8 ms·

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

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 government not doing it? Beyond the obvious potential fixes, all EU countries are facing the same issue: - supporting immigrants (high level of immigration) - no controls over ones border(s) (anyone can move between EU countries) - over regulation and too many social programs (reducing peoples willingness to work & increasing burden on the current tax base) - over regulation of industry and farming has left the only option to survive being to work in a city (as an example, see nitrogen reduction regulations in the Netherlands) It's all "give-and-take" you have to decide how you want to live... To me it sounds like the EU is hitting a critical state, but is there a will to make the tough calls yet?

colinmhayes 4y ago
Tarrifs don't create jobs, they just destroy the specialized industries that used to export but now can't because you're in a trade war.
sofixa 4y ago
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 programs aren't an EU thing, they're purely local. And the "too much social spending makes people not want to work" ia such bullshit. * there are more local regulations than EU regulations. Which ones specifically are you referring to as too much? * farming is explicitly subsidised to make it profitable. What are you talking about? * not everyone can move between EU countries, you need to be a citizen. Like the Portuguese that have moved all around (e.g. there are probably millions of people of Portuguese descent in France) It's annoying how popular empty nationalistic populists have gotten. Can't nobody bother to fact check their bullshit?
- groby_b 4y ago
  Nationalist populists really have never bothered with facts. People fact-check, but that's too late - the message is out, and it makes people feel better about themselves. That's all that matters. Truth doesn't enter. (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.)
- tuatoru 4y ago
  Yeah, facts. Demographics explains most of what's going on. Portugal's working age population is declining[1] while its 60-plus population is increasing.[2] Old people own most of the real estate and don't care much about workers. They also tend not to like change, which immigrants bring. So they dislike immigrants despite depending on them. (//TODO: find papers supporting these assertions: they're factoids of the "everyone knows" type.) 1. https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/15-64/620 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/15-64... 2. https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/60plus/620 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/60plu...
  - zizee 4y ago
    I'm struggling to follow your arguments. "Boomers don't like immigrants/workers, therefore life is getting really expensive" doesn't really sound like good reasoning. If the population is shrinking, demographics doesn't explain it by itself. Housing should be getting cheaper if there are less people competing for it. There must be another factor here.
    - bobthepanda 4y ago
      You’re forgetting household size. As with all wealthy countries, household size has fallen in Portugal over the past few decades, so the same amount of people needs more house. This is especially true in the context of empty nest retirees.
      - zizee 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
FerociousTimes 4y ago
Check this out, this is fresh out of the oven Portugal eases visa rules to tackle labour shortage https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/portugal-eases-visa-rules-to-tackle-labour-shortage/47869756 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/portugal-eases-visa-rules-to-ta... > "Portugal's unemployment rate is at 5.7%, near a record low. Employers' confederations have been asking for the immigration rules to be streamlined, pointing to an economic situation close to full employment" The narrative of unemployment in Portugal driving dissatisfaction across the population is very tenuous in light of these latest developments and policies
- Ligma123 4y ago
  >Employers' confederations have been asking for the immigration rules to be streamlined, pointing to an economic situation close to full employment" They just to lower the wages. Hence why they are so in favor of opening the borders and human traffic situations like we had in Odemira with people from Nepal and neighboring countries living like literal slaves. Even with visa deals for Portuguese speaking countries like Brasil, Angola and Mozambique just have that goal in mind, because it's not like we are getting scientists, doctors and engineers from those places...
Manuel_D 4y ago
This is very simplistic reasoning. For instance: > If you want to decrease unemployment, you add tariffs for imports enabling more businesses to open domestically (i.e. tariffs effectively increase import costs). Unless your domestic business requires imported goods to run its business. Then you've just increased costs for your domestic industry.
andrekandre 4y ago
none of those things gets rid of the root causes: too much financialization and speculation alot of these things used to be regulated, discouraged or prohibited, but with deregulation of much of finance more and more wealth is generated from speculation, rents and leverage... if people can make money passively from doing nothing but owning something (real or virtual) there is less motivation for "real productive work" and squeezes out the rest of the economy. this compounds over time and get the results you see today: high land costs, rents, inflation etc. blocking immigration or adding tariffs etc will do nothing to stop any that....
- aperson_hello 4y ago
  The only real way to fight this is oversupply imho. Can't financialize something that doesn't generate outsized returns. If expected returns are lower (and risk higher) than the next financial class, money will move to that other financial class instead. Right now, real estate is low risk/high reward compared to the next best option (stocks?). So...money pours into real estate. Increase that supply to the point where finding a renter is at least marginally challenging, and you'll find that cash goes elsewhere.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    Oh but yes you can financialize. Financializatuon of real estate isn't really about outsized returns, it's the return to risk ratio that has potential for massive leverage. So if you increase supply and then people get bigger homes, etc..., until prices reach an equilibrium, then as long as rents exceed maintenance costs and land doesn't depreciate, you have a leverage (read: financialization) opportunity. Then prices rise again until you do something else, and eventually you approach infrastructure scaling limits.
epolanski 4y ago
Nitrogen reduction was the very least dutch government could do and most people in netherlands support the law. We should vastly reduce cattle numbers globally actually.
lr4444lr 4y ago
Europe largely isn't reproducing. It has to allow immigration for its survival.
- 42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 4y ago
  It can also put in place policies to increase native population growth.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    No one has found or discovered such policies that work across-the-board.
    - confidantlake 4y ago
      I think the housing crises has caused a lot of it. I am trying to have kids in my mid 30s, in large part because it took that long until I was financially stable. I can't even imagine what it must be like for a non software engineer. Maybe a lower population -> lower housing prices -> easier to start a family will cause some sort of equilibrium.
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        >Maybe a lower population -> lower housing prices That's not how real estate pricing works in the real world capitalism. Germany's population has been on decline for ~30 years due to demographics, yet housing has been getting more and more expensive, far outpacing wage growth in the last few decades, especially after the QE bull run from ~2013, so much so that owning your home is impossible for the average German. Why is that you wonder? That's not how free market economy should work right? If now there is less demand for a good due to population shrinkage, then prices should come down right? Well, that's because housing is not a good, it's a speculative investment asset, so as soon as people die and are not replaced, their free houses don't magically end up in the hands of those who would need them the most to buy at a discount, but end up on the "free market" being bough by existing rich home owners, investors, speculators and publicly listed real-estate conglomerates, using their existing assets and capital as leverage to buy even more houses for their investment portfolio. And governments and banks have ensure the policies to make sure this asset keeps going up, up, up. When housing is an investment vehicle, then it can never be affordable, regardless of the population decline. Like a commenter above said, which explains why home prices are not coming down despite population shrinkage: "people are not competing for houses, piles of money are. The bigger piles are winning."
arinlen 4y ago
> Many dislike the idea, but this is why people turn to "nationalism". I have to call Grade-A bullshit on your comment. At best, nationalist political movements take advantage of sticking points with their highly opportunistic, ideologically incoherent and empty promises hoping to buy arguments while pinning the blame of everything on whoever is the incumbent at the time.
jrochkind1 4y ago
The problem is not immigrants, of people freely crossing borders -- the problem is rich people and the power we give them. Which is pretty clear from the OP, they know what's up. Most immigrants in the world, of course, are not rich. Blaming other people who are struggling as much or more than you, instead of the people profiting of it all, is helpful for the people profiting off it all.
jonathanstrange 4y ago
You're right that any negative trends foster radical views such as nationalism and communism. However, the arguments you mention wouldn't work in Portugal. Portugal used to even have a negative net migration rate and suffers a labor shortage. Right now, the net migration rate is positive and low at around 0.5. That's a good trend, but there is still too much emigration of skilled Portuguese people due to weak economy and structural problems. The problem is not immigration, the problem is that wealth is distributed very unevenly. Average salaries are low in Portugal, many people have to do with very low salaries and few people in Lisbon and Porto make a lot of money. Although it luckily went down from nearly 0.4, the Gini index in Portugal is still relatively high for a Western European country at 0.33. This wealth disparity in combination with laws and politics that favor landlords, property speculation, and building hotels instead of apartment buildings lead to the housing crisis.
ngc248 4y ago
>>> If you want to decrease unemployment, you add tariffs for imports enabling more businesses to open domestically (i.e. tariffs effectively increase import costs). This is very simplistic. You first start building local expertise/domestic businesses and then increase tariffs to wean off imports. Don't put the cart before the horse.

colinmhayes 4y ago

Tarrifs don't create jobs, they just destroy the specialized industries that used to export but now can't because you're in a trade war.

sofixa 4y ago

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 programs aren't an EU thing, they're purely local. And the "too much social spending makes people not want to work" ia such bullshit. * there are more local regulations than EU regulations. Which ones specifically are you referring to as too much? * farming is explicitly subsidised to make it profitable. What are you talking about? * not everyone can move between EU countries, you need to be a citizen. Like the Portuguese that have moved all around (e.g. there are probably millions of people of Portuguese descent in France) It's annoying how popular empty nationalistic populists have gotten. Can't nobody bother to fact check their bullshit?

groby_b 4y ago
Nationalist populists really have never bothered with facts. People fact-check, but that's too late - the message is out, and it makes people feel better about themselves. That's all that matters. Truth doesn't enter. (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.)
tuatoru 4y ago
Yeah, facts. Demographics explains most of what's going on. Portugal's working age population is declining[1] while its 60-plus population is increasing.[2] Old people own most of the real estate and don't care much about workers. They also tend not to like change, which immigrants bring. So they dislike immigrants despite depending on them. (//TODO: find papers supporting these assertions: they're factoids of the "everyone knows" type.) 1. https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/15-64/620 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/15-64... 2. https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/60plus/620 https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/POP/60plu...
- zizee 4y ago
  I'm struggling to follow your arguments. "Boomers don't like immigrants/workers, therefore life is getting really expensive" doesn't really sound like good reasoning. If the population is shrinking, demographics doesn't explain it by itself. Housing should be getting cheaper if there are less people competing for it. There must be another factor here.
  - bobthepanda 4y ago
    You’re forgetting household size. As with all wealthy countries, household size has fallen in Portugal over the past few decades, so the same amount of people needs more house. This is especially true in the context of empty nest retirees.
    - zizee 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

FerociousTimes 4y ago

Check this out, this is fresh out of the oven Portugal eases visa rules to tackle labour shortage https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/portugal-eases-visa-rules-to-tackle-labour-shortage/47869756 https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/portugal-eases-visa-rules-to-ta... > "Portugal's unemployment rate is at 5.7%, near a record low. Employers' confederations have been asking for the immigration rules to be streamlined, pointing to an economic situation close to full employment" The narrative of unemployment in Portugal driving dissatisfaction across the population is very tenuous in light of these latest developments and policies

Ligma123 4y ago
>Employers' confederations have been asking for the immigration rules to be streamlined, pointing to an economic situation close to full employment" They just to lower the wages. Hence why they are so in favor of opening the borders and human traffic situations like we had in Odemira with people from Nepal and neighboring countries living like literal slaves. Even with visa deals for Portuguese speaking countries like Brasil, Angola and Mozambique just have that goal in mind, because it's not like we are getting scientists, doctors and engineers from those places...

Manuel_D 4y ago

This is very simplistic reasoning. For instance: > If you want to decrease unemployment, you add tariffs for imports enabling more businesses to open domestically (i.e. tariffs effectively increase import costs). Unless your domestic business requires imported goods to run its business. Then you've just increased costs for your domestic industry.

andrekandre 4y ago

none of those things gets rid of the root causes: too much financialization and speculation alot of these things used to be regulated, discouraged or prohibited, but with deregulation of much of finance more and more wealth is generated from speculation, rents and leverage... if people can make money passively from doing nothing but owning something (real or virtual) there is less motivation for "real productive work" and squeezes out the rest of the economy. this compounds over time and get the results you see today: high land costs, rents, inflation etc. blocking immigration or adding tariffs etc will do nothing to stop any that....

aperson_hello 4y ago
The only real way to fight this is oversupply imho. Can't financialize something that doesn't generate outsized returns. If expected returns are lower (and risk higher) than the next financial class, money will move to that other financial class instead. Right now, real estate is low risk/high reward compared to the next best option (stocks?). So...money pours into real estate. Increase that supply to the point where finding a renter is at least marginally challenging, and you'll find that cash goes elsewhere.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  Oh but yes you can financialize. Financializatuon of real estate isn't really about outsized returns, it's the return to risk ratio that has potential for massive leverage. So if you increase supply and then people get bigger homes, etc..., until prices reach an equilibrium, then as long as rents exceed maintenance costs and land doesn't depreciate, you have a leverage (read: financialization) opportunity. Then prices rise again until you do something else, and eventually you approach infrastructure scaling limits.

epolanski 4y ago

Nitrogen reduction was the very least dutch government could do and most people in netherlands support the law. We should vastly reduce cattle numbers globally actually.

lr4444lr 4y ago

Europe largely isn't reproducing. It has to allow immigration for its survival.

42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 4y ago
It can also put in place policies to increase native population growth.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  No one has found or discovered such policies that work across-the-board.
  - confidantlake 4y ago
    I think the housing crises has caused a lot of it. I am trying to have kids in my mid 30s, in large part because it took that long until I was financially stable. I can't even imagine what it must be like for a non software engineer. Maybe a lower population -> lower housing prices -> easier to start a family will cause some sort of equilibrium.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      >Maybe a lower population -> lower housing prices That's not how real estate pricing works in the real world capitalism. Germany's population has been on decline for ~30 years due to demographics, yet housing has been getting more and more expensive, far outpacing wage growth in the last few decades, especially after the QE bull run from ~2013, so much so that owning your home is impossible for the average German. Why is that you wonder? That's not how free market economy should work right? If now there is less demand for a good due to population shrinkage, then prices should come down right? Well, that's because housing is not a good, it's a speculative investment asset, so as soon as people die and are not replaced, their free houses don't magically end up in the hands of those who would need them the most to buy at a discount, but end up on the "free market" being bough by existing rich home owners, investors, speculators and publicly listed real-estate conglomerates, using their existing assets and capital as leverage to buy even more houses for their investment portfolio. And governments and banks have ensure the policies to make sure this asset keeps going up, up, up. When housing is an investment vehicle, then it can never be affordable, regardless of the population decline. Like a commenter above said, which explains why home prices are not coming down despite population shrinkage: "people are not competing for houses, piles of money are. The bigger piles are winning."

arinlen 4y ago

> Many dislike the idea, but this is why people turn to "nationalism". I have to call Grade-A bullshit on your comment. At best, nationalist political movements take advantage of sticking points with their highly opportunistic, ideologically incoherent and empty promises hoping to buy arguments while pinning the blame of everything on whoever is the incumbent at the time.

jrochkind1 4y ago

The problem is not immigrants, of people freely crossing borders -- the problem is rich people and the power we give them. Which is pretty clear from the OP, they know what's up. Most immigrants in the world, of course, are not rich. Blaming other people who are struggling as much or more than you, instead of the people profiting of it all, is helpful for the people profiting off it all.

jonathanstrange 4y ago

You're right that any negative trends foster radical views such as nationalism and communism. However, the arguments you mention wouldn't work in Portugal. Portugal used to even have a negative net migration rate and suffers a labor shortage. Right now, the net migration rate is positive and low at around 0.5. That's a good trend, but there is still too much emigration of skilled Portuguese people due to weak economy and structural problems. The problem is not immigration, the problem is that wealth is distributed very unevenly. Average salaries are low in Portugal, many people have to do with very low salaries and few people in Lisbon and Porto make a lot of money. Although it luckily went down from nearly 0.4, the Gini index in Portugal is still relatively high for a Western European country at 0.33. This wealth disparity in combination with laws and politics that favor landlords, property speculation, and building hotels instead of apartment buildings lead to the housing crisis.

ngc248 4y ago

>>> If you want to decrease unemployment, you add tariffs for imports enabling more businesses to open domestically (i.e. tariffs effectively increase import costs). This is very simplistic. You first start building local expertise/domestic businesses and then increase tariffs to wean off imports. Don't put the cart before the horse.