• 13 Posts
  • 121 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: August 5th, 2023
  • atro_city@fedia.iotoEurope@feddit.org•Spain goes to war against holiday rentals
    4·
    6 days ago

    They’re blaming predatory landlords who own apartment buildings, evict all the tenants, and convert the whole block into AirBnB properties. They’re mostly not mom-and-pop operations, they’re big holding companies with huge stacks of money behind them.

    Great. Fuck those people and companies.

    Maybe it was this poster that was chosen for effect. I also remember visiting Portugal and seeing “Fuck off tourists” (or something quite similar, can’t remember) spray painted in multiple places around Lisbon.

    Like any business, if tourism is not regulated properly, it’ll have toxic side-effects.

    100%. Unfettered access to resources is a recipe for disaster.

    Thank you for your comment.

  • atro_city@fedia.iotoEurope@feddit.org•Spain goes to war against holiday rentals
    134·
    6 days ago

    Out of curiosity, are holiday rentals the major issue? I’m sure they are part of the problem, but are they a significant part of the problem?

    I also find it a little ridiculous to blame tourists. Tourists travel where accommodation is available. If the local government decides to prefer to do nothing about landlords that leave houses empty for most of the year, that’s a local government and landlords problem, not a tourist problem. I’d fully agree calling it a tourist problem if they for example fucked up local wildlife, went to the city to riot or destroy public property, and so on, but this is not a “tourist problem”.

    It’s the equivalent of blaming foreigners for “taking jobs”. Businesses give jobs to foreigners. We drop bombs on countries abroad or let our huge companies run rampant there, then we are their refugees show up. It’s not the foreigners that are the problem, but the us, our businesses, and our government. Of course, if the majority of foreigners just came to “rape our women”, it would be a foreigner problem, but it really isn’t - same as this isn’t a tourist problem.

  • atro_city@fedia.iotoEurope@feddit.org•AfD is the most popular party in Germany for the first time, with a record 26%
    3·
    6 days ago

    We’ll see about Germany. I think the last government tried to do stuff but one coalition “partner” cutting away at the coalition’s Achilles heel (the budget). The media reporting on Germany also seems to be quite conservative, so a bunch of the good stuff the coalition did was swept under the rug e.g for the first time in decades the German railway infrastructure didn’t get worse (it also didn’t get better, but at least it didn’t get worse).

    The graphic that OP posted has the conservatives as the second most popular party, but they were the most popular one after the last elections. It’s the same party of Merkel, the same one that was in power for 15 years and didn’t improve the country during that entire time, thus planting the seeds for the nazis.

  • atro_city@fedia.iotoEurope@feddit.org•AfD is the most popular party in Germany for the first time, with a record 26%
    13·
    6 days ago

    This is post election. They didn’t have the majority during the elections, so while it is impressive, it doesn’t give them new political powers. Also, they require coalition partners, but nobody is willing to do that. If a coalition can be formed between (looking at the chart) Union, SPD, and Greens, that puts them at >50% giving them a majority to govern.

    If the new coalition is formed and they don’t get their act together within the time of governance, the next elections could be fatal for democracy in Germany. Honestly, like in most other European countries facing threats to democracy, their current governments must take decisive and quick action to make more people happy. However, current governments are trying to play the nazi’s game, and they are predictably losing ground because that’s not a solution.

    Major parties are playing identity politics, trying to be populistic, bundling nazi ideas as their own, or quite simply not uniting like for example the French left-wing parties did (however short-lived that was). They should be:

    • decreasing the gap between the rich and everybody else
    • improving EU and national sovereignty by promoting non-US products and services to stop the influx of US and Russian propaganda
    • taking radical action to make lodging and life in general more affordable (more social housing, making multi-home ownership less attractive, regulating the market more, etc.)
    • improving public transport to reduce car dependence to reduce air and noise pollution in cities, which also makes transport more affordable
    • providing more education with paid educational leave to allow career switches
    • reduce hurdles for creating small businesses and provide guidance for those willing to start businesses
    • invest in technology that makes life easier and more comfortable (better internet to reduce trips to office and government offices in particular, subsidies and research into improved heating and heat retention to reduce electricity and gas bills, …)

    and so so much more. A happy, educate populace is much less likely to be duped and and magnitudes less likely to vote against their own interests (like voting for lying politicians or nazis).