No One Can Escape, the CCP Has Locked It Down! Is a Monthly Salary of 3000 in Europe No Different from Being Behind the Wall? Qiqi's Talk Show [Refreshing Talk 810] 20261026

This episode is hosted by Qiqi, discussing how the platforms' excessive control over merchants and delivery riders reflects the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s logic of power monopoly. It then explores the actual purchasing power difference between a 3,000-euro monthly salary in Europe and domestic income, comparing the work intensity and lifestyle relaxation between Europe and Asia through the personal experience of an intern in Germany. The second half discusses China's economic structure, Joseph Schumpeter's views on economic crises, and the fundamental impact of improving welfare and human rights on consumption and economy.

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Hello everyone, welcome to 1788, I am Qiqi.

I used to think that when I opened a store, I was the boss, and I should have the final say about this store. If I had something to do and wanted to close for the day, I would just close it. Unexpectedly, I couldn't close it anymore. A couple of days ago, something came up at home, and I wanted to take a day off. When I opened a certain food delivery platform, I found out that the store couldn't be closed. The prompt below said that this suspension application required approval. I wanted to take a day off, and I actually had to get their consent. Hey, what's most crucial here? I applied for this a day in advance, and then after my day off was over, they still hadn't approved my application. Back then, when they stepped into this delivery business under the banner of zero commission, respecting merchants, and quality first, countless of our catering peers joined with full expectations. Hey, and look at how they are playing this game now. Whose store is this anyway, yours or mine? If it's yours, then I'd like to ask you one question, did you pay social security for me? Ah, I believe you will definitely see this video, please don't report me! Listen to me, I seriously suspect that you have an inside mole, you know? Why are you always covertly advertising for the other two competitors? Right? This business logic is completely wrong! Moreover, as far as I currently understand, it's not just forcing merchants to stay open, it's also forcing delivery riders to take orders, directly deducting refunds for overtime, hey, and then the fines are deducted from the riders' heads. Ah, however, as catering merchants facing this problem, don't be afraid, don't think the store really can't be closed! This is what I did: just change the business hours to one minute, and that's it.

Yes, actually, the actions of these platforms are all learned from the Chinese Communist Party government. It's like whatever you do coming or going in my territory has to be decided by me. And then, everything is monopolized by me alone. Then you tell me, isn't it essentially having no choice? Right? If you leave the platform, you can survive even less. What can you do? You completely have no other way, there is only this one channel. So many people are calling out to Chinese people: "Hey, run quickly, run quickly!" I actually really want to say "run quickly, run quickly" too, but I know very well in my heart that it's not that people don't want to run, the majority of people really cannot run because of various realistic circumstances. There have always been people saying: hey, you earn euros and spend euros, earn dollars and spend dollars, and in RMB you also earn and spend RMB, so earning a 3,000-euro monthly salary in Europe is no different from earning 3,000 RMB a month in China. Let's take a look.

Hello everyone, there has been a very popular discussion online recently, which is that earning 3,000 euros in Europe is equivalent to a domestic monthly salary of 3,000 yuan. Today, I also want to participate and talk about this topic. Currently, I am working in Germany as a dual-system apprentice, an intern, and I am in my second year. My current income is a little over 1,200 euros per month. According to the view of most netizens, my monthly salary of 1,200 euros is equivalent to 1,200 yuan in China. Is that really the case? Personally, I feel that theoretically there seems to be nothing wrong with it, after all, you earn euros and spend euros, and you shouldn't convert it and so on. But reality? Reality is really not like that. To put it in a way you might not believe, let me tell you very directly: with this allowance of over 1,200 euros, I can still manage to send an average red envelope of about 2,000 yuan to my parents every month—in RMB, of course. And every time I send it to them when the exchange rate is relatively high, so from this perspective, it's not equivalent. Personally, I feel that my allowance of over 1,200 euros should be roughly equivalent to domestic, about 7,000 to 8,000 yuan or so. Besides this difference, there are actually differences in the cost of living. For example, a couple of days ago I went to buy pork ribs, bought five boxes, and it cost a total of around 13 or 14 euros. This food is bought for three days at a time, and often a week's total comes out to about 50 or 60 euros. Just purely for these ingredients, drinks, and the purchase of necessities for daily life, it's about 50 or 60.

And every time I chat with my mom about the cost of living in Germany, she always feels that the cost of living in Germany is very low and finds it unbelievable. So I'll tell you this: my monthly living expenses as a single person are capped at 300 euros, and nearly 100 euros of this 300 euros is spent on dining out. Finally, another big difference is the issue of cost-effectiveness in work. I am a landscaper, and currently, during my dual-certificate studies, my income is naturally less. A formal job would pay me around 3,200, and after taxes, it's about 2,400. It sounds really not very high, not the kind of million-annual-salary everyone imagines, but my working hours are really short. A week is just 39 hours, absolutely no overtime, and a two-day weekend. Annual leave is 30 working days, and sick leave is around 15 to 30 days per year. Moreover, this sick leave is fully paid. I think it's very absurd; when I'm sick, the company still has to pay me my full 8-hour salary. Other than that, public holidays are about 11 days. So calculated down, the working time in a year is just over 160 days. Relatively speaking, work is much more comfortable, and there is a lot of time. The overall efficiency during the work process is also very low. Yes, that's right, low efficiency. Everyone can see this work rhythm in my previous vlog videos. I've been in Germany for two years now, and I've already visited 17 or 18 countries—not really traveling, but on the way to travel. This state of working happily and living well is priceless. Other hidden benefits aside, there are simply too many. Overall, I personally feel that 3,000 euros in Germany is not quite the same as 3,000 in China. I think it's roughly equivalent to a monthly salary of 20,000 to 25,000 yuan in terms of purchasing power. But numbers are just numbers; real life depends on how much you can save and how relaxed you are. This account is actually very hard to figure out, and what else does it have? It's the gap between industries. For example, in Germany, the gap between industries is not very obvious, and the average income is actually about the same across all walks of life.

If you compare my industry, landscaper, with a domestic landscaper, and pull the annual working hours to roughly the same place, it's about 1,800 hours. Of course, working hours in Germany are far below 1,800 hours, while China's might be far above 1,800 hours. Usually, you can only rest 2 to 4 days a week in China's situation. Then you look at the same paid working time, and to what extent the things you finally get can support your living materials, enjoyment materials, and other consumption, you can see it very intuitively. Such a problem: what proportion of my income does the money I need to buy my monthly daily necessities account for? I calculated before that if it's 300 euros for me, it's equivalent to about one-eighth or so. So I think the overall purchasing power is still very high. Okay, that's all for today's sharing, bye-bye.

We have actually talked about this a long time ago, friends should have some impression. The amount of money earned must be compared by purchasing power. You don't look at the number; you look at your monthly salary in the local city where you live and compare its purchasing power to see if your income is relatively high or low. It's not about converting exchange rates or anything; you actually only need to look at purchasing power, because money is earned to be spent. As long as you can afford to spend it, it has more value. Because we know that currency itself is the materialized embodiment of value, created to facilitate trade. So, whichever has more value is naturally better and worth more. So don't comfort yourself; a monthly income of 3,000 yuan in China is really just a state of not starving to death, it can't be called living at all, not to mention that the working hours and intensity are completely different, and the society's fault tolerance for life is also completely different. If it were really better than developed countries, the People's Republic of China would have been a developed country long ago, not a developing one. I can put it this way: it's like a world champion versus a neighborhood champion; there is no comparison.

The only way for the Chinese economy to change is to increase welfare. If all new infrastructure projects were stopped, free healthcare could be achieved. If Chinese people had free healthcare, you can imagine how much their consumption power would expand. Schumpeter is the economist I admire the most. This guy, my god, how brilliant was he? In 1911, he said that economic crises are inevitable. Everyone, pay attention, he used finance to explain why economic crises are inevitable. Why do I admire him? He didn't have that "capitalists are evil" rhetoric, no, he just said it's a financial phenomenon, don't take it so seriously. What is a financial phenomenon? Let me tell you a phenomenon: during the pandemic, I saw an article in The Economist saying that chips would become very cheap. Why? Because the British made a list of all registered chip companies in China, listed the production capacity of all companies, and aggregated all the capacity. Then they aggregated the world's demand, and you see that if China's chip production capacity were fully realized, it would exceed global demand by two million times. And his speculation was: in the future, a company might extract silicon from sand to make chips, and it might be less profitable than just selling the sand. Uh, what's the good news? At that time, 40,000 Chinese companies were making chips, and now 30,000 have clearly died. But everyone, pay attention, how much money is gone? How much money does it take to start a chip company? Not less than 100 million, right? 30,000 companies died, look at how much money was burned. Do you know what an economic crisis is? Ah, Schumpeter said it like this: when all companies make investments based on financial statements, they are pursuing high returns. When everyone chases that high return, once the production capacity is realized, there is no return at all; this is an economic crisis. I read it and almost wanted to kowtow to him, brother, my god. Too cool, it's common knowledge. This explanation of the economic crisis is common knowledge, meaning normal people can understand it. Ah, don't make such strange things. This is his first explanation. His second explanation was what he discovered: he said classical capitalism is unsustainable, it will turn into welfare capitalism. He said this in 1945. In 1945, the Americans had just finished World War II and were feeling very proud. "Will I disappear? Pfft! I am the global hegemon." He said, "You're full of it! You can't keep playing like this. You need to change to welfare capitalism." Later, Nordic countries took the lead in entering welfare capitalism and are currently the most developed places in the world. Uh, saying something that might be criticized: all of China's methods of investing in production capacity and high technology cannot change the Chinese economy. The only way for the Chinese economy to change is to increase welfare. In fact, if China's new infrastructure projects were stopped, free healthcare could be achieved. If Chinese people had free healthcare, you can imagine how much their consumption power would expand. Therefore, Schumpeter is worthy of respect.

The situation is like this: first of all, I don't really agree with this point of view, because I think the biggest problem with the Chinese economy is the human rights issue. Some friends might ask, what does human rights have to do with the economy? The problem is huge. Uh, because they have devalued people themselves too much, it has led to the labor value in the entire market being very, very distorted now. And then, this will cause an invisible impact, which is that most people in China generally have a very low sense of worthiness, and they are very, very reluctant to spend, or they are overly confident in themselves, which is a rebound after being too inferior. If money is really too hard to earn, then people dare not spend it; this is a very normal logic, very easy to understand. And then, if this sense of worthiness is very low, it will further prevent consumption. For example, uh, I don't deserve to eat such good things, I can just eat a bowl of noodles. Even if their wage income might be completely enough to afford it, or I don't deserve to wear such good clothes, oh, the ones in the supermarket for a few yuan, or what's in the wardrobe hasn't rotted yet, no need to change, and so on. Even if they can afford it, they will be more inclined to save the money and put it away, rather than spend it. Then for the market, if you don't consume at all, it is very fatal. So if this welfare is distributed, and Chinese people have no human rights, they will most likely choose to save it; that is, they will save whatever money they can, rather than spend it, so this is meaningless. Then the first step of the foundation of all economy is that you have to let Chinese people truly stand up, understand what inborn rights are, and even let them understand what true mutual respect and the issue of their own dignity are. Uh, it is true respect and dignity, not the kind of acting wild at the Yasukuni Shrine by Little Pinks; what they consider standing up is truly standing up in terms of personality. Alright, the above is all the content for this episode. If you want to support me, please join the membership channel. I also especially hope that I can chat with everyone in real-time during the member live streams. So that's it for this episode, see you next time.