First of all, first tertiary education, your first trip to an university is free. We do pay taxes for it.
Second, we do expect that everyone in Germany got health insurance. Even the thought that some citizens of the G-7 (most developed countries in the world) don´t have health insurance is totally foreign to us!
Third, if you and your family are unlucky, we care about you. You will get social benefits (and if necessary the rent).
Problem is that we heard from a lot of people that we can´t afford that kind of "social market".
Which is bu**shit in my opinion. :)
My father died when I was 14, my mother died when I was 17. So I was depending on the social services in Germany for my education. :)
Heh, guess what? I was able to enter the (technical) university of Aachen. I didn´t have to pay anything for my education. And I got an interest-free loan to pay for my living expenses. (I´ll pay the last part of that loan back in December 2005.)
You know what? They spend a few thousands Euros on me. My tax returns (not counting my student loans) probably already paid for it.
Given my personal experience I believe in the German social security net.It´s entirely up to you to decide if it works in the Southern Gulf states...
Sometimes I wished to explain to Americans some things about our security net, especially free education. How would Germans have gotten their education after WWII for their children, if we had US-like conditions?
Nobody had anything, many lost fathers. I have had altogether six half-orphaned cousins who all went to university and got degrees. If they had been in the US, according to what they had, they would have been classified as blue collar and most probably never "made it".
My own niece, whose father died early - she was considered half-orphan, here in the US was considered blue collar, just because there were no income to show for. She was really amused. Considering in what kind of household she grew up, nobody in Germany would have dreamt to put her in the "Arbeiterklasse".
The hardest thing for me to "get" and accept is the fact that Americans don't want to admit that their educational system is not fair to low income people. I have no idea why Americans don't revolt against it, are not ashamed of what they are doing to their lower income class. It's obviously not good for the morale of many Americans.
If a system of ours would work in the Gulf States? What are you getting at here? Of course it would, but nobody is interested in implementing it. Basically I don't know what exactly it is that is different in the financing of public education in the US and in Europe that it's possible to establish free education in European countries, but not in the US.
