Life in Deutschland

For those who do not know, I am in Deutschland/Germany these days along with dear A. Contrary to my expectations,settling down here was not too difficult, thanks to my earlier visit to this same place. Some stark differences as compared to settling here and in US or India are worth noting. Things are REALLY very expensive in Europe, be it clothes, furniture, electronics et all. Only daily and basic needs are maybe affordable. This observation quickly brings my train of thoughts to halt at a discussion which I had with a friend few days back and a article which our sales lead in Europe forwarded to me recently. "Socialist Capitalism" of Germany as I call it, is the exxagerated form of democracy and symbol of protectionist government of this country. In a developed nation with 11% un-employment it is really difficult to belive that people work only for 7 to 8 hours and practically the whole nation is holidaying on Sundays. Its mandated by law. I am sometimes at loggerheads with a German colleague (who works for same company as mine but being German has to work for just 8 hours and has almost 45 paid casual leaves!!) who keeps asking me why I work so hard and for such long hours (10 hours min which btw, is below average by Indian IT standards:-) ) I always end up explaning him that it is competition (read china) and inherently hard working (ass like) attitude of Indians which drives me, but I also do not fail to point out that working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week is a luxury which this country cannot afford for long. Everything here is govt controlled, house rents, working hours, minimum wages and unions meddling with company affairs is very normal. No wonder German workers are known to be most expensive.Slowly but steadily jobs are shifting to cheapers destinations. The US like anti-outsourcing backlash across Europe is just waiting to happen...the only way out for Europeans is to rise and face the realities and work harder, 10 hours minimum and OPEN all shops on Sundays too(thats a personal request)!
Btw, amongst all this talk of capitalism I saw a very cute and appreciable gesture which argues in favour of protectionism. While standing in a queue at the bank I saw a very young kid (hardly 10 yrs old) holding his piggy bank (so small that it cannot hold more than 10 Euro) and bank pass book!! He promptly gave them to the cashier who counted the coins and deposited to his account! Dont know what really drived that kid to save his pocket money in Bank instead of spending it on candy, did he foresee capitalism over shadowing his future?
~Amit