World News
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
view the rest of the comments
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.