A lot of reasons, but deeply rooted incompetence and graft in the government is a big one. A culture of tax evasion, lack of enforcement of laws on the private sector, and a lack of investment in improving industrial practices (leading to low productivity per hour worked compared to countries that DO keep up-to-date) also contribute.
You can kind of see how all these problems would compound with each other and make each other worse. Of course people don't wand to pay taxes to a government that will waste or embezzle their money. But the government does need money to make things happen that might improve the situations of the everyday worker. The government needs competent administrators, lawmakers and judges to properly regulate the private sector, but the private sector can pay a competent person triple what the government pays because the private sector isn't subject to laws that force them to be ethical.
Guess there's a reason that corruption is such a common cause of failed governments.
I am sure the bizarrely numerous Greek billionaires are completely unrelated to their economy being fucked and not a clear sign of how deeply inequal and stratified the Greek economy is! Lots of hyper wealthy and destitute citizens means that everything is working, right?
Historically, Greece was a poor country in Europe because it was the periphery of the Ottoman empire and therefore barely received investment.
Through the 20th century, the country went through pretty corrupt governments (one of them being a dictatorship).
When they joined the European market, it was already a very unproductive country in relative terms, which tends to force you into remaining in the periphery under normal market conditions; and their most educated citizens saw a very easy and profitable opportunity in just migrating out.
On top of that, the only sector of the Greek economy that had any sort of strength was tourism, which very rarely provides good wages.
By the 2007 crisis, they already had a dangerously high debt. Because they were, again, a tourism-focused economy, when the countries that had the most tourists going to Greece entered into recession, Greece's income plumetted as well, and the debt just soared.
A little bit later, Greeks elected Syriza, which had simply accepted that they were in a debt spiral that would ultimately crush the country. Syriza's leaders told the other European governments that their debt had to be renegotiated (annoying for Greece's creditors, but at least it would be possible for them to pay in some capacity), or they'd leave the Euro-zone and just declare bankruptcy (thus they wouldn't pay back anything) (terrible for Greece, but perhaps not as terrible as the alternative).
The rest of Europe told them to fuck off for a variety of reasons (plenty of German newspapers had chosen Greece as their sacrificial lamb, often calling the people of Southern European countries lazy, the Spanish president back then wanted to crush Syriza because they had been associated with a growing Spanish opposition party, generally a lot of them were into fanatical fiscal conservatism).
Then Syriza chose not to leave the Euro-zone anyway (which provoked Varoufakis to leave the government, out of principle), and just stick to managing the country's misery. It has only been shit year after shit year for Greece since then, as any possibility of steering into a different direction was shot dead. It's just a country without hope at this point.
Varoufakis (Marxist econ professor and also briefly the Greek finance minister) wrote a book about this called "the adults in the room". He's biased of course but I respect him a lot
There's this saying “a fish is caught through its mouth,” and this is an illustration of what it means. This pope might present this ‘cool’, ‘modern’ image to the public, but his words spoken in private amongst his peers reveals his real stance about these things.
Former Catholic, now atheist. I’m glad the Pope is making some progressive steps in the Catholic Church including the LGTBQ+ community.
I hope this was a misstep, and the case of a 90-year old man from a different country using language that he was not aware is a slur. I really really hope that, or else all that good will was for nothing.
Look, apologist for people who justify raping small children, then slur was intentional, and you’re being eye-rolling naive in the most generous reading of your comment
how many surprised faces will there be when the right fails to actually do anything substantial for the common voter and just fills up their pockets with gov funds (see: hungary)
While making fun of German bureaucracy is OK, keep in mind who is behind it: the INSM is a strict anti people, pro business lobby group. If they had their ways, anything "social" would be killed off to finance tax breaks for the rich.
It's nothing to do with Japan, really. It's about India and its economy slowly clawing its way up from its historically low base. Note that India's GDP per capita is still well below the global average (and Japan's is well above).
Read the article again. Japan has a slower economic growth than the world average.
This is from a number of factors, including that they are a highly developed economy with less head room, BUT also because the workforce is aging out. They have fewer young people.
They have a declining population, and the median age is much older than most countries. This is absolutely a major reason for their lack of economic growth.
Irrelevant. Because of India's population, the only way for it not to eventually surpass Japan in total GDP is for India to remain perpetually mired in backwardness. Since the 1990s, India has undergone successive rounds of economic liberalization, thereby achieving catch-up growth. All that stuff with Japanese demographics, bad management, etc. are secondary factors. Even if all the factors for Japan had been more favorable, it would only have postponed the day of overtake by a few years.
There are two ways to increase productivity. You can work more hours or you can work more efficiently. Japan has spent the last few decades increasing hours worked while never improving efficiency. Other Asian countries are growing their economies by building modern factories with the latest machines and tools. Japan won't let go of their fax machines and stamps.
It does. We really need positive propaganda. Dupe everyone into thinking that climate change is real, we have to do something now, doubling down on renewable and sustainable resources is required, etc. I’d love to brainwash everyone into believing that public education needs more funds and resources. Or that rivers and lakes shouldn’t be polluted.
They problem is that climate change makers people feel guilty all the time and afraid (true most likely) that they will feel the financial repercussions, and not the big corporations.
So blaming the other is an easy way to feel superior and deal with the uncertainty rage.
In a lot of ways immigration is bad for Europe. Financially and from a crime point if view, there is far more propaganda making out these issues aren't real.
Okay seeing as we are talking about propaganda. Lets remove that and just show me data.
Show me some data that immigration from Africa and the middle east are financial net contributes and that their crime rate is lower than the native population.
We are talking about propaganda so I asked for two points of simple data outside of propaganda, no more.
The problem is the people that try to make out all immigration is good are making a propaganda statement not a factual one. That's why you had the issue asking for data because it goes against what you want to be true. You hid from the data.
It is sealioning because we've been talking about this for literally years already. You're beating a dead horse by interjecting your dumbass Nazi talking points that I don't care about because I've had the "pleasure" of hearing them day after day after day for all those years, especially during the height of the refugee crisis. Just fuck off.
You've been brainwashed by propaganda and now even data coming out of governments won't even change your mind. You need to step back and look at things fresh.
The German government takes the cyberattack “very seriously,” considering it an action “against our liberal democracy,” the spokesperson said.
Great! As a german I suggest a good, old 'fuck you' in form of the Taurus delivered to Ukraine. This would be a statement even a degnerate like Putin would understand.
It’s just hilariously baffling how much of a self-own Brexit was. Like… genuinely, truly, gobsmackingly breathtaking levels of idiocy.
Even crazier is that people are still voting for the Torries.
Who knows, maybe defunding the NHS will make the British boomers kick the bucket sooner so you guys can get back in. But you are absolutely going to have to surrender the pound sterling. They’re not gonna let you be a currency snowflake if you want to be in the club again.
The City of London (not Greater London) would have a simultaneous heart attack, aneurism, and stroke.
And there's no way the "financial service" (read tax haven British overseas territories) companies that pushed for Brexit in the first place would accept to be open to European Central Bank scrutiny.
The pound weakens a lot, in response to financial crisis, and it hasn't been trending upwards in the long term; crisis is a crucial part of this economic system. I wonder if we could expect the pound to lose its usefulness to billionaires if it sinks below the dollar for good. Sounds doomy, but it could pave the way for an EU re-entry.
Pretty sure that if you're a spy, reporter is probably the worst possible cover, since a reporter is already someone that very clearly snoops, and snooping people get watched closely.
I think a much better spy would be a native born Russian, working in a lower-level job where people don't pay a whole lot of attention to them.
Do you actually think that intelligence agencies are only in contact with one guy? Why wouldn't the CIA be interested in a reporter traveling to Russia to do a story about Wagner?
Yeah I agree, it's impossible to know if he's a spy or not. He might even not know he had shared intresset with other agencies, someone might have led him closer to Wagner than he initially intended.
But he does raise a lot of questions for the Russian it intelligence.
Well, yeah, of course I cannot be certain. I am not that guy. That's why I'm just trying to apply some basic sense. A spy to me is a person doing espionage work specifically for their government. The difference with a journalist is a journalist is not working specifically for their government, and will publicly publish their findings where a spy would usually not.
I think we have a different view of spying, this can also be Russians just want a prisoner swap.
All intelligence services have people working for them undercover, you can be hired by or talked into doing x and y by an some intelligence service, you can also be asked to share information with them. They can even help you getting in contact with the right people to make what ever you're trying to do easier.
You can say that a journalist will publish it findings, but also the journalist can do a lot of other things. I mean I can think of multiple things that the CIA would be interested in that is not necessarily related to the journalistic job. Like recruiting a spy inside Wagner, milking information that is a secret: locations, personnel or arsenal. It can also be a damageing story, Russias official stance is that Wagner is not controlled by the state.
Is he a spy? Does he become a spy if he is spying?
Anyways we don't know, Russia maybe just wants s prisoner swap, and maybe this journalist was digging in places that he shouldn't have. We arrest Russian and Chinese spies all the time, some of them are working as journalists.
Certainly, a journalist could be an asset or informant or whatever you'd want to call it, for an intelligence service. He's putting himself and his professional reputation at risk though. If the intelligence service wanted x piece of information about whatever, there are simply easier ways to get it. Bribe a Russian.
You don't need to ask the American guy that everyone already knows about and is probably being watched to go look at it for you.
I also haven't heard of any journalists being arrested for espionage in the west.
“The Pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who felt offended by the use of a term, as reported by others,” the Vatican said in a Tuesday statement.
“As he (Pope Francis) has said on several occasions, ‘in the Church there is room for everyone, everyone! No one is useless, no one is superfluous, there is room for everyone. Just as we are, everyone.’”
Seems like they’re playing it off as “grandpa had a woopsie”.
All things considered, I am. He’s old, Italian isn’t his first language, and he has a history of progressive changes in favor of the lgbtq+ community. I’m more inclined to believe it was a mistake than to think it was intentional or malicious. Especially given how quickly an apology has been issued.
It doesn’t matter what word he used, he was using it in an anti LGBT sentiment.
i think it does matter wrt what he actually said or intended to say. whether he's being homophobic in his position regard gay clergy isn't a matter of debate: he is.
the issue is that he claims not to have intended to use an offensive term, and apologizes for the offense cause by the term. That i'm willing to believe. i'm not debating his gay clergy policy, which i obviously agree is bigoted.
You're right, it's very likely he wasn't intending to use a slur. But it seems to me like a lot of the reporting is "he didn't mean to disrespect people!" when that's not the case. The pope's intentions were absolutely to disrespect people, just by his actions, and not by that specific word. the specific phrasing he used to do so doesn't really matter.
That specific word in Italian has multiple meanings, one of which being something like "excessive/useless detail or addition, especially when done for the cool factor only" and another being "gayness".
Without the full context of the sentence, it's very hard to say what he meant or what he was saying.
Of course the word is still originating from the slur and shouldn't be used by the pope, but it's technically possible that wasn't even used in relation to any minority (just as much as the opposite)
Unless I missed some extra info or source that has the full context, it's hard to say
I've got news for you guys, one of these things is going to radically affect the other.
Maybe the key to getting old people to care about climate change is to frame the mass displacement and migration that will occur as a direct result of it.
That is pretty genius for sure but I think the issue is that these people think that once shit hits the fan they will be able to stop the desperate masses at their border by legalisation or whatever.
This has been the most effective form of climate protest by far. When they block oil terminals or spray paint car dealerships no one will cover it making the protest pretty much useless, like a guy set himself on fire to protest climate change and that was barely covered. The stuff they do doesn't actually cause any damage but the media actually covers it because they can spin it as rage bait against the protestors but at least it gets coverage.
Coverage, yes. But the result of that coverage? Making people not want to support climate activism, and maybe even have a negative reaction to anything climate positive. And how effective is that coverage in helping the climate? What changes in climate related policy can be traced back to any of these actions?
It spreads awerness, no other climate protest has even managed that. Some people obviously fall for the news rage bait but if even 1% of people gain any awerness of climate change it will have been the most effective form of climate protests by far purely on what reach it has had.
The UK also has a weird hatred of trans people, I'd rather not get my opinions from there. Also the UK has been passing police state shit long before this.
I'm not taking the bait. There's obviously many worse countries than the UK to be trans in and like I've already said, the UK isn't perfect but it wouldn't be as diverse as it is without being as accepting as it is.
You can reply to this if you want, but don't expect me to reply in turn, this is my final statement on the matter.
If you wanna measure your country against those that outright kills trans people then sure, there are worse ones but in Europe, most North America and most of Asia the UK is one of the worst places to be trans. Also both of your relevant politician parties have the same policy there.
The UK has become completely irrelevant on the global stage be grateful I capitalised the names. Like your economy is being out paced by fucking Poland, shame is the proper response there, not national pride.
Nice try, here in Estonia we hate Russians as much as the French hate anyone not French.
Like if you wanna defend your failing country that has a two party system worse than the US go for it but at least try facts instead of national pride, it doesn't work if your country is being out paced by eastern Europe.
Yeah it can cause disruption, I agree. However it should preferably cause disruption for the people you have a problem with. Or simply by using public space which is equally theirs.
Making headlines by defacing historical monuments and art isn't really getting the public on their side. I'm left wing, most of the people I engage with are, and I've yet to meet someone in real life who thinks what Just stop oil are doing is helpful
Do you remember when their protest outside the HQ of BP made the news? Me neither, but I'm sure the high rollers on their 6, 7, 8 figure salaries felt terribly inconvenienced!
I don't have to agree with their methods or their ideology to recognise their right to protest. We're talking about dyed cornstarch here, it's not like they blew the thing up.
If the high rollers didn't feel inconveniences then their protest wasn't very effective! If they can effectively inconvenience the public to the extent that the government can pass new authoritarian anti-protest laws, but they failed to actually inconvenience the high rollers then what the hell are they doing and isn't this opinion that they're not really benefiting the movement actually quite an accurate one?
I don't have to agree with their methods or their ideology to recognise their right to protest.
And I don't have to not recognize their right to protest while also recognizing that their protest, while bringing attention to the cause that won't move the needle, is also bringing attention to the cause that will also set their purported goals back.
And there are thousands of people that express their hatred for her and the movement she stamds for, even threatening to rape and kill her.
In Germany there are regular street blockades and Airport disruptions and the average response to these things was people wanting to run them over with their cars.
Much like my witnessing PETA protestors screaming in the face of little children with a bullhorn because they happened to be waiting in line for the circus. I can support removing elephants from a life of circus performing, but I absolutely cannot stand PETA (for this and other reasons like euthanizing people's pets).
Pretty much every shocking PETA truth is either taken out of context or completely fabricated. They’ve done one thing which I disapprove of, which is the weird “milk makes autism worse” advert they ran. other than that they’re fine imo.
I don't know if the euthanasia stories are true, but I witnessed the screaming into bullhorns personally as I was also waiting in the line with my kid.
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