Q-and-A: Germany

 1.  Why is there a nursing shortage crisis in Germany today?

I've had three German nurses (one of which gave up German employment and is a nurse in Australia) in recent years....lay down the conflict.

It goes to three chief reasons: (1) lack of respect, by both the management folks and doctors, (2) staffs are stocked to a minimum....so you run from one patient to another throughout your shift, and (3) pay-scale by the 10th year....doesn't work.  

Answer?  Well....presently, there's efforts to import nurses in from lesser countries (from beyond the EU).  A lot of folks shake their head over this because it requires German language classes in the mix.  

2.  Are all sixteen German states producing the same scale of tax revenue proportionally?

NO.  You can go back over decades, and see that this has never been the case.  Typically....NRW, Hessen, Bavaria, Baden-Wurttemberg, and Lower Saxony....pull in the bulk of the nation's tax revenue.  

3.  If you have a bag of glass to dump at your village recycle point, and there's a glass which is red or blue, and your bins are only transparent, green or brown....which bin will you put the red glass into?

By German logic/rules.....the green bin.  Don't ask why.

4.  Is there some kind of weird compression stockings scandal going on in Germany?  (the type you'd wear in a hospital or recovery setting)

Well....yeah, this is the current story....cops kinda walked into.  Up in Koblenz, some criminal gang (the really bright guys) had this idea of getting into compression stocking business.  

Their idea....get a deal going with doctors....to issue prescriptions for a particular type, and recommend particular stores in the Koblenz area.  The doctors were promised some type of 'reward' for each one.  

Yeah, I'll admit this is pretty crazy.  A cheapo set of the stockings run around 20 Euro.....while a premium set was 80 to 100 Euro.  There are some that go up into the 100 to 150 Euro range. 

Doctors will likely be disciplined in some way, and fined.  The guys behind this might be lucky to just pay a fine.

5.  Fake police now a problem in Germany?

What the real cops say....nationally, since 2018 when they started to really watch this....the fake cops have taken around 120 million Euro.  

The scam usually works in urbanized areas.....with high-end hotels in the landscape.  The fake cops approach some non-German tourist....flash a fake badge and say that there are counterfeit bills being circulated.....they'd like to see the bills in your purse/billfold.  You cooperate....thinking they are real police, and they then walk away with a couple of your bills.

My general advice....if approached by anyone in civilian clothing claiming to be German cops (flashing a badge)....just keep walking and pay no attention to them.  If they are in uniform....it's real cops and respect the authority.  

I'd say before Covid came along....there were two or three cases like this in Wiesbaden every week.