this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
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https://archive.is/CUo0k

Merz’s coalition must persuade younger generations to surrender more of their free time to support Europe’s largest economy

The coalition between Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democrats have, in their treaty which defines the political agenda until the next election, committed to incentives to persuade Germans to increase their working hours, and to delay retirement.

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

This guy earned > 1 million euros per year before he became chancellor and told a journalist he believes he's middle class. Nuff said.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago

By now I think he did mean it so as to say that his person as a "brand" or "company" is "Gehobener Mittelstand", upper mid tier, which is arguably worse and even more out of touch.

[–] einfach_orangensaft 69 points 3 weeks ago

I think he should wear a 24/7 livestreaming body cam and then work in a minimal wage job for the enterteinment of the voters

[–] [email protected] 62 points 3 weeks ago

Nation of slackers

[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

It's interesting that an article about productivity of labour doesn't mention productivity. Her Merz should perhaps persuade the owner class and himself to invest in labour productivity increases such as training, equipment, digitalization and automation. Working more hours is a marginal improvement if it even produces higher output at all.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 weeks ago

Merz is very firmly stuck in the past, so you can't expect him to understand any of this new-fangled mumbo-jumbo.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

They don't need to invest into productivity, which btw is already through the roof.

They can just happily ignore facts because nothing (but the profits of the top 0,x %) is linked to actual productivity anymore. Instead it's linked to wages that can be kept low.

(PS: And all actual context aside, modern day Germans are actually working more than ever, too. So it's not even malicious misinterpreting of reality but just plain lying.)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

I'd wager extending work hours decreases productivity. There are lots of reasons why this will happen, let alone the demotivating loss of leisure time.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

According to a study regarding office work, on average people are productive for just about 3 hours anyway. This is similar to some other findings (like this one), where about 4 hours of productive work per day were found.

Soo based on this increasing the amount of work hours doesn't really do anything despite making people even more angry and despise the government.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago

I’ve worked in an office and as a waiter. I was regularly working for less than a quarter of the day in the office job (and I ended up getting the fastest promotion in the history of the department), whereas I would be scolded if I looked at my phone for less than a minute in the back of the restaurant, even if I didn’t have any tables.

The first time I told my boss in the office that I was going to the bathroom he asked if I needed help finding it, then got really uncomfortable when he realized that I was essentially asking permission.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

My personal experience is about 4 hours. Then I'm just wasting time, getting distracted by my own thoughts. If I can switch to manual/dumb labor after 4 hours of cerebral tasks, I should.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

people are productive for just about 3 hours anyway.

That is not at all my experience.
Of course 100% is impossible , but 3 hours is less than 50%!
Of course there are jobs where the workload varies, and you sometimes don't have a lot to do.
But most jobs I've been in, I'd say it's closer to twice that.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

No offense intnded. But your anecdote is not evidence. Many studies have been done over this for many, many years.

Perhaps you are an outlier and are more productive than the average.

Or perhaps you are misinterpreting your productivity.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I never claimed it is evidence, but in fact that research isn't either. It's basically just an opinion poll. With very poor systematics behind it. And the claim is next to baseless.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yes, individual experiences might vary. For office jobs there seems to be a common picture on average though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't know, I feel like in the hospital it's way more than that. Not every task requires high brain power, but you're always running around doing shit

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Possible. There might also be a difference for, e.g., warehouse workers. The linked studies/surveys focused on office work.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah I don’t exactly agree with him.

German Version: Halt die Fresse, Fotzenfritz. Ich werd jetzt doppelt so viel Arbeitszeitbetrug machen wie vorher. MfG.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 weeks ago
[–] Shipgirlboy 34 points 3 weeks ago

You know what now I'm gonna slack off even harder

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The future can and should be about getting better! That means more efficient, that means more money for more people for less work, that means less hours spent working.

Merz and conservatives want a worse future for you and your family and your kids. They want to enrich themselves and their friends while asking you to work yourself to death. Don't vote against your self-interests, don't vote in the AfD or those that inevitably bring them to power like the CDU.

Vote for progress, vote progressives.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

Sorry, my people are stupid as a rock and voted after 4 years of progress where they fixed the stuff the conservatives neglected again for the dumbfucks.

They've blamed all their failings on the progressive government, and succeeded in it.

I'm speechless how one can have such bad memory

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Social Democrats

Germany has a social democratic party, called the Greens, but they did not sign the coalition agreement. The author means the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which is a conservative-liberal joke. Kinda like Labour in the UK.

(Yes I'm being facetious but am I wrong?)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The Greens aren't much better dog, and everyone calls the SPD that, because it's their name. Yes they have done the same shitty neoliberal politics. Remember that we had a red-green coalition under Schröder and they were also part of the traffic light coalition.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Traffic light coalition was the last good government in the last 20 years

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

Best in the last 20 years for sure, I don't know about good.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

I mean don't get me wrong you won't catch me voting for either, I'm not a socdem. I just think it's ridiculous that these guys get to drag the name of social democracy through the mud.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago

Fotzenfritz is speedrunning an AfD majority

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago

The real reason is, that right now and in the next decade, all the Boomers ago going to retire and this piece of shit Merz tried everything with his party for the last 20 years to not solve the problem on how the retirement fund will handle all these boomers. So his fucked up answer? Let the young again and again cut back for the Boomers to have a flourish retirement.

FUCK YOU FOTZENFRITZ!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago

🖕

I'm done soon with my studies and then he can go on alone with his stupid boomer projections

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

He can certainly try. But I will never give up my 30 hour work week. Not for this rich POS who's just constantly stepping on people below him, doesn't give a flying fuck about women's rights and throws a temper tantrum when his lectern for a TV show is a centimetre too low.

Fotzenfritz represents bringing Germany back into the mindset of the 80's...or maybe even farther back than that.

He also denied getting the process in motion of banning the far-right AfD, so that's just nice...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

When did the lectern event happen?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes, become as miserable as we are in America

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Death is merciful release

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

This is such a sad 'isolanistic' approach. There are other countries in Europe with a less tight labor market. Production could be moved there. Everybody would be happy.

But production is supposed to be automated. The number of newly installed robots compared to China doesn't make Europe look good.

The plan can only be to push through the next couple of years until OpenAI, Google and Boston Dynamics have developed the robots to take over production.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Merz is like Gerhard Schröder a traitor, hes gonna sell security of germany and therefore europe to usa for financial gain, just like Schröder deepen economic ties with russia to get a choosy job at gazprom