that this statement was made is very telling (and it's none less troublesome).

The future will show what the socialists' plans on immigration that Merkel seems to have agreed with for the sake of coalition wll bring. I fear they'll not bring much good.

Don't get me wrong on the "socialist" part, by the way. I'm all for being social. But social and socialism are opposite things. Socialism is about envy towards people who have achieved something by investing time and money in education and by working hard for years. It is about giving the socialist layabouts the same privilegues as someone who has deserved them, at the expenses of everyone, especially the poor. It is not about making life better for anyone, especially not the poor.

My wife, for example, is very obviously a woman (I can testify for that!), and she is a manager in a quite big company. She earns about three times as much as I do. She does because she has worked hard for years and because she's a real tough business woman. She deserves her position and her salary, and I do not envy her.

Now the socialists come up with all kinds of screwed ideas how women need a quota for manager jobs and need a better payment and blah. My pardon? So some random stupid bitch is getting to be a manager based on the qualification that she is a woman? That will mean no more and no less than that all the work my wife has done in her life is without value. You don't become a manager because you are highly qualified and a hard worker. You become one because there's a quota. Doesn't anyone but me find that disturbing?

You will see what happens when the socialists force their idea of a minimum wage, and companies like Amazon (who have already announced such a thing) will simply fire some ten thousand people and open a distribution center in a different EU country. Being jobless sure is very social towards those people.

@ samoth

Integration is not just an issue in Germany, it's an issue all over Europe .

The hot topic is Roma in other countries .. some say they are being racially discriminated against, others say they are raised from birth to be the way they are ...

Both sides have a valid point ...

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On the topic of China:

China could tank the US in less than a month by imposing an embargo.

Along with themselves. China fears are a little ridiculous, frankly. People tend to act as if China is unopposed. A good amount of nations would oppose the Chinese...it's not as easy as people think for China to 'take over the world'.

I don’t discriminate. When I was a teen I had a part-time job at the Wichita Greyhound Park and one night collecting bets on the 2nd floor a family entered.

It was one of my first times on that floor so my coworkers warned me that they were Gypsies and would try to cheat me as soon as they could.

I decided of course to keep up my guard but still I couldn’t believe there was a 100% chance they would cheat me, no matter what stereotypes there were.

I had heard a lot about their kind but I wanted to have an open mind and see for myself.

6rd round, they came to my post. I thought this was going to be my chance to show everyone else they were not so bad.

I was really rooting for them. I thought it would be so cool for everyone else to judge them but for me to be so open-minded and then be the person who was right about them.

2 girls came up and in my eagerness to show everyone else how wrong they were I greeted them with a big-ass smile.

The older one took her bets and I gave her her change. The younger one stepped in to take her bets and blocked my view of the older one, who then pushed the younger out of the way and asked, “Wait, how many 20’s did you give me?”.

I had given her the proper number ($80, 4 20’s), and I knew damn well. I sighed and closed my booth and called the manager over to do a count on my box. You should have seen how drastically my expression changed from being the most hopeful guy in the world that I was going to show my coworkers they were not all bad to being the most annoyed jerk in the world for having been tried as a fool.

If I had made any mistakes at all during the night they could claim the money, but my box added up to exactly the correct amount minus $20 (because during the count I had to give her $20).

When they confront her she finally caved in and pulled $20 out of her bra to give to me. I didn’t really want it at that point but it was basically her admission to guilt.

I couldn’t believe it.

Not only was this exactly the stereotype I had heard about Gypsies, but so predictable that my coworkers guaranteed me that it would happen. And looking back, they chose me because I was new to that floor, even though I had been on the 1st and 3rd floors for 2 years prior but they never go to those floors.

Pardon me if I have a bit of a hard shell towards Gypsies now, but honestly I gave them more than a chance. I was really hoping they would help me prove my coworkers wrong.

But the frank fact is that I was raised as a Christian. That doesn’t mean I just accept everything I am taught at a young age.

Saying they were raised to be that way is just an excuse. Any one of them can at any time decide to break free from it. Maybe it’s tough, but so it was when I had to listen to my mother hang her head and say, “Dear God where did I go wrong,” when I finally told her I am an Atheist. Given that Atheists are the most discriminated-against and least-trusted group of minorities in the world I don’t want to hear any excuses coming from Gypsy youths thinking about starting a better more honorable life but being too shy or afraid to do it.

Both sides have a valid point ...

Not really.

I don’t discriminate based on race. I don’t like Gypsies because they themselves gave me a reason not to, directly and personally. And the stories I hear about them match up with my personal experience, so I can guess that this goes a lot farther than just me. This is typical of their behavior.

They get discrimination, but they bring it upon themselves. They grow as apologists to their own causes and their children follow suit. For every Gypsy child it is easier to become a normal human than it is for an Atheist to come out of the closet in America, but instead they tend to choose the easy way out and pretend they are all against the world, and each generation continues from there.

No sir, one side does not have a valid point. One side brings it upon themselves.

L. Spiro

I didnt read the whole thread, but too many people in Germany are just uninterested in politics and always give their vote to the conservatives who do nothing, if not forced to by some lobbyists. Extremist lunatics are imho a rare thing compared to US.

That's somewhat true. I'm all for the conservatives, not because they are particularly good or because I think Merkel is a particularly good chancellor. She isn't even a particulaly well-dressed or good looking chancellor (Schröder was a toal double-zero, but at least he knew how to get a haircut and a hair dye, and he was wearing a nice dress, at least you needed not be ashamed of telling someone you're German by his mere looks).

BUT: At least she isn't trying to destroy the country within the next few months. And that makes her the lesser evil among all other choices.

What else is there? Socialists are a desaster, Linke are even worse, and Greens are pretty much the same. So you can vote for Pirates (are you kidding me?), Nazis (yeah, sure!), or Against Europe party (yeah, sure!).

Hate Europe if you like, but after all we've gone through to get the union and the Euro going, turning our back to Europe now is simply not an alternative. Besides, the idea of the union came from a very wise man, General de Gaulle. I agree with his reasoning for funding this union, and that reasoning is worth all the expenses.

So that's a clear no for Anti Europe. Nazis, do we even need to talk about? Pirates? Oh please...

So if you don't want conservative, that leaves the choice between left, far left, and ultra-left. They all have in common that they have no clue whatsoever, but they all want their comrades in high positions. The SPD was more busy negotiating new positions than anything else during the coalition talks. They all want higher taxes and more everything for everyone and tons of absurd ideas that will not fly.

Look at the double-zero socialist who is ruling France at the moment. He made the rich go away with their money because he threatened them with 75% tax (getting zero instead of 46% from them now, this consequently means the poor have to pay more taxes). He raised the TVA on food, which above all hits the poor. He abolished Sarko's no-tax-on-overtime law, which again hits the poor. He gave the northern half of the A63, which is The One route to Spain to a privately held company, so tax payers now have to pay for what is rightfully theirs (another socialist already gave away the southern half in the 90s). The double-taxation of heavy transports (wrongly called Ecotaxe) was unsurprisingly a total failure.

So yes, the conservatives are not precisely great. But at least they are not as bad as the socialists.

The conservatives are so stupid that the week before the elections they told people should not lend votes to their traditional partners the liberals (that do even less than them besides backstabbing themselves in fights for being minister). That resulted in the liberals not getting into parliament first time after like 30 or 40 years

That's right, but it was was not stupid, but necessary. As you may know, the second vote is much more important than the first vote since the last voting reform. The "Liberals" tried to deceive the people into giving these traditionally "unimportant" to them because that's "what has been agreed". Which wasn't true either. If things had gone the way the Liberals had planned, Merkel would be chancellor but would have had to do what the Liberals dictate.

The "Liberals" have been the coalition partner for every government ever since, and they have always hung their flag into the wind. So they didn't make it in this time. They bluffed and Merkel wanted to see, they lost. Greed for power gone wrong. Bad luck, but not really much of a loss, if you ask me.

a kind of deadlook, cause of the left party noone wants to cooperate with as they are the result of east german communists and forbidden west german communists

Yep, that's the problem, excatly. Lack of absolute majority, and lack of alternatives. And it's not much different for the Greens. Not few of them are former radicals, and not few walk in Dutschke's or Baader's or Meinhoff's footprints even today. To quote Mr Fisher (around 1980): "If you kill one of these [police] pigs, it ain't no loss". You would wonder how someone like that could ever become a minister. The Greens are good at shouting "No to Atom" and at throwing molotows at the Castor, but they're not nearly as good at providing an alternative that works.

It is hard to agree making a coalition with someone like this.

But: the biggest problem is lack of courage and too much of a desire to be on the safe side. Where is it written that you must have an absolute majority? Nowhere. Merkel could as well do a minority government. She only doesn't have the balls to do it.

Having a majority with a rather comfortable margin even if it is not absolute means that you can very well govern a country if the proposals that you make are only somewhat reasonable. You do not need everyone to agree, only a few people. If your proposals are reasonable, this will happen. Of course, having absolute majority is nice, no need to think. But it's not like you really must have an absolute majority.

For a somewhat more courageous and cunning politician, a minority government could even be the best thing to happen. If the opposition plays along or if enough free deputies accept your mostly reasonable measures, you are one great hero. You are the one great chancellor who doesn't even need an absolute majority.

If the others oppose and your measures are somewhat reasonable, you can blame them for the failure, and you can turn any bad outcome against them. If you do this clever enough, you'll not have an opposition in the next elections any more.

Another anecdote about our neighbours' socialist comrades that I can't resist to point out

After having raised taxes as the first and foremost thing during the 6 months of rulership in 2012 and having promised "no new taxes in 2013 unless absolutely necessary", the French comrades raised even more taxes in 2013 and also invented some new ones.

Among this was raising the reduced TVA (value added tax) to 19% (from originally 5.5% on food and 2.5% on pharmaceutics). With that came the promise "but really no new taxes in 2014". Two months later they revised this to "slight raise of the TVA, but lowering the TVA on food and daily consumables again".

Last week, it was revealed that beginning January 1st, the TVA will be raised to 20%, including food and daily consumables. That, and cigarettes are getting 20 cents more expensive on January 1st. Heck, they're not wasting time breaking promises, are they.

Not like cigarettes geting more expensive would bother me (actually I'd welcome it if a package of cigarettes cost 20 euros), but it will certainly bother a substantial portion of the low-income population (ca. 90% of the total 23% smokers are from the "low income" segment). Which is ironical because again the socialists are once again hitting exactly the ones who are the most needy.

But I'm sure they'll turn it the other way around... as in, they're doing them a favor seeing how smoking is bad for your health.

It sure is cynical to make food and pharmaceutics substantially more expensive and to talk of "social" at the same time.