Do you like your country?

[van]

You're lucky to have a 1€/h job? FYI in Cracov McDonalds pays 2.5 times as much.

If I were to estimate earnings of my closest friends it would be around 600-700euro not counting benefits, straight after uni. (that's in IT field) I know it's shit compared to some of the western countries, but you can't compare wages without comparing the cost of living. You're ignoring the concept of price relativity for items like rent, internet, food and other commodities which are hella cheaper here.
I don't know where you're getting the 450€ from because you can make around 400€ in a regular office job without a diploma. Well, maybe slightly less than that.

Again, it's silly to even state everything in euros.

[Twyrfher]

hmm, here in Chile you have this costs:

Minimun salary by goverment: 273 Euros monthly for 45 hours per week. Typical jobs for that payment are for example the guy/girl who weights the cheese, ham or stuff in the supermarket, or to attend a small grocery shop, maybe like a painter of small houses, working at call centers, security guard in a small bar, and all the small works on supermarkets or big retail stores.

1 Gallon of gas = 4,42 Euros.
1 Kg of bread (highly consumed here, maybe the base of every chilean family daily diet) = 1 Euro.
A bus ticket for a travel of 500Km (-.- xD) = 13 Euros.
An airplane ticket for the same distance = 65 Euros.
A ticket for a movie on cinema = 4.5 Euros.
1 small beer on a mid expensive bar = 3,25 Euros
1 large pizza at Dominos (pepperoni special) = 13 Euros
A Toyota Yaris 2014 mechanical gearbox = 10.270 Euros

Some other salaries (aprox of course... it varies depending the enterprise, CV, luck, contacts, etc):

Mechanical Engineer at first year: 1000 Euros
At 5 years: 3250 Euros
Teaching at University with master degree: between 1400-2340 Euros depending the quality and prestige of the Univ.
Medical Doctor with 5 years of experience, working at public hospital (bad services): 2000 euros
And at private clinic: 4000 or more.
A junior webmaster: 500 Euros.
Senior webmaster or IT developer with lastes technologies, certificated: 1000 Euros if you are employed, and maybe 2000-2500 if you have your own business.
A maid house: 300-500 Euros (poor-medium family or rich family

BUT Education!!!!??

That's expensive as fUUCk here compared with the salaries. Some examples:
- Computer Engineer (6 years of total study): 1 year costs 3250 Euros (lower cost on a poor/bad University), 4200 on a classic or more prestigious University.
- Medicine (7 years): 1 year at 3900 to 10.000 Euros depending the University.
- Architecture (6 years): a little bit less than Medicine.
- High School could be public (free) or private. Private schools are between: 200 Euros per month to 800 Euros per month (that's what my brother pays for each of his 3 sons)

Every family has to cost the education of their sons, you can ask some "credits" to banks or govement (they only act as an intermediary between you and the bank) and then you could pay only the 5% to 50% monthly depending how poor you can accredit it, or what social problems could you have (unemployed parents for example, dead parents, etc), then, when you starts to work, the goverments (or private banks) starts to charge you automatically that asked credit  till the debt is finished. Imagine... the main salary in Chile has to be between 390 or 900 Euros per month,that's the range of payments what most families have.

Here: if you have some money, you can make some money; if you are poor, u are doomed to be poor and also all your sons.

[Aerox]

but rich people in poland and chile are as rich as rich people in western europe and they have np paying the same prices those countries do for things such as concerts and high education

that's the main issue, otherwise those things wouldn't have a market at those prices

we pay the same por Domino's pizza here, and I'd say beer is probably cheaper 

[rU`]

but rich people in poland and chile are as rich as rich people in western europe and they have np paying the same prices those countries do for things such as concerts and high education

that's the main issue, otherwise those things wouldn't have a market at those prices

we pay the same por Domino's pizza here, and I'd say beer is probably cheaper 

my menu for Sunday hangover lunch:

- 1xBigMac.   2€
- 1xMcPollo.  2€ (these offers don't obviously include chips or drinks) 
- 1xLitro de Estrella Beer.  1€  (almost frozen,  from Paquito's little shop)

can you beat it

[Aerox]

but rich people in poland and chile are as rich as rich people in western europe and they have np paying the same prices those countries do for things such as concerts and high education

that's the main issue, otherwise those things wouldn't have a market at those prices

we pay the same por Domino's pizza here, and I'd say beer is probably cheaper 

my menu for Sunday hangover lunch:

- 1xBigMac.   2€
- 1xMcPollo.  2€ (these offers don't obviously include chips or drinks) 
- 1xLitro de Estrella Beer.  1€  (almost frozen,  from Paquito's little shop)

can you beat it

this is pretty relevant to the topic

those who can't speak spanish: mcdonalds has taken big mac out of their menus and signs in all argentina mc donalds to try and stop people from ordering. they can still order it though. the reason is that like many things in argentina they have a fixed price (goverment imposed, mcdonalds can't do pish) that is frozen and doesn't "get on with times" making a big mac menu not profitable for mcdonalds.

not sure if that has changed since then, though

[lalo]

Where are you buying at Twy? I pay less than 3 euros for a pint of heineken in a more than decent pub in the middle of Las Condes -one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Chile- and 11 euros for a large pizza, with a 1.5 L coke and appetizzer at Dominos pizza too. I guess you live in Antofagasta  .
I worked in a call centre for a short period of time for 900€ gross.

Education is damn expensive while the teachers salary is a joke, though everyone can afford it getting a loan.
I disagree with your statement about poors. A lot of my friends were raised in middle-low class families and now are engineers, lawyers, etc.

Regarding eastern europe countries, I liked them way more than others like Italy and Belgium for example! Maybe because they look poor  But it is clear they are lagging behind in Europe and even comparing them with southamerican countries like Chile or Argentina.

[Twyrfher]

Where are you buying at Twy? I pay less than 3 euros for a pint of heineken in a more than decent pub in the middle of Las Condes -one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Chile- and 11 euros for a large pizza, with a 1.5 L coke and appetizzer at Dominos pizza too. I guess you live in Antofagasta  .
I worked in a call centre for a short period of time for 900€ gross.

Education is damn expensive while the teachers salary is a joke, though everyone can afford it getting a loan.
I disagree with your statement about poors. A lot of my friends were raised in middle-low class families and now are engineers, lawyers, etc.

Regarding eastern europe countries, I liked them way more than others like Italy and Belgium for example! Maybe because they look poor  But it is clear they are lagging behind in Europe and even comparing them with southamerican countries like Chile or Argentina.

Well yeah, I live in Concepción, it's pretty expensive in some stuffs compared to Santiago. Some months ago I had some beers in some pubs at El Golf and they weren't too expensive as some popular bars here in Concepción... lol yes @ Antofagasta. Anyway, my usual bar is the cheapest of the area, 1 Liter of "Escudo" (a cheap beer) cost 2 Euros, it's almost impossible to find any cheaper here, but a little bottle of Corona cost what I said here, maybe a little more in some more exclusive pubs.

900 Euros for a call center? wow, that's a lot man, that's 3 times the minimun salary of Chile. Anyway I was putting just some examples only, I've rejected some callcenters job for the payment that I said. Mi mother was an University teacher (with License grade), her best salary at her last year was like 600 Euros ... :/

About poverty, my idea was that with "some money you can make some money", not that only rich people could be become rich aswell. And I said "money" in a manner to say "education" actually, cos as u said, I know a lot of families too with education but without money, and their childrens could study with loan from the bank.

[Aerox]

900 for a call center is a lot indeed. They make 600-800 here in a CC. (600 is minimun salary for a full-time job here in Spain)

[darKz]

As for the current topic: My brother-in-law is working in a call center for an insurance company and earns like 1,600-1,800 € per month (after taxes) depending on his shifts. It's considered slightly above average salary here, quite saddening that the same work is worth much less in other countries..

I generally like Germany, we have some regions with really nice landscapes, we're beer land (<3 beer) and we have one of the best health care systems in the world. The gap between rich and poor has been increasing steadily over here as well but it's a little bit different to many other countries.. Even if you're unemployed in Germany you get social benefits (taken from taxes) so you can actually pay rent and buy food (Anubis and Peja can tell you more about that ). Our economy is pretty strong too, although with all those EU commitments we're giving away a lot of money for economically weaker countries. Additionally, education is pretty much free here. High school is free no matter what, and there's regions where even university doesn't cost you a single cent. So even if you're from a poor family, if you've got the right attitude you can actually get a nice degree and a well paid job afterwards.

What I don't like about Germany is..... Its people. It feels like crime and violence have been picking up drastically over the past couple years (especially among the young folks), to a point where in some places you need to be genuinely scared of walking around alone after sunset. I mean it's okay-ish to get into a fight after an argument but currently there are a lot of cases where people just go around and look for prey, even kicking their victims in the face after they're already on the ground. They don't know when to stop, the sense of honor is slowly fading away.
Germans as a whole are pretty indifferent to each other, they focus on themselves and their family and don't really care what's happening around them. Makes me a bit envious of countries where people are more hospitable and friendly.

[DarkOne]

I'm happy to have been born in the Netherlands. In general, people have it good here and I'm currently in a good position financially. I'm a bit worried about some of the things going on, more particularly economically - on the one hand, they want people to buy houses, cars, etcetera, but on the other hand, they want to take away job security and all that (a lot of temporary work).
Next to that, they kind of suck at regulating things By the time I'm done specialising, there will be 200 unemployed radiologists (very likely that I will be one of them, so I may have to move abroad).

The Dutch are pretty open minded people, too. There's a good reason the difficult topics are discussed and implemented here first in general (like euthanasia, gay marriage etcetera). I love that we don't dub television/movies (except cartoons/series for children), which teaches us foreign languages at an early age already. These are probably the result of being a pretty small country.
There's always the xenophobia, just like in any other country (Geert Wilders and such), but it won't become bad enough to make policies horrible in that respect. Companies do tend to treat foreign workers like shit, though. Can't say I liked hearing about that.

Basically, it's a mixed bag, just like in a lot of other countries. I personally enjoy more of the positive aspects of my country.

[lalo]

900 for a call center is a lot indeed. They make 600-800 here in a CC. (600 is minimun salary for a full-time job here in Spain)

900€ gross is like 500.000 CLP net and a bit more, was okay for a bilingual call centre in The Ritz Carlton, definitely the worst job I've ever had tho

[SPW]

In Switzerland you got paid very good compare to other countries. But you have to pay a lot more too. Here some prizes:

6 pack redbull 250ml: €5
1 packet of zigs (20 piec.): €6
100 gr. of beef: €6-8
100 gr. of chicken: €3-5

Weird: Beer is cheaper than water!

Samsung TV 55' UHD: €2500
1 litre of fuel: About €1.50
Playstation 4 (one controller, without extras): €400
7 gr. of weed: €80
1 single bigmac: €5.50

A callcenter job brings you about €2.500 up, dep. shifts and region, 100%.

Mechanic job after 4 years study: Min. €3.300. So other compareable jobs.
To rent an appartement (4 rooms): €1000 - €2000 (land / city) per month.

I pay for my appartement (3,5 rooms) €1000 a month. I dont live in the city.

So there are a lot of "working poors" in Switzerland. You just work for your costs. Guess this problem is all around the world.

[Ryan]

Are these wages gross or after taxes, etc?
SPW, if these are net wages then you can live wery well I imagine.
E.g. 20 cigarettes here is about £8/10€.
Fuel ~same price.
We use bedrooms as a unit for rent, but my mates in London pay between them (2 people) £1700/2150€.

If your wages are after tax your standard of living is far bettervthan ours

[rU`]

There's always the xenophobia, just like in any other country (Geert Wilders and such), but it won't become bad enough to make policies horrible in that respect. Companies do tend to treat foreign workers like shit, though. Can't say I liked hearing about that.

[SPW]

Are these wages gross or after taxes, etc?
SPW, if these are net wages then you can live wery well I imagine.
E.g. 20 cigarettes here is about £8/10€.
Fuel ~same price.
We use bedrooms as a unit for rent, but my mates in London pay between them (2 people) £1700/2150€.

If your wages are after tax your standard of living is far bettervthan ours

Yea, most of taxes included. You live good when you learnt smth for a better paid job. But if you do just easy work cause everyone could do it, then you dont have much left at the end of the month. But sure, with a good job you have a perfect life in Switzerland. I always say I am twice a lucker when borned. First is life and second the country.