Maybe our economic systems have to be rethought? A tree is worth more dead than alive..... European economies have been accumulating wealth for centuries through colonization and exploitation of humans lifetimes... in the end what do you have? inflated real estate prices, overly mechanized agriculture producing basic junk foodstuffs, increasingly authoritarian political policies designed to restrict or bore people from contributing to civil society... this is leading to an existential crisis ....
So many good films out there which capture the essence of the problem, that dreadlock guy who works? for Microsoft has a very good quote in "Social Dilemma" (1)
One suggestion would be politicians to be chosen by jury, for periods of say a year to lock them out of having so many fingers in lobbyists pies...
Who are their customers? Other companies... honestly when you take a bit of perspective, the need for companies to make a profit is a huge cause of the overuse of resources... indeed the lack of a social net in the US is probably the cause of it huge part in the world's pollution...as in China the ability to work less or not at all isn't encouraged by the system in place...and please don't get me started on if you don't work who's producing the (junk) food... in WW2 the British poor actually eat better thanks to rationing... maybe less meat, ice cream, bread would be good for the world and the more developed countries...
On youtube there's an American guy called Hinkle dishing out pro Russian viewpoint, I mean even Trump was a Putin apologist and under the veneer he's probably still got a grudge against Zelensky for his 2nd impeachment so I expect a lot of his believers hold similar twisted views... I mean even if on the surface people agree Putler is evil, many probably view the inflation of oil prices and their diminishing buying power (and their economy...whatever that means) as being caused by the said WAR rather than too much money being printed in 2020-21 to prop up all those poor airlines etc etc
Trump wasn't an apologist. He was a realist. Trump was berating Europe for making themselves dependent on Russian gas. He specifically called out the hypocrisy of having the U.S. maintain a massive military presence in Europe, costing us billions of dollars, to defend them against Russia, while they were paying billions of dollars to Russia for energy.
Meanwhile, during VP Biden family was getting rich off of Ukrainian natural gas with Hunter Biden placed strategically on the board of directors at Burisma. And our DoD and intelligence agencies spent 8 years propping up Ukraine military build up. This is a proxy war and as ill-conceived as any other countless proxy wars U.S. has been dumb enough to get dragged into.
You know why it happened? Because the truth was too scary, too dark to believe. We (Europeans) really believed we did everything not to make WWII break out again. There were many bumps on the way, but we really believed we are evolving, and a war in Europe is unthinkable. So when 2014 came, we preferred to close our eyes. We preferred to believe this is just a minor conflict, and that Ukraine must be partly responsible. And that Putin is a sensible player who will not risk breaking so many connections with the West. We hoped that mutual trade is a kind of guarantee he won't start a war. We were wrong. Everybody was wrong. People who saw it coming were, as you say, realists. But it would be difficult to find such a politician in Europe at that time. Even before 24 February most people were sure it's just a bluff to push for opening Nord Stream 2 faster.
Honest question , how are they "very different from Romania or Poland"? Do you mean bigger? Also hypothetically if Belarus wanted to join the EU (after a regime change ofc) what would your objections be?
He's old, autocratic and in power, also hugely trying to appeal to the (rural) "believers" ...so I don't think so... I think you have to be a special kind of honest when being a believer to admit you may be wrong.... and besides power is hugely corrupting, maybe a lot of the problem is patriarchy... I mean women are so beautiful they represent a danger (vulnerability ) to the hold men in general have on power...
Funny how many young expat Turkish men in Germany seem to admire him (sad too) but that's anecdotal
Basically "unproductive" land is/should be cheap, being out of the hustle and bustle of city life is great for clearing your mind, travel to a warmer climate (or snug it down) in the winter, consider it'll take you about a decade but your barren land can become a real cornucopia... There's a feel good film out there called "the biggest little farm"https://youtu.be/UfDTM4JxHl8
There's a guy who made it big in Silicon valley and bought 150 hectares near Cluj , north west Romania, he's built/building 28 houses with a school and afaik there's a agricultural component attached... curious if he's using ecological insulation (compressed sawdust, hemp, wool) or ecological plumbing, heating systems... seems a good intent but such initiatives have a tendency to push up local land prices :-( I have no idea how much his houses cost but since people have been going to Europe as "cheap" labour and especially since the banks have gotten involved in lending money for real estate purchases , prices have been going through the roof...
https://youtu.be/VCBIyvYtMBI
I can't imagine most romanians are happy with their land being so cheap overall (and their economy not doing great) so I doubt most people living there would object to the local land prices going up (that's a good thing).
Rising prices are bad for all but the most wealthy
* It’s bad for people who don’t own a house, which disproportionately impacts the poor and the young.
* It doesn’t really help homeowners either: their property taxes go up but the increased land value will just be spent on the increased cost of a new property if they move nearby.
* So the only way to realise increased land value is to move outside the local market. This turnover reduces the community of a neighbourhood, and creates pockets of dull old homogeneous people with no shared history.
* The only real way to benefit from rising prices is to invest in property, further concentrating wealth among the wealthy.
* Treating one of society’s most important assets as an investment has a ton of negative side effects, like poor utilisation due to land banking, cheaply finished low quality buildings rather than ones that vest serve their occupants, evictions, further increased community turnover.
* It’s a self perpetuating cycle, as the wealthy investors vote, lobby, and just straight up are politicians.
I completely agree, I think the problem with "agricultural" land is that due to WW2 (in western Europe) we jumped too quickly in the 50's from a largely rural society to mechanised farming to pick up the slack from all that surplus war production and lack of (killed off) manpower. The wealthy have used the captive cheap labour force to fill it's offices, factories and rental tenements... Governments have made bigger farms a priority and as in NZ they have become the playthings of hedge funds and corporations (where ironically a Maori once told me something that still sticks with me as profoundly one of the best ways to manage land, telling me "in our living space people have their houses but it's communally owned land, ie " your house, our land")
To certain extent our society is focusing on using farming largely for "junk" food, ie wheat and other grains for bread and bakery, corn for glucose syrop, rapeseed for oil used in biofuel, palm oil, sugar beet... and of course, meat and diary... (i heard something like 60% of straw is burned in Germany...) rather than focusing on letting people produce fruit and vegetables in small-scale holdings...
Here in Romania a lot of people still live in the countryside (40%?) government is sidelining people selling on the street or in markets and the westernized , yuppified youth is being sucked into the glamour and anonymity of huge supermarkets full of too much stuff but so convenient...
It really depends on why prices are rising. Prices rising because a society is getting wealthier overall and wants to spend more on better quality products (or more ethically produced/sourced products) is not generally a bad thing.
I do think increased building standards and expanded city amenities explain some small part of price increases. But not like 10%+ increases over inflation year after year as is seen in many areas worldwide.
It’sa double edged sword, the average home price has doubled where I live but it’s also created a homelessness problem where it was non existent before. This seems to also have increased drug use and mental problems or at least exposed them on the public streets but probably both. When homes are cheap people can get by with very little, being poor is not so bad when you have a roof over your head and food and people around you. Now the pre are sleeping rough in the street or overcrowded in tiny apartments with no prospects of having their own home. I’m sure those who can invest in building and selling expensive houses are doing well though.
Rural Japan. I am moving out of it, and most rural communities are very aware of the fact that they are dying out. Houses are not only cheap, some are free. I have a friend who is living in a house just in exchange of cutting the grass there regularly (long story). Landlords have to pay for the cost of destruction if one house they own becomes abandoned. They are happy to have a tenant even for free if they fix things there and keep the place in a good shape.
Schools are closing one after the other. The countryside is littered with abandoned schools. People there are despaired to see their cities shrink.
When we arrived from Tokyo with a young kid, we were more than welcomed and locals helped us localize the best houses for us.
I love the idea, living in Europe I had the opportunity to squat in my younger years and the fun of living with others while having the opportunity to transform the house we lived in was extremely empowering... have you ever heard of Hundertwasser , his houses seem similarly exciting ...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedensreich_Hundertwasser
Ic.org is a good place to visit to see what exists and you could emulate, it was started from a community called Twin Oaks that has quite a radical approach :-) I learnt about it from a book called "Is it Utopia yet" picked up in of all places Nuremberg... honestly agricultural land is cheap (2k a hectare) in non productive places and vegetable gardening or just plain planting stuff for lols like from "plants from a future" (pfaf.org) interspersed with a couple of weed plants should cover expenses... strawbale housing, adobe or trailer parks are much cheaper options at least initially...
Gas made from compost, shit or wood chippings is a great alternative...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compost_heater
Maybe they just realized there's a bunch of expenses they don't need...or can streamline... I think and see how Covid gave a bunch of people time to focus on what they found was important... literally in my case I've found it's cheaper travelling in the winter to a "cheap" warmer country such as Egypt or South America or even New Zealand (Scoot does cheap no frill flights from Athens to Melbourne) living off odd jobs or freelancing...
I mean at this point volunteering or living off the land is a good way to opt out and find "meaning" rather than be stuck in a polluted city in a "mindless" job...
One suggestion would be politicians to be chosen by jury, for periods of say a year to lock them out of having so many fingers in lobbyists pies...
(1) https://files.fm/f/nm8vs6h5g