I live partially in Germany and Portugal, as I have roots in both country. You are right, the average salaries are a joke and the living costs are sky rocketing. However, you have a great and stable society, a really specific market, good universities and sometimes I think what is missing is initiative. The young people prefer to go abroad than try to innovate in Portugal. For example, almost all disrupting startups in Portugal are lead by Brazilians. Sometimes I have the impression that we all forgot about our resilience (well described by Camoes and Pessoa).

To all my Portuguese friends:

"Viver não é necessário. Necessário é criar."

Fernando Pessoa

You're 100% right - though I don't think it's easy to risk it in Portugal, neither it's praised.

I think our worst problem is that the majority seems to be ok giving the appearance that they're ok in life. I can't blame them, like some said: we have good weather and good food... low cost flights allows us to travel and post on social media showing we're going places... so in reality it seems like everything is ok.

Yet it's not.

Agostinho da Silva might say we're fulfilling our destiny of being "vadios" and artists, since he claims that's a way of living very rooted in our culture, waiting for machines to come do the work for ourselves. If that time will ever come, will be pros.

I tried my own venture, and failed. In fact I've tried many things and failed at them. And I do wonder sometimes, what's the point?

I always fold to play guitar, sketch, and have laughs with friends while we eat a home made meal.

Otoh a society that values leisure and social cohesion than cold efficient capital making sounds like a much more fulfilling place to fill out a few score trips around the sun than waking up at 60 with no hobbies in a cold dead mansion.

Maybe the solution is just to go abroad if you find you can’t not be getting your excitement from taking business risks

The reason you get the impression that countries like Portugal or Greece prioritize leisure is that you spend your vacations there and mostly interact with the wealthier residents. The relaxed Greek pensioner who speaks fluent English may appear to be middle class by your standards, but is actually a member of the elite. The actual average Greek is the one who is busting their butts off mopping the pristine facade of your Santorini Airbnb.

Portugal actually has one of the longer working hours in the EU. Despite the reputation that Greeks are lazy, they actual work the longest. If the upper classes of these nations worked harder, they would create more higher-skill jobs for the average resident, so they wouldn't have to resort to working menial jobs for longer hours.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_a...

I think there’s a level on which a chill society doesn’t feel as much collective need to produce as much, though your point is very valid as well. A 11 hour workday that involves a hammock and a nap for instance. Or, a crazy idea, if one can provide some security for themselves with a more basic job. This isn’t really what exists, it’s usually richer countries with more leisure. But not always

From every German tourist visiting Portugal: "Oh its so nice that in Portugal, the supermarkets are every day open"

Mind you the two hour lunches with a bottle of wine and naps are something.

Where's the line that separates mediocrity from greatness?

So anything aside from hyper capitalism is mediocrity? This is a sad way of looking at the world.

Mind explaining how to find this initiative of yours if you're living paycheck to paycheck?

In the end is about how much you want to sacrifice. Put some money aside, invest your free time, believe in an idea, but in the end: Put in the Work! Specially in our branch. A full stack developer earns in average EUR 1.500/month in Portugal. Work remotely from Portugal, have a side gig and make it happens.

Coming from Poland (theoretically a country with lower salaries than Portugal) this strikes me as super low - you can easily earn 2-3x that working remotely for English-speaking contracting companies, and way way more if you try to get a job at a remote first tech company.

Really? Care to elaborate how demanding are these jobs in terms of productivity, hard skills, etc?

Might be relevant:

https://taxfoundation.org/comparing-corporate-tax-systems-eu...

going abroad is initiative too

and actually there's very little initiative there too,

seen it too many times, comfortable at parents place / not desperate, why bother going abroad

I guess it’s the same situation as in Spain - if you earn a degree and you stay in Portugal you’re a grade A idiot. In other words brain drain.

As always, grass is always greener - by median income Portugal is 11th in the ascending order (11th worst).

https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKM...

It sounds like a good piece of legislation. The rest needs to be fixed of course but that shouldn't stop all positive change.

It's only 11th because a lot of countries are missing data for 2020. It's actually 19th for 2019. And I bet you it's not adjusted for taxes.

Steep bell curve for everyone beneath them to be in eastern europe while Portugal is surrounded by or in close proximity to the highest percentile earners in Western Europe

I was born in Brazil but I am currently in process to try to get a Portuguese citizenship (my ancestors are portuguese and raised me to be portuguese, I was only born in Brazil).

I am considering moving to portugal even, but I must say I was shocked when I saw that income taxes for me would be 45%? And I was thinking I pay too much in Brazil at 27.5%...

Are portuguese services really, really good at least? (in Brazil the services are not very good, we pay taxes + private education, private healthcare, private security, and the government expects private sector to build railways, etc... hell, some places people have private army too, with some parts of the country you being safe only if you bribe the army itself or hire mercenaries...)

>Are portuguese services really, really good at least?

That's problem: they're not. Or better yet, they're very inefficient and rely too much on humans. Our public Health Care Service (SNS) is praised in some circles - but at the cost of poor wages and overworked staff. Not to mention the interior is starting to crumble with no people to make up for it.

FWIW, coming to Portugal from the states, their turnaround time/effectiveness on everything related to covid was way, way, way better than it is here.

> Our public Health Care Service (SNS) is praised in some circles - but at the cost of poor wages and overworked staff.

I remember looking up portuguese doctor wages once and I was pretty shocked. Technology jobs would be more advantageous.

This is just Europe in general.

nurses get paid minimum salary, 500/600 per month

> my ancestors are portuguese and raised me to be portuguese, > I was only born in Brazil

You are 100% Brazilian. Your ancestors, knew a Portugal from 100 years ago. It is the same with the japanese Dekasegi.

Portugal is awesome, IMO the best country in the world, but you will definitely have a lower life standard there. If you are married, expect a lot of "saudades de casa".

" IMO the best country in the world,"

porque maloqueiro, porque?

(I wanted to buy an apartment in Lisbon but is has become too expensive)

> I am considering moving to portugal even, but I must say I was shocked when I saw that income taxes for me would be 45%?

Only if you earn the same as the prime-minister, I think that's the top marginal rate.

Taxes are extremely high and that, in and of itself, is a huge issue but things are actually much worse.

Want to use a road? You pay. Want to get some financial documents you actually need for work? You pay. Want a doctor to see you at a hospital? You pay.

You pay for everything twice.

I think the problem is more likely decades of under development/funding of social programs under Salazar, not high taxes now.

My dad grew up under Salazar, they didn't even have school past 3rd grade, everything was underfunded as hell, it was basically a corporate oligarchy.

How high is high? Can you give some specifics for foreigners who aren't familiar with the tax situation in Portugal?

Yea, even us brazilians are refusing portuguese job offers , even though we're struggling here, because of low salaries.

> and are choked to the brink of passing out by high taxes

What are property taxes like over there?

I'm suspicious that your problem is the same as California, New Zealand, Canada and everyone else: deep tax cuts for long time landowners which everyone else has to make up for.

Calm down. Yes, some things are shit in Portugal. €0.2246 per kWh is not cheap but it is not crazy high.

"Renewables account for 72% of Portugal's consumption in 5-mo 2021" May be important for the future

I know real estate prices in Portugal are crazy. 500k in a city and you get a golden visa. Hence every decent apartment is 500k or more. In a country were the minimum salary is around 500 euros.

Look the the future. Portugal can and is attracting an nearly infinite supply of young people from Brazil, Angola, Mozambique. The future is good. Likely better than Italy.

Property prices aren't so crazy - a friend of mine pays €400 a month in a nice part of Costa da Caparica for a 2 bed, another bought a great place for under €200k in Cacilhas. For under €500k you can get something like this https://www.idealista.pt/imovel/31578168/ more than decent in such a desirable location in the centre of the capital.. The minimum wage is so low because more than 50% of the workforce didn't finish school https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/50-of-portuguese-betwee...

There are plenty of Portuguese people smarter than I commanding nice salaries, yes not as high as elsewhere in Europe but the quality of life and cost of living I believe make up for it.

Another thing (besides high taxes and low wages) US leftists would like to copy from Portugal is complete legalization of all drugs, including the hard/addictive ones. I'd be curious to know from a local how well that worked (if at all) over the extended period of time.

We didn't legalize drugs, we decriminalized them - basically a drug addict wasn't considered a criminal, but someone who's sick and needs help.

It worked wonders, we had a heroin epidemic that vanished in the course of 10-15 years. There are still addicts of course, but they're being followed by doctors, offered replacement drugs, etc.

Just to contrast: you used to see people injecting themselves on their dicks in the street all over Lisbon, yet more prevalent in some neighborhoods. Such sights are long gone.

> injecting themselves on their dicks in the street all over Lisbon

That's how it is today in San Francisco and a few other places. Are they actually gone, or are they just injecting themselves in the dick at a taxpayer funded injection site?

> Our political class is exchanging our young and bright

...who would be unemployed.

> over to foreign pensioners, and now apparently, foreign remote workers.

...who already have and income and are happy to spend it in Portugal.

Not a terrible deal.

Those pensioners aren't the ones who will pay Social Security in the future mate. Portuguese politicians are digging a hole that we won't be able to recover from - just so you know the age of retirement keeps increasing with no end in sight.

It should be the other way around.

Yes, fine if those pensioners move to Portugal permanently. If they're just living there during the summer then the place is dead for the rest of the year, and locals are priced out of staying there.

>> Our political class is exchanging our young and bright

>...who would be unemployed.

presumably the "young and bright" that are moving out of portugal aren't doing so they can be unemployed in another country. if anything they're retaining the unemployed/unemployable young adults but offloading the employable young adults.

This is a product of socialism without protections. Put simply, you have high taxes to redistribute wealth. Unfortunately, the government takes their cut. As government becomes increasingly large / naturally corrupt that cut becomes larger.

The wealthy can leave and gain more else-where and many leave. Increasing the burden. If you don't have heavy border controls, people who are less advantaged move to the country to gain from the social system. You'll also have remote workers move into cities because it is cheaper than their home region. This drives up costs in cities, but isn't enough tax revenue to offset the loss in wealthy people leaving, as it's highly focused. You'll also have people investing and buying property, which also drives up the costs.

At the end of the day, if you want to improve life, you have to focus on

(a) strict immigration policies (reducing pressure from immigrants)

(b) strict import controls (raising internal wages)

(c) reduce social system, focus on citizens and potentially reduce general services

(d) reduce taxes on income, land and sales

(e) increase import taxes and potentially tax on foreigners

If you do the above, it'll reduce the burden on the individuals and protect & improve the internal labor market.

Surprisingly rich people don't leave Northern European countries for Dubai.

You can tax the SHIT out of people if they think they get something in return.

True. I’m probably paying 60% of my income in tax living in Amsterdam. I could easily relocate to somewhere like Chicago or Austin, and pay way less and have cheaper living expenses, but I’ve seen enough of American cities to know I find their wealth divide so cruel I personally consider it a crime against humanity. It’s just plain depressing to live in a society like that.

The crime being the existence of poor people? Europe is way worse on these fronts, they just hide their poor people better and put them in the suburbs.

Where have you been in Europe or the US? I have family on both sides of the Atlantic and know both continents quite well from personal experiences. The crime is letting people die from preventable illness because of unwillingness to provide universal healthcare, and a segregated system that makes higher education difficult to attain and keeps poor people in poverty.

On your second point I wholeheartedly disagree, I’ve been in small villages in Serbia, and I know people from there very well. I also grew up 10 minutes from the Michigan boarder and have friends and family there too. From my experience, the poorest people in Serbia are less at risk of abject poverty and dying from preventable diseases than the poorest in Michigan. Sure if you look at the average salary for someone in Michigan vs someone in Serbia, Serbia is way lower, but if you actually look at quality of life factors for the bottom 10% of both those places I’d bet Serbia pulls way ahead.

Edit: and I just use Serbia as an example because it’s one of the poorest countries in Europe and I still think it’s better than a lot of US states in how it helps its poor. When you look at health, safety, and educational outcomes of middle income and rich European countries they are often far ahead of the US averages. Christ, not everything is about maximizing GDP. Look at the average lifespan of an EU citizen that’s almost 10 years longer than an American citizen.

I'm an EU citizen as well as an American one. If you go to the suburbs in the outskirts of Paris, you will see what I am talking about. (the so-called "banlieue")

The US is going to have more obvious poverty also because they are more accepting of immigrants from impoverished countries.

> Look at the average lifespan of an EU citizen that’s almost 10 years longer than an American citizen.

Laughably false. A 10 year difference would be ridiculous!

You can look up everything that I am talking about. The (non-European) immigrant communities in Europe are incredibly poor, but kept out of sight because European development models involve affluent city centers and pushing minorities out to the suburbs, rather than the reverse which occurs in the US.

The US certainly has problems with these sorts of things, but headlines like:

https://www.newsweek.com/french-activists-39-percent-paris-t...

or

https://www.connexionfrance.com/Archive/Clubs-accused-of-rac...

are something unimaginable in the West outside of Europe.

> I'm an EU citizen as well as an American one. If you go to the suburbs in the outskirts of Paris, you will see what I am talking about. (the so-called "banlieue")

I’ve been there, thanks, and it’s not nearly as bad as the poor parts of Chicago or Detroit where I’ve also been. You’re completely detached from reality if you think otherwise. Have you even actually been to a poor area of a large America city? You’re also about 10x more likely to be murdered in those cities than in Paris.

> The US is going to have more obvious poverty also because they are more accepting of immigrants from impoverished countries.

Bullshit, there are basically zero first generation immigrants in Detroit. All Americans pretty much. Unless you don’t consider oppressed grandchildren of slaves as Americans?!

>> Look at the average lifespan of an EU citizen that’s almost 10 years longer than an American citizen. Laughably false. A 10 year difference would be ridiculous!

Fair, I was more thinking Italy specifically because I’m half Italian, but the average European still lives three years longer than the average America, which is pathetic considering the wealth in America.

> You can look up everything that I am talking about. The (non-European) immigrant communities in Europe are incredibly poor, but kept out of sight because European development models involve affluent city centers and pushing minorities out to the suburbs, rather than the reverse which occurs in the US.

If you’re selective about data like that, I can be selective about data too, and show you how black and brown oppressed communities in America have way worse social outcomes than the average American. What you’re saying about Europe is no different in America, it’s actually more extreme in America and more violent because of lax gun control.

> The US certainly has problems with these sorts of things, but headlines like: https://www.newsweek.com/french-activists-39-percent-paris-t...

Yeah, you’ve definitely never worked in a major midwestern city, because stuff like this still happens all the time, the racist have learned to just not be blatant about it. All you have to do is look at the C level executives at most American companies to see it. I’ve seen it first hand when I’ve tried to hire non white people in Canada and it was a battle for me. I have no idea why you think this is exclusive to France. I get that Bay Area companies are sometime more progressive, but companies in cities like Huston or Chicago, not so much, there’re still plenty of racists.

The key is think they get something in return. They don’t have to actually get a lot, just think they do.

We tend to talk about "socialism" in Portugal, but few countries that I know are more neoliberal than Portugal. Almost everything is private or is managed by private companies. Portugal is one of the few countries which exchanges visa for money. Our approach to Uber and Airbnd was until 2019, pretty liberal. I'm not saying that is right or wrong, just that even though the people vote for socialism, what we get in the end is neoliberalism.

Portugal has nothing on the anglosphere here, but yes is probably liberal by European standards.

Not correct. Locals get socialism. Foreigners ultra capitalism. Portugal is a tax haven but only for foreigners. We exchange EU visas and tax isentions for money to sustain the socialist ideology.

> We exchange EU visas and tax isentions for money to sustain the socialist ideology.

What? The Golden Visa program was created by the liberal government of Passos Coelho. It's legalized corruption (the head of a government agency was even arrested in connection with this a while back), putting upward pressure on the housing market, than the money earned by the visas themselves.

> This is a product of socialism without protections. Put simply, you have high taxes to redistribute wealth. Unfortunately, the government takes their cut. As government becomes increasingly large / naturally corrupt that cut becomes larger.

To blame this on socialism proves you don't know the history of Portugal.

Is Portugal that much more socialist than Denmark, Finland, Germany, etc?

No, it was basically the longest running explicitly corporate oligarchy in Europe until the carnation revolution in the 70s.

Hilarious to be blaming this on socialism.

50 years is enough to go from undeveloped to developed, you can't really blame what happened back then for what the state is now. Under these 50 years Portugal didn't make any progress at all, it is still just as economically behind the main European powers as it was back then.

Uh, no a disadvantage from 50 years ago will absolutely show up 50 years later. Indeed, much of the reason Portugal remains behind can be traced back to further than that.

If you have a whole generation only recently retiring that wasn't educated because your state didn't fund schools, that is going to drag on your economy even to today.

Kinda just sounds like you don't know what you are talking about.

We can see now that without import controls corporations are going to chase slave-like labor around the globe until there isn't another country left to go to. I'm guessing everyone is against worker exploitation. What else is the answer? Globalization circumvents any wins for human rights made locally.

The advice worked for both Japan and South Korea. Probably it is the only way to jump from "emerging" to "developed" category, economically.

Nitpicking, but Japan and South Korea rose by being, deliberately and thoughtfully, protectionist, not isolationist. China's doing the same thing now.

What's wrong with isolationism?