In Germany we even import people by the millions to keep rents high, among other things, and more than half of them get their housing paid for by taxpayers money.

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sefrost 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

About half of social housing in London is headed by people born outside of the country. Social housing is quite rare in the UK now after 1980s mass privatization started. It is provided at a steep rental discount and if you qualify for it you can keep it for life. Or purchase it at a steep discount.

Quite bizarre, but difficult to talk about, because it plays in to the wrong side of ongoing culture wars for some people.

https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/fact-check-foreign-born-p...

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joe_mamba 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Same in Austria and other old wealthy EU countries that have since economically stagnated or even declined.

All that seems to matters today, is that the GDP number keeps going up at any and all cost, regardless of long term externalities and second order effect to society. Kina like Saturn devouring his children.

Like sure, now you need to wait 4 months to see a public healthcare specialist compared to only 2 weeks 8 years ago, but the GDP number is higher now than back then, so obviously we must be better off today than in the past, right? RIGHT?!

That's why EU politicians are rushing to implement free speech crackdowns, invasive privacy laws using dictatorial techniques, like last week's Chat Control 1.0. They know they're on borrowed time before the majority of the population wises up and turns against them for the effects of the unpopular policies they pushed that lead to their decline in quality of life and purchasing power.

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TitaRusell 2 hours ago | parent [-]

If GDP rises the country is not economically stagnating though.

	▲	joe_mamba 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If people are practically poorer and less well off than before, does it matter to them that the country is on paper NOT economically stagnating? Shoving a graph in their face with a made up number won't change their economic situation. Sure, let's say GDP went up 5%, but then everything that matters like housing and healthcare went up 10-20%. Average workers aren't the winners of this mythical economic growth we're told we need to keep prioritizing. What use is GDP growth if most of it just gets concentrated in the top 10% of asset holders and everyone else in the trenches keeping society going, ends up worse off in a decaying society. That's how we are now massively outputting homeless junkies who gave up on society and Luigis who want to shoot the elites responsible for this, because the system does not work for them. Now, the elites can avoid the homeless junkies their economic policies create, by living in gated communities in the suburbs and chauffeuring their kids to private schools, but the Luigis are more tricky to dodge because they're smart and motivated, that's why the like of the EU, UK, AU, etc are expediting privacy invasive laws under the guise of "protecting kids" to make sure any future Luigis will be preemptively dealt with the moment they speak ill of the king and the nobility.