After WW 2 Germany was to be protected by NATO and they were not allowed to have a large military and the result of that is that Germany spends only 1% of its GDP on defense whereas the US spend 19%. The result is that the German people have many government benefits and they pay dearly for them. Here is a comparison between and American family of four and their German counterpart, both with family income of $50,000.

American family would pay $3,800 in social security tax and that would be it.

The German family would pay $4,500 in social security tax, $5,200 in federal income tax, $7,600 in value added tax and each private company has to pay Municipal Trade Tax of 15% in addition to the corporate income and pass that on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

The bottom line is the American family has $46,200 to spend and the German family has $32,700 to spend and the items they purchase will cost more than they cost here.

Many of the benefits the Germans receive are in the form of longer paid vacation, more holidays, low cost health care, lower cost for education, and earlier retirements.

This is common through out Europe and the result is that the European Union with 500 million people produces about 20% of the world’s GDP as compared to the US with 300 million people which also produces 20% of world GDP.

Because of this the countries of Europe are now going through the painful exercise of weaning the people away from benefits and this is causing a great deal of unrest as best seen in Greece and soon to be seen in other parts of the EU.

The interesting thing about all this is that while they have come to realize that the government tried to do too much our government