[kamakazizuru]

there's a bizarre trend in Germany in the last few months for legistlating completely unneccesary things. This is a great example.

Additionally today they announced that while profits on stock trading (specifically derivatives) can be taxed fully, losses can only be accounted for upto 10.000€

Berlin is trying to freeze rents for the next 5 years and make it possible to retroactively lower rents to the level of 2013.

This kids, is what it looks like when a government is too scared to solve bigger structural challenges (digitization of the beauraucracy, switch to electromobility, better competitive environment for startups, questionable pension system, unneccesarily high taxes that keep leading to surpluses, I could go on) - and instead keep themselves occupied with non-issues that are PR heavy. Schade.

[dgellow]

> Berlin is trying to freeze rents for the next 5 years and make it possible to retroactively lower rents to the level of 2013.

Just a note, because that can be misinterpreted very easily: that's something from the local Berlin government (Bundesland), not at the federal level.

[TulliusCicero]

Compared to the US, Germany is more regulation heavy in general. Many of those regulations seem fine or even great, there are definitely ones that weird me out a bit as an American living here though, like legally enforced quiet hours on Sunday, days where it's illegal to dance, and really just the large amount of government-religion interaction.

[svth]

The US has lots of overbearing regulations and laws relating to "moral" stuff such as drinking and nudity. In many places in the US, it's illegal to drink alcohol in public [!!!]. That's pretty fucked up, not being allowed to drink a beer on a park bench. And don't get me started on the puritan anti-nudity laws...

[ginko]

I don't know. The US does seem to also have its fair share of strange, overbearing laws to the point where you can easily find "weirdest us laws" lists online:

https://www.businessinsider.com/weird-us-laws?r=US&IR=T

[jerf]

Those are generally on the books because they are unenforced, so nobody even thinks to remove them. Were they enforced, they'd be struck quickly. Sometimes that even happens.

Are the ones in Germany enforced? Honest question, I don't know, and I'm interested in the answer.

[zaarn]

Quiet Hours on Sundays? Definitely enforced.

Dancing Ban? Usually not unless you're either A) a very big venue or B) a public place like a school. But for either cases it wouldn't matter much since most of them are closed on those days since they are usually national holidays anyway.

[Cthulhu_]

I'm more worried about the lack of certain laws in the US - like worker protection, minimum wage, working hours kinda laws.

[Fjolsvith]

> I'm more worried about the lack of certain laws in the US - like worker protection,

OSHA, workman comp

> minimum wage,

Present

> working hours kinda laws.

Overtime/holiday pay.

What's lacking again?

[sli]

> Overtime/holiday pay

You are severely misinformed if you believe these to be mandated by law. Also missing from US law: parental leave and sick days. None of these things are mandated, they are purely up to individual companies to optionally provide, which just isn't good enough in the rest of the world.

[viklove]

What's this then?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_o...

[Fjolsvith]

> Also missing from US law: parental leave. which just isn't good enough in the rest of the world.

So, I checked, and out of the 193 countries in the world, only 41 mandate parental leave. [1]

1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/16/u-s-lacks-m...

[Fjolsvith]

> You are severely misinformed if you believe these to be mandated by law.

The US Department of Labor says they are:

https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/overtimepay

[sneak]

In the US, the government dictates what hours you're allowed to drink, and in buildings that serve alcohol, you frequently need a license to be able to dance in those same places - even when there is no alcohol being served at that time.

[isoskeles]

There’s a difference between business licenses and making dancing itself illegal. I don’t know if that’s a real law somewhere in Germany, but it’s definitely further along in restricting personal freedom than requiring a business license to allow dancing in a club that serves alcohol, and I’d be surprised if Germany doesn’t have similar laws.

Although I imagine there could be some very conservative local jurisdictions, in the US, that outlaw dancing in some ways as well.

[sneak]

Having something be licensed simply means that it’s now illegal for you to do that thing.

It’s a euphemism.

Honestly, I feel it must be unconstitutional to outlaw protected expression by people simply because they are standing in a building in which other people serve alcohol at other times.

[zaarn]

Dancing itself isn't illegal, just doing it publically, on those days. It's rarely enforced, many places have exceptions that it's allowed unless the local church mess is disturbed due to noises.

Any closed club is fine to my knowledge.

[karmakaze]

I don't necessarily think there's an agenda to most of these laws. It's Germans doing what they do best, overengineer in this case, laws.

[45ure]

>there's a bizarre trend in Germany in the last few months for legistlating completely unneccesary things.

As unnecessary as it might seem, however, it is not bizarre. This piece of legislation was not cooked up overnight, as you suggest. Basically, this is how the start of enacting Article 13 aka 'meme ban' looks like.

Article 13 aka "the meme ban" explained.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-article-13-article-1...

[Mirioron]

I'm pretty sure this is just a consequence of that EU copyright reform that passed some months ago (article 11&13/15&17). At least the linked article talks about it (in German).

The EU can't make laws themselves. The way they work is by requiring member states to make laws and this is Germany's.

[krona]

> The EU can't make laws themselves.

They can. It's called a regulation. Directives are what you're referring to.

A regulation is a legal act of the European Union that becomes immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously.

[Mirioron]

You're right! I was thinking about directives here since this was about the copyright directive.

Another point is that even when it comes to regulations it generally falls onto the member states themselves to enforce those regulations.

[johannes1234321]

Correct, it is the national implementation implementation of an EU directive.

And to the other point: There are two kinds of EU law. Regulationsa and directives. Regulations are direct law in all member states, directives need national implementation.

[raverbashing]

You are correct

But the implementation details are left to the member states and of course Germany came up with this in their interpretation of the link tax