EPTEuropean Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 1070
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Silvanel
Poland4736 Posts
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TheLordofAwesome
Korea (South)2655 Posts
On March 12 2018 04:02 Nyxisto wrote: I don't really understand how this works, is the referendum legal or not? And can the government even technically reject a legal referendum? They must be able to sue the gov. if that referendum is legit From this FT article: Honestly I can see the problems with this. Less than half of the population pushing trough issues through referendums is kind of stupid. Yeah, I think it makes sense that Dutch politicians want to remove it. IMO a really meaningful referendum is like the Brexit referendum. Everyone went out and voted in it because the stakes were very real. Outside of those sorts of situations, I see referendums doing more harm than good. \ | ||
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pmh
1373 Posts
On March 12 2018 04:03 RvB wrote: That's not really the case with these referendums. The last one had a turnout of just over 30%. That's not really representative of public opinion. Not following it isn't the same as not respecting basic democratic principles. If you want to have referendums make them meaningful and not advisory like the Dutch ones. Either make it count or scrap the law (like they did). Advisory referendums just don't motivate a large part of the electorate to vote and that pretty much undermines the democratic legitimacy the result is supposed to have. Edit: the referendum is legal but it's non binding. If the law is rejected it's entry into force is suspended. In practise the legislature can pretty much ignore it though. Imo the referendum was perfect as it is,a typical dutch solution in the style of "gedoogbeleid". What everyone says was a bad thing about the refendum,not being binding,was actually one of the best aspects of it. It did allow politics to make an interpretation. If the turnout is high and the result clear,they can follow up on the referendum. If the turnout is low and/or the result unclear they would have good arguments for ignoring it. It was a strong signal to the government from society,but not a binding one. Not forcing them to disturb already signed treatys and what not. Now the referendum is removed and that is just a pure loss,nothing will replace it and we can only influence politics by voting once every 4 years. Very disappointed in d66 in all of this,they did give up one of their core believes without any good argument. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
- we have an ongoing secret service affair, due to the interior minister letting a far-right FPÖ party member (with the typical facebook Nazi-groups background) with his street police unit raid the secret service BVT. The alibi story for the raid is that leading members of the BVT are part of a corrupt ÖVP (conservative) network. Yet somehow data about extremism/terrorism seems to have been confiscated and given to the ministry. - the interior ministry requested the police to leak videos from a knife attack to their favorite boulevard. A request that the police turned down. - a bugging device in the office of vice chancellor Strache (FPÖ) turned out to be an old plug and the SPÖ is not monitoring him. - as an Austrian official, this vice chancellor is taking part in many official events and had to speak against Nazism at these occastions. He has been marked as a traitor by many of his "fans" on facebook and twitter. A pretty harsh reaction if you ask me, unlike Mr. Strache most of these self-proclaimed Nazis have never been on conflict with the police for the Führer. - infrastructure minister Norbert Hofer (FPÖ) is hunting down every social-democratic affiliated manager of the Austrian state railway company and replacing them with FPÖ members - former minister of justice Wolfgang Brandstetter (ÖVP) has been approved as a new member of the constitutional court by the government parties. Part of his job is now to inspect laws that he created. Not to mention that this guy is not even specialized in constitutional law to begin with. On the plus side, Red Vienna has been named most livable city in the world the 9th time in a row in the Mercer ranking and will celebrate its 100-year socialdemocratic anniversary in 2020. Let's just hope the united propaganda of the national right-wing parties and international right-wing parties (some Hungarian minister made a video about how Vienna is going downhill) against the city does not beat the facts. | ||
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sharkie
Austria18552 Posts
On March 21 2018 19:04 Big J wrote: A little bit of an update from your favorite new Visegrad state: - we have an ongoing secret service affair, due to the interior minister letting a far-right FPÖ party member (with the typical facebook Nazi-groups background) with his street police unit raid the secret service BVT. The alibi story for the raid is that leading members of the BVT are part of a corrupt ÖVP (conservative) network. Yet somehow data about extremism/terrorism seems to have been confiscated and given to the ministry. - the interior ministry requested the police to leak videos from a knife attack to their favorite boulevard. A request that the police turned down. - a bugging device in the office of vice chancellor Strache (FPÖ) turned out to be an old plug and the SPÖ is not monitoring him. - as an Austrian official, this vice chancellor is taking part in many official events and had to speak against Nazism at these occastions. He has been marked as a traitor by many of his "fans" on facebook and twitter. A pretty harsh reaction if you ask me, unlike Mr. Strache most of these self-proclaimed Nazis have never been on conflict with the police for the Führer. - infrastructure minister Norbert Hofer (FPÖ) is hunting down every social-democratic affiliated manager of the Austrian state railway company and replacing them with FPÖ members - former minister of justice Wolfgang Brandstetter (ÖVP) has been approved as a new member of the constitutional court by the government parties. Part of his job is now to inspect laws that he created. Not to mention that this guy is not even specialized in constitutional law to begin with. On the plus side, Red Vienna has been named most livable city in the world the 9th time in a row in the Mercer ranking and will celebrate its 100-year socialdemocratic anniversary in 2020. Let's just hope the united propaganda of the national right-wing parties and international right-wing parties (some Hungarian minister made a video about how Vienna is going downhill) against the city does not beat the facts. I really hope you know that the Mercer ranking ignores some of the most important factors of a liveable city. (e.g. Hygiene) Thus, it is a pretty meaningless ranking imo. It even says so in the article: https://derstandard.at/2000076480135/Wien-zum-neunten-Mal-lebenswerteste-Stadt | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10825 Posts
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
If your point was to say that there is no mstake-free objective measure for on matters of personal preference: welcome to liberalism.  | ||
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RvB
Netherlands6261 Posts
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
On March 22 2018 03:08 Velr wrote: Have you been to actually dirty cities? I doubt it if you think Wien has a "Hygiene" problem... yes no idea about the ranking but Vienna is a pretty nice city. If Vienna is dirty I don't know what clean is supposed to look like | ||
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TheDwf
France19747 Posts
The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has been placed under formal investigation for illegal campaign financing, accepting bribes and the misappropriation of Libyan state funds over allegations that he received millions of euros in illegal election campaign funding from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Sarkozy, France’s rightwing president from 2007 to 2012, was released on bail on Wednesday after two days of questioning in police custody by investigators specialising in corruption, money laundering and tax evasion as part of an inquiry into whether Gaddafi and others in Libya illegally financed his successful election campaign in 2007. The investigation is potentially France’s most explosive political financing scandal in decades. The allegations of illegal campaign funding by a foreign dictator on a massive scale are unprecedented and are the most serious accusations levelled at a former president in recent French history. Sarkozy has repeatedly denied the allegations, dismissing the claims as “grotesque”. (...) Source | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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Sermokala
United States14058 Posts
On March 22 2018 08:33 Nyxisto wrote: Some thoughts on housing prices in this case addressing the Californian shortage but certainly relevant in Europe too. Turns out the answer is pretty simple, build more of them and simplify zoning! The answer is more zoning and better zoning. No more condos taking up space where apartment complex's would serve the community far better. Urban planning is the way you solve urban issues and that is done through zoneing most effectively after the fact. | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On March 22 2018 11:51 Nyxisto wrote: What exactly is the difference between a condo an an apartment complex? And I don't really see how urban planning solves much given that in plenty of cities urban planning achieves nothing but restrictions on new buildings. Really? A condo is owned. An apartment is rented. More condos being sold to people reduces mobility and eats up flex able housing. Boston and Worcester had a huge problem and still do. People took all the three family houses and turned them into tiny unit condos, sold each unit for a pretty good price and moved on. It is more profitable in the short term to build condos, since you sell them and get the RIO right away. So companies just built more condos, rather than apartments. So there are fewer rentals available and no one is building new rentals. Hence the housing shortage and skyrocketing rent. Zoning solves this problem by saying "Enough with the condos, builds apartments." | ||
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Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
The priority should be to get rid of low density single family housing. | ||
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Sermokala
United States14058 Posts
On March 22 2018 12:46 Nyxisto wrote: If you're throwing tons of condos on the market the price for condos is going to drop in which case it would just make sense to buy instead of rent. The skyrocketing rent is a result of low density in general. It's not clear to me how relevant condos vs apartments is as long as the total supply of housing goes up. The priority should be to get rid of low density single family housing. Condos are more valuable then apartments and are lower density. They also are what people build on former "low density single family housing" in order to drive up the price of local real estate making the land unaffordable for people to rent on. Single family housing isn't low density as it is. They'll the end goal for middle income. What the issue is is lower income housing is swallowed up by condos redeveloping areas and driving up the cost of the real estate. Real estate is a lot like a self fulfilling prophesy of an investment. Theres no reason for a condo to be more valuable then a home but it is because its suppose to be. This is a supermassive issue in china as many people buy condos that are basicaly concrete boxes by the half dozens beacuse they're "suppose to" increase in value. That they do is the only reason why the nation hasn't collapsed. | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
Obviously if the rest of the society forgoes their physical capabilities to challenge the physical control of something in favor of an exclusive owner (i.e. the definition of a property right) without demanding an individual price for this service (because we don't want an anarchy, something that even liberterians with their limited imagination of general public demands can understand), then that society has to find a properly planned price. A price that disincentivizes holding property for the sake of holding it, instead of cultivating it. Speaking of Austrian tax rates and public services (which are probably similar in most capitalist countries), what we do instead is that we force high transfer taxes (directly on income and indirectly on income through consume) and use them for all sorts of public services and subventions, like security, regional development and infrastructure that directly benefit the land owners the most of all people, as it increases their land and property value. So not only do we not demand a price for exclusive user rights of natural resources, we even transfer money towards these users. It is as if Netflix gave out only a limited amount of accounts without a fee and financed itself by demanding money from everyone, regardless whether they had an account or not. Obviously the secondary market prices for accounts would skyrocket (if Netflix had a monopoly on distributing movies like the state has on distributing land). | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10825 Posts
On March 22 2018 11:55 Plansix wrote: Really? A condo is owned. An apartment is rented. More condos being sold to people reduces mobility and eats up flex able housing. Boston and Worcester had a huge problem and still do. People took all the three family houses and turned them into tiny unit condos, sold each unit for a pretty good price and moved on. It is more profitable in the short term to build condos, since you sell them and get the RIO right away. So companies just built more condos, rather than apartments. So there are fewer rentals available and no one is building new rentals. Hence the housing shortage and skyrocketing rent. Zoning solves this problem by saying "Enough with the condos, builds apartments." I have never heard of this distinction between appartments and condos. If a Company buys/builds condos, it will then let people rent them or people buy them and then life or rent them to others themsleves? Wtf is the diffrence diffrence? | ||
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Big J
Austria16289 Posts
So if you want to own the concept of an 'appartment' without owning the whole building or owning a share of a company that owns the whole building (the typical co-op model) you need a new legal type of property for your physical concept 'appartment', called condo. Once you own a condo I believe you can rent it to someone like all other forms of property. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10825 Posts
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