How is your part of the world doing (both current and future prospects) compared to how it was 30/40 years ago? Please say where you are in the world.
Edit- Thank you everyone for commenting. It has been very interesting for me and hopefully for others. If you are just coming to this post please still comment I am still reading them.
A bit late but I was reading the comments and thought I share too.
Overall we are doing good, as far as I can tell, if not a little better than 20 or so years ago. But we also have problems that seem to getting bigger but not many seem to be concerned about them, as mentioned in an other comment people seem to be more disconnected and just follow their bubble interests.
For one, there is the global opinion the world has of us, the war in Ukraine really shook us and how we see our identity as a neutral nation. Our neutrality is now a big topic in discussions, especially the youth is very divided about it. Neutrality is something we all grow up with and see (or saw) it as a big part of our nations strength, how this will play out will show the referendums and initiatives that are planned for the next years, votes will decide.
Then there is the looming finance crisis that seems to come closer. Overall we are still doing good, as our inflation is very low in comparison to other EU countries (we even managed to lower inflation to a new low since a few years). Some now start to get financial problems, rents get raised yearly, public transport prices too and overall living gets even more expensive.
A new kind of crack floods the illegal drug market, and you can see junkies (sorry I do not know a better word) more and more. They not really bother others at the moment but you can sense a coming pandemic of this substance. Together with the financial problems I see a big danger in that.
There are other problems too, but those are the ones I see most present at the moment.
There are also good things of course, wages are high and steady when you work in specialized industries, going to university costs at most 700.- per semester, our government does not follow surveillance trends like the UK or EU. Overall I would still say, Switzerland is a good country to live and work in, I especially like our approach of direct democracy and our culture of privacy.
How come nobody’s talking about climate change? This will be the biggest thing throughout the world in the coming century and beyond. No interest or what?
Well I couldn’t say for sure but would suggest that it is a hierarchy of problems. If you are having a hard time with the basics then no matter how real and dangerous an upcoming crisis is it doesn’t matter.
I guess I might be a bit late, but I’ll write a few lines anyway.
I’m in Sweden. There is a lot of shootings, bombings and arsons in Stockholm and the areas around it. We’ve honestly never seen anything like it, at this point I’m just surprised it hasn’t really been happening in the other major cities.
The city where I live has a fucked budget, the municipality is cutting the budget of schools, health care and in other sectors.
For me personally it’s okay. I live in a calm area, I can work from home when I want to. Economically I’m not super solid, but I can put away a little bit of cash every month.
Not late at all. I find everyone’s response very interesting. I am curious, the nordic counties seems to be often held up and the proof of socialists democracy. Do you feel the fundamental system is still working? Is this just a moment of difficulty or is it larger?
Thanks for a great question, really made me think.
So, I am a firm believer in social democracy. The problem as I see it is that there’s been a mix of social democracy and libertarianism. We have in many cases sold public companies and spaces to private actors, but we still maintain our high tax rates. We have used the “new public management” for quite a while now, maybe since the 90s, which seems to limit our ability to plan ahead and only look to the next quarter.
I also believe we have dropped the ball on integration. We have received many refugees and migrants, but without a plan. This has led to increased segregation and less trust towards government and agencies.
I do think it’s fixable, in most ways Sweden is great and I’m proud to be a part of it. But we have a lot of challenges both national and international. The EU for example looks weaker when we need to be stronger and working together. We also obviously need to get a handle on this recent wave of shootings and murder. After that integration really needs to be the focus.
And thanks for your great reply. I really find this fascinating. I am glad you think it is fixable, hopefully it will turn around here soon without too much pain. If you will permit me one more question. What does integration mean to you? Like do they need to become more Swedish, do the Swedes need to just their culture to accommodate the immigrants. Or more of a live and let live thing where you can be neighbors but not really integrate. As far as I know immigration is always a net positive for a society, but that doesn’t make it easy.
I think the major failings have been that we have allowed a large part of the immigrants to move into neighborhoods with exclusively other immigrants, thus not being exposed to Swedish culture or values. This ties in with learning Swedish, which obviously is central to integration. This has become a vicious circle where entire suburbs can consist of immigrants. An example is where teachers in kindergarten speak poor Swedish and the kids also have poor Swedish. In many cases they don’t share a mother tounge and the result isn’t great. I get that you want to live with other people who speak your language, but the divide is too big in my opinion.
Then there’s the discussion about cultural values which I don’t think I know enough about to speak much about. But we can see that there are several groups that don’t want to be a real part of society, and that’s clearly a problem.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful replies. I could ask your questions about this till you run away, but I will leave it for now.
Let me just leave you with this though. Looking at other counties that have a longer history of large immigration. It seems to take 2 to 3 generations for immigrants to feel native. Maybe a little unconditional acceptance and patience will help this along.
South Africa. Clusterfuck best describes the situation. Daily Rolling blackouts. Political uncertainty. Higher cost of living. Massive corruption. Brain drain as those who can are emigrating. But at least we have no war.
All of our country. We have 1 official electricity producer, but it has been run I to the ground. Google “eskom South africa” for more info. Short version is they cannot produce enough power so we have scheduled times pretty.much daily with no power. Here we call it load shedding. The power issues and lack of maintenence on infrastructure is affecting other things like water supply.The government has so much corruption we have actually seen the government protesting itself about service delivery. Google “Gupta state capture South africa” for an idea of this. Politics is very much like the US where minorities are scapegoats. The leader of the EFF , a populist radical opposition was for example quoted as saying “we are not calling for the killing of white people… at least not yet”. There are other issues, but I still think clusterfuck is the appropriate description. We are resilient though.
I’m pretty sure most people would agree USA now is a worse place than USA in the 80s/90s, but austerity measures that hurt almost everyone now but helped the economy in the short term are a big reason why the 80s and 90s were prosperous for many. We’re finally starting to turn away from austerity and unions are growing in strength, but that’s not to say that (relatively speaking) the economy is good here, inflation is hitting hard, and who knows if Republicans win 2024.
The biggest existential threat to the country is the attempted hostile takeover by theocrats, which has been well over 40 years in the making, is nothing short of conspiracy, and quite frankly I think secession talks should get serious if Trump wins in 2024, even moreso if Rs get a majority in Congress. Maybe this comes off as panicky, but there’s a reason women, LGBT people, and non-whites are the biggest buyers of guns now. I can’t afford one.
At this point whether Republicans or Democrats will win 2024 feels like a coin flip. Biden’s polling worse than Trump (neither is polling great) but also Democrats are winning most special elections (usually special elections go to Republicans) and a slue of anti-gerrymandering court decisions are taking effect, not to mention Trump could be in jail (and a bunch of other politicians from both parties are getting sued.)
My life is pretty great all things considered. But in about an hour I’m walking down to the local primary school to cast my ‘yes’ vote for the referendum.
So, later this evening I’ll get confirmation that nothing has changed in my country. We’re still a backwards, racist society who doesn’t give a fuck about our indigenous population.
For me, as an indigenous person who is also upper middle class and in one of the most affluent cities in the country, life is pretty good. But the same can’t be said for many others who don’t share my privilege. And my country is about to tell them, loud and clear, that they don’t care. Didn’t care 40 years ago, don’t care now.
30 years ago people were still living the dream which was all a house of cards called loans. Then the market crisis happened and we got fucked unable to get new ones and pay off the old ones.
After that, we kept getting blackmailed by the Eurozone and the IMF so that we would get the loans we needed to fix our country, but under harsh conditions that basically sustain our poverty instead of fixing it in any way. We signed away the people’s livelihoods so that we could be Europe’s economic lab rat and slave, all to their benefit.
Our current government is as liberal capitalist as it gets, privatizing everything and making life crap for the poor (who are becoming more and more as time passes). Fascism is also on the rise, following the theme of Europe and the US.
The government owns almost all the media and most other parties in the parliament are also aligned with the ruling one. Climate change is beggining to hit hard, every time revealing the cheap infrastructure and postponed plans by contractors.
Instead of hiring more firemen, our government continues to allocate way too much money on cops, riot control, and the media it bribes.
Maybe the EU’s fucking around ends up with a communist revolution, I bet they won’t be too happy about it then.
Florida, US. We’re facing multiple crises at once; an affordability crisis, an environmental crisis, and a political crisis. Homeowners insurance rates are going up with many companies leaving the state. Car insurance rates are increasing. Rent prices, housing prices, and mortgage rates are increasing. Our state is facing multiple environmental issues such as deforestation, pollution, and invasive species. Climate change will greatly impact our state, but our governor thinks it’s woke.
I’m in AZ, USA, and I like it. Everyone outside of AZ is freaking out about the weather, but I enjoy it. I’m much more comfortable in the dry heat than I am in 75°f with humidity.
Anyway, I like that we’re a pro-abortion state and a pro-gun state. I like that there’s a lot of thought diversity here and less anger in general.
Kremlin politicians, mass russian and communist propaganda and mass migration out of the country… And somehow there is a huge job market, inflation isn’t out of control and we’ve got one of the better 5G coverages in the EU… Bulgaria’s a weird country.
It’s hard to say where the country is headed, but unfortunately a big part of the population seems to believe the Kremlin politicians and that communism will somehow magically fix the country and remove inflation and that somehow we’ll be better off without NATO, which according to them forced us to give all or military equipment to Ukraine (ignoring the fact that literally all the military equipment Bulgaria has given to Ukraine is USSR era stuff that won’t stand a chance against modern militaries, that NATO conveniently protects it’s from)… That being said the kremlins haven’t won the elections yet, so we’ll see what happens in the future…
cant speak for the greater country but my part of it is pretty good though not so much for me personally. America, PNW.
there’s a lot more jobs here - mid 1980s was when the tech boom hit our area, but real estate prices are very high as well, ~$600k for the area, ~$800k for where I live. it’s basically unaffordable to live here unless you make 6 figures - anything less than that is struggling.
I’m working on a van build so I can move to a more favorable state as I do not make anywhere near 6 figures. got about $40k in it now and probably another $25k to go, roughly.
Honestly, things could be way worse, but could also definitely be better. After many many years of rule under cabinets led by the neoliberal VVD party, earlier this year the cabinet fell. Mark Rutte, leader of the VVD and prime minister for forever, also announced that he was stepping down. Under his party, many scandals erupted and the living standards for many normal people got worse.
And thus it is time for change, but it’s not exactly certain what that change will be. The last polls I saw had the VVD (with a new candidate and seemingly a different course), PvDA/GL (combined list of labour and green party), and a new party called “New Social Contract” (NSC) going pretty even for the lead. But many other parties are also in the mix.
Time will tell of this goes the right or the wrong way, but it’s surely an exciting time for politics. Hopefully income inequality will decrease, people will be happier again, etc.
Overall I’m slightly hopeful about the future. Despite all the problems, it’s still a great country to be in, and I don’t think that that’ll change too much in the grand scheme.
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