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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

#231

Post by jhbadger »

motohagiography wrote: post #201
danans wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally, I think this is the effect of governments themselves no longer believing in nations and borders or a responsibility for them, and simply importing polarized populations of both very rich and very poor people > It's barely right/left at all, it's just nihilistic power as its own end. These statements are skillfully leaving out "ethno" part of nationalism. Once you add that quite obviously real and active…

The "ethno-" in nationalism isn't silent or implied though. Canada has been a very heterogeneous nation for over a century, Israel is also very heterogeneous where people are bound by religion and not ethnicity, France and Spain have a huge and integrated north african populations and they are French and Spanish, full stop. Brazil, also a nation with as much global diversity as is available. This trope that nations a…

Whether or not Jewishness is completely an ethnicity is debatable, but a very large number of Israelis (and Jews across the world in general) aren't religious at all -- they see their Jewishness as being defined by their ancestors who were practicing Jews rather than by their own beliefs.

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

#232

Post by elforce002 »

immibis wrote: post #210
_vbnz wrote: post #193

Europe is facing complete economic collapse in the face of hyper-inflation, energy shortages, the Euro collapsing in value and rising interest rates. It's a shame that the continent that was once the birthplace of democracy, the scientific method, the industrial revolution and socialism has been reduced to nothing more than an open-air museum for wealthy Americans and a refugee centre for the victims of their wars. W…

Last time Europe had "strong leaders who will put first" it did NOT end well.

So, they can't learn from their mistakes?

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

#233

Post by jollybean »

DrNosferatu wrote: post #225
jollybean wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well #1 is not 'straightfoward' fixes at all. Massive Real Estate buildouts are 'gigantic' industrial projects. A 'straight forward fix' is to ban foreign ownership of homes and AirBnB. Poof. Now, I wouldn't support that, but it would be 'straight forward'. #2 is reasonable. #3 is a big glib tough. "Hey, everyone should just get a raise!", if it were only that easy!

1. "banning foreign ownership" would result in Portugalexit at best, perhaps a Zairization of Portugal, or even worse - no thanks. What's wrong with large industrial projects? It's exactly what we need at this moment - in fact, both Portugal and EU-scale. This would cost a small fraction of the Quantitative Easing program from the European Central Bank. (and these Massive Real Estate buildouts must include the lesson…

Large industrial projects are gigantic efforts that involve billions of dollars and years/decades to take effect, massive capital requirements. And risk.

"State sector raises salaries, private sector is forced to follow." ... my god man, no, that's not how it works.

More like: "Already inefficient state bureaucracies raise salaries, attracting workers from private sector who cannot afford to pay higher wages, requiring massive budgetary increase from government i.e. 'more taxes' just as economy goes into tailspin due to private sector layoffs.

Probably the EU needs to re-think the fact that it's designed to send all young workers to Germany or at least out of Portugual/Spain/S. Italy and Greece and leave them as octegenarian tourist centres with illegal Turkish workers doing the actual work.

Either 1) the EU starts massive transfer payments or 2) get rid of the Euro and have some limits on mobility, or it will just limp along. #1 might require political and fiscal integration which would probably just exasperate the problem.

In the short term, they should probably raise taxes on foreign home ownership.

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

#234

Post by [deleted] »

standyro wrote: post #226
subsubzero wrote: post #171

This sounds like what happened in the SFbay area(south bay/pennisula), I grew up there and it used to be a great place to live, center left politics, lots of families and a diverse set of industries with many middle class opportunities. right around 10-15 years ago things started to change dramatically for the worse, housing and costs everywhere skyrocketed, homeless population exploded, politics veered hard left. Mo…

I'm curious, where did you leave to, if I can ask?

[deleted]

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

#235

Post by marcodiego »

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.

For people asking about the salary: yes it is per month. Also compare it to Brazilian reality: median programmer salary here is, according to a quick google search: "The estimated salary for a computer programmer is $62,420 per year in Brazil, IN.", which comes to around 10-12K euros a year. My experience when I was a developer is really around that value. Getting 1.6K euros a month is a VERY good initial salary in Brazil, specially if you live in low cost of living areas like Northeastern backlands.

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

#236

Post by zozbot234 »

jollybean wrote: post #218
jdmg94 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vancouver is a disaster in housing affordability, economic opportunities (outside of real estate), and they have a very big and public homeless crisis.

Homelessness and home prices are actually separate problems, even though they feel linked, they are barely so. You can have a relatively affordable city like Montreal and still a lot of homelessness.

They're very closely linked problems. The easiest way to solve homelessness is to give the homeless a place they can call home. Which is a lot cheaper if housing is already in abundant supply.

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

#237

Post by zozbot234 »

danans wrote: post #229
motohagiography wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "ethno-" in nationalism isn't silent or implied though. Canada has been a very heterogeneous nation for over a century, Israel is also very heterogeneous where people are bound by religion and not ethnicity, France and Spain have a huge and integrated north african populations and they are French and Spanish, full stop. Brazil, also a nation with as much global diversity as is available. This trope that nations a…

Quoted post unavailable.

> ... Stoking grievances over the increased diversity of those countries ...

The underlying grievance is of course not over "increased diversity" per se but rather the long-term decline in civic attitudes. The progressive left expresses the exact same concerns in a different wording, by decrying the increased "marginalization and exclusion" that's seemingly entailed by such diversity. Guess what: they're all looking at pretty much the same thing.

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

#238

Post by _whiteCaps_ »

jseliger wrote: post #112
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…

Portugal should just do what the U.S. and Canada should also do: built more housing: https://slate.com/business/2013/05/exporting-housing-service... . It's not hard! We knew how to build a lot of housing on a particular parcel a hundred years ago.

I remember travelling to Portugal in the early 2000's and our host describing Portugal's national bird as the (construction) crane. Not sure if the pun translates well to other languages. Are they not still doing that?

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

#239

Post by alephnerd »

klabb3 wrote: post #150
kmeisthax wrote: post #48

I see three colluding factors causing a global cost-of-living crisis: - Increasing income inequality short-circuiting the backpressure role of market pricing (and, more specifically, the use of home ownership and immigrant-investor programs as a way to sidestep restrictive immigration systems) - Countries attempting to replicate the American suburban lifestyle, which is economically unsustainable as voters are incent…

> - Countries attempting to replicate the American suburban lifestyle Really, where? I thought only fractions of the anglosphere replicated this (like parts of Canada). Extremely few Europeans would want that lifestyle, for instance. The trend seems to be moving aggressively in the opposite direction, with large and dense cities attracting the majority of new people.

It's not parts of Canada - it's all of Canada. A member of our extended family runs a construction firm in Western CA and they've been building suburban tract housing EVERYWHERE - from Nanaimo to Abbotsford to Edmonton. And the same kind of sprawly suburban tract housing thaat exissts in North America is a popular status symbol in India, Vietnam, Malaysia, and China to name a few. Drive around Chandigarh, Delhi NCR, HMC, or Johor sometime. Also, if talking about Europeans, it's probably good to specify which part of Europe. Milton Keynes, Amstelveen, Dublin, Aarhus, and Espoo all feel very North American suburban in style.

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

#240

Post by klabb3 »

alephnerd wrote: post #239
klabb3 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Countries attempting to replicate the American suburban lifestyle Really, where? I thought only fractions of the anglosphere replicated this (like parts of Canada). Extremely few Europeans would want that lifestyle, for instance. The trend seems to be moving aggressively in the opposite direction, with large and dense cities attracting the majority of new people.

It's not parts of Canada - it's all of Canada. A member of our extended family runs a construction firm in Western CA and they've been building suburban tract housing EVERYWHERE - from Nanaimo to Abbotsford to Edmonton. And the same kind of sprawly suburban tract housing thaat exissts in North America is a popular status symbol in India, Vietnam, Malaysia, and China to name a few. Drive around Chandigarh, Delhi NCR,…

Interesting, thanks for the pointers. Now that I think of it, I think Saudi Arabia and UAE may be added to that list.
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