Portugal Paying Almost 0% On Debt

[Sestri Levante 1,124]

55 minutes ago, Economy said:

Hopefully rapidly improving finances will soon allow some relief in programs and taxes

Highly doubt it. The problem isn't just low budgets for public services, they need to be reformed, and this government and it's friends haven't shown the will to change things for good   

[Economy 52,930]

9 minutes ago, Sestri Levante said:

Highly doubt it. The problem isn't just low budgets for public services, they need to be reformed, and this government and it's friends haven't shown the will to change things for good   

It would be good if whatever reforms need to be done are done

 

But either way, a proper recovery from a financial crunch cannot happen without financial improvement first

 

Most Portuguese I've heard from are skeptical anything can improve because of the poor economic standards for quite some time and seem to think the imporvement in finances is meaningless

 

But it's not meaningless. It's an important first step for things to have any hope of improvement long term

 

Portugal's debt to GDP ratio fell from a staggering 130% of GDP to 118% (a 12% drop) now in just a handful of years and now is looking at its first budget surplus

 

Tho that's still dangerously high, the rate of reduction is actually extremely impressive and few Nations have managed that even tho it may not be translating to any positive effects people can feel at this time (and probably still won't for a while unfortunately)

 

With economics, when something becomes unsustainable financially or macro-economically there can be a long lag of many years before people feel deterioration and by the time they do often the situation is serious

 

Unfortunately the opposite is also true. When fundamentally finances start to get healthier and fundamental macros like trade balance improve etc... That too takes many years to translate into any sort of significant improvement in living standards

 

At the rate Portugal is going (if the current trends held up) ud probably still not notice significant improvement for the average person for another decade or so

 

But fundamentally the necessary shifts are happening, people just don't feel it because the average citizen is always the last to benefit from improvement unfortunately

 

This is what I tried to explain to @AlexanderMagno before. It's easy to conclude things aren't improving when your life and your friends and families life isn't improving, but fundamentally the numbers say otherwise

[Sestri Levante 1,124]

5 minutes ago, Economy said:

It would be good if whatever reforms need to be done are done

 

But either way, a proper recovery from a financial crunch cannot happen without financial improvement first

 

Most Portuguese I've heard from are skeptical anything can improve because of the poor economic standards for quite some time and seem to think the imporvement in finances is meaningless

 

But it's not meaningless. It's an important first step for things to have any hope of improvement long term

 

Portugal's debt to GDP ratio fell from a staggering 130% of GDP to 118% (a 12% drop) now in just a handful of years and now is looking at its first budget surplus

 

Tho that's still dangerously high, the rate of reduction is actually extremely impressive and few Nations have managed that even tho it may not be translating to any positive effects people can feel at this time (and probably still won't for a while unfortunately)

 

With economics, when something becomes unsustainable financially or macro-economically there can be a long lag of many years before people feel deterioration and by the time they do often the situation is serious

 

Unfortunately the opposite is also true. When fundamentally finances start to get healthier and fundamental macros like trade balance improve etc... That too takes many years to translate into any sort of significant improvement in living standards

 

At the rate Portugal is going (if the current trends held up) ud probably still not notice significant improvement for the average person for another decade or so

 

But fundamentally the necessary shifts are happening, people just don't feel it because the average citizen is always the last to benefit from improvement unfortunately

 

This is what I tried to explain to @AlexanderMagno before. It's easy to conclude things aren't improving when your life and your friends and families life isn't improving, but fundamentally the numbers say otherwise

I understand all of this, but I can't see this type of government keeping this debt lowering rate, or going any further. There are countless small measures that can help people on their every day life that have been presented by opposition parties, but we're rejected by simple ideological prejudice. Everything feels mediocre and people confirm it every day, but when it's time for elections, everyone seems to be afraid of change.

But it's a good sign more people are now starting to debate more and think deeper. I've seen so much people debate about euthanasia last week, although there was a lot of misinformation, it's a good sign. Despite this, there's still an incredibly high abstention rate, coming from people that lost hope or don't trust the current presented solutions, leaving space for easy gotcha politics and  dangerous populism to grow. It's going to be interesting and more people will be paying attention to Portugal's situation.

[Economy 52,930]

10 minutes ago, Sestri Levante said:

I understand all of this, but I can't see this type of government keeping this debt lowering rate, or going any further. There are countless small measures that can help people on their every day life that have been presented by opposition parties, but we're rejected by simple ideological prejudice. Everything feels mediocre and people confirm it every day, but when it's time for elections, everyone seems to be afraid of change.

But it's a good sign more people are now starting to debate more and think deeper. I've seen so much people debate about euthanasia last week, although there was a lot of misinformation, it's a good sign. Despite this, there's still an incredibly high abstention rate, coming from people that lost hope or don't trust the current presented solutions, leaving space for easy gotcha politics and  dangerous populism to grow. It's going to be interesting and more people will be paying attention to Portugal's situation.

Of course. Without good governance there's limits on how far improvement will go

 

I'm just saying at least financially the improvement has been considerable

 

As for the debt lowering rate at least for now it is accelerating if anything cuz up until now the Debt to GDP has only fallen because economic growth and inflation grew faster than the debt

 

But now the first surpluses are coming so the debt should drop in total terms too

 

Either way... Reforms not being done is a big issue all over the world. Here in Canada I can give u a list of like 100 things that aren't being done . Hopefully Portugal will do some of those ur talking about but Politics is just annoying that way

 

[michael angelo 1,087]

1 hour ago, Economy said:

Hasn't she gone there more than once?

twice actually but it was years ago

[Economy 52,930]

2 minutes ago, miguelxgaga said:

twice actually but it was years ago

Then that's not bad

 

She hasn't done a tone of dates over the years outside US & Canada

 

She's stuck to North America a lot more for most tours