281–290 of 817 posts
What this article does not say is that the prime Minister has 6 houses... So he is benefiting from this ( https://www.cmjornal.pt/politica/detalhe/antonio-costa-tem-c... ) We are living more and more in a world where people work but are not able to live with dignity
Yes, the situation is dire. I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city. Luckily, we have an older contract that cannot be changed as easily as newer ones. I'm not thrilled by the possibility that our landlord might cancel it some day, however, e.g. for relatives to move in. Rents in t…
Many dislike the idea, but this is why people turn to "nationalism". If you want to decrease unemployment, you add tariffs for imports enabling more businesses to open domestically (i.e. tariffs effectively increase import costs). Similarly, you can loosen building codes to increase production of homes, limit visa duration, require citizenship for home ownership, etc. Those are some obvious fixes, why is the governme…
Very difficult to change because, in the "Pax Neoliberalia" world we live in, profits are Sacrosanct - and the higher the capital concentration, the holier so. But some straightforward fixes: 1. Flood the market with affordable state housing, Austria-style - with the bonus of building new, boosting the national economy. 2. Create very progressive (rapidly rising) taxes based on property value - making untenable the c…
Inflation is not the result of profits, gouging, etc. It's the result of funding the deficit by running the printing press. (Or the modern equivalent, creating debt backed by nothing.) The proof is the observation that endemic inflation only happens in countries with fiat money systems.
So you're just going to ignore a war involving two of the biggest exporters of some of the main raw materials we have (foodstuffs and energy) on the planet and associated supply problems on crucial things? Not to mention a pandemic that wrecked havoc on supply lines. None of that matters, your theory goes, it's purely a monetary phenomenon, because only countries with fiat money systems are impacted. Could you share some countries with alternative money systems that aren't impacted?
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…
As a resident, what do you think was the catalyst for these changes?
Yes, the situation is dire. I live in Lisbon as a foreigner for more than 12 years now. We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city. Luckily, we have an older contract that cannot be changed as easily as newer ones. I'm not thrilled by the possibility that our landlord might cancel it some day, however, e.g. for relatives to move in. Rents in t…
What I see are vast numbers of uninhabited, decaying or wholly uninhabitable structures. I see 50+ age men loitering around the town, drinking beer at 10am, and playing scratch-offs.
On the roads I see absolutely bonkers drivers who have old cars which obviously have binary gas pedals. They go super slow for no reason, but at some point they flip the switch and drive like maniacs, blind curves be damned. These cars, by the way, are 80s and 90s soot-spewing diesels.
They start fires more often than mother nature does. Sometimes it's because they are crazy, but usually it's because they want to clear a natural forest so they can grow fast timber like eucalyptus (which greatly exacerbates the fire risk since they are so grow fast and are highly flammable).
VAT here is 23%. This thing about foreigners not paying tax is bs. Locals widely use a tax scheme whereby they can make tax claims on their purchases, getting some of it back. Without that tax number, you pay the full 23%.
And if you want to use a visa to live and work here, you will pay an incredible tax rate that's even higher than Netherlands (which is already 20-50% higher than the US).
Many of the "rich" foreigners coming in and buying property are Brazilians, some of whom got their riches through corruption or outright criminal activities.
There is also still good old fashioned corruption here. The laws regarding many topics such as land habitation permits vary by jurisdiction, and the common way to deal with them is to get cozy with the mayor or other important figures. Take them to dinner, buy them some gifts, play nice. You can be completely legal, but if you don't play the game right you can be denied a permit.
This is all pretty bad news, but that's not to say that Portugal is bad or Portuguese are bad. There's a lot to like here. There's a lot of charm, a lot of history, some great beaches and villages and mountainous areas. The climate can be nice, but imo it's not great and rapidly getting worse (many days this summer over 40C, and so, so many fires).
My takeaway is, to put it very bluntly, that the average Portuguese person is quite ignorant. They either don't know a lot of important things, or they know a bit but don't care (because they don't know why it's important). It feels like time stopped here in the mid 1900s.
Porgugal was once the king of the world. Then it had a several hundred year decline, reaching bottom in the latter 1900s. The younger generation learned it was better to move elsewhere to earn money, so progress ceased locally. But 10 years or so ago, the younger people who are now middle age began coming back, starting businesses, and revitalizing the country. It's going to take a few more decades before Portugal reaches the point where it is not a poor shadow of its former self. I'm not sure it will ever make it though.
If you have a city with X housing units, but 5X people from within the city + all over the country/world want to live there, and for whatever reason no one wants to/can build 4X more housing units, how do you fairly determine who gets to live there and who doesn't?
* Is it fair if you were born in Lisbon you get to keep living in Lisbon?
* Is it fair if people early in their career get to live in Lisbon because it will advance their career much more than if they lived in the countryside?
* Is it fair if a rich person gets to live there because they can pay a lot of money to do so?
Whatever policy is in place, it will be deciding the winners and the losers, or the people who get to live in Lisbon and those who don't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We pay a rent for a small flat that used to be very expensive and now is on the cheap side in our quarter of the city Portugal should build more housing, which is a simple, effective solution if the rent is too damn high: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/the-ren... . The nice thing about indoor space is that we can make pretty much as much of it as we'd like.
How this usually works: "I'd do anything for lower housing prices!" Build more housing. "...but I won't do that."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many dislike the idea, but this is why people turn to "nationalism". If you want to decrease unemployment, you add tariffs for imports enabling more businesses to open domestically (i.e. tariffs effectively increase import costs). Similarly, you can loosen building codes to increase production of homes, limit visa duration, require citizenship for home ownership, etc. Those are some obvious fixes, why is the governme…
Basically all of what you said is empty populist propaganda that doesn't pass a basic sniff test. You're painting the EU as the bad guy with a broad brush and it's just total nonsense. * depends on how you define "high" levels of migration, but few EU countries fit that. Portugal does, because they explicitly encourage it. Why? Nothing to do with the EU, they're trying to fight negative population growth. * social pr…
(We could now add the Satre quote, or Hannah Arendt, or any number of people who've written about this. The popularity of the feel-good lie is well-inspected.)