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[QUOTE=HessenBub;1789056]Same for other clubs, at Sharks they pay 115 incl. Accommodation. So that doesn't explain the 10+/30 min compared to Hessen.
HB.[/QUOTE]Only logical explanation is that Artemis have monopoly in Berlin and can therefore charge a premium.
Kinda strange that theres only 1 FKK in Berlin. More business people travelling to FRA that are horny? LOL.
[QUOTE=Breadman;1788559] I'm one of these earners, one of my friends who lives in Germany asked me how I could afford to visit Germany with such a low wage (he took the wage of a similar job in Germany and applied it as my wage), he was shocked when I told him what I earned.
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[QUOTE=Sybarite2006;1788673]God forbid if you get a chronic illness in the USA and your health insurance won't cover it. You're fucked! I have a lot of American colleagues and almost all of them decide to stay in Germany as the lifestyle for middle-income earners is much better here. I asked one of them and she said unless you're in the top 10% of US earners there's no comparison between life here and in the USA. It's much better here!
[/QUOTE]Germans pay higher taxes and get a bigger safety net. Germans usually get six weeks of vacation per year. More public holidays. And unlimited sick leave allowing them to draw pay even when they are not able to work. From what I've seen, people who work for German companies get laid off much less frequently. I suspect it is due German unions and laws that favor workers and make firing employees more costly for the employer. American middle class guy would be lucky to get two weeks pay when shown the door. German middle class guy might get six months of pay when shown the door. Some would also argue that German retirement pensions system has better payouts.
In the USA, if you get cancer and need six months of chemotherapy treatment, you are pretty much fucked. For most Americans, that means using up their two weeks annual vacation. And then the other five-and-a-half months, they have zero income coming in and deplete their life-savings. On top of that American insurance companies will probably try to weasel out of paying their portion of the medical bill! Plus when you are healthy enough to work again, there is no guarantee that you will get your old job back.
[QUOTE=McAdonis;1789172]In the USA, if you get cancer and need six months of chemotherapy treatment, you are pretty much fucked. For most Americans, that means using up their two weeks annual vacation. And then the other five-and-a-half months, they have zero income coming in and deplete their life-savings. On top of that American insurance companies will probably try to weasel out of paying their portion of the medical bill! Plus when you are healthy enough to work again, there is no guarantee that you will get your old job back.[/QUOTE]Many companies carry insurance policies for their employees for when they fall sick and can't work for several months. Keeps your health insurance being paid and you get a portion of your lost wages from the insurance company. Do you know someone who went thru what you posted above?
To get back to the original discussion, wages, does anyone know what school teachers make in Germany? In the states all you ever read about is raising money to cover 'new' school expenses which is mainly the high wages for teachers with seniority. Some of the senior teachers make over 100 k a year.
Off topic though is when you read about all these high payed teachers getting busted for having sex with their students and or getting arrested visiting a prostitute. And then getting the axe. They get off the entire summer, you would think they'd head to countries where they could do what we all do.
[QUOTE=Breadman;1789221]Many companies carry insurance policies for their employees for when they fall sick and can't work for several months. Keeps your health insurance being paid and you get a portion of your lost wages from the insurance company. Do you know someone who went thru what you posted above?
To get back to the original discussion, wages, does anyone know what school teachers make in Germany? In the states all you ever read about is raising money to cover 'new' school expenses which is mainly the high wages for teachers with seniority. Some of the senior teachers make over 100 k a year.
Off topic though is when you read about all these high payed teachers getting busted for having sex with their students and or getting arrested visiting a prostitute. And then getting the axe. They get off the entire summer, you would think they'd head to countries where they could do what we all do.[/QUOTE]If I go to [URL]payscale.com[/URL] and look up secondary school teacher median pay, I get 42 000 Euros for Germany and 46 000 dollars for the US. We do have to look at real hard numbers. Like you implied the teacher pay you point out is exceptional.
What you are right about is that there are more bonus and commissions for mid level jobs in the US. Department store manager is not a job that will pay well or offer incentives in either the UK or Germany.
But this does not mean that Germany is not a high wage economy.
All this talk about wages and the cost of a Big Mac! WTF does that have to do with the price of rice in China? How about what's the price of a piece of ass? That's what we want to know! LOLOLOL!
[QUOTE=Exodus8;1789061]Only logical explanation is that Artemis have monopoly in Berlin and can therefore charge a premium.
Kinda strange that theres only 1 FKK in Berlin. More business people travelling to FRA that are horny? LOL.[/QUOTE]There was a plan to open big FKK in Potsdam, there was even opening date set as construction was almost completed.
They suddenly. No more news.
I wonder what happened to that one as there is demand for new big FKK.
It is strange Artemis costed about 6 million euro to open. I wonder why no one tried to open another one knowing it is profitable business.
Hard to get license perhaps?
[QUOTE=Breadman;1789221]Many companies carry insurance policies for their employees for when they fall sick and can't work for several months. Keeps your health insurance being paid and you get a portion of your lost wages from the insurance company. Do you know someone who went thru what you posted above?
[/QUOTE]I have seen families of a cancer patient struggle financially, but I was not privy to the details and I didn't want to pry. So it'd be hard to differentiate whether their financial struggles started before or after their family member got sick. When an illness like cancer strikes the family, usually the patient's spouse may need to stay home to provide full-time care. Family Medical Leave Act only provides up to six months for that scenario. The programs you speak about are short-term, and long-term disability, but from what I've been told you need a social worker to navigate that process. I had a friend who's father was given a prognosis of six months-to-a-year. He is still alive after eight years--in and out of remission. Her father once made six-figures and had a "stable" job. I just remember her saying that he took an "early retirement" at a fraction of what his retirement would have been because the other stuff ran out. Maybe he went cheap and opted out of a long-term-insurance option that would have cost him $250 a month I don't know.
"In 2013 over 20% of American adults are struggling to pay their medical bills, and three in five bankruptcies in 2014 will be due to medical bills. While we are quick to blame debt on poor savings and bad spending habits, our study emphasizes the burden of health costs in causing widespread indebtedness. Medical bills can completely overwhelm a family when illness strikes. ".
[URL]https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/2014/03/26/medical-bankruptcy/[/URL]
Even perfectly healthy American families, still pay high premiums. Average family of four payed $24,671:
[URL]http://www.milliman.com/mmi/[/URL]
I am not saying there is something wrong with the American system. In fact, I think I'd prefer to be paid more and manage the risk myself separately by paying for private insurance. I just need to be educated on how much more I need to make when comparing compensation packages from different countries.
[QUOTE=DeltaIndigo;1789239]If I go to [URL]payscale.com[/URL] and look up secondary school teacher median pay, I get 42 000 Euros for Germany and 46 000 dollars for the US. We do have to look at real hard numbers. Like you implied the teacher pay you point out is exceptional.
[/QUOTE]My local school district went thru a strike which brought on newspaper articles saying how the kids really needed the original teachers back to work. But it was the links to 'who made what' that was staggering. A handful of senior teachers making over 100 k, a dozen more in the upper 80's.
[QUOTE=DeltaIndigo;1789239]What you are right about is that there are more bonus and commissions for mid level jobs in the US. Department store manager is not a job that will pay well or offer incentives in either the UK or Germany.
But this does not mean that Germany is not a high wage economy.[/QUOTE]I'm talking blue collar jobs, not white collar. There are certain service jobs in the states that pay well above 70 k and even upwards of 110 k depending on the status of the worker (owner operator vs employee). Owner operators have to own their own equipment and pay their operating costs out of their own pocket including health insurance. But the rewards of double the paycheck make it worth the added costs. Its cheaper for some companies to operate with few employees while paying out higher amounts to contractors. No health care costs, no retirement benefits etc.
[QUOTE=McAdonis;1789172]
In the USA, if you get cancer and need six months of chemotherapy treatment, you are pretty much fucked. For most Americans, that means using up their two weeks annual vacation. And then the other five-and-a-half months, they have zero income coming in and deplete their life-savings. On top of that American insurance companies will probably try to weasel out of paying their portion of the medical bill! Plus when you are healthy enough to work again, there is no guarantee that you will get your old job back.[/QUOTE]Most professionals have as part of their benefits a short-term disability policy that typically pays out 80% salary for some length of time, for example, 6 months. Most employers offer for purchase a long-term disability policy to continue paying after the short-term policy runs out. Even where such a policy isn't offered by one's employer (or is not attractive for whatever reason), an employee can still purchase such a long-term disability policy on the open insurance market.
Complaining about not having long-term disability after one is disabled or unable to work for health reasons is analogous to a home owner who complains that he lost his house in a house fire when the home owner failed to purchase house insurance against that very peril.
Most Americans when offered long-term disability turn it down when offered (me included) because we don't want to pay the premiums and probably because we don't like to consider the possibility of being disabled long-term. These policies aren't usually cheap (although they are quite the bargain if you ever need a payout under these policies).
I'm not advocating for one system or another or defending one system in particular. I am merely pointing out that current system in America does indeed provide for long-term disability if one elects and chooses to pay for such protection.
Granted, perhaps it would be better for everyone if such protection were mandated for everyone, but to date, that isn't the case here in the States.
[QUOTE=UltraHappy;1789281]Most professionals have as part of their benefits a short-term disability policy that typically pays out 80% salary for some length of time, for example, 6 months. Most employers offer for purchase a long-term disability policy to continue paying after the short-term policy runs out. Even where such a policy isn't offered by one's employer (or is not attractive for whatever reason), an employee can still purchase such a long-term disability policy on the open insurance market.
Complaining about not having long-term disability after one is disabled or unable to work for health reasons is analogous to a home owner who complains that he lost his house in a house fire when the home owner failed to purchase house insurance against that very peril.
Most Americans when offered long-term disability turn it down when offered (me included) because we don't want to pay the premiums and probably because we don't like to consider the possibility of being disabled long-term. These policies aren't usually cheap (although they are quite the bargain if you ever need a payout under these policies).
I'm not advocating for one system or another or defending one system in particular. I am merely pointing out that current system in America does indeed provide for long-term disability if one elects and chooses to pay for such protection.
Granted, perhaps it would be better for everyone if such protection were mandated for everyone, but to date, that isn't the case here in the States.[/QUOTE]Thanks. I was more or less painting a worse case scenario, I. E. Unskilled American laborer that is not civil servant or union member that gets diagnosed with cancer. Partially to get a response from someone who would correct me. The American companies I've worked for were quite big, and I suppose I'd be considered a "professional". Its quite possible that LTD was offered to me, but I was always to lazy to read those benefits options. So your response spelled it out for me.
Here is something that I read that I found surprising:
"Harvard also discovered that 75% of those filing bankruptcy for medical reasons had health insurance. It is clear that having health insurance is no guarantee against carrying debt related to health care. ".
I guess the employee-provided health insurance options provided in USA are not that great. Or people just prefer to live on the wild side by choosing the cheapest option possible, both in terms of health insurance and long term disability insurance. Perhaps if they took the word "disability" out of "long term disability" it would be more palatable. After all it's called "life insurance" not "death insurance". That said what is the average duration for employee-sponsored LTD benefits--a few years? From what I read, some went all the way up to age 65, but it made it seem like that was the exception rather than the rule.
I did not see that Harvard study. From what I know / seen however, it is not impossible. The issue is that medical catastrophes are expensive in more ways than one. And insurance may not cover all of it. As you know, a small percentage if medical cases account for the majority of the cost, and if one is unfortunate to be one of those cases, a regular health insurance may not be enough. Cancer medications can run into hundreds of thousands per year in terms of cost, and might well exceed the total annual payout from the insurance company. The upper ceiling is how the insurance company protects itself against unlimited liabilities, and that can lead to individual bankruptcy.
The difference between here and Europe is that we don't have a single payer system. When the government is the sole purchaser of all healthcare products and services, the vendor will be hard pressed to increase price w / o limit. But here in the US, we have multiple purchasers, from CMS, state Medicaid, large health insurance companies, large employers, and smaller bundled plans and even individuals. As a result, for example, the price of avastin can be much higher for a smaller plan than for cms, and much much higher than what a European government may pay for it. But the politics here makes it very difficult to move to a single payer system.
[QUOTE=Jnpr30;1789291]I did not see that Harvard study. From what I know / seen however, it is not impossible. The issue is that medical catastrophes are expensive in more ways than one. And insurance may not cover all of it. As you know, a small percentage if medical cases account for the majority of the cost, and if one is unfortunate to be one of those cases, a regular health insurance may not be enough. Cancer medications can run into hundreds of thousands per year in terms of cost, and might well exceed the total annual payout from the insurance company. The upper ceiling is how the insurance company protects itself against unlimited liabilities, and that can lead to individual bankruptcy.
The difference between here and Europe is that we don't have a single payer system. When the government is the sole purchaser of all healthcare products and services, the vendor will be hard pressed to increase price w / o limit. But here in the US, we have multiple purchasers, from CMS, state Medicaid, large health insurance companies, large employers, and smaller bundled plans and even individuals. As a result, for example, the price of avastin can be much higher for a smaller plan than for cms, and much much higher than what a European government may pay for it. But the politics here makes it very difficult to move to a single payer system.[/QUOTE]I found it here:
[URL]http://thelawdictionary.org/article/how-many-americans-go-bankrupt-due-to-medical-purposes-each-year/[/URL]
I just saw a figure and made my own interpretations. My reasoning was not endorsed by author. Your explanation for the large number of medical bankruptcies make more sense.
[QUOTE=TheCane;1789267]All this talk about wages and the cost of a Big Mac! WTF does that have to do with the price of rice in China? How about what's the price of a piece of ass? That's what we want to know! LOLOLOL![/QUOTE]I do not want asian ass in FKK, I get them here. I just got to fly half the way around the world to taste premium white asses.
It is a shame as Vladiostoc russia is so close to us, but they are not as organized as germans. I hope there is a way for me to buy premium young russian ass in far east russia. It is two hour flight. I would go every two weekend LOL.
[URL]http://www.economist.com/content/big-mac-index[/URL]
[URL]http://m.welt.de/finanzen/article136721663/Der-Big-Mac-zeigt-wie-krank-das-Finanzsystem-ist.html[/URL]
[URL]http://bigmacindex.org/[/URL]
HB.
[QUOTE=McAdonis;1789287]Thanks. I was more or less painting a worse case scenario, I. E. Unskilled American laborer that is not civil servant or union member that gets diagnosed with cancer. Partially to get a response from someone who would correct me. The American companies I've worked for were quite big, and I suppose I'd be considered a "professional". Its quite possible that LTD was offered to me, but I was always to lazy to read those benefits options. So your response spelled it out for me.
Here is something that I read that I found surprising:
"Harvard also discovered that 75% of those filing bankruptcy for medical reasons had health insurance. It is clear that having health insurance is no guarantee against carrying debt related to health care. ".
I guess the employee-provided health insurance options provided in USA are not that great. Or people just prefer to live on the wild side by choosing the cheapest option possible, both in terms of health insurance and long term disability insurance. Perhaps if they took the word "disability" out of "long term disability" it would be more palatable. After all it's called "life insurance" not "death insurance". That said what is the average duration for employee-sponsored LTD benefits--a few years? From what I read, some went all the way up to age 65, but it made it seem like that was the exception rather than the rule.[/QUOTE]You are being very careful and diplomatic, but many aspects of health care in the US are far from ideal to say the least. If you are quite wealthy, the quality of the health care is second to none and I won't dispute that. Secondly there are many politically powerful interest groups that fight any change to the health care regime and they have managed to shape the political culture in the US debate to make substantive changes to the health care system politically unviable.
This long term disability care is available in the US, but it is very very very expensive, and the real reason many people forgo it is due to cost and not choice. Given the wealth of data you have about medical emergencies being the overwhelming factor behind personal bankruptcies in the US, you would except many people who are at all risk averse, and not into playing Russian roulette to pay for this kind of insurance if they could afford it.
An uncle of mine who is a distinguished economics professor, who is very risk averse, did not have it and he found if unaffordable, by the way he has quite a handsome income.
Yes technically this option is available, but lets not defy logic and present this as a matter of choice and not cost. Why does almost everyone forgo it, because the cost is prohibitive even for very wealthy people. So in my opinion the alternative is in practice not there.
McAdonis, I think you are aware of this and being super diplomatic. But this whole discussion starting with relative salary levels in Germany vs US. It did start with a where are you better off arguments, one that I did not start by the way.
US Pensions are probably on par with German public pensions and they are far better than the minimalistic pensions system in the UK. However when it comes to health care and unemployment benefits, higher German taxes are providing something that is good value for money at least when compared to some other prominent countries. And no I am not German rather the opposite.
I have said something unequivocal here, but despite all the disclaimers saying "I am not saying one system is better" that is in fact how this discussion started.
There are many systems that have their pros and cons in various departments, but what I consider unique about Germany is not the wealth fare regime that exists in many other European countries as well, but the fact that Germany tends to be low cost and very competitive. I think when the Germans fixed the DM to the Euro at a weak rate unlike many other countries who wanted to high rate, they made Germany very competitive, in fact this was in fact a massive devaluation of their "currency".
I am surprised by how cheap Germany seems to me, forget places like Switzerland, it is a lot cheaper than the UK in my experience.