Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spain has famously low tech salaries. Which I guess is okay if you work remotely.
The same could be said for Germany too :-)
Yea, but still better than Spain
What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide
571–580 of 687 posts
Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide
#572Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's a fairly hostile place to be if you're not German even if you're white. It can also be hostile even if you're German but not white. BS. If Germany were that hostile it wouldn't attract the biggest migration waves from non-white African and Middle Eastern countries in all of Europe. And now home to over one million Ukrainians. >Let me tell you as someone who lives in Germany right now: the vast majority of 1M S…
The problem is your argument boils down to: you are a guest in Germany and you are completely disposable so shut the fuck up or fuck off. It's a take one hears loudest from the AfD and old German Boomers, the same sort shouting at you in the street for some perceived infraction. I found this sort of attitude objectionable and xenophobic when I was living in my home country (the UK, where your argument is again mostly…
I think you're drawing the wrong conclusions from my comment based on your need to vent because you have a chip on your shoulder because you feel like Germany didn't roll the red carped enough for you.
Whether you like it or not it's always the immigrants who should integrate into their new country, not the country to change centuries of culture and identity around for the immigrants. Germany is already welcoming enough to immigrants as it is. The best in EU I'd say, as other countries are much worse.
And each country has their own mentality and national identity developed over centuries, and as flawed as they may be in your viewpoint, these don't change overnight just because you decided to move in and don't like it there.
Blaming my viewpoint and calling it racist, for your personal (maybe flawed) life choices in immigration and your lack of success in integration, won't really help you, because yes, it's just like a relationship. If you don't like it somewhere, then pack up and leave. Simple.
If you want to change things in your favor then get citizenship and vote, or walk somewhere else that fits your personal view. It's not a racist viewpoint, it's just the cold hard truth of how all societies work in real life, and refusing to integrate somewhere is just rude and counter productive to everyone.
Venting on the internet that the country you voluntarily moved to doesn't give you the special treatment you were expecting, is just laughable and pointless.
People keep bashing Germany that it's the worst welcoming for expats, yet they won't stop coming to Germany:)) So because people won't stop coming, anbbecause nobody walks away, Germany will never see the need to change anything. Simple.
Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide
#573It seems like it's the same story everywhere I look. Housing is the main driver of inequality and there is little change happening. We have the same problem here in Germany. I am currently living in Munich to finish my CS Master's at TUM and build a startup, and it is absolutely impossible to find anything remotely affordable. I am supported by two startup scholarships and make enough to get by, but no landlord even…
If you are able to work remotely, Spain is fantastic at the moment. Relatively low real estate rent/purchase prices. You can still get a nice 3 bedroom house with a pool under 200k by the Mediterranean sea (of course well, not in Marbella). There are some surprisingly high-tech jobs locally as well, the space industry is booming right now. Lots of programming jobs in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia even if you don't s…
I know this is not what you meant, but it's a really sad answer.
Not because of Spain, which is a great place where I hope to live again one day, but because the answer to a question "how can I live a comfortable life and save money" is "move 1000km away from your family to a place where you don't know anyone, and don't even speak the language".
It shows that something's really, really wrong with the system if people making significantly above average salary struggle to have a sustainable (in financial sense) and comfortable life in their own country.
Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
Japan is unique for a few reasons: 1) Very insulated culture with nearly no immigration coupled with low birth rates. 2) They build houses very differently. They aren't generally made to last centuries if taken care of and renovated. The strategy is to build small units cheaply and tare down after 2- years. It's like Ikea for homes. 3) I agree, depopulation is a problem. We really need to incentivize middle and upper…
item 3 is solving the wrong problem. people will have babies when they have space and feel like they can give their kids a better future. trying to move people into dense urban living it the opposite of space needed for kids. right now, we cannot give kids a better future in the current billionaire run world. we need to depopulate the billionaires and with the freed up wealth, fix the environmental problems so we hav…
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Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe we are in a time where everyone is milking the 90s-20s real estate bubble and no one wants to be first to fold. Internationally, not just on a per country basis. As soon as say, French real estate collapses (or UK or USA or Germany etc), the whole rotten castle of cards will fold as well. If it doesn't you can enjoy the expensive property, but you won't be eating farmed foods, won't be in a clean environmen…
What does "fold" even mean? Real estate prices are not being artificially elevated, they are a simple function of supply and demand. Just build more houses and prices will do down, and they'll go down slowly, without collapsing. The typical model works like this: The suburbs around a city grow, the city runs out of space. This causes land in the suburbs to become expensive, so they subdivide lots and build more house…
Not everywhere has the space the the US has. Many places in Europe, especially Germany, the UK and the low countries simply have no space to grow into, the urban areas are basically touching as is.
It is politically unfeasible to turn swathes of these countries into an endless urban/suburban sprawl. Many have a strong agricultural lobby (The Netherlands in particular) and/or have an eye on food security.
Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide
#576Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bigger cities are the same. Politically they are very homogeneous. If you want want you kids to be near variety of perspectives, you should move to a smaller city or near one.
That hasn't been my experience. Maybe I'm just tired of being around people who feel the existence of cities is a personal affront.
My conclusion comes from statistics and logic. In smaller cities the population is a mix a between daily rural migrants, factory workers and office/service workers. In big cities the population is mostly office/service workers.
>>Maybe I'm just tired of being around people who feel the existence of cities is a personal affront.
It's a bit ironic mentioning that here, because there is a pro urbanization (anti rural, anti suburbs) article on the front page of HN almost every week. And every dominant media in the country promotes the same narrative.
Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide
#577Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Sweden if you move from Stockholm to Eskilstuna (1h30m drive away) you can find a 5 room 100 sqm apartment in the dead center of the town for the price of a 2 room 45-50 sqm apartment in any of the immediate suburbs of Stockholm. Or, to put it simply, move out of the big city, and the prices drop by a factor of two or more.
That's true in Germany as well, but to get cheap property, you have to go very far from the city, and Germany not being that huge, you'll be close to the next metro area by then. Like, sure, a 120sqm house might be 400k in Hamburg and only 230k 60 minutes out to the north west (both needing an additional 25-50% of price in renovation costs), but the average net income is 30k/year and you're expected to have at least…
We've been living in Berlin for the last 10 year and the prices are making me consider looking outside the city (no other big cities that near Berlin, so there isn't that challenge you speak of).
My main issue would be being more socially isolated as all of our local friends are in Berlin, kids having to adapt to new school/kindergarten (& find new friends), new work for my wife who doesn't work remote (but can find work relatively easily)...It's not impossible but it really sucks that we'd have to leave the city if we want a slightly bigger home (we've 2 kids who share a room & our apartment is in general feeling a bit small for a family of 4).
Without a large windfall I don't think we'll ever be able to afford buying a 3+ bedroom (4+ rooms as Germans count it) home in Berlin & rent would be high enough that no landlord will want us with our current income.
Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide
#578Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the example, I didn’t know of any good examples of LVT. Hopefully it becomes more widespread. Unfortunately it’s not easy to understand why it is so effective, thus why people hear it and assume insanity.
I disagree with it not being easy to understand, on the contrary it makes perfect sense to me. We have the vast earth we live on as humanity and all the land was here long before us and will be here long after we are gone. Now we divide some of this land up and give people exclusive rights to it. How is it not absolutely intuitive to pay everyone else, who is not allowed to use this land, a fee, rent or tax or howeve…
I like your rebuttal, that is a very simple way to explain it. I’m not very good at explaining concepts so maybe my difficulties are with my method of explanation and not the subject.
Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically you're complaining about the Canadian government not doing anything on the exact day that the FHSA comes into effect, which is a plan to make it easier to buy a home.
The FHSA allows people who have excess money beyond what they can save in a TFSA to save tax money on income put aside for the specific purpose of saving to buy a first house, but on much worse terms than a TFSA. If you've maxed out your TFSA and have room to save in the HFSA, great, but its got a time limit and most people will have room in their TFSA already.
Sure, if the parent had said that the government was ineffective in its attempts to fix the problem I would have agreed.
But they said they were doing nothing, and it was just so ironic the comment came on the day one of several attempts the government has made to address the problem.
Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide
#580Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are able to work remotely, Spain is fantastic at the moment. Relatively low real estate rent/purchase prices. You can still get a nice 3 bedroom house with a pool under 200k by the Mediterranean sea (of course well, not in Marbella). There are some surprisingly high-tech jobs locally as well, the space industry is booming right now. Lots of programming jobs in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia even if you don't s…
> government and population are for the most part pretty grown-up and progressive. Universal base income, focus on equality etc... This may well have an expiration date on May 28. Voting intention polls currently predict a shift to a right-wing majority (and this has been so for long), and the right in Spain is not moderate as in e.g. Germany. Although Pedro Sánchez has proven to be a tough nut to crack with a tenden…
Sorry, I've just noticed that May 28 is the date for the municipal and regional elections. The general election (which is what I was referring to) will be later in the year, no later than December 10.