Teutonic mists. The wealthy Germans and the poor Irish: 2 (05/07/12)

There are many myths in England about the generosity of the Nordic and German Welfare States. The reality is that the bureaucracy eats up the wealth of Germany and the unemployed are destitute and homeless. The Northern European system of the Danish and Norwegian systems makes for predictability in social relations. The Swedish welfare state is a myth.

In Germany the Hartz 4 social reform made under Hans Muentefering cut social assistance (Sozialhilfe) from 124 Euros a month to 90 Euros a month. Only the Christian Democrats opposed this manoeuvre by the Social Democratic Party. Rent allowance is also paid to the needy in Germany. As in Britain, there is a financial incentive to claim Disability Allowance (Behindertegeld). 

The German Christian Democrats, Lefts (Linken), to which Sinn Fein is allied, and Social Democrats showed their faces to the disabled by allowing experimentation with the stem cells of aborted foetuses. The German Disabled Federation condemned this diabolical scheme.

In Ireland those not qualifying for unemployment assistance which is not limited to the German qualifying period of one year receive 196.40 Euros a week indefinitely as long as they are capable of and available for work. Social assistance is paid at the same rate as unemployment benefit.There is generous rent allowance.

People do not understand that the equivalent of the National Manpower Service, the government Careers Advisory Service, abolished by Thatcher in the UK, employs one hundred thousand bureaucrats in Germany and delivers only a couple of hundred jobs to  graduates. The bureaucracy soaks up the wealth of Germany.

In Sweden the unemployed single mothers are reduced to dire poverty by the

non-existent social state which is so widely praised in Britain Ireland and the United states. Swedish social democracy is an illusion shared by many Marxists.

In Germany Unemployment Benefit is set at the rate of a half of net wages for the duration of six months to one year. Their system is communal and there is no guarantee of Social Assistance in small towns because the Germans are a parochial people.The only positive aspect which is not shared by any other country other than Russia is the ten thousand Euro state gift for the birth of a child. 

The collapse of the German family and The Contraceptive Mentality required urgent action by the Christian Democrats after the 2007 General Election.

The employer- trade union conferences award unemployment pay in Denmark and Norway. In 2003 Denmark paid an unemployed worker 90% of their previous wage according to sectoral wage agreements administered by the Lohnorganisationen.

Clearly the payment is for a limited period since we learn that there is compulsory referral for retraining by state welfare authorities. No social security payments are made if retraining is refused.

The wealthy Germans?  The socially responsible Swedes? The generous Danes?

Teutonic mists and myths!  

19.7.2021

In June 1981 I took a working holiday in Germany after completing my first year Law examinations at Queen's University Belfast and went to work in Germany while Thatcher directed the British economy into anarchy and chaos at the injunction of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales. I soon found work in Meiller-Kipper in Munchen-Moosach where I was paid the IG Metall Tarif and the work in the store was much the same as in Stuttgart-Mettingen working for Daimler-Benz (June-September 1980).I found the fickle claims of the German Sozialstaat were only for students on stagiares and waged workers. While I earned 420-460 marks a week,a poor unfortunate English immigrant was only entitled to 16 marks a week and would come to the campsite looking for beer bottles which he could sell for the Flaschenpfand.

This uncaring society is technically gifted but suffers from a profound social and moral deficit which manifests itself in the same hatred or resentment towards the bottom of society,the migrant and the stranger all over-developed societies have suffered for forty years... I went back to the building trade after four weeks and got a job in Koblenz paying 999 DM for a 56-hour week working in panel-fixing at heights (Montage) for seven weeks.16:999...is that what The Guardian calls "a very generous social state".Having successfully passed my examinations I returned to Queen's in October having decided not to return to Germany.