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The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

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Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#161

Post by zozbot234 »

caycep wrote: post #77
rmbyrro wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Portuguese case is quite different, I think. Canada has a well-developed and diversified economy. Portugal needs to import a lot from the world, but has very little to offer in exchange. They found something: their real estate and city center spaces. The country NEEDS this foreign income. It's not a self-sustainable economy and the world won't work for them for free. If the Portuguese want to solve this issue, on…

The question in my mind is how can a country like Portugal grow something home grown, industry/economy wise to ameliorate this situation? Ukraine had traditional industries but it seems like the IT/knowledge worker base they built up over the past 5-10 years seems to be softening some of the economic blows of the war for them, but I can't imaging IT is the answer to every country...

It's not just Ukraine. Central and Eastern Europe in general has seen plenty of sustained growth. You just need the right policy attitude for it, which has historically been quite problematic in places like Portugal (see "The incredible shrinking Portuguese firm" for one especially clear example).

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#162

Post by rcarmo »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #84

Quoted post unavailable.

Actually, that is something many middle-aged Portuguese are keenly aware of. Either because they lost relatives in that war or because they are still trying to figure out how to cope with the mistakes of that generation (most people who lived through that are gone - and so are their worldviews - so I don’t see any point in demonizing the dead).

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#164

Post by zelphirkalt »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #84

Quoted post unavailable.

And what does some historical injustice have to do with ordinary people being pushed out of their homes? Maybe you could try to not put them all in one caste and judge them all as a single entity?

Really, it is not appropriate to wish them all suffering, because of some historical fact, which they most like did not have a hand in. A little empathy seems appropriate. Maybe with more empathy in the world, we would also see some more apologies for historical injustices.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#165

Post by klabb3 »

wtcactus wrote: post #129

Portuguese here. I think this title is a bit sensationalist. It's true that a middle class Portuguese, with the extremely heavy income/property taxes we have to pay, will find it very difficult to live in Lisbon's or Porto's city center in a medium-upper apartment. Lisbon (and even more Porto) do have an extensive metro line though, and you can rent/buy an apartment on the outskirts (although still served by metro li…

> Decades old mismanagement (governments use these "free" services to cater to their party members and get them nice administration positions for which they don't have any experience) and some outright corruption, destroyed the quality of most of these "free" services.

Tangential, but I recently visited lisbon and realized how terribly mismanaged the airport is, as well as TAP Air (Portugal's flag airline). Everything should be well, because it's a pretty big airport but yet it was a mess, and delays of several hours was apparently an every day experience (which I learnt the hard way). It did give the impression of having root causes in corruption and complete mismanagement of public funds.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#166

Post by pdpi »

caycep wrote: post #77
rmbyrro wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Portuguese case is quite different, I think. Canada has a well-developed and diversified economy. Portugal needs to import a lot from the world, but has very little to offer in exchange. They found something: their real estate and city center spaces. The country NEEDS this foreign income. It's not a self-sustainable economy and the world won't work for them for free. If the Portuguese want to solve this issue, on…

The question in my mind is how can a country like Portugal grow something home grown, industry/economy wise to ameliorate this situation? Ukraine had traditional industries but it seems like the IT/knowledge worker base they built up over the past 5-10 years seems to be softening some of the economic blows of the war for them, but I can't imaging IT is the answer to every country...

Portuguese IT is pretty good in general, and that could easily have been part of the solution. The problem is that there was a large exodus of talent in the early 2010s (including yours truly), and that has caused some serious brain drain.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#167

Post by ejb999 »

humanwhosits wrote: post #142

Why does anyone let non-resident people buy residential housing?

not every country does allow it, but you don't have to buy to cause a problem for locals - just be willing to pay more rent than a local can afford is enough of a problem to price others(locals) out.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#168

Post by petre »

wtcactus wrote: post #129

Portuguese here. I think this title is a bit sensationalist. It's true that a middle class Portuguese, with the extremely heavy income/property taxes we have to pay, will find it very difficult to live in Lisbon's or Porto's city center in a medium-upper apartment. Lisbon (and even more Porto) do have an extensive metro line though, and you can rent/buy an apartment on the outskirts (although still served by metro li…

Sounds almost exactly like Eastern Europe, only without the Brazilians who speak Portugese, are Catholics and also work for lower income.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#169

Post by outworlder »

joshlemer wrote: post #133
marcodiego wrote: post #31

One of my students got a job offer in Portugal before the pandemic. He personally came to thank me for being his teacher; he is a good, dedicated student. Pandemic came, he stayed in Brazil doing remote work. Found him a few days ago. He told me he gave up going to Portugal and decided to stay in Brazil for now mostly because cost of living there. His initial salary would be 1.6K euros.

1.6k euros per... month?

Yeah. It's a decent salary for a junior, when converted to BRL. Heck, even for senior positions outside tech.

Re: The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal

#170

Post by rmbyrro »

notch656a wrote: post #109
rmbyrro wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not talking about how real estate works there, but how they became a sophisticated and highly competitive economy in a few decades.

May want to go back and delete your comments about real estate then. Honestly without exploiting foreigners to subsidize their housing, these tag line here would probably just as likely be "Singaporeans Can No Longer Afford to Live in Singapore." If you live in an advanced urban economy, with relatively open borders and free market real estate, you have to get with the program or get forced out. You can argue that's…

Are foreigners kept there against their will?

I bet they're happy to live there, despite the housing costs.

Why is this exploitation? The country is offering a lot of positive things to foreigners. I'd love to have a Singaporean passport and be able to live there if I could afford.

May want to keep your comment deletion considerations to yourself.

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