Being invaded by Russia.
Invading Ukraine
The US, for one
I like the word play
Came here to post this :)
Lol same, but i see a few people beat us to it.
We usually just import American issues but with a 2 to 5 year delay.
You'll be very excited to know that we're currently working on the Civil War Two: Baka Texas expansion pack. We should have it out of the beta stage and into production here in a few weeks, and you'll be hearing about it non-stop until forever!
I'm personally excited for the release after that, Christian Hunting Season. The evangelicals have been hyping it for a while, they're honestly so into it I'm a little worried it's a fetish thing but it certainly sounds like a good time!
In Australia some right wingers are trying to copy American 'culture war' shit because no one cares about celebrating the date some British guy landed in Sydney.
And in typical response, no one cares what they're trying to do so they're getting more mad.
For context, Australia day, our national holiday, is on 26 Jan, at the end of our summer holiday period. It's the day captain cook invaded and so is called invasion day by many indigenous people.
Lots of people want to change the date, mainly young people and progressives. Most people don't care what the date is, so long as they don't lose a public holiday. Some extremists are trying to kick up a storm s out changing it because a supermarket here decided to stop selling Australian flag trinkets around this timez as they don't sell well.
It should be noted, many people celebrate with the Australian flag and it's not seen as a symbol of oppression by most,.probably similar to the Confederate flag. You can still get all that stuffs without racism at $2 ships, bric a brac type shops that are eubiquitous and usually cheaper than a supermarket for Chinese made junk products.
Most people celebrate with friends with a casual get together like a barbecue,.with traditional lamb, some trashcan cricket and some beers or wine.
Netherlands here. We're dealing with a couple of difficult problems, each of which making each other worse:
Nitrogen oxide emissions crisis
Nitrogen oxide emissions are a serious problem for biodiversity, and as a consequence the EU has put limits on how much nitrogen emissions can be emitted close to Natura2000 areas (which are a form of official nature reserve).
However, the Netherlands is a very densely populated country, and also has a lot of these Natura2000 areas.Now it turns out that basically all human activity emits nitrogen oxide in some form, and it's completely paralyzing the ability for anything to get done.
This problem is core to a lot of the other problems my country is dealing with right now.The government is trying to limit nitrogen emissions, for instance through means such as buying out animal farms, but this is not very popular.
Housing availability crisis
About a decade ago the government abolished the ministry of people's housing, because it was believed at the time that such a ministry was no longer necessary to provide enough housing. This coincided with the after effects of the 2008 housing crisis.
As a result, every year since too few houses have been built to meet demand, and now we are dealing with a crippling shortage in the housing supply.The government has since realized the problem and is attempting to tackle it, but the aforementioned nitrogen oxide crisis also makes it very difficult for new housing development to obtain the necessary permits.
So instead the government tries to push hot-fixes like rent-caps, which ultimately just reduce the supply of rental properties even further. This is because land-lords cannot make a profit renting out these properties with the proposed rent-caps, so they just sell the property instead.
High inflation / High cost-of-living / High interest rates
Last year, like much of Europe, we were dealing with pretty high cost-of-living and inflation rates.
This is a direct result of our prior dependence on Russian gas, and the war in Ukraine disrupting the supply of that gas.I stand with Ukraine, and I think it is good we quit cold turkey on our addiction to cheap Russian gas, but it had a lot of serious knock on-effects on the cost of living and the inflation rate.
The ECB (European Central Bank) has tried to fight the inflation rate with interest rate hikes (and it would appear they are succesfull at doing that). But by raising inflation rates, they do slow down the ability to invest in the economy. This in turn affects things like the ability for property investors to build housing, which worsens the housing crisis again.
Full electricity net
On top of all this, we are also running out of capacity on the electricity net.
This is going on at the same time that we are trying to eliminate our natural gas consumption for environmental reasons, as well as the need to reduce our reliance on potentially hostile foreign powers (see Russia).
This is causing numerous issues with regards to businesses switching away from gas, new businesses opening, new housing construction, etc..
Severe employee shortages
Despite everything, the Dutch economy has been running pretty well, and as a result there has been very low rates of unemployment. It's gotten to the point that there are significantly more jobs available in basically every field, than there are people to work those jobs. That is causing other serious problems in turn.
As an example, public transit cannot find the necessary workers to get all the trains to run reliably on time.
Another example is a shortage of workers in the construction industry, which worsens the aforementioned housing availability crisis, and the electricity net being at capacity.
Another example is a shortage of engineers able to plan out extensions for the electricity netThis shortage can pretty much be extended to every industry right now.
Asylum crisis
On top of the other stuff going on, we also have a large amount of asylum seekers trying to obtain refugee status in the Netherlands.
Under normal circumstances these asylum seekers would apply for asylum in Ter Apel, which is an asylum processing center. They would stay there until they obtain refugee status, after which they would find a regular place to live elsewhere in the country.
However, the severe housing shortage is making that last step impossible, which is causing refugees to stay in Ter Apel for far longer than they reasonably should be. This is clogging up the system with people to the point where Ter Apel has long since exceeded capacity.
This causes numerous problems, and politically it's very difficult to get other parts of the country to carry their weight in dealing with this crisis.The main concern is that refugees take away houses from the Dutch people who are also unable to find housing.
14 years of a mainly liberal-conservative government (VVD), and a future mainly populist government (PVV)
While I think the VVD (liberal conservatives) is not as bad as some people make the party out to be, they are liberals.. And liberals seem to be allergic to interfering with market forces, even if those market forces are actively making things worse.
Because of this, government action on all of these crises over these past 14 years has largely been too little, too late.The people are fed up with the inability of the government to solve these issues, and have voiced their displeasure in last year's general election.
But instead of voting for a party which will tackle the fundamental issues mentioned above, they largely voted for the PVV (populists) who blames all problems on the refugees and migrants.They propose to significantly reduce the number of people coming into the country.
However, they seem to ignore that our economy is highly dependent on skilled migrants coming in to work for companies such as ASML. They also seem to ignore that reducing the number of people coming into the country will worsen the general employee crisis we are already dealing with.So while I hold out hope that they might be more effective than the VVD, I'm not holding out hope for any meaningful change in the next term.
.
.
I probably forgot a few things, but these are the main issues my country is dealing with right now.
Sorry for the long post, but there is just a lot we are dealing with.This is such a well-written response. One of the few comments I've saved on Lemmy.
Gotta get you some Dutch friends. In my experience they're all just like this.
This is really interesting to read. Where I live in the US your region of the world is regarded as pretty utopian. Thanks for sharing.
I don't want to make it sound like the NL is a terrible place to live. It's actually pretty good all things considered.
However, no place is perfect, and we should still point out the problems that do exist.The most difficult part is that there is not really one solution to these problems..
The core issue is the nitrogen oxide emissions crisis, which we can't really get around.
Somehow we are going to have to lower these emissions, but how will we make sure that the burden of that is shared fairly?I don't envy the politicians who are going to have to perform the balancing act between the various conflicting interests
The Democratic Republic of Congo is experiencing severe political violence involving large militant groups over natural resources and territory.
That one dude in Argentina is basically doing a government cosplay of Evel Knievel
Permanently Deleted
Add in a looming depression, an ineffectual, infighting government with weak leadership and a conservative opposition that would rather help literally nazis to power than stop demonizing the Greens (which has become the new enemy as the actual radical left is more aligned with the right than ever). Yep, it's pretty much the same situation as it was shortly before Hitler rose to power.
Portugal is dealing with a major housing crisis. Due to excessive tourism and privileges for digital nomads and foreign retirees our population is being priced out of our own country.
Everybody knows lots of people who were forced to emmigrate. Families broken apart, relationships ended, etc. Everybody has multiple stories like that. I mean EVERYBODY.
To make matters worse, tourism needs low pay workers, but there's a lack of workers willing to live and work for 800 euros in a city where rents start at over a 1000. Instead of improving conditions for its citizens the solution was to bring in a wave of immigrants from very poor countries who are willing to work here in deplorable conditions. Right now our own capital is overrun by tourism and you can barely hear Portuguese being spoken. And it's spreading to the other cities.
More and more people just give up and leave every day. Universities are failing to fill their quotas because it's no longer affordable to live in their cities. Politicians and elites don't care because they have their interests in tourism.
In the bigger cities, when you enter a shop or restaurant, you can feel the annoyance as soon as they hear you speak Portuguese because they think you won't spend much. It's not improving at all and the only measures we had to improve it are half-assed. Right now I'm wondering how long until I give up and leave to join the others.
So should I visit Portugal as a tourist? Is that helping or hurting, or doesn't really matter either way?
Short answer: it's hurting the country but it's making a few people very rich.
We always welcomed visitors and we had a reputation as an hospitable people but we saw that change drastically in the last years.
Some people will criticize my complaints, that tourism brough development to degradated city centers. The fact is those city centers were renovated but not for us. We are not welcome in our own city centers. The traditional neighborhoods of Lisbon and Porto and its culture that attracted so many tourists? Dead. Those people are long gone. Dead or pushed out of the city. Those traditional neighborhoods were Fado was born? Gone. Every last house is an Airbn'b now.
Lisbon is pretty much a Portuguese Theme Park. If you want to experience its culture you won't find it there. Save your money. Porto is well on its way to be as bad. Braga will get there too.
Portugal, unlike most of Europe, used to be a 100% homogeneous country. There were no national minorities. We have Roma people but they're considered just as Portuguese as the others. Right now, 20% of the population are foreigners from digital nomads to third world immigrants. I wouldn't care much if they weren't taking the place of nationals who are being driven out. And it's increasing. Some would call it colonisation but I guess we're in the wrong continent.
Open Facebook and it's full of ads trying to sell retirement in Portugal to Americans. And they're coming in droves, some attracted by our universal Healthcare that we pay for while they barely pay taxes. Those ads selling paradise and completely ignoring the fact there are people already living here is so reminiscent of the old ads convincing white settlers to come to African colonies, it's disgusting.
This sounds exactly like what is happening in Cape Town, South Africa
Russia is sending migrants to Finland and after we closed the eastern border they started walking thru the forest and showing up on the yards of people living close to the border. These people are literally hiking thru deep snow in the freezing winter wearing sneakers.
Non-Russian migrants?
Yeah mostly from middle east I believe. Finland started putting up hundreds of kilometers of border fence about a year ago as this was expected to happen. They're trying to destabilize our political system this way. Despite what many articles say this is not about trying to stop an invasion. It's about migrants that Russia is using as political leverage.
Island nations are facing rising sea levels thanks to climate change.
Really it's time to abandon a lot of islands. And Florida. Damn I should buy a house before that migration happens. But I guess Floridians would want somewhere warm so Texas, Alabama, etc are gonna get it.
...American neo-liberalism? No shot, in Norway we are seeing a return of poverty, and it's mostly thanks to new public management and the two massive neo-liberal parties that front US ans UK economic policies.
Yes, it really is that bad. My job now is to remind everyone continually that poverty will grow, because as per usual, the politicians responsible will try to find a scapegoat.
It might be the socialist, might be brown and black people, might be the Jew, heck: it most likely will be the Polish who get blamed for the insane policies are being fronted.
So yeah, neo-liberalism, the political enabler of capitalism, is currently our biggest problem - but it shows, through deforestation, consolidation of ownership, the indirect banning of cooperatives, the milking of the European energy market at the expense of Norwegians, everything being centralised, ownership wise, and the propaganda and talking points remain the same.
Our politicians are gutless shills for yankie ambitions. Former prime minister and leader of the right wing party Erna Solberg has a large fucking painting of Ronald Reagen on her wall, and she was recently embroiled in a conflict of interests case, where her husband got favourable government contracts for his parking company.
Of course it had to be fucking parking.
Økokrim, the national economic crimes division, refused to actually investigate the situation, and all the neo-liberal fucks, including the other massive neo-liberal party (AP, or "the labour party"), who probably also are falling deeper into corruption, let it slide.
So yeah, poverty is on the rise, and crime will rise with it. When it reaches boiling point, you can bet I'll have to verbally smack people in the face once the people in power have decided upon a scapegoat.
I'm betting Polish and Slavic people, or Africans. Anyone except the political and economic precedent set by the politicians in power.
They say never attribute to malice what could be explained by ignorance, but they really could have looked at how it's been going in the UK for the last forty years and learnt the lesson vicariously.
At a point, stupidity becomes malicious
South Africa: Major energy crisis
Global: ADHD drug shortage
I feel like those two problems could solve each other
Like a hamster wheel setup? They're too distracted to stay on the wheel.
You should try looking in North Korea or small US towns in rural areas.
You could solve both your problems at once.
Not so far away but in Mexico the biggest problems are (in my opinion):
- Insecurity & violence (surprise huh?)
- Corrupt and mediocre politicians and all that stems from it
- Equality in wealth distribution
- Migration crisis from central and south America.
- The new one: water crisis (also because of mediocre politicians)
Guatemala's ruling class spent months trying to negate the democratic election of anti-corruption, centre-left, progressivist, social-democrat, now-President Bernardo Arévalo. Certainly, the ruling class will screw with the whole system, and, possibly, they will attempt to kill him.
Bernardo is the son of former president Juan José Arévalo, whose time in office immediately followed an uprising that deposed U.S. backed dictator Jorge Ubico in 1945. Hate runs deep.
Keep in mind that the tenuous peace in Guatemala is consistently marred by gang violence, institutional corruption, kidnappings, and murder. This ray of light for the campesinos, indigenous people, and impoverished majority is, hopefully, sustainable with a mandate to improve Guatemala into a place where people can live. It would behoove (United States of) Americans to support this president as he could move the needle on making life liveable in Guatemala and stemming the flow of refugees and migrant workers to the North.
In Canada we are dealing with a housing crisis, a healthcare crisis, and a climate crisis (we still have wildfires burning in January) on top of alt-righters trying to reverse all progress that we've made.
So very similar to America- not quite as dramatic. Though Albertabama has been quiet for a while so I expect the Premier to do something stupid soon.
Danielle Smith just platformed Tucker Carlson who's advocating for the US to invade Canada.....
The drama is ongoing.
I think the Canadian housing crisis seems worse, at least from the outside when we were considering going there for grad school and looking at various places. Wages were also significantly lower for the same jobs.
Municipalities would rather destroy homeless encampments with a large, expensive police action rather then attempt to fix the underlying issues. This causes more trauma, which leads to more drug use, which leads to more deaths. These deaths don't seem to matter to them as long as they die in a convenient spot, out of sight from the 'normal' people shopping in the gentrified down town.
Permanently Deleted
Concerning level of fascism and violence against minorities are norm in India.
Guy in your thumbnail has got one eye going to the shop and the other coming back with a loaf
As we used to say in Liverpool, one eye in Crocky and one eye in Tocky.
I would've thought you'd say one eye at Gregg's and one eye in the dole 😂
My eyes don't both face the same direction.
Omni-directional awareness is a plus.
The US itself
Pitcairn has appealed for independence. The outcome is probably predictable.
Problems created by US.
