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Tax, healthcare, immigration: why Dutch people voted for Geert Wilders

theguardian.com

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Re: Tax, healthcare, immigration: why Dutch people voted for Geert Wilders

#51

Post by doublespanner »

newyankee wrote: post #22
misja111 wrote: post #16

Weird to read a post here from a foreign newspaper trying to describe what happened in my own country. But largely it's true, many people are unhappy with the amount of migration, the housing crisis, the rising cost of living and also what they feel is too much environmentalism. They feel that the parties that were in the government during the last 10 years did not take their concerns seriously or even made them wors…

Canada is not at all a crowded country, yet it has housing crisis. At least Netherlands had the foresight to create dense, urban spaces with cycling infrastructure and half decent public transit. All they need to do now is replicate this. The thing about environmental concerns is that the nos should be balanced with human quality of life, and in that lens the Dutch way really works better than many other developed co…

The way a country gets crowded has less to do with the actual land, and more to do with the rate of growth and investment in infrastructure.

The Netherlands had a similar population to Canada in 1950, but today's population is dramatically smaller. Combine that with a historical higher tax rate and investment in infrastructure, this is not something that can be replicated...

Re: Tax, healthcare, immigration: why Dutch people voted for Geert Wilders

#52

Post by broken-kebab »

ChatGTP wrote: post #25
misja111 wrote: post #16

Weird to read a post here from a foreign newspaper trying to describe what happened in my own country. But largely it's true, many people are unhappy with the amount of migration, the housing crisis, the rising cost of living and also what they feel is too much environmentalism. They feel that the parties that were in the government during the last 10 years did not take their concerns seriously or even made them wors…

PVV proposes to stop all immigration Is there a documented case in history where this has been beneficial ? Not attacking you btw, I'm actually wondering if anyone has known this to be effective? Immigrants seem like a token thing to get angry about when the chips are down and the country is mismanaged.

This question is too broad to receive any satisfying answer. What's beneficial for a freemarket supporter is probably hurtful for a communist, with a lots of nuances in between. Also arguably the phenomenon is new in its current conditions, so historical precedents wouldn't be persuasive. However, the fact is that big influx of culturally different people usually upsets societies (and it is as much true for, say, India, or Kenya as for Netherlands), and it is reflected in political opinions shift. It's objective reality we can observe, and rhetorically discarding it (as a 'token thing') won't make it disappear.

Re: Tax, healthcare, immigration: why Dutch people voted for Geert Wilders

#54

Post by Bostonian »

fzeroracer wrote: post #43
newyankee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is not at all a crowded country, yet it has housing crisis. At least Netherlands had the foresight to create dense, urban spaces with cycling infrastructure and half decent public transit. All they need to do now is replicate this. The thing about environmental concerns is that the nos should be balanced with human quality of life, and in that lens the Dutch way really works better than many other developed co…

As is with Canada, the problem is always investors. Canada's housing crisis stemmed from a lot of outside money buying up property simply to sit on it and leave it empty/unused, and in the Netherlands you see similar trends along with investors buying up property the moment it appears. Additionally, any bans on things like Airbnb gets overruled by the court system. These are all things that lower taxes and kicking ou…

Real estate investors expect to earn income from the properties they buy, and thus try to rent them out, especially when interest rates are above zero as they are now. Often the financial plan assumes that rental income will be used to pay the mortgage, property taxes, and other costs.

Re: Tax, healthcare, immigration: why Dutch people voted for Geert Wilders

#55

Post by fzeroracer »

longdudefromnl wrote: post #38
misja111 wrote: post #16

Weird to read a post here from a foreign newspaper trying to describe what happened in my own country. But largely it's true, many people are unhappy with the amount of migration, the housing crisis, the rising cost of living and also what they feel is too much environmentalism. They feel that the parties that were in the government during the last 10 years did not take their concerns seriously or even made them wors…

Quote: Again this regulation comes from the EU so NL can't just change it This is -I think- (one of) the main reasons people voted PVV. We (the Dutch people) can't even make their own decisions! And when things fall apart (and they are: housing, inflation, too much environmentalism, declining healthcare, etc) this is exactly what we need: make decisions to fix this. But we 'can't' because of EU. This is extremely ang…

I would hope people would look at Brexit as a model of how well that line of thought works. Especially as we're seeing how ugly the downstream effects are years afterwards.

Re: Tax, healthcare, immigration: why Dutch people voted for Geert Wilders

#57

Post by akudha »

misja111 wrote: post #16

Weird to read a post here from a foreign newspaper trying to describe what happened in my own country. But largely it's true, many people are unhappy with the amount of migration, the housing crisis, the rising cost of living and also what they feel is too much environmentalism. They feel that the parties that were in the government during the last 10 years did not take their concerns seriously or even made them wors…

We see this in many democracies. On one side, we have a feel good but do-nothing-useful group of politicians. On the other side, we have hate spewing politicians. At some point, people get tired of voting for do-nothing crowd and vote for the shitty crowd, it usually makes things worse.

There is a burning building. One group just stands there taking pictures. Another group tosses gasoline into the fire. These are the two choices voters have…

Re: Tax, healthcare, immigration: why Dutch people voted for Geert Wilders

#58

Post by bitsage »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #30
ChatGTP wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PVV proposes to stop all immigration Is there a documented case in history where this has been beneficial ? Not attacking you btw, I'm actually wondering if anyone has known this to be effective? Immigrants seem like a token thing to get angry about when the chips are down and the country is mismanaged.

Poland. > Immigrants seem like a token thing to get angry about when the chips are down and the country is mismanaged. This has been the primary opinion of center to leftleaning parties for a decade now. There are very real problems with immigration, even more so if a large part of immigration consists of migrations of cultures that are incompatible with western ideas.

Poland has actually let in a record amount of migrants, particularly from non-EU countries.[1] Turns out their tough stance was a bunch of posturing and politicking. Perhaps the money they make from selling visas under the table trumps the solidarity payments.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/poland-government-admit-muslim-mi...

Re: Tax, healthcare, immigration: why Dutch people voted for Geert Wilders

#59

Post by gruez »

fzeroracer wrote: post #43
newyankee wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is not at all a crowded country, yet it has housing crisis. At least Netherlands had the foresight to create dense, urban spaces with cycling infrastructure and half decent public transit. All they need to do now is replicate this. The thing about environmental concerns is that the nos should be balanced with human quality of life, and in that lens the Dutch way really works better than many other developed co…

As is with Canada, the problem is always investors. Canada's housing crisis stemmed from a lot of outside money buying up property simply to sit on it and leave it empty/unused, and in the Netherlands you see similar trends along with investors buying up property the moment it appears. Additionally, any bans on things like Airbnb gets overruled by the court system. These are all things that lower taxes and kicking ou…

>Canada's housing crisis stemmed from a lot of outside money buying up property simply to sit on it and leave it empty/unused

Is canada's vacancy rate significantly higher than other developed countries?

Re: Tax, healthcare, immigration: why Dutch people voted for Geert Wilders

#60

Post by FooBarWidget »

meeuwer wrote: post #47
FooBarWidget wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very bad. Houses have doubled in price in just a few years. Many first-time home buyers cannot afford a house at all, and some say they never will as things look right now. The government introduced various policies to remedy this, but all has failed. A few years ago they made it easier to fund young people, e.g. by allowing parents to gift 100k EUR to their children in a tax-free manner as long as it's used for buyi…

My impression is that the government tried to 'solve' the problem with one main constraint in mind: to never allow the prices go down in any meaningful way. Hence the ham-fisted attempts to instead tweak taxes and ease credit conditions.

I guess that's the implicit constraint that none likes to talk about or admit. It doesn't help that no matter what you do, some population will be screwed over. I have seen that people who used to worry about not being able to afford a house, and who have now somehow managed to buy one, now start worrying about their house value going down.

This cannot be solved with just one trick or just in a few years. You need strong, resolute, long-term actions. But that doesn't fit in an election cycle.

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