I just want to change the lens those people view lowering company taxes with. Why lower company taxes? What’s the goal? I’d argue the common answer is to grow “the economy” which sounds like it means “make more jobs and pay people more.” But the question then becomes if the goal is to pay people more why are we taxing companies less? Why not tax people less? That’s a more direct line to “growing the economy” except instead of giving more money to companies which is a theoretical proxy for giving money to people, we just give people more money directly.

I wish well meaning conservatives would think about it like that. I don’t think Merz is a well meaning conservative, in fact I don’t know if most conservatives in power are well meaning. But that’s what I’d hope the working class conservatives, who are wittingly or unwittingly betraying their own self interests, would think. Why give money to companies in the hopes they give more money to the people. Why not give money to the people and let them spend it on companies.

The guy worked for Black Rock who I’ve only heard of in “evil corporation” contexts. He made millions of dollars doing this work and then he gets back into politics and his one of his first priorities is lowering the taxes of corporations during a period where the government needs to be raising more funds and investing in its people! How is that not an obvious quid pro quo? Isn’t he not an obviously compromised actor who’s more ambitious than he is good willed?

Not even talking about conservatives as vehicles for societal decline, how is Merz not viewed by everyone as someone who has only his and his wealthy friends interests at heart by his past actions and history? Of course he’s not the change we need, he’s conservative - they, on average, cause pain to the working class. But even more so Merz is compromised, is he not? Just like the FDP after their last coalition stunt.

If someone, including a whole party, put party or power before the people of Germany (and I would argue the people of Europe and mankind as a whole) shouldn’t they be barred from ruling? They’re exactly the people you don’t want running.

The world is trending towards atheism bud. This Islamic fear mongering is horseshit. “Many people” who don’t like the “conservative values” that come from Islam are likely the same people who don’t like the conservative values that stem from Christianity or Catholicism and yet that’s far more prevalent in the US or Germany - in same cases literally baked in to their government - than the number of Islamic migrants could ever reach. It’s just smoke screen for blatant racism and xenophobia. Those two religions are more similar than they are different and yet one is tied to brown people and immigrants (looking for a better future). I bet if we looked at immigration statistics for the US the number of Islamic immigrants would represent a minority percentage of the total immigrant population. And that’s not even considering the fact that some people label themselves as the religious group they grew up with but aren’t practicing and possibly have even fallen out of faith.

I’m a Christian immigrant in Germany but I’m probably more likely agnostic at this point. Now tell me what my values are? Tell me what cultural pressure I’m putting on Germany? The reality is religion, except for heavy practitioners, is not necessarily indicative of their beliefs.

Immigrants bring skilled labor that societies need to survive. Its Not just Germany being poorer, it’s Germany not having working infrastructure, hospitals and clinics having larger wait times, it’s less organic and ethically produced products in your neighborhoods, it’s worse education and more expensive housing. Populations are declining and the best way to ensure every job is still filled, for the betterment of society, is immigration. Culture is a horseshit political word for people who didn’t grow up in my small town, which is most people.

Europeans and racist Americans talk about culture as if we’re in a fantasy or sci-fi setting, like people across an imaginary border don’t use money and don’t like music and don’t like good food. It’s stupid.

The power the ultra wealthy have to cross historic boundaries and bend the world to their will is unprecedented in history. We have to safeguard democracy against these people. Billionaires need to be taxed into the worker class for the safety of democracy. And doing so would mean massive societal improvement relatively overnight.

When I moves to Germany I saw the exact same propaganda lines used in the US against African Americans and Median Americans leveraged against Turkish immigrants. The same percentage bullshit, the same lazy / taking our job lines.

Cultural dilution is not an objective metric, it’s a tool to rule up the uneducated and the racist. It’s all culture warfare to hide the constant class warfare.

The problem is not the immigrant population in every country on earth, totaling hundreds of millions of people, it’s the billionaire/millionaire class in every country totalling tens of thousands of people. The fuckin growing wealth disparity isn’t happening because of skilled labor or asylum seekers, it’s because of the rich.

It’s worth it. I’m almost two years in Germany. Wouldn’t move back for a million dollars (although at 3 I could be bought). Work on the local language, volunteer or other community involvement activities, treat it like the new home it is. We’re fortunate to be able to move to a new country, try to be a part of improving it and earning your spot there. I’m even more fortunate to be white, male, straight etc - assuming you’re at least some of those things, do your best to counter the anti-immigration fear mongering that comes out of the political right. It effects you now, but more importantly it’s ramping up and it’ll effect people less fortunate far worse.

Hope you love it and welcome to Europe.

Kagi seems to surface great independent content and I’ve been loving it.

Is there a guide or any educational material on this? I’m about to swap to Linux (some fedora distro focused on gaming) and I’m interested in potentially one day swapping to arch after I’ve gotten my toes wet. Doing a bit of extra work and planning ahead to make that easier sounds nice.

Just chiming in, I’m 28, American, immigrated to Germany. Can’t speak for Lemmy but I migrated from reddit when they shut the APIs down. Just want a shelf stable Aggregate site where I can stay up to date on my favorite hobbies and periodically connect with other humans. A healthy political debate is good every now and then but I’m also in the camp that the answers for our current problems are well researched and pretty fuckin obvious so debates have gotten… Idk stale.

Generally Lemmy feels like reddit but smaller, less polluted, but also less connected with every niche major update.