Portugal: High Growth, Higher Wages, Low Unemployment, Low Emissions

[Economy 52,843]

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-10-26/portugal-reaffirms-goal-of-cutting-debt-to-less-than-100-of-gdp

 

Portugal not only came out of the Eurozone crisis faster than other highly affected Countries (including Greece, Spain, Italy) but it is doing well in all fronts

 

First there's the finances. this year the deficit was nearly gone with a budget surplus expected by 2020. The debt to GDP Ratio is expected to collapse from 119% today to less than 100% in just a few

 

Then there's the economic growth at a solid 2% which is rare in most of Europe these days. More impressive, Portugal is a Country with a declining population making 2% growth an excellent growth rate as unemployment falls to levels not seen since we'll before the global recession

 

Sources of growth are sustainable and robust as exports and tourism have fueled growth  and the trade deficit continues to decline

 

Minimum wage is planed to go up by over 15% in the next 3 years

 

To add to the cherry on top of ever improving economic performance, the Government plans to continue to lower emissions with plans such as closing 2 of the last remaining fossil fuel energy plants in an otherwise already mostly renewable power grid

[Economy 52,843]

Canada:

 

- Rising deficits

- same 2% growth but with big population growth

- stagnant wages with no plans for further minimum wage hikes

- rising trade deficits with ever rising imports and struggling exports

-sh*tty performance on climate change

 

Portugal I'm sorry I left, I made a mistake please take me back 

Spoiler

JK Canada still has a better standard of living and I don't regret coming here but that gap is gonna close if Portugal keeps winning and Canada deteriorating

 

@AlexanderMagno @iAstroLeo

I know the struggle there remain tough for most ppl like in most of South Europe but u gotta admit the progress Portugal is making fundamentally is phenomenal especially considering most other Nations hit hard by Eurozone crisis have not seen half the improvement!

[Economy 52,843]

@mods i better not get a WP again for empty spoilers. Legit I cannot get rid of them on my phone if I accidently press the spoiler created

 

There's some kind of bug on GGD that once u post videos or spoiler tag on a post u actually cannot delete them (at least on a phone) and it's annoying AF

 

@Admin @Kayla @Zilla @Haroon in case u guys aren't aware of this

 

Edit: the empty spoilers are gone. I did mean to put one at the bottom which I added now but the ones at the top I couldn't remove. Thanks for their removal if that was ur doing

[tomsches 17,550]

Portugal is perfect. And they gave us Conan Osiris

[Economy 52,843]

5 hours ago, tomsches said:

Portugal is perfect. And they gave us Conan Osiris

Conan doesn't represent any remotely normal or typical Portuguese music but if ppl enjoy him, great

 

Also his lyrics are pretty f*cling weird. I'm pretty sure one of his songs was something like "I went to America and all I saw was Cellulite" or something like that

[AlexanderMagno 10,746]

17 hours ago, Economy said:

 

I know the struggle there remain tough for most ppl like in most of South Europe but u gotta admit the progress Portugal is making fundamentally is phenomenal especially considering most other Nations hit hard by Eurozone crisis have not seen half the improvement!

idk, all this sounds like propaganda 

We barely see the investments. Healthcare access is ****. Cost of living is almost as high as any other European country but our minimum wage is still 700€ (yes, that is how much it will be once it grows as planned, so it will match the medium salary...). Unemployment rates are a decoy to hide the fact that most of those jobs are minimum wage jobs. Having a 1000€+ salary in Portugal is considered wealth already (and renting a house is about 600€, no bills included). We see all these news about our economy, but there is really no investment in the country (except making sidewalks bigger in the city). Most of our senior citizens get less than 400€ a month!! And it looks like that is going to be the future, because they keep creating less than 1000€ jobs... And minimun wage raise is concerning because companies are already talking about losing jobs.

I fortunately have a job that should offer a few good perspectives, and still I'm thinking about moving abroad.

Our government is highly corrupt. Even the congress people who were supposed to be liberal and progressive turn out to be bad only a few months after the elections (remember that black stutterer woman? Yeah, that went so badly).

 

I don't know, I believe these news, but I'd like to understand economics better to show you that these numbers hide an ugly truth: we are creating a stable country, probably, but a poor stable country. The current government does whatever it takes to  show progress, and manipulates our economy to make it look good. It has always been a party of "show-off". 

The biggest economies might not be progressing as much, but they are probably more cautious than us. In a crisis, we will sink again.

 

12 hours ago, tomsches said:

Portugal is perfect. And they gave us Conan Osiris

to think I knew him years ago 

But yeah Conan Osiris and Portugal are nothing alike.

7 hours ago, Economy said:

Conan doesn't represent any remotely normal or typical Portuguese music but if ppl enjoy him, great

 

Also his lyrics are pretty f*cling weird. I'm pretty sure one of his songs was something like "I went to America and all I saw was Cellulite" or something like that

Yeah I thought this too, but the lyrics are just "I went to the doctor to see if I had encephalitis, I went to the doctor to see if I had hepatitis", and it goes on like that. He has a song called cellulitis were he says "give him the nenuco's ass" lol he has the weirdest lyrics ever. I like his music, it's a good fusion of all these different genres, but I'm not here for most of the lyrics 

[Economy 52,843]

13 minutes ago, AlexanderMagno said:

idk, all this sounds like propaganda 

We barely see the investments. Healthcare access is ****. Cost of living is almost as high as any other European country but our minimum wage is still 700€ (yes, that is how much it will be once it grows as planned, so it will match the medium salary...). Unemployment rates are a decoy to hide the fact that most of those jobs are minimum wage jobs. Having a 1000€+ salary in Portugal is considered wealth already (and renting a house is about 600€, no bills included). We see all these news about our economy, but there is really no investment in the country (except making sidewalks bigger in the city). Most of our senior citizens get less than 400€ a month!! And it looks like that is going to be the future, because they keep creating less than 1000€ jobs... And minimun wage raise is concerning because companies are already talking about losing jobs.

I fortunately have a job that should offer a few good perspectives, and still I'm thinking about moving abroad.

Our government is highly corrupt. Even the congress people who were supposed to be liberal and progressive turn out to be bad only a few months after the elections (remember that black stutterer woman? Yeah, that went so badly).

 

I don't know, I believe these news, but I'd like to understand economics better to show you that these numbers hide an ugly truth: we are creating a stable country, probably, but a poor stable country. The current government does whatever it takes to  show progress, and manipulates our economy to make it look good. It has always been a party of "show-off". 

The biggest economies might not be progressing as much, but they are probably more cautious than us. In a crisis, we will sink again.

 

to think I knew him years ago 

But yeah Conan Osiris and Portugal are nothing alike.

Yeah I thought this too, but the lyrics are just "I went to the doctor to see if I had encephalitis, I went to the doctor to see if I had hepatitis", and it goes on like that. He has a song called cellulitis were he says "give him the nenuco's ass" lol he has the weirdest lyrics ever. I like his music, it's a good fusion of all these different genres, but I'm not here for most of the lyrics 

I get that conditions remain sh*tty

 

But before an economy improves quality if life it's foundations have to improve first

 

The budget is way better, growth is better etc... Unfortunately everyday ppl are always the last to see the benefits. But I'm saying fundamentally it's going in the right direction

 

Macroeconomics always create a delay in impact in quality of life...

 

A fundamentally improving economy takes time to actually bear fruits that are felt...

 

Just like an imbalanced economy that is deteriorating (say leverage and debt levels are high or productivity stalling) also takes time to take a toll on wages and job creation

 

There's a long lag... But IF Portugal can maintain this growth and financial improvement for enough years, eventually the quality of life should improve

 

At least in theory  

I mean any country that gets out of poverty starts with this kind of growth before the citizens see real improvement

 

Portugal may not be a developing country but in theory the same idea should happen to more developed nations

[AlexanderMagno 10,746]

26 minutes ago, Economy said:

 

At least in theory  

Yeah, in theory    there are no promises. We don't get the "we need to go through this to grow", no. That happened when we had austerity (during a different party's government). Nowadays we get "we are fine the way we are". The overall feeling is that they are trying to create a solid country with the minimal conditions. If Portugal is doing fine with the lowest wage possible and minimum conditions, why bother? This is happening. We hear our government say everything is fine and we really don't need more because what we have is already good. That is why this sounds like a bunch of crap to make us settle. Our mindset is completely different from other countries. I'm sounding too stubborn probably, but it really is difficult to have much hope 

[Economy 52,843]

30 minutes ago, AlexanderMagno said:

Yeah, in theory    there are no promises. We don't get the "we need to go through this to grow", no. That happened when we had austerity (during a different party's government). Nowadays we get "we are fine the way we are". The overall feeling is that they are trying to create a solid country with the minimal conditions. If Portugal is doing fine with the lowest wage possible and minimum conditions, why bother? This is happening. We hear our government say everything is fine and we really don't need more because what we have is already good. That is why this sounds like a bunch of crap to make us settle. Our mindset is completely different from other countries. I'm sounding too stubborn probably, but it really is difficult to have much hope 

It sounds like crap because it is crap. It's called politics, they always sugarcoat everything if they are in power while the opposition does the exact opposite and exagerates the issues 

 

But setting the propaganda that everything is fine aside, that doesn't mean the fundamental improvements in the numbers aren't there

 

The finances and trade balance have to improve before Portugal could ever hope to have its quality of life improved again at least sustainably. The Country was drowning in debt and it's high trade deficit meant it could not sustain its imports

 

So the first stage is happening... improvement finances and trade balance will make it possible for the government to reduce austerity later and improved exports will make it possible to also import more later as well in a sustainable mannor...

 

Whether or not that fundamental improvement translates into real felt improvement by the people will take years to determine, these changes don't happen quickly to say the least... and to some extent will obviously also depend on the government and what they do so nothing is certain at this point

 

All I can say is given the crisis South Europe went thru, so far Portugal seems to be on the right track