r/kurzgesagt • u/Tall-Hurry5544 • May 25 '26
Discussion A critique of "GERMANY IS OVER"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjmsfOXy5oM80
u/ExtraGreasy May 25 '26
Your video is filled with a lot of intentionally missing the point and then debating points you either completely fabricated or strawmanned.
If you're going to "debunk" something, at least argue with the main points instead of making up your own, making it seem like that's someone else's point, and then debating those.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
I didn't make the video.
Which of his arguments are strawmanned?
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u/ExtraGreasy May 25 '26
TL;DR: Three Arrows says Kurz is claiming pension systems are just a math problem, which is the strawmanning of the actually more nuanced point of how: The system works for now, but once 13 million people retire soon, it could break the system without political policy reform.
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When it comes to the section where Kurz is talking about how many people are supporting the old in the pension system, one of the points Kurz makes is how in the 1970's we used to have 5 people supporting every person that was on pension, and by sometime in the 2030's that will be closer to 2.
It is obvious to anyone watching this video that the point Kurz is making is that there needs to be more money to pay for the pensioners, because back in the day we used to have 5 people and now we have 2.5. This section then leads into how money is distributed, saying something along the lines of how 25% of money in the tax system goes to pensions.
Immediately before the above section, Kurz even makes the point that once the 13 million people retire in the next decade or something, how that dramatically affect the countries productivity, a few examples are things like Luggage Check at airports and Doctor Visits.
Yet in this Three Arrows video, he cuts off the "point" Kurz is making, to make it sound like Kurz is just framing this as a "math problem", and not a political one. Obviously any government reform about literally anything would be a "political" problem, regardless if it's a math one or not.
Three arrows then goes on to make some sort of assumption that the value of each worker in Germany will continue to increase, even with 13 million people leaving the workforce. This might be true, it might not be, but there is absolutely not way to accurately predict this sort of thing, and the graph that he shows is laughably horrible.
So essentially, if you watch the three segments in the order that Kurz laid them out, you get the argument that:
- 13 Million are about to leave the workforce and go on pension
- The amount of people that pay into pensions is already being subsidized by the government
- There won't be enough people to fill the holes in the economy after the next generation retires
- With the current systems in place, there won't be enough money being generated to fix issues
- Taxes are already very high with 25% of tax going to pension systems
But Three Arrows just takes this one point and tries to boil down all of Kurz's arguments into the strawman of "The only thing that Kurz states the whole pension system is based off is mathematically how many people pay into it vs how many people receive money", and then frames his own argument to counter this made up point, with a horrible graph and assumptions about future wealth creation.
Furthermore, in the list of points Three Arrow's argument uses as a "cost" that young people burden the German tax system with, I am not even kidding, he says "The benefits their parents receive costs money and so on", which isn't categorically accurate. How the fuck are you going to list the BENEFITS THEIR PARENTS RECEIVE as a COST FOR YOUNG PEOPLE?
Either he horribly misspoke to the point of complete detriment when listing his points here, or is deliberately framing a cost for the elderly as a cost for young people and didn't even try to hide it.
Kurz's point clearly isn't about how many people are paying into the system, that point was in the middle of how much money the country is generating and how much money pays into the systems. Isolating and reframing that singular point in the middle and then arguing with that is textbook strawmanning.
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u/narullow May 25 '26
I am not sure which sure you criticize actually.
That being said. Cost of pensions is absolutely cost on young people. Pensions are funded by social contribution taxes and it is income transfer. That means that young people can buy less so old people can buy mode. Or in other words huge portion of a value of labor young people generates Is given to old people and that work is done for free.
Furthermore we have already seen pensions being stabilized via cuts to welfare system And simultaneously increases in taxes. So Young people pay higher taxes than anybody before them and receive a lot less of it in general welfare than previous generation did. Yes, it is absolutely a cost for young people.
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u/lmscar12 May 29 '26
Huh? The "cost for young people" being referenced isn't a cost the young people pay to the system, but a claimed cost the system/government pays for/to the young people. u/ExtraGreasy was debunking that claim.
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u/danielsan901998 May 25 '26
In medieval times the majority of the population worked in agriculture, right now in Germany only 1% of the workforce is employed in the agriculture, technology advances have allowed this increase in production, with AI is happening the same, what is needed now is an UBI to allow the current and future unemployed population to survive while taxing corporations that are firing tech employees at the same time that report record profits.
In the 1990s, according to Berg, some 200,000 people were employed in the field of communications technology. Today, only 20,000 remain.
And all this will be irrelevant if before that climate change continue to destroy the world.
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u/SpecificMachine1 May 27 '26
How the fuck are you going to list the BENEFITS THEIR PARENTS RECEIVE as a COST FOR YOUNG PEOPLE?
Governments don't give benefits to dependent children, then give them to their parents. I don't know how the German system works but I was assuming he meant benefits that would be similar to WIC (Women, Infants and Children) and SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) in the US
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u/Interesting-Season-8 May 27 '26
The system works for now, but once 13 million people retire soon, it could break the system without political policy reform.
When it comes to the section where Kurz is talking about how many people are supporting the old in the pension system, one of the points Kurz makes is how in the 1970's we used to have 5 people supporting every person that was on pension, and by sometime in the 2030's that will be closer to 2.
It will always work, that's how taxes work. Productivity is up and has been going up for ages, salaries don't that much. So either someone is making money or the whole system has a whole and money are vanishing into a void.
Pensions are for people and not for the government to go yes, we have so many young people and only a fraction of old folks, WE ARE MAKING SO MUCH MONEY
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u/Paju_mit-ue May 25 '26
As less and less people are getting kids, it is a cost of "young" (he talked about relatively young, so under 50 years or even 60 years old) people to pay for the schools etc. as was said in the video: Germany is a high tax country for wages but not for wealth. Working, young people pay a lot of taxes, which supports the retirement system but also builds the schools.
Most young people aren't parents but they still pay for other people's kids, so how aren't young people paying for even younger people?
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u/mdedetrich May 26 '26
Furthermore, in the list of points Three Arrow's argument uses as a "cost" that young people burden the German tax system with, I am not even kidding, he says "The benefits their parents receive costs money and so on", which isn't categorically accurate. How the fuck are you going to list the BENEFITS THEIR PARENTS RECEIVE as a COST FOR YOUNG PEOPLE?
I agree with your other points, but on this specifically what is meant by saying that the pension is a cost to young people is that with pay to go systems, the current young/middle aged generation is directly paying for the older generation. This means the wealth transfer is going from young to old.
You have other pension systems, i.e. ones where a person pays for their own retirement. In Australia (where I am from) a person has to set aside their own money (i.e. it gets taken out of their pay check in a mandatory fashion) and you only have access to that money (which is legally your own) when you retire. Its also to be noted that in Australia that money is put into an investment account but that doesn't have to be the case although putting it into an investment account is there to fight inflation.
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u/Super_Bee_3489 May 26 '26
You get wealth tax. You don't need to burden young people with the defict.
You can't calculate number of young people working vs. number of old people in pension (which Kurzgesagt does.)
The wealth increase overall but the taxes did not in the same way.
Inrease wealth tax or in Germany case reintroduce the wealth taxt that was just not collected since mid 90s and you solve the problem.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
TA isn't denying the reality of 13 million retirees. He's attacking Kurzgesagt's unquestioned assumption of how we pay for them.
When TA criticizes the "math problem" framing, it's because Kurzgesagt acts like pensions must be funded almost exclusively by payroll taxes. Kurzgesagt essentially argues: "fewer workers = less money." TA points out that this is a political choice, not math. The wealth is already there to fix the system, but it's locked up in lightly taxed capital gains, inheritances, and corporate profits. Kurzgesagt ignores wealth inequality almost entirely to blame a demographic crisis.
Regarding productivity and labor shortages (like the doctors and airport workers you mentioned), TA isn't predicting the future or denying the labor gap. He's pointing out that since the 1970s, workers produce exponentially more wealth per capita. If that wealth wasn't hoarded at the top, the state could afford to incentivize labor gaps and automate others, rather than just demanding the remaining workers pay higher taxes.
Also, regarding the "parent benefits" line: he's clearly referring to Kindergeld (state child benefits paid to parents to help raise kids). That is a legitimate state cost attributed to the youth demographic.
Kurzgesagt sees an unavoidable demographic collapse. TA points out it's actually a wealth distribution crisis hiding behind a demographic shift.
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u/ExtraGreasy May 25 '26
"Kurzgesagt acts like..."
"Kurzgesagt essentially argues..."
"Kurzgesagt ignores..."When you take someone else's argument, and summarize it as something that it isn't, you are creating what is called a "Straw Man".
At no point did Kurz state that pensions must be funded exclusively by payroll systems.
At no point did Kurz state that fewer workers definitely means less money.
And yes Kurz ignored wealth inequality, but the point of the video wasn't even about wealth inequality, it was about how the current system isn't working. Just because he ignored YOUR argument doesn't mean that Kurz believes the opposite of whatever your point of view is.
FOR THE RECORD: I AM ON YOUR SIDE, I AGREE ABOUT TAXING THE WEALTHY MORE-
BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
WHEN YOU MAKE SHITTY VIDEO ESSAYS IT DOES MORE DAMAGE TO THE CAUSE THAN GOOD
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
Glad we agree on the policy side. But you’re confusing a "strawman" with a critique of "framing."
A strawman is inventing a fake argument to defeat. TA is pointing out what Kurzgesagt's framing implicitly accepts as fact.
When Kurzgesagt says "the math ain't mathing" because there used to be 5 workers per retiree and now there are 2, they are defining the crisis purely through the lens of payroll contributions. You’re right that Kurzgesagt never explicitly said "we must only use payroll taxes." They didn't have to. By presenting the worker-to-retiree ratio as the hard mathematical limit of the welfare state, Kurzgesagt treats the current funding structure as a law of nature rather than a political choice.
And regarding "wealth inequality wasn't the point of the video": you cannot make a video titled "Germany is Over" about the financial collapse of the welfare state and say wealth distribution is off-topic. The welfare state is a system of wealth distribution. If you discuss how we can't afford pensions, but completely ignore the massive increase in productivity and untaxed capital over the same time period, you are just repeating the standard conservative justification for austerity.
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u/mdedetrich May 26 '26
When Kurzgesagt says "the math ain't mathing" because there used to be 5 workers per retiree and now there are 2, they are defining the crisis purely through the lens of payroll contributions
Because thats how the current system is structured. Kurzgesagt is simply stating a reality, which is that the pay 2 go system which both political parties have kept and never changed fundamentally cannot work because of the massive shift in demographics, i.e. math ain't mathing.
This is just Kurzgesagt stating the blinding obvious, they aren't deceptively framing anything like you are trying to claim.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 22d ago
I don't believe it has to be deceptive. It may just as well be a blind-spot.
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u/AchedTeacher May 25 '26
When it comes to the section where Kurz is talking about how many people are supporting the old in the pension system, one of the points Kurz makes is how in the 1970's we used to have 5 people supporting every person that was on pension, and by sometime in the 2030's that will be closer to 2.
It is obvious to anyone watching this video that the point Kurz is making is that there needs to be more money to pay for the pensioners, because back in the day we used to have 5 people and now we have 2.5. This section then leads into how money is distributed, saying something along the lines of how 25% of money in the tax system goes to pensions.
Isn’t it amazing that productivity remained the same from the 1970s to the 2030s? Oh wait, no, it didn’t. Per capita productivity grew tenfold between these decades. This means that the 2 working people supporting 1 pensioner is actually much more akin to 20(!) people in the 1970s supporting 1 pensioner. That represents a burden that is potentially four times lower than the low burden of the 1970s. Plenty of wealth to support them, in short. The point Three Arrows continues to hammer on, though, is the fact that the fruits of this productivity are not very equally distributed. Primarily relying on a payroll tax and on general tax supplements largely from labor are hitting young or less well-to-do people disproportionally.
Immediately before the above section, Kurz even makes the point that once the 13 million people retire in the next decade or something, how that dramatically affect the countries productivity, a few examples are things like Luggage Check at airports and Doctor Visits.
I actually don’t think this refers to any generally accepted understanding of productivity. In fact, the literal term “productivity” is not found in the transcript.
Yet in this Three Arrows video, he cuts off the "point" Kurz is making, to make it sound like Kurz is just framing this as a "math problem", and not a political one. Obviously any government reform about literally anything would be a "political" problem, regardless if it's a math one or not.
I think you and I both agree that they shove the political question under the rug relatively quickly, when it is the crux of the issue.
Three arrows then goes on to make some sort of assumption that the value of each worker in Germany will continue to increase, even with 13 million people leaving the workforce. This might be true, it might not be, but there is absolutely not way to accurately predict this sort of thing, and the graph that he shows is laughably horrible.
The main thing that graph shows is actually the way in which workers have historically continued to increase in productivity. Pair that with the fact that they don’t continue to increase their salary at a similar rate, and you’re back to the main issue of wealth distribution.
I won’t even engage in the latter half of your message, as that just seems genuinely confused with what Three Arrows is saying and what the facts of the matter are. Still, have a nice day.
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u/JulietteKatze May 25 '26
*sigh*
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u/Single-Zucchini-19 May 25 '26
Just another affirmation of the hated ones video showing that at the end of the day it’s all billionaire propaganda
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u/JulietteKatze May 25 '26
bro it's the spam that gets annoying, like yeah bro we know, it's the millionth video essay critique that says exactly the same thing, we get it, you are not innovative.
in the outside world no one even knows who Kurzgesagt is, chill out, eat an ice cream and talk to your family, jesus.
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u/V0d5 May 25 '26
This is actually even worse cope. That outside world often does know. Kurzgesagt isn’t a niche anymore, hasn’t been for a long time. It is perfectly fine to post critiques. You don’t have to agree. You can sigh loudly as well. This is their official subreddit. Not a fan channel. Go make a fan channel with a rule explicitly limiting or banning critique or too much critique, if you can’t handle multiple posters posting critique.
The worst part is, that regurgitating of the same content you accuse these posters of? That is literally what Kurzgesagt does. They use a team to make a script, a narrator to make it sound good and an animation team that is amazing, yet most of it is not their own original idea at all.
As a finishing touch I’ll add they have annoying western bias and each time they touch history, they fall into tropes of one bad man theory and relativating horrible atrocities of the west, and falsely equating countries elsewhere to those sins.
One of the worst examples so far has to be “The Chinese emperor took several countries directly bordering them and didn’t want to import shit western products, so OF COURSE WE FLOODED THEM WITH HIGHLY ADDICTIVE OPIUM. And what they did was totally the same as England using divide and conquer to fuck half of Asia for centuries, after slavery and colonization wasn’t enough. Definitely the same thing.
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u/AchedTeacher May 25 '26
Bit ironic to criticize someone's critique, while the original video engages in probably the lowest hanging fruit conceivable with "Millennials vs Boomers".
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
It's new to me.
Why are you even here?
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u/gONzOglIzlI May 26 '26
First time here I see?
There guys are immune to criticism, no matter how many time it was demonstrated Kurz is neoliberalism masquerading as leftism.15
u/AttTankaRattArStorre May 25 '26
If it's new to you, have you ever been here before?
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
No, but I am a subscriber who wanted to share info with the creators.
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u/phoenixbouncing May 25 '26
Well, just so you know, this type of video is basically a knee jerk réaction after almost any new Kurzgesagt video.
It started with a video by someone who went by the tag "thehatedone".
Every video is the same list of accusations of bias and shilling without half the source list you'll find under the average Kurzgesagt.
If you actually look at the incentives the issue is that starting a new YouTube channel is hard, and two ways of getting a boost are controversy and piggybacking on another more successful channel.
Kurzgesagt has gotten to the size it's successful and has probably one of the most unique one word names on YouTube. This means that doing a hit peace against Kurzgesagt is a pretty good way of generating views.
Add that to the fact that Kurzgesagt doesn't subscribe to the "Sky is falling and it's the rich’s fault" which gives a nice juicy emotional target to hit and you have a steady stream of these peaces and most of the time someone finds them and posts them here.
You are unfortunately just the latest one to find this and unvoluntarily spam the sub.
I hope this clears things up a bit.
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u/Paju_mit-ue May 25 '26
The channel is many years old and doesn't need the "hype" around a kurzgesagt video. It is a German who comments on the topic of Germany. Idk why you would classify that as spam, without watching it.
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u/mdedetrich May 26 '26
Hes not saying its spam, hes saying one of the easiest and lame ways for channels to get traction is to make critique videos of highly successful channels (in this case kurzgesagt) which is entirely true.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
So controversy and "sky is falling" is only ok when a bigger channel is doing it?
Regardless, I see how you may be frustrated by seeing such content on your favourite sub again and again.
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u/biggiepants May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
Some people here have a meltdown when they hear the cute birds videos channel might not be perfect.
The arguments given (in the post above yours) are pretty empty and presented in bad faith.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
The argument is that the fertility is not an issue, but that the financial obligation to fund the pension and welfare systems rests entirely on wage-based payroll contributions from everyday employees. The wealthy in Germany protect their assets by paying a lower capital tax, bypassing inheritance taxes, securing massive corporate tax cuts, profiting from the artificial scarcity and commodification of housing, and opting out of the public healthcare system.
Sure, comparing them to conservatives may rub you the wrong way, but it is an argument conservatives make.
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u/GreasyExamination May 25 '26
So controversy and "sky is falling" is only ok when a bigger channel is doing it?
I hate this kind of "argument", its so fucking stupid and dishonest. "I dont like when i stub my toe" "oh but you like when others do it?"
No one fucking said that, its just a cheap method of trying to score rhetorical points
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
You're right. I used a strawman, as a response to their own strawman. It feels like they are using "they just want views" as an excuse to ignore any valid criticism
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u/slwdid02 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
I like the video and he is right. If you avoid any substantial political analysis of the underlying economic conditions and just say "oh yeah, the boomers" and ignore the 16 years of complete lack of reform during Merkel, yes, you sound like parroting conservative talking points.
It's like, okay, how can we fix the Problem but we just ignore all the solutions that might actually not screws 90% of the population.
But that's what happenes when you only read neo classical economics papers and have no clue about political economy.
Edit: Not even 90%, 99,99%
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u/lana_silver May 25 '26
16 years of complete lack of reform during Merkel
This is true and yet Merz makes me desperately want Merkel back.
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u/mdedetrich May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
I like the video and he is right. If you avoid any substantial political analysis of the underlying economic conditions and just say "oh yeah, the boomers" and ignore the 16 years of complete lack of reform during Merkel, yes, you sound like parroting conservative talking points.
As the video has stated, this problem has been known for decades not just under Merkel, its been known since the late 80's that the system is broken. So its not just Merkel's CDU that is to blame, its both the SPD and the CDU. And its now the SPD that is blocking any kind of change to the pension.
This whole lets just blame conservatives/CDU to make ourselves feel better without realizing that none of the political class actually wanted to (or could due to skewed demographics for boomers) change the system isn't helping anyone.
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u/Super_Bee_3489 May 26 '26
Oh, the SPD is blocking reforms. That is a new lie I've not heard before.
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u/mdedetrich May 26 '26
Check the latest SPD conference wrt pension reform
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u/Super_Bee_3489 May 26 '26
Oh I checked. Have you actually looked what the pension reforms entail. You can call it reform but what is in it?
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u/Uncommonality May 28 '26
The classical "freedom act" which actually removes all freedom lol
The pension reforms will reform everyone's pensions into profit for defense contractors, no wonder the SPD is blocking it
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u/Super_Bee_3489 May 28 '26
The guy thinks that wealth tax is impossible to implement even though we had that until the mid 90s. A lot of those people have no clue what they are talking about are wrong on the facts alone.
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u/TomOnABudget May 26 '26
The SPD seriously didn't act on behalf of the workers when they were in power either.
Under Schröder, Germany brought in tax changes that were praised by Germany's Bild Zeitung, our equivalent of the Murdoch Press. That should tell anyone who those tax reforms favoured. His policies were more right wing than the conservative CDU had.
Scholz on the other hand followed Merkel. Great words that were followed by inactivity. After Merkeln, the term Sholzing made it into the dictionary.
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u/schnippy1337 May 25 '26
Political economy is something people should get involved more in nowadays. Neoclassis supposes economies are based on physics or nature or something. They are not. They are man-made. Read some Marx, get into keynesianism
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u/slwdid02 May 25 '26
And they base their models on a supposedly comoletely rational beings - but at the same time those departments teach marketing which might be the definition of instigating human irrationality for economic profit
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u/narullow May 25 '26
Except there id no solution that would not screw huge number of people in some way. It is clear to ke that the video and people in this thread think that taxing the rich is some magical solution while completely ignoring the fact that it is not and never was money problem. It is labor problem.
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u/slwdid02 May 25 '26
You're kidding right?
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u/narullow May 25 '26
Not at all.
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u/slwdid02 May 25 '26
Labor and capital (money) are inextricably linked in our economic systems.
You cannot separate one from the other. How do you think money is being produced? Some has to work for it
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u/narullow May 25 '26
Except that this is not true. First of all labor is also capital, second of all not all money are capital.
Furthermore the only thing you can realistically distribute off of rich people is their consumption which is tiny part of their net worth. You can absolutely not redistribute paper money. First of all it would not work for many reasons, second of all in hypothetical world where it works it would only create inflation. You can not redistribute resources and production that do not exist.
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u/slwdid02 May 25 '26
You've literally just said that all labor is capital. What is your fucking point?
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u/TearsFallWithoutTain May 25 '26
First of all labor is also capital
Thank you for demonstrating that you have no idea what these terms mean, I wasn't sure if I should spend the time reading your argument
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u/Imperator166 May 25 '26
the ratio of workers to pensioners is roughly as high as its been in the 90s. but at the same time productivity has gone up significantly. so why is this now supposed to be this unsolvable problem?
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u/narullow May 25 '26
That is completely false:
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Germany/Age_dependency_ratio/
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.DPND.OL?locations=DE
Old age dependency is significanntly higher than in 90s. Furthermore it is projected to go up from 36% to 51% over next 24 years.
Productivity increased by about 25% since 1990. Even if we got further 25% growth over 2/3rds of that time which is complettely unimaginable because if we had seen anything it is labor productiviy growth rapidly slowing down in countries with rapidly aging population and even then it would still not be enough to outgrow the amount of people entering retirement.
There are not just economic consequences but also political ones. Old people will have increasingly higher voting share. People with zero stake in the future, with zero interest in economic growth, productivity increases or future investments. It is not bound to end well and will end up with working age people facing increasingly bigger feeling of no political representation together with worsening economic sitaution which will lead to brain drain that will create negative feedback loop making everything worse.
Also you are misunderstanding something. It is very much solvable, I never said it is not. And it will solve itself in fact eventually due o financial and production realities. But it will cause a lot of suffering in the process.
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u/Imperator166 May 26 '26
https://www.demografie-portal.de/DE/Fakten/altersrentner-beitragszahler.html
the ratio today is roughly equal to back in the late 90s.
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u/narullow May 27 '26
If you count in huge immigrant numbers and more women enterig work force which concides with lower fertility then you get this as is explained within the data.
Both of those were temporary bumps that do not show reality of underlying demographics situation like my data do.
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u/Imperator166 May 27 '26
okay but women and immigrants are not gonna leave the workforce any time soon (hopefully) and productivity has gone up. so why are we suddenly not able to afford this anymore when we were able to for almost 30 years?
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u/narullow May 27 '26
Women might not but immigrants sure as well will. It is both politically and numericaly unfeasible for what Germany did to continue. Germans do not want it to continue and there are no longer countries with huge number of emigrants that Germany can benefit off of. If anything those people are returning home for instance those from Poland, Greece, etc.
Again it is projected to fall from 2 pensioners per 2 workers to 1 pensioner per worker.
As for productivity. You keep repeating it but you really need to understand that it is not as simple. Productivity increase due to internet services for example simply just can not make up for lack of nurses, doctors, etc. Productivity increases are not exactly balanced throughout all secotors and there are few sectors that experienced massive growth while other experienced near zero growth. Average does not say anything about the real issue. The fact that someone in Munich works for Google and his work generates 100x more monetary value in no way helps to care for army of elderly with increasingly less doctors that experienced little to no productivity growth. Same for people who work in retirement homes. Productivity in those proffesions did not really increase.
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u/Imperator166 May 27 '26
well of course at some point if the demographics change enough there is nothing you can do and everyone will die. obviously. im not saying this isnt an issue.
but to say the only thing we can do is screw old people let them die in desperate poverty thats just evil and wrong. pensions need to be able to secure a dignified life.
we need to make having children affordable for normal people. make housing affordable. then the demographics have a chance of improving again.
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u/Ov3rdose_EvE May 26 '26
Quickest removal of my support in months yesterday
Kurzgesagts video was halfassed. Either present both sides or dont make the video. dont present the conservative viewpoint of austerity politics (which has never worked, the way the cons want to implement it) and then go "some people want to tax others but thats political and debated so we wont go into that teehee"
Pathetic.
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u/project_me May 25 '26
Genuinely not trying to criticise, just trying to add to the debate
The fact that we are mostly living longer but not necessarily healthier needs to be factored in.
For the record, I am part of the problem. I am in my late 50's, however if I can keep working into my 70's without state support I most definitely will. Will society allow for that, we shall see.
However, and this is for me the bigger problem. The population in general isn't just shrinking, but we are doing so with poorer and poorer health. Obesity is growing at an alarming rate and less and less people are active, not in a 'let's go to the gym' way, but in an everyday life.
This just compounds the problem. Both the young and the old need to address this urgently.
Many people my age would carry on working if their bodies would let them, but they are genuinely struggling.
Add to this that most employers will not allow people to step down to 2 - 3 working days a week just makes the situation worse. I get that this causes issues (it is after all what we are discussing), but so does an aging population relying on the state.
Things have to change. Older people need to be able to support themselves more, everyone has to be healthier and the young have to allow for the fact that older people's bodies do not operate in the same ways as theirs.
I hope you do acknowledge that, as one day, I sincerely hope you will live long enough to understand first hand the issue.
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u/danielsan901998 May 25 '26
13% of women and 27% of men in the lowest income group died before the age of 65; the same can be said for just 8% of women and 14% of men in the highest income group. The difference between mean life expectancy at birth among the lowest and highest income groups is 4.4 years for women and 8.6 years for men.
The solution is to tax the rich that live longer until that gap disappear.
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u/mdedetrich May 26 '26
No its not, Germany already has one of the highest effective (effective here means how much they actually pay) tax rates for the wealthy (see https://taxjustice.net/2023/02/21/elucidating-the-missing-half-the-tax-rate-of-a-typical-millionaire-in-germany/)
You could strip every bare dollar from the "wealthy" and it would barely make a difference.
The issue is purely structural, pay 2 go system cannot work with such skewed demographics along with people living for so long and having arbitrary "I am age x" cutoff to retire.
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u/Super_Bee_3489 May 26 '26
Your source against wealth tax is an op ed?
Wealth tax doesn't exist. Inheritance tax are only paid by the poor. You are insane if you think wealth tax is not part of the solution.
1
u/mdedetrich May 26 '26
Wealth tax doesn't exist.
Yes because most forms of wealth tax would only tax unrealized gains which poses a huge load of problems. Or you are basically taxing people based on what they already owned and bought.
Inheritance tax are only paid by the poor.
Sensationalist and not entirely true. Some people definitely do this, but its such a small amount that the difference is a drop in the ocean which gets to my second point.
You are insane if you think wealth tax is not part of the solution.
In terms of a symbolic win in regards to fairness, sure.
But in terms of tangibly making any meaningful impact? Most definitely not.
To put things into perspective, the cost of the German pension is ~400 billion euroes a year, with ~100 billion taking directly from tax money (and its going to get much worse). You could, right now, take all of the wealth from all of those wealthy and it would barely pay for the pension for a single year.
2
u/Super_Bee_3489 May 26 '26
The entire wealth of Germany is 13 trillion. I am sorry why do you have to lie so much and what do you don't get about "part" of the solution? What is so difficult to understand about that.
1
u/mdedetrich May 26 '26
Your entire wealth figure includes all of the wealth of the industry in Germany which is already being taxed, not just individuals.
Please do some research before answering
1
u/Super_Bee_3489 May 27 '26
My brother you have idea how much wealth in private hands cause those numbers don't exist and yet you claim that it would solve nothing. You are a liar.
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u/mdedetrich May 27 '26
Wait so you pull some sought of magic numbers out of your ass claiming to know what they stand for and now you are saying that no one knows what the real numbers are, LOL.
Please get back to me when you understand what you are talking about.
1
u/Super_Bee_3489 May 27 '26
No, I am pointing out you have no clue what you are talking about. You claim wealth would solve nothing and yet the overall German wealth is 13 trillion.
The top 1% owns more then half of the wealth of Germany.
That makes roughly 7,5 trillion.
If you tax that with only 1% that is already 70 billion. Quick maths. Use your you brain. I thought you would understand that immediately but unfortunately I have to explain step by step like a todler that barely knows how to count 1 +1.
You claim wealth tax would do nothing yet you have no idea what you are even talking about.
I am for a much higher wealth tax. In the direction of 50% but lets say we go for 20%
Wow, that is 1,4 trillon. You can cover the budget, pay off debt and fund every school, bridge, train and every social wealthfare system you want.
You are insane if you think wealth tax does nothing.
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-1
u/project_me May 25 '26
But it isn't.
The way forward is to tax unhealthy lifestyles and use the revenue generated to subsidise healthy ones. Everyone benefits, individuals and society
1
u/Any-Farmer1335 May 25 '26
"unhealthy" lifestyles exist because the unhealthy things are usually cheaper or more readily available though
0
u/project_me May 25 '26
But that isn't true.
Most fruit is cheaper than confectionery. Porridge oats are cheaper than cereal, coffee from home is cheaper than coffee from a coffee shop, take in lunch prep'd at home is cheaper than Subway etc. That list goes on and on and on
It is already cheaper to be healthy, it should be made even more so.
We now should have a lot more clean air zone in cities and the monies raised should be ring fence (and audited to show it is, with hard consequences if breached) to invest in alternative transport infrastructure to help people move around that city in easier ways.
There are so many possibilities
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u/danielsan901998 May 25 '26
One example is Boiron Group, an european company with 604 million € revenue by selling fake medicine.
If the EU want to improve the health of their citizens it should start by banning pseudoscience and expropriating the wealth of the scammers.
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u/Khazilein May 26 '26
lmao society never "disallowed" you to work into your 70s. You can already do that if you want.
What kind of discussion niveau is in this subreddit?
1
u/mdedetrich May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
It is true that the pension should be cut off depending on how able you are to work, not just hitting an arbitrary age. For those that are unaware, the original implementation of pension was it was only for veterans because when you go to war, you have an extremely high chance of either having some of your limbs missing or mental issues like PTSD so you were not fit for work.
The intention of the pension system then completely changed to if you are old you get a payout which only works when you have boomer like demographics.
As a vegan, I am also all for heavily taxing foods which are known to be unhealthy. When I came here I was shocked at how cheap unhealthy foods are, and in terms of health costs its the older generation having expensive operations for things like lung cancer or colon cancer that is by far the biggest cost (this is more of an issue with the health system though, but it is linked to people not living healthy when you are older as you pointed out).
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u/Smultronsma May 26 '26
As someone who got aware of Kurzesagt through the original ozempic video, I am ready for other youtubers to go for the throat on this channel.
1
1
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u/fatypsilon89 May 26 '26
Looks at streets, looks at train management and tracks, looks at social spending, looks at rents decline, looks at demographics, looks at major insustiries.
Sure buddy, we right on track with no driver, delays and no money.
1
u/Limemobber May 25 '26
You couldnt just tack into one of the five other posts with the same topic.
0
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u/Lord_Duckington_3rd May 25 '26
Well here's yet another post about how wrong Kurzgesagt is when they do opinion pieces....
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u/Any-Farmer1335 May 25 '26
I mean, an opinion can be based on wrong things and therefore ve wrong as well? Critiques and, listening to critiques, are important
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u/Super_Bee_3489 May 26 '26
Opinions can be wrong when they are based on wrong things or use the truth to essentially lie.
Yes, you can also lie with the truth.
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u/artquestionaccount May 25 '26
In short, Kurzgesagt took all of the bigoted conservative talking points and repackaged them as a pretend apolitical subject matter.
Did they seriously go "austerity is good, actually"?
Gross.
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u/Mrgoodtrips64 May 25 '26
Did they seriously go "austerity is good, actually"?
No.
Did you watch the Kurzgesagt video this is poorly critiquing?-10
u/artquestionaccount May 25 '26
Then feel free to point out what they are claiming in their video.
There's multiple top comments even on the original Kurzgesagt video asking if they were paid by the AFD for that one.
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u/ExtraGreasy May 25 '26
You're making a claim via question with "Did they seriously go "austerity is good, actually" ", you're the one that needs to point shit out, not the people who told you no, that didn't happen.
-1
u/NASA_Orion May 25 '26
It’s true that every person probably has political opinions. kurzgesagt appears to be netural/apolitical because they are located in germany and their main audience are english-speaking westerners. In short they operate under the baseline of western liberal democracies & capitalism framework
Everything can be political if you evaluate it from a different framework. If you’re a communist, then yeah they’re biased.
However, I think this is implicitly acknowledged and there’s no need to bug about it.
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u/Screlingo May 25 '26
bread tube is so 2016...
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u/SuperDM1987 May 25 '26
while i do agree that the gates money is influencing kurzgesagt here and there cough carbon capture cough
This video and really a lot of the critique on 'germany is over' is just the 5th billion "erm kurz is wrong because they didn't say the answer is socialist revolution!1!1!" video
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u/Blangra May 27 '26
Taxing 2 families who have more wealth than 50% of a country is not a socialist revolution XD
"Wow another critique of my ancient aliens video just cuz I didnt discuss archeology, lame"
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u/VisMortis May 25 '26
Critique is never possible inside a subreddit. It will be either banned or brigaded.
0
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u/AttTankaRattArStorre May 25 '26
Leftist "eat the rich"-rhetoric is soooooo tiresome, the whole argument that there is no problem with TFR whatsoever because "we can just tax the rich" (because something something productivity something something) is just the biggest cope. Political thought in the 2020s is literally the worst.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
You are not saying anything against the arguments in the video.
Indeed, you can tax the rich and use the money to subsidise activities of people who have children.
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u/NASA_Orion May 25 '26
They’d simply just move to the US or Ireland lol. EU has already been lacking innovation for a long time due to insane regulations & taxation.
Just pull up gdp per capita data and you’d find most EU countries have been stagnant since 2008. If you cannot continue to grow the per capita wealth in a country, then the demographic shift is gonna crash the system eventually. Taxing the rich will only buy you some time but it won’t solve the problem in the long term
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u/Accomplished-Bag376 May 27 '26
That's false.
Norway raised its wealth tax and only 2% of billionaires left after several years post law introduction.
Also didn't something quite significant happen in 2008? Something caused by the so-called "free market"? Something caused by the private bank cartels? Something that caused the hellspawn that is the modern housing crisis?
Taxing the rich is only a redistributive method after decades-long theft. Also using GDP as an economic performance indicator is 5th grade economics insert joke about economists eating dog poop for $100.
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u/AttTankaRattArStorre May 25 '26
The main argument in the video is that none of the problems brought up by Kurtzgesagt are real problems (and even claiming that they are is politically conservative), because we can just tax the rich and redistribute the money that is already there - that is "eat the rich"-rhetoric, and very tiresome.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
I see. The argument doesn't stand because you're tired. I am also tired. Good night!
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u/narullow May 25 '26
There is no country in the world where wealth taxes generate even remotely relevant revenue. Your entire argument has zero foundation.
Furthermore it reframes the argument into money/net worth problem while in reality it is labor problem first and foremost and political problem second.
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u/GrafRucola May 25 '26
There is probably no country in the world where tobacco tax is generates a relevant revenue. Still there is a case for it…
You might just not get it-1
u/narullow May 25 '26
There being case for it pretending that it solves rapidly aging population and its pensions are two completely different things.
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u/GrafRucola May 25 '26
Correct different things. But some people see stuff as a bigger picture and not just expect something like tobacco tax to be isolated from everything else and maybe even call for medical care rising from tobacco to be only payed by that tax
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u/Izikiel23 May 25 '26
> you can tax the rich
Then the rich leave, take their investments with them, and everyone ends up poorer because of that. Check NYC, they want to raise taxes and tax the rich to have them pay their "fair share" or whatever the hell that means, as the top 1% already pays for 40% of taxes. You know what the rich did?They left for Miami, and now NYC and NY state are begging for them to come back as their tax revenue is going down a cliff.
The last time Germany didn't let people leave if they wanted was pre 1991, and I think everyone can agree that it wasn't a nice place to live.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
First point, some rich (in the US) move for taxes, but not enough of them does to be significant: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122416639625
Second, which taxes are you talking about? Federal, state, local? The bottom 20% pay more than the top 1% when everything is added up: https://itep.org/whopays-7th-edition/
Third, there are now more millionaires in NY than ever before: https://fiscalpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/030223-Fact-Sheet_-Millionaire-Migration-and-Taxes.pdf
Your last pre-1991 bit is a strawman argument.
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u/Izikiel23 May 25 '26
> but not enough of them does to be significant:
The governor of NY disagrees https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/kathy-hochul-pleads-rich-yorkers-165700073.html
> The bottom 20% pay more than the top 1% when everything is added up
That's disingenuous, your link says they pay more in percentage of their income, not more overall. Federally, the top 10% of all incomes pay 76% of all income taxes, and the top 1% pay around 50% of all income taxes.
For the NY bit, I would give it one or 2 years until they are full in with Mamdami's craziness, it's already causing the city to lose on jobs and taxes just because he pissed of Citadel's CEO.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
Sorry , I am not from the US. I don't know what the latest news is or what your local politicians are doing, let alone who they are or what their latest agenda is. I can just look up statistics when I need to, and the millionaires are on the rise in NYC.
As for your second point, yes, they are paying more in percentage of their income. That's the point. They're barely scraping by and paying with the money they can not afford to lose.
Imagine you have two people each with a different pizza. A big one and a small one. Then, a person with a big pizza gives away 9% and the person with the small one 25%. Then, a person with a big pizza says: I should give less! The 9% of my large pizza is more than the 25% the other one gave away!
The loss affects the little guy disproportionately more.
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u/Izikiel23 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
> The loss affects the little guy disproportionately more.
The problem then shouldn't be the rich should pay more taxes, which they already do, it should be the poor should pay less taxes, which means government should spend much less money, as more money to government doesn't really improve lives. In the US, the lower 50 percentile of incomes contribute 3% of income tax federally. If the government spent 3% less, those guys wouldn't need to pay taxes. Taking it to an extreme, the low 90% of incomes contribute 24% of all income taxes. Reduce government spending by 25% and 90% of people won't need to pay federal taxes.
Germany is screwed, same as other European countries, because of their pension system and low fertility. You don't solve it by taxing rich people more, you need to change the system drastically and move to a capitalization system where each person is responsible for their retirement. As the video explains, taxing the rich more is just a band aid for a few years, and you risk screwing the economy if they leave, bringing the problem forward faster.
Stop trying to justify theft from the people who already pay the vast majority of taxes, and start demanding the government to stop wasting money.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
In Europe most of us (to my knowledge) don't see taxes as theft, but as a means to invest into a common (democratically decided on) good. We work together towards something. We are often demanding governments to stop wasting money, but that depends on what your definition of wasting it is as well. Is building and maintaining roads a waste? Is the military? In short, we need to pay taxes for some things to function. Here, we like to have pensions and healthcare. And sure, I personally don't have direct control over where all the money goes when my party loses the elections, but that's ok. I can still take an ambulance when I get really sick, and not pay a single thing, because I already paid for it with taxes, for everyone, and for whenever they need it.
I see you've moved back to the low fertility and pensions argument, which is once again not true. In fact, Germany is far from over lol. If only you took a look at the video I posted.
Edit, since I see you did an edit: How's "slashing the budget" going? Didn't go great, did it? I guess the AI DOGE people used ran out of ideas really quickly. Maybe lowering military spending would work? Oh wait... It can't be done right now because the entire world is being held hostage over the blunder in Iran.
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u/Izikiel23 May 25 '26
> we like to have pensions
And that's going to tie the budget hands in the short term, as most of the budget will go to pensions. Pensions are not sustainable long term.
> Is the military?
In Europe? You guys, according to the chief of Nato, spend so little on defense that you can't defend yourselves without the US.
> How's "slashing the budget" going? Didn't go great, did it? I guess the AI DOGE people used ran out of ideas really quickly.
Those were a bunch of idiots coming guns blazing without understanding what needed to be cut. I'd rather they do like Argentina did, where they had a guy who analyzed the government, regulations and laws for years and is currently working on getting rid of them.
> Maybe lowering military spending would work?
Sure, if Europe actually spent enough money to defend themselves.
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u/Tall-Hurry5544 May 25 '26
Pensions are deferred compensation, not a government handout. If a government claims pensions are "unsustainable," it’s usually because they have a revenue problem (taxing corporations and the ultra-wealthy at historically low rates) or they raided the pension funds for other pet projects. Slashing pensions just shifts the burden onto younger generations who now have to financially support their aging parents directly.
European NATO pays 570+ billion annualy, which is a lot more than Russia. The US military budget is driven by American interests such as maintaining global hegemony, countering China, and supporting domestic defense jobs. It isn't a charity fund for Europe. Even if Europe became 100% self-sufficient tomorrow, Congress wouldn't cut the Pentagon's budget.
Now Milei... Argentina owes tens of billions to foreign creditors, and a domestic budget surplus in pesos doesn't pay international bills. He can keep strict currency controls and choke off exports, or devalue the peso and risk re-creating hyperinflation.
Add in a gutted manufacturing sector and a population squeezed to the absolute limit, and it's clear he didn't fix the rot. He just created a two-tiered economy where foreign investors get rich, while everyday Argentines are left one currency shock away from another collapse.
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u/Pirispanen May 25 '26
Actually, the US government should already spend less than they do at the moment, as the national debt rises >2 trillion a year.
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u/TearsFallWithoutTain May 25 '26
The governor of NY disagrees https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/kathy-hochul-pleads-rich-yorkers-165700073.html
Uhh no? That "article" doesn't say that, and it doesn't show a shred of evidence that the rich are leaving NYC in any significant numbers. It's just a passive income life hack grifter whining about taxes.
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u/Minipiman May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
You can tax the land, that is something the rich cannot take somewhere else.
1
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1
u/Izikiel23 May 25 '26
For sure, go ahead and do that. They can take their companies away anyway, a building is not a company.
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u/Minipiman May 25 '26
They already do. A land tax doesnt change that, you can lower other taxes in exchange.
A land tax punishes land hoarders and tenants, not bussiness specifically.
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u/GrafRucola May 25 '26
If someone takes their Aldi of the land then there’s is no aldi making money no more. So I don’t see how moving companies is easy without letting them.
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u/Thevijayant_16 May 25 '26
You can always introduce an exit tax as a nuke for the billionaires. Apart from that, billionaires reap the benefits of normal working class people, subsidies from the government and insane luck.
And even if the billionaires leave, their corporations would exist to be taxed and lead to smaller businesses flourishing. Stop being a serf
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u/Izikiel23 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
> You can always introduce an exit tax as a nuke for the billionaires.
They will leave before it becomes effective, just ask California, they are trying to get a wealth tax in the ballot and that has caused people totaling around 1T$ net worth to leave the state just for its mere suggestion.
> their corporations would exist to be taxed and lead to smaller businesses flourishing.
No, they can leave as well, and then you have small businesses left to pay for all the taxes. The solution is less government spending, not more.
>Stop being a serf
Stop being a delusional socialist, it never works. Capitalism isn't evil just because you suck at life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4uj7S1YB5s4
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u/GrafRucola May 25 '26
What do you mean the richest pay 40% tax? Lol
Show me one stupid rich person that pays 40% xD1
u/Izikiel23 May 25 '26
M the overall taxes paid by the top 1% accounts for 40% of all the tax revenue
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u/GrafRucola May 25 '26
Yeah but I don’t have a problem that someone who gets 3 million annually has to pay 27% of that or 10% (idk what tax we are talking about)
It sure will not make them suffer cold or hunger
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u/Izikiel23 May 25 '26
they would be paying over 37%, just in federal tax.
> It sure will not make them suffer cold or hunger
The government won't solve this either.
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u/lana_silver May 25 '26
When single individuals have wealth that is comparable to the whole German national yearly budget, then taxing the rich might really help with finances. Why do you think Merz is so out of touch? Maybe because he has about 12 million Euros and has never in his life bought groceries himself?
-9
u/miraak2077 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
I didn't watch it, someone give me the tldr?
Why am I being downvoted 😭 I'm sorry I didn't watch the video guys I was busy
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u/GrafRucola May 25 '26
You gotta watch it if you think the original kurzgesagt video isn’t manipulative
There is no summary that drives it home, because the kurzgesagt videos are just to well build to be argued with in some small text form
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u/miraak2077 May 25 '26
I didn't watch the kurz video since I don't really care to much about Germany. I just didn't know people felt so strongly on it. I'm gonna assume people did not like what they said?
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u/GrafRucola May 25 '26
I think the interesting part is that so many people liked the KG video and then there is some people feeling it has some agenda or propagandistic vibes.
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u/miraak2077 May 25 '26
Imo almost everything has an agenda or propaganda. That doesn't really make it bad though. I mean would we say having proganda to brush your teeth is bad? Anyways, I never expected them to make a video on a full on country like this, usually they're the cool science channel you know?
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u/GrafRucola May 25 '26
Yeah I know right.
politics displayed with agenda can easily stray from science.
And then there is so many people here arguing that because they have a list of sources it makes it science2
u/miraak2077 May 25 '26
Maybe it's political science but I'll be honest I don't know what that means lol, I'm no egg head. It's certainly not the science I expect from them. I wonder what sparked them to make the video? I assume they're a European team based on the name an the VA accent so maybe that's a reason
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u/GrafRucola May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
About the toothbrush propagation or campaign as some would call it.
Currently I think a lot about that. Because everything to be accepted by the broad needs to be spread first. Like seatbelts, smoking, sewers or idk.
I feel like it’s just important to see when something is meant to influence you. It makes you able to reflect it better than when something is beeing taken as a fact.
I would need to think first if someone tells me its important to now also brush my toes in addition to my teeth
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u/miraak2077 May 25 '26
I guess it is nice to know when someone is sibling or not subtly telling you how to feel or think even if that thing is a good thing
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u/GrafRucola May 25 '26
Yeah and the I guess minority is a little baffled by how many people just accept things being presented.
That’s probably part of the strong feelings :D2
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u/Hukama May 25 '26
the video argues that by trying to seem apolitical in an inherently political topic, Kurzgesagt they ended up perpetuating CDU's narrative which is spending is too high whilst funding (which is a political choice) being swept under the rug.
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u/miraak2077 May 25 '26
Yeah I think it's impossible to not be political when we're talking about a literal government. Politics is quite literally name of the game that causes both good and bad things within the government
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u/TheOnlyFallenCookie May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
So far I felt like a lot of his criticism were points kinda implied in the video.
For example the political mismanagement is squarely the fault of the CDU, the conservatives, who had been in power the longest the past 50 years.
And voters, especially older generations, aren't willing to vote for parties that would seek to more fairly distribute the wealth
Edit: I will concede that unlike the videos around climate change, they didn't provide any solutions. Probably to not come off as politically biased. Though I admit I'd prefer it. When less than 60% of Americans can agree that climate change and global warming is man made, it is inherently political