Well, parents could also set some ground rules for iPad usage and enforce them! I don't think another screen is a good solution to get someone off a screen. You can just play a normal board game with the kids.
We are talking about a splinter party (BSW) from the main left party (Die Linke) which is a kind of anti-woke- and anti-immigration-party that spouts basically the normal Kremlin propaganda lines about Ukraine. There is of course anti-US sentiment there since is secondary to their main issue, peace at any cost so that Germany can get cheaper energy again.
Note that I'm not a German national but I live in Germany (former DDR / East) since 9 years.
This really took me back. Back then before Git was a big thing (2010/2011-ish) I had the misfortune to work at a very large user of IBM Rational ClearCase and it was so awful. However it was so bad and so expensive that I managed to get tasked to "fix it". As part as figuring out how to do this I travelled to GitTogether 2011 from Sweden. Lots of Git folks from those days where there, at least I remember Junio, Peff and Shawn Pearce being there. I was so energised from it all I went back and formed a small team that migrated a colossal code base (oh the horror stories I have) over to Git over the next 2 years. The most rewarding thing I did early in my career.
So thank to all of you that made this possible by creating Git, Gerrit and all the life saving tools this industry was missing! The passing of Shawn Pearce was really sad, but he won't be forgotten!
I work remotely from Germany but I have only worked for US based companies for this reason. There a handful of German companies being remote though, Giant Swarm for example.
I got different answers from the people I talked to, the lawyer, accountant and insurance broker all told me different things, i.e. if I was to start a GmbH, a Gewerbe or be Selbständig/Freiberufler. In the end I went the Selbständig-route and it has been good so far.
Also since I have been 100% working for US based companies remotely I needed to figure out tax implications and there most of the time I had to research things own and explain to my accountant due to the the accountant not knowing English. I guess I could find a better accountant but now after a year the accountant knows how things work and I'm too lazy to switch now.
Other than that getting the insurances in place and bank accounts took some time, but not too bad in the end. But a guide would have helped. :)
I think I remember my previous employment contract here in Germany stating that talking about salary was a fireable offense. Can't remember anything similar in Sweden. Just some datapoints.
I'm skeptical that this will turn into a conviction. The deep pockets of the auto industry takes them a long way into the different state and federal governments in Germany.
I don't find Swedes so reluctant to speak about salaries anymore, I think it has changed the last 10 years or so. Maybe this is just my reflections as a Swede though. I mean, your income tax return is public information so if someone wants to get a good idea on what other people maybe, it is really not that hard to look it up if you really want.
I currently live and work in Germany and I know that here it is much more tight lipped, it might even be a fireable offense for you to talk about your salary, which might explain why people don't really talk about it.
Pretty sure I have to pay for health insurance with my actual salary in Germany, the employer does however cover half the cost of it. It does not come included (e.g. 100% payed by the employer) like with the national insurance system in Sweden. Also, I might be mistaken but only 20 vacation days are required by law and I have 24 days currently.
I do agree with the first grade medical card and the general cheapness of the country.
The point is, that in US the second you stop paying your medical insurance as a result of financial problems caused by job loss/illness/family issues/whatever, you don't have health insurance anymore. Sure, you can go to an emergency room and will be helped, but you are still going to get a bill for it. In Germany(and most of EU) even if you are paying nil towards the national health insurance, you are still fully covered for everything - no bill will ever be produced for any treatment that you receive. Various EU countries have the payments for national insurance structured in different ways - so in Sweden, the employer pays 100% - maybe in Germany it's split in half. It doesn't matter - the point is, you are covered regardless of your personal situation.
COBRA covers your health insurance if you're fired, for up to 18 months or so. You do generally have to pay premiums on it.
The US has free healthcare for people without an income. If you're making the federal minimum wage, you qualify for free healthcare via Medicaid in every state (someone correct me if there's an exception).
The US has numerous government healthcare assistance programs for people that are in some kind of bad position.
Nearly half of all healthcare coverage in the US is public healthcare at this point, not employer sponsored.
Your 50% number is false. That derives from a 2009 study that goosed the numbers by including some odd qualifications such as if you missed work due to illness at any point in the year you declared bankruptcy.
The numbers are bad enough to not need pushed higher artificially frankly. It's closer to 1/4 of all bankruptcies having been impacted by medical bills (2011 Northwestern study indicating 26% of all bankruptcies are partially - not solely - caused by out of pocket medical costs).
There are roughly 288 million people in the US that have health coverage.
The medical bankruptcies you're referring to affect less than 1% of the adult US population across ten years. Among that 1% are common repeat medical bankruptcies, so the number is in fact even smaller.
If you look at the total number of bankruptcies in 2016 - 770,000 - and the share of those that were entirely caused by medical bills, you're probably talking about 100,000 to 150,000 (out of ~250 million adults). The ACA, it is speculated, has improved the medical bankruptcy numbers since its 2010 passage, and the economy has improved dramatically since 2010-11.
Is it terrible? Yes it is. Did you expect me to say otherwise? However it does in fact affect a small portion of the US population. It's obvious that if you could pick a few things to change about the US financial system, one would be to be able to more easily discharge medical debts.
True, it causes problems with recruitment since it is very hard to get people to drop up to a week of holiday to join us. I would love to have 28 or 30 days..
