I keep hearing this. Yes, you will get 5 weeks. But what about your wife, your uncle, your friends? In Germany they're all guaranteed to have the same number of days off, access to healthcare, etc. When you have kids you have a bunch of weeks/months off before the child is born and more after.

In the US, as long as you're young, healthy, rich and selfish, life is grand :D

In the US in an average taxed state, compare a $150K salary: After federal and state taxes, our old person medical and retirement (i.e. FICA), maximum retirement investment of about $19K, health insurance, disability insurance, dental, etc, one will end up with about $7200 a month or $86K / year in their pocket, which is roughly 42% taxes and retirement. This includes 3 weeks of vacation and 10 Federal holidays.