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>Portugal sought to lure them with tax breaks [...] Portugal, then with no taxes on crypto-derived capital gains, fit the bill [...] “We have neighborhoods now

>Portugal sought to lure them with tax breaks [...] Portugal, then with no taxes on crypto-derived capital gains, fit the bill [...] “We have neighborhoods now that are mainly Airbnb,” said Ana, the Portuguese teacher, “We don’t have our homes anymore.” [...] locals protest against rising costs and gentrification Surprised nobody saw gentrification and rising CoL coming when they invited crypto asset holders and workers who earn several times more than the locals while contributing much less in taxes. Seems like a move that only benefited the Portuguese landlords and real estate owners at the expense of the rest of the population. If I was a Portuguese citizen I'd be pissed at such a decision that prioritizes wealthy foreign crypto and tech bros over its own citizens and make sure to vote those politicians out. Portugal is not Dubai. It can't afford to be a tax heaven with government revenue funded by oil instead of taxes. A country like Portugal should seek to attract businesses and investors who create jobs and pay taxes there, not attract wealth hoarders who dodge taxes and who's only contribution to the local economy is making landlords richer and buying cocktails on the beach. >The center-right Moedas, for his part, said that while clarity on crypto and taxes is welcome, “when you start taxing innovation too soon, you can kill innovation. And so I'm not aligned with the government on this.” Oh please, taxing crypto assets is not taxing innovation. WTF are you talking about? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when I read stuff like this.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
This would be no-problem if cities built more houses (especially large apartment blocks) ... well, and outlaw airbnb. I live in a former socialist country that somehow managed to build A LOT of housing in the 70s and 80s, with shitty equipment, but somehow cannot build anything in the last few decades. And not just the government building stuff... normal people could buy a plot of land, get their friends to help, dig a hole and start building... a small loan for bricks and cement, and the basement + a concrete slab was built... then a month or two went buy, and what was left from the paychecks went for a pallet of bricks plus a few bags of cement, and half a floor was made. Repeat for a few years and a house was there... no insulation or a facade, but people could live inside and deal with that later. Papers and permits? As long as you built within some basic rules (far away from the property line and not a too unusual shape), you could basically ignore them, and deal with the "legalization" later. Now you're not allowed to build basically anywhere, papers cost more than the whole material+work did back then, and you're not allowed to do anything by yourself and your friends are not allowed to help anymore. So yeah... good luck.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >This would be no-problem if cities built more houses "Just build more houses" is not something that scales infinitely. Long commute distances and geography tends to get in the way with stuff like hills, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc. while demand from foreigners and tourists will stay virtually infinite. At which point do you stop building and say your city can't house more people without ruining the character that makes it a desirable city in the first place? Should we level Lisbon's 2-4 story housing and turn it into a dystopian city with hundred story megablock towers like in Judge Dredd, just so that everyone in the world who wants to move to Lisbon has a place to live there? But then people won't want to live there anymore if Lisbon is just megablocks.
  - slyall 4y ago
    But in this case we are talking about replacing single-story buildings cities with multi-story apartments. Just about every city has plenty of room to build lots of housing via upzoning.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      > single-story buildings cities with multi-story apartments How many single story buildings does Lisbon have? I don't remember seeing that many. And how many of those single stary buildings are not under UNESCO historical heritage protection laws and you are allowed to buldoze?
      - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        Lisbon is a large city, not everything is the historic "old" city center. You don't even need to demolish anything, since there is space around, and even if you do, there are a lot of not-historic areas there.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    You don't need infinitely much, you just need a more than you have now. We have vast areas here (Ljubljana, slovenia) where you're only allowed to build two-story two apartment buildings and nothing more.. and right next to those buildings are large socialist-time apartment buildings with many apartments. But nope, you're not allowed to build higher there. Even in rural areas, we have a lot of empty land, right next to the road, and nope, not allowed to build there, because people who built their houses now complain and don't want new houses there. They also complain if anyone wants to create any kind of business there, and then they complain that there are no jobs there, and that people have to drive to the capital. Look at eg. sillicon valley for example... just building 3, 4, 5 story apartment buildings in areas where there are single-family houses would multiply the usable area for apartments by 5 times, making the buildings larger (combining multiple plots) even a lot more, and since the number of apartments goes up, there is much more potential for investors to offer above-market rates for those plots of land where they could build bigger and higher.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

This would be no-problem if cities built more houses (especially large apartment blocks) ... well, and outlaw airbnb. I live in a former socialist country that somehow managed to build A LOT of housing in the 70s and 80s, with shitty equipment, but somehow cannot build anything in the last few decades. And not just the government building stuff... normal people could buy a plot of land, get their friends to help, dig a hole and start building... a small loan for bricks and cement, and the basement + a concrete slab was built... then a month or two went buy, and what was left from the paychecks went for a pallet of bricks plus a few bags of cement, and half a floor was made. Repeat for a few years and a house was there... no insulation or a facade, but people could live inside and deal with that later. Papers and permits? As long as you built within some basic rules (far away from the property line and not a too unusual shape), you could basically ignore them, and deal with the "legalization" later. Now you're not allowed to build basically anywhere, papers cost more than the whole material+work did back then, and you're not allowed to do anything by yourself and your friends are not allowed to help anymore. So yeah... good luck.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>This would be no-problem if cities built more houses "Just build more houses" is not something that scales infinitely. Long commute distances and geography tends to get in the way with stuff like hills, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans, etc. while demand from foreigners and tourists will stay virtually infinite. At which point do you stop building and say your city can't house more people without ruining the character that makes it a desirable city in the first place? Should we level Lisbon's 2-4 story housing and turn it into a dystopian city with hundred story megablock towers like in Judge Dredd, just so that everyone in the world who wants to move to Lisbon has a place to live there? But then people won't want to live there anymore if Lisbon is just megablocks.
- slyall 4y ago
  But in this case we are talking about replacing single-story buildings cities with multi-story apartments. Just about every city has plenty of room to build lots of housing via upzoning.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    > single-story buildings cities with multi-story apartments How many single story buildings does Lisbon have? I don't remember seeing that many. And how many of those single stary buildings are not under UNESCO historical heritage protection laws and you are allowed to buldoze?
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      Lisbon is a large city, not everything is the historic "old" city center. You don't even need to demolish anything, since there is space around, and even if you do, there are a lot of not-historic areas there.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  You don't need infinitely much, you just need a more than you have now. We have vast areas here (Ljubljana, slovenia) where you're only allowed to build two-story two apartment buildings and nothing more.. and right next to those buildings are large socialist-time apartment buildings with many apartments. But nope, you're not allowed to build higher there. Even in rural areas, we have a lot of empty land, right next to the road, and nope, not allowed to build there, because people who built their houses now complain and don't want new houses there. They also complain if anyone wants to create any kind of business there, and then they complain that there are no jobs there, and that people have to drive to the capital. Look at eg. sillicon valley for example... just building 3, 4, 5 story apartment buildings in areas where there are single-family houses would multiply the usable area for apartments by 5 times, making the buildings larger (combining multiple plots) even a lot more, and since the number of apartments goes up, there is much more potential for investors to offer above-market rates for those plots of land where they could build bigger and higher.