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Bart de Wever is a rightwing rich asshole. He demolished one of the better alternative nightclubs to put condos for rich people. He also has been trying to destroy the culture of the city to make it all fancy and stuck up. He needs constant police protection because he's a racist cuck and stirs up wars between drug gangs so he gains more power.
Fuck him.
If he was racist, then his city wouldn't be the largest destination of immigrants in flanders.
I like Antwerp being more fancy, but yeah. I'm not poor. Do you want to be poor? Median net wealth in our country is 250 000 euros per adult. Why are you poor? Education is tax paid. Medical bankruptcy doesn't exist here. Your income gets indexed to inflation.
Why are you poor? Making the cities more fancy is called development
Did you just say this unironically?
Yes. Stop being poor, the tools are available.
Tax paid education. Tax paid healthcare. Unemployment benefits. Sick pay. Social housing. Good economy. Train is paid by the employer. E-bike leasing paid by your taxes. Child benefits. Daycare subsidies. High minimum wage. Difficult to get fired. Notice period when fired. Can't get fired when pregnant. Maternity leave. You can buy a social house from the government if you agree to live there for 20 years. Wages indexed to inflation. During economic crisis, the companies are pretty much forced to endure it temporarily instead of laying off workers temporarily. Buying first house is 3% tax while buying the 2nd+ house is 12% tax. During energy crisis, people got helped with energy bills. It's well funded to teach people Dutch for free, the VDAB areas look like it's for royalty, ...
Just stop being poor
Ye no, thats not how it works. You have been too caged about how towards the rest of the country is, which is what antwerp just is. You have no idea what poor is and what the cost of living is for average paycheck IF you want to buy something like a house or car. I assume mommy and daddy helped you buy a car? Or always got a company car?
Got a house that mommy and daddy helped pay for so you could actually pay for the loan and have the capital to start the loan?
Oh, hey, and maybe youve always lived with a partner too, which also makes it very much doable since 3/4th the income is good to save to do whatever with.
I don't have a car. Never needed it, i've had 4 different jobs already.
Buy stoxx 600 ETFs. lu908500753
It's the same as having a house, but far more liquid.
Be an attractive human being and find a partner, we have an aging population. Go breed. Seriously, I am disgusted by people that can't form long lasting relationships.
Getting a house... Better done with bank's money, not your own money. Even when you can buy it outright, still better to get the bank to fund most of it.
Have fun living in the same spot for decades then
... You know much it costs to get a house right? You do realise that for a decent house in my neighbourhood i had to pay 160k outright and bank would pay the other half. I do not have 160k just lying around you know. And with current average income that would still take 4 years of working if you didnt spend a dime of your income.
I repeat, you are disconnected from reality
Then don't buy a house, invest in the stock market. It has the same return on investment.
It's a lot more available, you don't pay interest to the bank. You have more job opportunities.
I'm not interested in buying a house. It just locks me down.
I'm not like my dad who worked the same job for 40 years. Times change
Job hopping every few years increases your income
You're a real shortsighted person. Greetings from your northern cousins suffering from similar problems. Averages lie, statistics mean nothing to an average citizen.
If half a country does well, and the other half is living in worse conditions every day, is that wealth?
I'm in a good spot, but I am lucky to be there. Many others are not so lucky. Take off your blinders.
I used median, your median net wealth is half ours and your average wealth is the same as ours. Just a fun fact. Well, fun for me.
And obviously we're fucking great for bottom 20%. Minimum wage is high, we have social housing, great social mobility.
The only people I know that are poor also didn't work for literal decades and lived off tax money.
Their kids aren't poor though, they are educated.
We don't punish children for their parents' mistakes.
Your people come to our country for cheaper housing, you're aware of this. Antwerp is filled with dutchies.
My mate is living in an apartment in Germany, he has no job. His gf is chilling on sick leave for 2 years after having worked 1 year.
If he says he doesn't know why he's poor, I'll smack him on his face. Get a job
He's realising that a minimum wage in Germany pays 400 euros less net than in Belgium. So his career choice of doing minimum wage jobs wasn't that great when moving countries.
He didn't want to do a real job because the difference in gross wage is taxed anyways. Yeah it's 80% taxed in Belgium between minimum wage and 3200 euros gross. Whoopdiefreakndoo, you do the effort to improve your qualifications. The income after 3200 euros gross is taxed less.
Short sighted, if you're poor in Belgium then you're a moron
I get it, you're not stupid. You've got the capabilities to think these things through. It's very nice to have these skills.
Although I wasn't familiar with all the circumstances in BE, they seem better on average than in NL. That sounds great, because our countries' wealth is brittle and unequally divided.
While I do agree it's sometimes a motivational issue (minority), I think that anyone working FTE should be able to live without uncertainty, living a modest life. Even if they have no desire to grow a career.
In here that is not the case. No proper social housing system (it's a shell of the past), waiting times around 15 years for Randstad.
Private sector rent of 1200-1500 is common. Many people cannot escape the wage slavery trap.
Fun fact, even earning twice median here is no guarantee for stability.
My point is, your view is definitely not universally applicable.
Even in BE there will be circumstances where people cannot predict the outcomes. Poverty, drug addiction or mental disorders can happen anywhere on earth - and people do not choose for this to happen to them.
Yes, everything I am saying here is based on high social mobility, high median net wealth and high minimum wage. I like my capitalism in the hands of many.
1 FTE should always allow someone to save up a good amount of money. The minister in Flemish parlement I voted for is investing in social housing now. Relieving pressure on renters from private options. I do want both public and private options, government doesn't need monopoly like in Singapore.
i view these things as trampolines, not as crutches.
Like at my work, newbie comes from a home where neither parent could work. Father is blind/deaf and mother takes care of him. Idk how they did it, but they own a house. I'm completely fine with that, I prefer to work than to be blind/deaf, by a lot.
But I've also been talking to an older guy who has no money at all, 57 years old, lives in social housing and didn't work for more than 5 years because "his knees hurt". Not a fan of him. His daughter starts life with the basic package because he never really tried.
But I'm very happy that his daughter has all the opportunity. She's educated and can choose her own path. (She can't move out until his pension or he will lose a lot of his monthly income).
We have an aging population, so it's fine I guess. Money to raise a kid.
Like I'm a fan of immigration not for the first generation but the second generation. That's the real investment. Even though nowadays first gen immigrants will be quite better, as education in the world has been drastically improving.
What our prime minister did first, was limit unemployment benefits to 2 years and increase the unemployment benefits in the first year. That's good. It needs to be insurance, not an early retirement alongside your other passive incomes.
I don't want people to hate rich people, I want them to become rich. I want them to feel good in the country they grew up with. View people as equals socially.
Personally I can't imagine not growing as a person when working 38 hours a week. If you don't learn anything, please change job. They are wasting your time.
But my wife has that choice. She's working part time as cleaner while learning Dutch. Now she's pregnant and for the time being she will just continue working part time as cleaner. It's nearby our home so it's very convenient. She pays basically no taxes, it's pretty good for us financially. She has a law degree from her country of origin, so she can likely just get a career option if she so wishes. But she prefers to focus on being a mom. Her choice. We'll get 250 euros per month for the kid. I'll pay 50 euros fewer taxes every month. We'll get a free stroller and car seat. Giving birth will be 300 euros. They'll give us 1200 euros at birth.
Personally I cannot understand the desire to not grow qualifications. Learning things is fun. It's very boring to go week in week out without learning anything.
But yes there are people that don't care. My wife can choose what she prefers. Both are adequate options. Spending more time with our kid is valuable. Honestly I think our aging population is because people work too much. My grandmothers didn't work, my mom worked part time. My wife's sisters and mom don't work.
So it's definitely a complex thing.
I don't think someone needs a job in order to learn things either. But it's quite useful. I hope she gets an opportunity for a different job that also is easily manageable with a family while also learning more things.
The good thing about cleaning is that she gets a good workout out of it. 4 hours per week day, it's social. She sees dogs etc. People are nice. (Not the old ones that can't speak English and are more of the funny old racist generation)
Basically, a country needs to be designed in such a way that when you're poor at age 57, it's your own choice.
It's an interesting story you shared. Seems like you've got it decently with your family. Happy to hear that!
I agree that learning can and should be fun and stimulated.
In the Netherlands we have the opposite problem actually, too many people have a higher education. Not enough practically schooled workers. We drastically need people to change to a "lower" education I'd we want to have plumbers, electricians, builders etc.
He's a silent racist. He was a party leader for Vlaams Blok and personally tried to ban hijabs many times. Then he became party leader for NVA and changed his strategy. He introduced authoritarian GAS fines which are fines that can be- and have been abused to target minorities. He worked his way up to PM so he could get the rich rightwing assholes in power. The "Arizona" government is one for the rich whites, and he gains a lot from it.
I'm not poor and I am white. But I'll still answer your bullshit. Brussels and Anderlecht are much bigger immigrant destinations. Respecting poorer parts of the society does not make it poor. It just looks like that in statistics. Destroying nightlife and Antwerp culture, so you can put luxury apartments with a good view is not development. It's elitism.
So fuck him and fuck you for trying to spin this elitist bullshit.
Bart De Wever was never the chairman of Vlaams Blok. He's never been a member of Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang, which makes it kinda hard for him to have ever been their party leader.
Brussels and Anderlecht aren't in flanders buddy, other government.
Rich people in general. He doesn't care if they are of European descent. What he wants is a stable environment for rich people to grow richer.
Which is fine, majority of Belgians are rich.
We don't attract high risk investments. We attract stable compound interest investments. That's what Europe does.
He doesn't like economic crises. He wants stability.
Lemme visit Singapore in May and see how an authoritarian selfish shit hole (richest area in south east Asia) looks and feels like.
(Those rich people aren't all Europeans, most are Chinese, Malaysian, etc)
I don't vote on De Wever, I vote on Vooruit, which you wouldn't expect on whatever I'm writing on this thread.
But I know that De Wever is the leader of the largest political party in flanders, and has been mayor of the most thriving Flemish city in the country.
Majority of Antwerp have immigrant background and once again they elected a mayor from his party now that he's the PM.
So maybe, these immigrants actually like him?
We're importing people from right wing countries, you're aware of this I'm sure. My Turkish diaspora friend votes for Erdogan. Just like most Turks here.
You sound like such a lovely person
Depends on the situation and who you are. If you think you can deduce someone's whole personality on one thread, then you're quite wrong
Ah yes. You are correct.
Until you actually look at who these people are. They are all rich and "classy". The NVA party leaders and mayors also surround themselves with self-employed white people that just have to kiss their ass and get subsidies. I can give you the proof for this, but I don't think you'd even do the research.
Incorrect. Belgium has a huge middle class with a very decent social net. That makes everybody feel rich, which is awesome, but it is not rich like the people that are his target audience.
Ehh, that's meaningless. It's every politician's goal eventually. Even that of dictators. It's the other goals and the means to get there that are far more important.
It's 23,5% - https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwerpen_(stad)
They don't. Most of the immigrants voted for PVDA and Groen.
"Importing" is a pretty awful term here. Often used by anti immigration nationalists. It's not "importing" because immigrants are almost exclusively migrating by themselves nowadays. We are not asking them to come work in our country like we did with in the past.
Tegenwoordig heeft bijna de helft van de populatie in Antwerpen een migratieachtergrond. De stad telt ten minste 166 verschillende nationaliteiten, wat de variatie weergeeft van de migrantengroepen in Antwerpen. De grootste groepen met een migratieachtergrond zijn afkomstig uit Marokko, Nederland, Turkije en Polen.
https://bamproject.eu/nl/steden/antwerpen#%3A%7E%3Atext=Tegenwoordig+heeft+bijna+de+helft%2C%2C+Nederland%2C+Turkije+en+Polen.
Achtergrond, niet gewoon eerste generatie. Trouwens, een kwart van de bevolking geboren buiten het land? Dat is bijna Zwitserland.
It's true that we're not actually importing people, we don't have to. They come themselves. Through family reunification mostly. Which is amazing, as they already have to have decent income and sufficient housing in order to do so. So yeah, probably the wrong word.
Okay.. maybe I'm just doing a bad job here and you can do it better than me. We both don't vote for Bart de Wever, our most popular politician.
What are the good things about him? Why does the majority of our region vote for him?
Also, I do view a median net wealth of 250k euros wealthy. You can move to Indonesia and live like those "elites". A house in Indonesia costs 25k euros. The cost of living is quite low, you can definitely cover it with passive income.
But, perhaps, they'll do a revolution and guillotine you. Who knows
Oh you said background, I misunderstood. Well we've been a "mengelpot" for decades.
The good thing used to be that when he switched from VB to NVA he dropped all the racist bullshit. He seemed to start accepting all the different people. trying to get everybody living and working together and that everybody was happy. He also is the self-proclaimed victim of drug violence because of him "trying to protect the people from all the drug problems".
But it's all false. For the people that do their research and don't just listen to the media, it seems that was all a ruse to get to power. He only played the cards that would make him the most popular. As I said, NVA has been the party of "vriendjespolitiek", and is silently racist and in it for the money. They portray the image of the quality Flemish person and get their votes that way. Yet when you look into budget spending, you'll see NVA mayors and party members in all the companies and boards that get funding. Quality Flemish my ass. Being all nice to the people of the community only to take its money.
For the drug stuff. The Belgians are actually very responsible drug users. They keep bringing up the sewer water of Antwerp as a statistic for drug problems, but then neglect the fact that Antwerp has far less drug problems than other cities. (Most of it isn't even the cocaine from the sewers they keep rambling about). They know damn right what gangs are active and who every player is, yet let them battle it out for what reason exactly? So he can be the guy that is on the front line of this "war". And the people eat it up.
There are many other things. But those are his biggest wins. Plus there are also many people who vote NVA because they love being Flemish but can't call themselves racist.
That's not what I meant with being rich.
"Bart De Wever was not a member of the Vlaams Blok. He was critical of the party and its successor, Vlaams Belang, and has stated that he resisted offers to join the Vlaams Blok. Instead, he began his political career with the Volksunie party and later became a founding member of the Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA)."
What exactly do you mean with "VB to NVA".
If Bart de Wever was really into VB, then he would simply form a coalition with VB.
Aight. From r/Belgium2, which probably are major NVA voters. I'd gather that the main reasons would be: lower government spending (hello, Putin and Trump). Putting more people to work, by activating people that are long term sick while able to work. Activating people that are long term unemployed. Delaying retirement. Reducing taxes on working people so that the gap between working and not working becomes larger. Economic investments.
The majority of his voters are quite upset bout the capital gains tax that my vote has brought upon them. Since they view it as an extra tax on middle class. (It isn't, just sell 10k+index capital gains per year).
Nva also wants to reduce or even abolish inheritance tax. With a median net wealth of 250k euros PER ADULT. That is quite desirable. Within an aging population. Let's say every child gets about 350k euros in inheritance. If they are dummies and don't gift it properly then they pay 40k euros in inheritance taxes. (60k if it comes from one single parent, so let's say 40k).
It is mostly the middle class that votes for nva, for economic reasons, which is why they are so large.
I would like to see some dirt on them though. And any other Belgian political party. Always fun to see :)
They all probably are filling their own pockets one way or another, funny that le Pen fucked up big time for a mere 4-5 million euros of expense savings in 12 years time.
Oh my. For as long as I remember I thought it was VB and not VU. I remember him being a racist cuck when he was still fat. I guess that's why I remember him being with VB for some reason.
NVA is better than VB. So there's that at least.
Yes these reasons are correct. I thought you meant why people voted for BDW specifically.
I however see almost all of those reasons as pure class welfare. They know how to play this game.
For privacy reasons I will not share most of the dirt I found, as most of it relates to the municipalities I lived at. But I found a lot of weird subsidies whenever NVA is in power using the subsidy registry: https://subsidieregister.vlaanderen.be/ords/xxsr/r/subsidieregister/home
Big cities are hard to look trough, but smaller municipalities are much easier. Look for wherever a LOT of money goes into megaprojects. Even if they seem altruistic in nature. Look up BTW numbers of these megaprojects and figure out who is on the board. 9 out of 10 there will be NVA party members on the board in NVA led municipalities. Compare this to municipalities with mayors of more "left" parties and you'll find that NVA really likes to have their members in all of these boards. Who would have guessed.
The BTW register also allows you to find a lot of loopholes (achterpoortjes) that are being abused. The last one I looked into was the Zoo of Antwerp. There are 2 legal Zoos of Antwerp. 1 to receive non-profit subsidies to run the whole goddamn park. The other one is a for profit that is raking in millions of euros in profits. Go figure.
Politicians can't have too much money or it would be extremely suspicious. If you're going to commit fraud as a politician you should set up some schemes while in office like injecting yourself into the companies that you got the government to pay for. Then slowly disappear from the stage after your time and start slowly reaping in the profits. Trying to actively defraud the government is not allowed. But being a classy Belgian who just did their country/municipality a favor with "innovations" and "cultural projects" and that they got "lucky that it somehow started making money" is just perfectly fine. What a joke.