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The EU also managed to avoid recession, contrary to what people expected last year. I think the reason is the same as for the lower then expected impact of the
by jltsiren 4y ago
The EU also managed to avoid recession, contrary to what people expected last year.
I think the reason is the same as for the lower then expected impact of the sanctions on Russia. People are quite resourceful when facing an acute crisis. When millions of people have an actual motivation to find better ways of doing things, they tend to find solutions they would have never considered under normal circumstances.
- andreiii 4y agoManaged to avoid recession yet the cities are full of tents and other homeless encapments... things we were seeing only in US in the past are in every major EU capital now. The homelessness is out of control.
- RandomLensman 4y agoI have not seen a change in the two capitals I see regularly.
- andreiii 4y agoVisit Brussels, Frankfurt, Paris, Cologne, Rome...
- RandomLensman 4y agoSo where exactly is Frankfurt "full" with encampments?
- andreiii 4y agoBanhovsviertel but not only. You really want to say the city doesn't have a massive homelessness issue?
- RandomLensman 4y agoYour claim wasn't that there are homelessness issues (which there are and they got worse over the last decade at least) - you alleged cities full of tents and other encampments. And the Bahnhofsviertel always had some presence - sometimes more, sometimes less.
- alexvoda 4y agoHomelessness is out of control in the US and elsewhere too. The real question is whether there was a statistically significant difference compared to previous years ceteris paribus (same location, same time of year, etc.). Also the influx of various refugees over the years should be taken into account. Anecdotal evidence that there is homelessness does not automatically mean doom and gloom for a country.
- inglor_cz 4y agoMostly fresh migrants who believed that Europe has a certain living standard for everyone and spent ungodly money to get trafficked from Turkey or Libya.
- akie 4y agoI have seen none of that, and I live in one of the largest European cities. Andreii, why are you spreading misinformation?
- andreiii 4y agoI live in Brussels. I walk/run throughout the city every day. There's tents next to the rail station, there's tents next to large supermarkets, next to parks... everywhere. 3 years ago that was not the case. Metro stations are also overwhelmed with people passed out on heroin or whatever drugs they use. The difference is more than noticeable. I visited Frankfurt just 1 month ago and was shocked to see the situation being even worse. I believe a lot of it is a post-effect of covid where some people fell through the craks and now are just lost to drugs or other addictions.
- roenxi 4y agoHistorically, due to the very high correlation between GDP and economic activity "recession" has been a shorthand for "reduced energy use". You might easily find that a "recession" is less damaging to people than a period of drastically cut energy consumption. People unable to heat themselves in winter undermines the idea of a growing economy - the metrics aren't supposed to be a shell game of excuses where some drops are papered over because it is politically inconvenient. I mean, how are people supposed to be better off if we're seeing these types of sharp drops in energy use? It strains credulity that someone in the Netherlands can cut their gas use by 24% in a year and claim that their material living standard didn't decline. There'd have to be something mighty positive happening - what is it? They haven't had time to build up capital to keep themselves comfortable.
- kuboble 4y agoGiven how wasteful is in general comfortable western life I wouldn't be surprised if we could cut consumer energy use by half without a drop in basic comfort by simply being a little more mindful.
- FpUser 4y agoI am all for it but let's start in stages. Stage-1) Politicians should be the first and their energy expenditures should be cut by law to half of the median with some painful consequences for breaking it. Stage-2) After a couple of years same goes for top 1% and government offices. Stage-3) After another couple of years do this for top 10% Stage-4) The rest of us.
- freehorse 4y agoThis is really not the case. People did not do anything, the increased prices and government mandates did. Yeah people survived this year, and will continue doing so, except those of course who will get fucked up. What happens is that indeed we have a lot of layers to fall from one down to the next one and again and again without reaching the bottom yet.
- oblio 4y agoWe've had this in the 70s, with the oil recessions. 20 years later we had cars using up half the gasoline and with 2x the horsepower. Humans need a solid kick in the behind sometimes.