The Portuguese can no longer afford to live in Portugal • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by refurb » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 2:22 AM UTC

nbenitezl wrote: post #491

saiya-jin wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practically every single capital is like that these days. People of all nations can copy paste same rant and it would be 100% valid. This is how it is, too much buying power with new generation of higher level office workers compared to blue collar ones, on top of financial speculation with either prices skyrocketing, or airbnbs. Let's not forget there is more and more of people in general, and more and more coming f…

Reason how this happens worldwide may be that 70% of world population is projected to be living in big cities by next decades. I mean, tendency is that most people want to live in the big city, sometimes as necessity (can only find a job there) sometimes as a preference (better services, etc.) the result is traffic jams and expensive real state.

I'd argue that trend is reversing, just like it did in the 1960's.

Quality of life issues eventually drive people to live in the outer suburbs, further exacerbating issues within city cores (e.g. San Francisco right now).

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

#512

Post by DoingIsLearning » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 2:24 AM UTC

mr90210 wrote: post #446

kaashif wrote: post #335

This article makes me realise how fortunate I am to be the children of immigrants. My parents are very family oriented and were somewhat upset when I left my home country (which isn't my parents' original home country) for greener pastures, but if there's one thing immigrants understand, it's that if things are hard, you should move to where things aren't hard! I'm sure the author has their reasons or whatever, but w…

I am not sure why you got downvoted, but you couldn’t be more right. Many young Portugueses fail to benefit from being part of the EU.

With all do respect this is bullshit.

Portugal has the 4th highest rate of emmigrated working age population in the EU27, only surpassed by Romania, Lithuania, Croatia.

Portugal had one of the single biggest brain drains in history post 2008 crisis. People have absolutely voted with their feet.

Those who stayed behind, either stayed because they benefit from the cronyism or are held back by family or lack of marketable skills.

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

#513

Post by refurb » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 2:26 AM UTC

alberth wrote: post #471

jonathanstrange wrote: post #97

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…

Gentrification > 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 … Rents in the city have skyrocketed, we'd have a hard time finding anything I know this comment won’t be received well, but aren’t you describing gentrification & how you participated (maybe unknowingly) in what has caused prices to skyrocket. And you’re now complaining because s…

Gentrification is a "dysphemism" (opposite of euphemism). It's basically a buzzword made up to give a negative connotation to something that isn't inherently negative.

People move around. Some cities grow, others shrink. New jobs get created, old jobs disappear. Some housing gets more expensive, some housing gets cheaper. Some cities get wealthier, others get poorer.

We'd still be living in caves if our goal was to forever keep all cities and towns the exact same way they've always been. Which is basically the goal when people criticize "gentrification".

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

#514

Post by jbm » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 2:30 AM UTC

stainforth wrote: post #228

tumetab1 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope Portugal won't tackle it like my country, with a cap on rent and other market distortions. I think that only makes it worse. That's one of the reasons why portuguese renting market is so bad. There were rent control policies for like 40 years. It has been phased out but the market still has the signs of its damages. There also other contributing policies and the policies change almost every two years. I'm on…

So either we preference your 150000 euros (and of course interest and margin on top) or someone having a roof over their head, running water, and even the ability to stay in the same are and building community instead of moving each year due to capital seeking max gains.

This is an egregious misreading of the parent comment.

Someone in a position of economic vulnerability isn't going to invest in housing to rent out if there is a non-insignificant chance of damage to the property.

Moreover, this uncertainty has the perverse outcome of pushing the potential small landlord to use his funds to invest in something like a real estate investment fund - which will result in less local control over housing.

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

#515

Post by mike50 » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 2:30 AM UTC

bcrosby95 wrote: post #428

zizee wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that could be one of the extra factors that we're looking for. People want/expect more, which has caused people to have to pay more. But I'm doubtful that it is going to account for a lot of the cost of living issue in Portugal. I'd still like the GP to connect the dots for me on his "it's all demographics" argument. It sounds like are argument you hear on Reddit.

I think you're missing the point. For example, when my siblings were kids we all lived in 1 house. I have 3 siblings so there were 6 of us including my parents. In 1 house. As we graduated from college we moved out. Now there were 6 of us in 5 houses. Beyond the raw house count, you're going to need more space. Multi-bedroom homes have shared common space. The house we grew up in had 1 dining room, 1 kitchen, 1 livin…

You don't need a dinning room. That's a luxury feature. It is possible to share bathrooms if you build housing more like school dooms or single room occupancy.

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

#516

Post by tarakat » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 2:31 AM UTC

googlryas wrote: post #502

tarakat wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to empathize with a belief system that thinks pricing a native population out of their own country is fair. I suppose if you hold that everything should be subordinate to economics, including community and nationhood?

But it isn't actually pricing the native population out of the country, just the most desirable cities. But, that was already happening to a huge swath of the native population beforehand by the native population, so what is different for majority of Portuguese who could never move to Lisbon or Porto? Not much. They couldn't afford to move to lisbon 20 years ago, and they can't move there now. I see the same dynamic…

Salami slicing. No single step will ever make much difference for the majority of Portuguese, until they suddenly find themselves a minority in their own capital, as happened to the English.

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

#517

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 2:34 AM UTC

selectodude wrote: post #487

WalterBright wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell it's a monetary thing because you don't see deflation. > Fiat systems aren't inherently inflationary; but they target a low level of inflation because they prefer it to deflation. That's just the excuse. The real reason is so the government can spend money without raising taxes. So they sell you on the idea that inflation is good.

Deflation deepens recessions and lowers investment. It is inherently bad. It has nothing to do with spending money without raising taxes. Countries that can borrow in their own currency can already do that in any environment. Heck, parts of Europe had negative interest rates to combat deflation.

> It has nothing to do with spending money without raising taxes.

Where do you think Biden's trillions in extra spending is coming from? Not from raising taxes.

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

#518

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 2:36 AM UTC

confidantlake wrote: post #506

WalterBright wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What countries don't have a fiat money system?

The US before 1914.

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

#519

Post by maybelsyrup » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 2:37 AM UTC

jonathanstrange wrote: post #97

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…

> I'm not saying I blame these people

Why not

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

#520

Post by wombat-man » Fri, Sep 02, 2022, 2:39 AM UTC

SyzygistSix wrote: post #495

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…

Hard left politics would build housing or pass legislation/policies that encouraged it rather than preserve the wealth of already wealthy property owners through discouraging new building. There is more to left politics or even sane politics than being socially very liberal.

Yeah this isn't rocket science. Saving every old home in the city is not a winning long term solution. We need more homes in these places people want to live.