- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- worldnews@lemmy.ml
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High housing costs == high wealth inequality.
These are precisely the same thing.
Yeah, exactly. When more than half of your income goes towards housing, you’re denied opportunities to save, invest, get more education, do pretty much anything to improve your situation. And worse, often when you’re renting you’re paying the landlord’s mortgage on the property. It’s fucked.
The middle class is disappearing, increasingly we’re in a society comprised of the fucked majority and the minority of fuckers.
The majority of people own their own homes.
Solving the housing crisis requires existing homeowners being left holding the bag, so to speak.
We’re never going to fix this issue in any of our lifetimes
Majority doesn’t own their own homes, the banks do. The majority also doesn’t owe anywhere near what the home is still worth. The majority DID buy a home when it was worth practically nothing, and now it’s worth has exploded because people and companies are hoarding homes, to make sure their prices rise, by limiting the supply.
Sure, some people stand to not make as huge a profit as they possibly could, but it’s not like they’re going to lose money, they’re just not going to profit as much as they hoped they would.
I bought my house a couple of years ago and I would still love to see house prices stagnate so inflation eats away their value. Seems like the most stable option for everyone really, gradual improvement in affordability for those without and the value remains for those with one.
Those using housing as investments can get fucked. Actually, ramp up taxes on empty property too, both housing and commercial. Can’t find anyone to fill it? Tough, lower rents until you can.
Fuck all the greedy landlords. Kudos to all landlords out there who charge rent based on a persons income and don’t feel a need to charge what “The Market” dictates.
the problem is not the landlords playing the market prices, its the unregulated market… the guys making the legislation are landlords themselves, they are profiting with this shitty market
Quite lot of foreigners investing in housing in Spain arm. Pretty messed up.
Same here in the UK. Foreign ppl and companies buy land and property here as an investment, often leaving it empty. While people sleep on the streets outside.
This is one reason I’m an advocate of squatting, and have spent many years living in squats. It’s increasingly difficult, of course, because the landowners are buying politicians and tightening legislation.
Same here in Canada. We also got immigrants who were made a false promise and are now the new underclass with no real upward mobility.
Heh, funnily enough we also have a whole lot of immigrants, legal and illegal, many of whom came here on false promises of prosperity and are now, like you say, a new underclass. Lots of them do Uber eats etc. And they’re exploited, particularly the illegals who have no recourse to the workplace protections that the rest of us do, crap as they are.
Regardless of how ppl feel about immigrants and illegal immigrants, it’s hard to deny that many of these ppl are getting fucked over hard.
(Btw I got no problem with immigrants. Just wish they weren’t so often an underclass that they kinda stick with their compatriots and don’t always integrate or learn English. This denies them opportunities and is not cool for the social fabric as a whole. But I can’t feel badly about other workers who just want to get by and maybe send money home to their families). In their situation, I’d prob do the same.
Thing is, it’s gonna be a growing trend. The right wingers are all hot against illegal immigrants and deportation etc, but the fact is that increasing numbers of British natives, whatever their ethnicity, are not having kids or having fewer kids because they can’t afford to. And if you want economic growth to continue you need more consumers and more vulnerable, desperate workers. Hence, immigration. Number go up.
Fuckin capitalism, eh.
My super conservative in-laws in Spain are all flustered by this! They think these people are being paid and that they are armed and dangerous and out to pillage, kill, and raze the country.
Spain is weird in that their Fascist dictatorship wasn’t overthrown by a Revolution like next door Portugal but instead those in power decided themselves to let go of power (after making themselves stupidly rich and then passing some laws to make themselves immune from prosecution for all they did), so IMHO the right-wing there has always been pretty Fascist-adjacent because certain things weren’t cleaned up.
The sons and daughters of the Fascist elites too created their own political party in next door Portugal - currently in power - but its ideology was never this weird moralist know-your-place “conservativeness” that you see in traditional Fascism.
instead those in power decided themselves to let go of power (after making themselves stupidly rich and then passing some laws to make themselves immune from prosecution for all they did
So it wasn’t overthrown at all. It changed the paint, but nothing else. Something something, scratch a Liberal.
most of the high level judges in Spain are still blatant fascist.
Well, the Fascists now have a party (more like two parties, one even more far-right than the other) and have to actually convince enough voters (like the inlaws of the person I replied to) so that they win the election, which doesn’t always happen - for example right now the Government is in the hands of the (supposedly) center-left mainstream party (not sure if they’re really left of center since nowadays european mainstream “moderate” parties are all neoliberal to at least some extent).
In the time of the dictatorship they had absolute power and didn’t need to convince anybody to have power (but, perhaps, the military leadership).
So things did change, though the change was indeed not at all started by them being overthrown.
Were they in power for the past years? I understand that they weren’t? But people are still striking, their situation has gotten this bad. So does it really matter if their power is not absolute? If the people’s conditions are getting worse, if the fascists are still eating with both hands?
We’re at the end stages of Neoliberalism, hence people’s situation has got “bad, seriously bad” in all of it to the point that people are now doing mass strikes against things like lack of housing, all over Europe and not just in Spain, including in nations which were never under Fascism in the past.
(In fact many of the things people are demonstrating against right now - such as housing costs - aren’t even a common problem under Fascism whilst they’re a 100% natural consequence of the full liberalization and deregulation of Realestate Markets, something beloved by Neoliberals)
This is because Neoliberalism too is a very rightwing anti-Democratic ideology where power is exercised for the good of a few people, not for the good of the many, the difference between the two being mainly that the top of the power pyramid Neoliberalism has Money above State (i.e. Oligarchy) whilst Fascism has the State above Money (i.e. a command economy, only the policies are very rightwing), whilst The People are at the bottom of the power hierarchy in both. By constrats when under Democracy The People are at the top, then the State (controlled by the representatives of The People), then everything else including Money.
Fascism now is being pushed as a “solution” of some of the elites in Neoliberalism for the discontent of The People due to the pain they’re enduring as a long-term consequence of Neoliberalism. Such members of the elite expect that the Fascist state which they try to have replace the currently flagging Neoliberal state (with a symbolic vote on the side that changes puppets but no puppeteers to make it look Democratic) will be one were they personally as individuals control (rather than it being controlled by an elite selected on the basis of how much Money they have as we have now), which is why you see things like news media owned by billionaires (such as Fox in the US and Politico in Germany) relentlessly blowing Fascist dog-whistles and pushing Fascist perspectives on social ills (most notably that the pains the locals are enduring are the fault of immigrants and that poverty is due to the personal flaws of poor people).
It’s just that in Spain many elements of and believers in Fascism never went away, so those forces are more obvious and such ideas never stopped being held by at least a good fraction of the population whilst in next door Portugal there was a period when they were incredibly uncommon.
In summary, the pain and related demonstrations you mention are the product of the currently dominant political structure were The People are at the bottom of the power pyramid: Neoliberalism.
keep striking keep striking!!!
Americans, take notes, in case of a hostile dictatorship takeover
They always have the same excuse. The country is too large, you’ll be fired if you take time off, no one to organize, blah blah blah blah.
The only thing mildly acceptable is the lack of unions and union organizations. In most civilized countries, these can be a driving force for these type of demonstrations. But in the US that would hurt the poor corporations so…
From the article,
At the centre of Wednesday’s nationwide 24-hour stoppage, singularly called for by tenants’ associations and later backed by workers’ unions,
Yeah, the US doesn’t really have those, so I have to ask, how exactly do you suggest the US organize it? Like you said, unions and similar organizations could drive it forward, but we do not have that infrastructure. So how do we get this organized, knowing full well that every form of social media except the Fediverse is going to try to smother it? Because I’d love for us to try a general strike, but I do not personally see a viable avenue to one.
Americans … doing something about a dictatorial government?
Pfft. Yeah, right.
They did that one time…
Typically Americans are the ones going to other countries and installing dictatorships.
Well, they do make massive demonstrations when the same technique is applied to their own country by their politicians (and only then, not when their politicians do it abroad), were the ones against it are peaceful and get violently assaulted by the most piggy of pigs, whilst the ones who are violent are those demonstrating in favor of it and get friendly nods by the pigs.
Only a tiny fraction of Americans seem to genuinelly be against it out of principle (the kind of people who were as much demonstrating against targetted murders abroad under Obama as they are when it’s done under Trump) rather than being against it only when it starts affecting them.
The number of people voting blue in the election gives me hope…although I know some probably didn’t vote for the right reasons
IMHO, outside the ones who voted for modern progressive (the ones who are openly Social Democrats and Socialists and against all kinds of inequality including wealth inequality, not the pure Identity Politics liberals), voting blue in the US is just voting to restrict the more over iron-fist dictatorshiping to foreign countries whilst at home the riff-raff is controlled via a captured media and propaganda.
In the anti-Democratic voting system in the US the most democratic part isn’t the election, it’s the primaries, so the real thing that might give one hope is the increase in the number of genuine lefties winning Democrat primaries so that they were there as electable options in the actual election rather than one of the usual hard-right neoliberal in the pocket of the rich vs far-right fascist in the pocket of the rich “choice”.
Same ones didnt show up last election though. Best i ever seen it put: the US has been sober a few days. Or have they even? Too early to tell.
Voting blue isn’t going to help the housing issue. Voting red was supposed to but didn’t. We just need to build more, fuck the little endangered turtle no one cares about and put up so,e condos and apartments, that’s how you fix it
Voting red was supposed to but didn’t.
If you believed that, I don’t know what else to do other than assume you’re either too dumb or too young to know better.
fuck the little endangered turtle
Nah, fuck you.
That’s not the problem in Spain. Housing in desirable areas, like Madrid and Barcelona, is being bought up by speculators and AirBnb rapidly, meaning that rents doubled while salaries stayed the same.
Population has not doubled, so blaming a lack of supply doesn’t make sense.
Voting red was supposed to
Untrue.
fuck the little endangered turtle
No.
Way to go, Spain!
At the centre of Wednesday’s nationwide 24-hour stoppage, singularly called for by tenants’ associations and later backed by workers’ unions, is a pushback against Spain’s deepening housing crisis.
Sandra Mora, of the Madrid Tenants’ Union, told the broadcaster RNE: “It’s extremely important to remind people that we, the workers – who are also renters or who also pay mortgages – are the ones with the power to halt production and bring the economy to a standstill.”
While workers’ unions reported high participation in the strike across several sectors, including 90% in the automotive and port sectors and 82% in waste collection, they said participation was uneven across the country. The strongest support was reported in coastal regions, such as Catalonia and Andalucía, where the soaring cost of housing has been particularly acute.
The strike is weird because it has been done after flash elections were called due to the government not being able to push a (meh-tier) housing affordability law, so, in good spanish fashion, no one will take responsibility for it.
Hey USians, you see this? It CAN be done. It CAN happen.
Does everything always have to be about the US?
Taft-Harley act made general strikes illegal, among basically any strike not directly related to your specific employer. Violates union contracts.
All strikes were originally illegal. Ultimately that wont stop us.
So it’s illegal? Who cares? Do it anyway. What are they going to do, arrest millions of people? Fire all of them? I don’t think so.
Violates union contracts? Unions exist to enable these things, not to stop them. What is the fucking point otherwise?!
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Of course the government would love to stop people from protesting/striking/whatever. The whole point is to not let them. Use your numbers against them, together you’re strong, that’s what they’re trying to stop. If striking didn’t work, they wouldn’t have to outlaw it!
“we cant resist because its illegal o algo”
this is both true, and no excuse
USians
Oh, shut the fuck up. That will never become our demonym. All it does is make you look like a terminally online moron.
That will never become our demonym.
Yeah. The only “correct” one is the one where you steal the whole continent’s name for yourselves, right?
The continent is North America.
The correct one is the one the entire world uses when speaking English.
The continent is North America.
USA! USA! USA!
fuck Mexico and Canada, right?
No. They’re part of the continent of North America, dumbass.
America (without the North qualifier) refers to the country and has since before Canada and Mexico existed as countries. Canadians and Mexicans don’t call themselves Americans. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that a pretty good way to piss a lot of Canadians and probably Mexicans off is to call them Americans. Stop acting like you don’t know this shit.
Edit: Notice how nobody has a good argument against what I’m saying? Y’all really hate when anyone questions your stupid bullshit.
USians voted to change the government. We’ll see in two weeks what Spaniards will do in their elections. This strike is mostly meaningless.
I think the correct word is Spainians
They did? They’re not neoliberal any more?
Nope, fully communist now.
Good on them!
What is their solution? What are they protesting for?
Are we not even reading headlines anymore?
I don’t get it are they trying to help the right win the election?
Unfortunately, despite the Spanish ruling party being named the Spanish Socialist Worker’s party, they haven’t really been socialist. Hence, the housing crisis and the frustration. To be fair, the Spanish prime minister hasn’t been directly implicated by corruption, but his family members and those in his party are extremely corrupt.
Its completely expected that this would happen under a socialist party.
But, since this isn’t a socialist party, your claim remains spurious.
Who says they arent?
The commenter you were replying to.
Family? Nothing solid on that yet (i.e. no solid sentence, I think there are ongoing yet) honestly stinks a lot of lawfare, certain tribunlas are controlled “from the backdoor” by the opposition, as the same PP said once…
Addendum: the opposition parties are well served of corruption also
Maybe, but for me, where there is smoke there is fire. I mean, other politicians do not get implicated, even remotely, if they’re not totally corrupt. Maybe Sanchez’s wife and brother did was nothingburger, but the accusations won’t be entertained if there is actually no credibility to it. They say that the most effective propaganda is not peddling falsehoods, but taking a grain of truth and making a mountain out of it.
There is a long tradition of open processes against people of parties opposite to this opposition that controls judges that ended up in nothing, so I would not be surprised that the cases against their family end up in nothing, specially due to the great creativeness of the accusations to start these processes and some deliberate actions to just enlarge them with new weird stuff just to maintain the image of accusation, I think in those cases the principle of innocent until proven the opposite stands out a lot…
Of course it’s innocent until proven guilty. But a lot of politicians walk the grey line to get a wiggle room to not be put in jail. Although if a politician and his/her cronies are truly honest, then there would be no reason to be implicated even remotely. Think of any popular politicians and tell me if those have been embroiled in a serious scandal.
His brother got a job in Badajoz and his wife is accused of some licensing issues AFAIK. Hardly “extreme” levels of corruption. Things like that happen in other countries in broad daylight. The biggest corruption scandal of this government ended with sentences of like 20 years in prison. I don’t think corruption will be a significant issue in those elections.
It’s weird. The left (for Spain, not for Lemmy) government is in favor, but the right opposition is against.
Yeah but it seems the country is going to turn against the people striking and the left. During a cost of living crisis squeezing the average person makes them hate you. Its an easy election win for the right to promise to crush the strikes.
The government doesn’t have a majority in parliament, which voted no on the proposed measures. So the PM called a snap election for the end of this month.
I haven’t seen good justification for the general strike. Strikes are good tool to pressure employers and those have nothing to do with housing costs. I could be seen as a tool to motivate voters before elections but most likely it will work equally on both sides. I think the unions wanted to do something and general strike was the best thing they came up with. That’s it.
Housing and affordability crisis.
