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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 ho

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 when they make statements like this: > It’s not easy for anyone to emigrate, to have to deal with and to submited themselves to another culturee. It’s all hard, but to live away from those we love the most its the hardest. It's just incredible to me that someone would act against their own economic interests so blatantly. The greatest innovation of the EU is free movement, and this person is unwilling to take advantage of it to escape economic hardship. Obviously my mindset and the author's mindset have irreconcilable differences. I think how the author keeps using "foreign" as an insult reveals something about their thought process: > policies that benefit foreigners more than their residents. > the majority are foreigners who are not there for a visit, but who live there. > large public companies were sold off to Chinese managers who now do whatever they want > The Portuguese are becoming, nothing more and nothing less, the servants of big foreign millionaires

mr90210 4y ago
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.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  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.
  - rlf_dev 4y ago
    "Those who stayed behind, either stayed because they benefit from the cronyism or are held back by family or lack of marketable skills." Or maybe none of those, there are plenty of people with good jobs here and no reason to leave, not all of us make minimum wage or live in Lisbon.
  - kaashif 4y ago
    The comment was that many Portuguese fail to benefit from the EU. You called this bullshit and write that many Portuguese have already left. Both can be true, and you admit as much: > Those who stayed behind, either stayed because they benefit from the cronyism or are held back by family or lack of marketable skills. This is what we're talking about, it appears the author is being held back by family. Many people have voted with their feet and left, and many haven't, both are true.
  - tiagod 4y ago
    > Those who stayed behind, either stayed because they benefit from the cronyism or are held back by family or lack of marketable skills. Or because they don't want to leave their home country and have hope things will get better.
borski 4y ago
This was the comment I came here to post. The son of Ukrainian/Belarusian Jewish immigrants, family was and is everything to us; but immigrating, while "hard" is still sometimes the right thing to do. I have yet to meet the child of a Jewish family who does not intimately understand this, given how frequently those families often had to move, while staying extremely close.
wnolens 4y ago
You: > My parents are very family oriented and were somewhat upset when I left my home country Also you: > It's just incredible to me that someone would act against their own economic interests so blatantly It appears you didn't adopt your parents' family values. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think the strong will to remain near one's roots SHOULD be all that "incredible" to you. I'm also the child of immigrants, and left their adopted country for another for "greener pastures". But my parents left their home country to escape tyranny, not just economic incentive. They did the hard thing because the other option was dangerous. Are we really at THAT point? Are we doomed to always run from the tyrant, or can we build a different society where families don't have to be split up. I think your post is a bit self righteous. Perhaps the demand for your skills in other countries made it easy for you to immigrate. Most cannot do that. They're stuck there, and I think are reasonable to want their country to do a better job supporting the quality of life of it's residents rather than treating them like peasants.
- kaashif 4y ago
  > Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think the strong will to remain near one's roots SHOULD be all that "incredible" to you. Regardless of what I "should" think, if people are complaining about not being able to afford to live somewhere, then they stay there while their disposable income drops and drops until they're struggling, all while alternatives are available, that is incredible to me. I can empathise with feeling sad about leaving and delaying, but I don't think I'll ever be able to really understand the author's final decision. > Perhaps the demand for your skills in other countries made it easy for you to immigrate. Most cannot do that. They're stuck there But this isn't exactly what I'm talking about, is it? The author is bilingual, has a Bachelor's degree, and lives in the EU (and even further, the Schengen area), a single labour market. We can talk in general about how some people are stuck. Indeed, helping people who can't help themselves is one of the main purposes of government, but the author doesn't seem stuck. Their comments and background indicate they're in Portugal by choice.

mr90210 4y ago

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.

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
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.
- rlf_dev 4y ago
  "Those who stayed behind, either stayed because they benefit from the cronyism or are held back by family or lack of marketable skills." Or maybe none of those, there are plenty of people with good jobs here and no reason to leave, not all of us make minimum wage or live in Lisbon.
- kaashif 4y ago
  The comment was that many Portuguese fail to benefit from the EU. You called this bullshit and write that many Portuguese have already left. Both can be true, and you admit as much: > Those who stayed behind, either stayed because they benefit from the cronyism or are held back by family or lack of marketable skills. This is what we're talking about, it appears the author is being held back by family. Many people have voted with their feet and left, and many haven't, both are true.
- tiagod 4y ago
  > Those who stayed behind, either stayed because they benefit from the cronyism or are held back by family or lack of marketable skills. Or because they don't want to leave their home country and have hope things will get better.

borski 4y ago

This was the comment I came here to post. The son of Ukrainian/Belarusian Jewish immigrants, family was and is everything to us; but immigrating, while "hard" is still sometimes the right thing to do. I have yet to meet the child of a Jewish family who does not intimately understand this, given how frequently those families often had to move, while staying extremely close.

wnolens 4y ago

You: > My parents are very family oriented and were somewhat upset when I left my home country Also you: > It's just incredible to me that someone would act against their own economic interests so blatantly It appears you didn't adopt your parents' family values. Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think the strong will to remain near one's roots SHOULD be all that "incredible" to you. I'm also the child of immigrants, and left their adopted country for another for "greener pastures". But my parents left their home country to escape tyranny, not just economic incentive. They did the hard thing because the other option was dangerous. Are we really at THAT point? Are we doomed to always run from the tyrant, or can we build a different society where families don't have to be split up. I think your post is a bit self righteous. Perhaps the demand for your skills in other countries made it easy for you to immigrate. Most cannot do that. They're stuck there, and I think are reasonable to want their country to do a better job supporting the quality of life of it's residents rather than treating them like peasants.

kaashif 4y ago
> Nothing wrong with that, but I don't think the strong will to remain near one's roots SHOULD be all that "incredible" to you. Regardless of what I "should" think, if people are complaining about not being able to afford to live somewhere, then they stay there while their disposable income drops and drops until they're struggling, all while alternatives are available, that is incredible to me. I can empathise with feeling sad about leaving and delaying, but I don't think I'll ever be able to really understand the author's final decision. > Perhaps the demand for your skills in other countries made it easy for you to immigrate. Most cannot do that. They're stuck there But this isn't exactly what I'm talking about, is it? The author is bilingual, has a Bachelor's degree, and lives in the EU (and even further, the Schengen area), a single labour market. We can talk in general about how some people are stuck. Indeed, helping people who can't help themselves is one of the main purposes of government, but the author doesn't seem stuck. Their comments and background indicate they're in Portugal by choice.