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What I don't get is that the Dutch government seems to be scrambling to appease a voter base that a) Is old and declining already b) are going to be dying on masse from this because they are defiantly licking each other's eyeballs to show this is 'no big deal'. Continued pay for business owners while your laid of citizens are expected to fully pay their landlord's rent. Refusing to show solidarity with the Southern European countries because that'll appease the xenophobic base. It's loving infuriating.
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Mar 31, 2020 10:13
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An insane mind posted:What I don't get is that the Dutch government seems to be scrambling to appease a voter base that a) Is old and declining already b) are going to be dying on masse from this because they are defiantly licking each other's eyeballs to show this is 'no big deal'. Yeah but it will work for the next election cycle, which is the sum total of their horizon. Also, LMAO, for the first time ever my landlord has sent me an invoice document for the monthly rent.
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Mar 31, 2020 11:20
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Junior G-man posted:The fact that Fidesz is still in the EPP tells you all you need to know about the right's tolerance for fascism. https://www.politico.eu/article/orbans-party-suspended-from-european-peoples-party/ Fidesz has been "suspended" from the EPP since March last year, which is just a fancy way of saying "yeah, we'll let them back in".
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Mar 31, 2020 11:56
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The main German argument for closing down smaller hospitals is that they offer poor treatment quality. The claim is that they have too little patient turnaround to accumulate and keep specialized knowledge so when they perform surgeries or other specialized treatment, the outcomes are worse compared to the big hospitals. That wouldn't be a problem by itself, if patient had a real choice to transfer to bigger hospitals for anything serious. But in praxis, the smaller hospitals are struggling financially and have a huge incentive to keep patients in-house, even if it worsens the outcome. The data appears to support that claim. I don't know enough about the issue to say how valid the argument is, so take the claim for what it is. I just wanted to say that the argument for centralization isn't just ghouls trying to squeeze out a buck out of the system. The general argument that a surgeon who performs 100 hip replacements or brain surgeries per year has much better outcomes than one who does 3 a year is sound by itself.
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Mar 31, 2020 12:04
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I mean that argument is sound but the logical consequence is also hospitals closing which means there are now areas of the country in NL where avg time to hospital by car exceeds 30 minutes. Which isn't great for your healthcare outcomes if you have say, complications during giving birth, or a stroke. Basically it makes sense to centralize operations which can be planned so that you get very experienced doctors with cutting edge equipment and training. But losing those activities makes the struggling regional hospitals even less economically viable, which is the standard we use to determine whether a hospital should exist. This has the knock-on effect of lowering total hospital capacity in the country which is usually not very important unless a crisis comes along. At the end of the day, we're clearly trading improved healthcare outcomes for some patients for worse healthcare outcomes for other patients + saved money. But we never frankly discuss it in those terms. Somehow the worse healthcare outcomes for some part tends to disappear out of the equation, which makes it look like a win-win. And nobody ever takes the possibility of a crisis seriously until you're balls deep into one. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Mar 31, 2020 |
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Mar 31, 2020 13:03
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A firmly worded warning has been issued:quote:“It is of utmost importance that emergency measures are not at the expense of our fundamental principles and values... Democracy cannot work without free and independent media,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement. Surely, Hungary will have no choice but to comply immediately.
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Mar 31, 2020 13:10
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Makes you wonder if she sees a big wet fart when she looks in the mirror.
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Mar 31, 2020 13:16
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Orange Devil posted:Makes you wonder if she sees a big wet fart when she looks in the mirror. The CDU's a party of big wet farts, so she's just one fart elevated above the others
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Mar 31, 2020 14:52
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Junior G-man posted:Yeah but it will work for the next election cycle, which is the sum total of their horizon.
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Mar 31, 2020 14:59
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Orange Devil posted:I mean that argument is sound but the logical consequence is also hospitals closing which means there are now areas of the country in NL where avg time to hospital by car exceeds 30 minutes. Which isn't great for your healthcare outcomes if you have say, complications during giving birth, or a stroke. Lol. There's places in Norway, especially northern Norway, where due to closures, merges and other centralization measures some people have to drive for hours to get to their nearest hospital.
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Mar 31, 2020 15:15
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Do people who live in those remote areas live there because they want to get away from things? Because mission loving accomplished.
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Mar 31, 2020 15:19
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Entropist posted:Apparently the prime minister's party went up by 8 seats in the polls now, which is quite a lot! It's an idiotic ammount for a party that's been at the forefront of cutting government programs and actively been courting the fash. Everything is so drat stupid.
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Mar 31, 2020 15:20
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Randarkman posted:Lol. There's places in Norway, especially northern Norway, where due to closures, merges and other centralization measures some people have to drive for hours to get to their nearest hospital. Well that's poo poo too, but also there's a bit of a difference between Norway and the country with the highest population density in Europe besides Malta and a bunch of literal city-states.
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Mar 31, 2020 15:24
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At 61 deaths per million residents, The Netherlands is now tied with Belgium for third place in most deaths per million world-wide - behind Italy, in front of Iran.  Good loving job! Please, authorities and politicians, do keep  lecturing Mediterranean countries that they fall prey to Corona due to their savage and impure lifestyles, unlike us civilized northerners.Meanwhile, my apartment building has a bunch of infections. Good news: building management announces that the cleaners will wipe down the doorknobs and buttons from now on. Oh, and they'll come and do that less than once per week! 
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Mar 31, 2020 16:08
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Entropist posted:Apparently the prime minister's party went up by 8 seats in the polls now, which is quite a lot! No surprise whatsoever, whenever there is a crisis the average person wants leadership, and will support whoever is there. Unless they're openly catastrophically stupid, and the VVD isnt nearly at that point. People need to die in the street first for that to happen.
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Mar 31, 2020 16:10
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Junior G-man posted:France has a really weird and really strictly regulated agricultural sector where (unless you can get around it, which you can, but it's v political) no farmer can technically own more than 120ha (called the SAFER) so there's an overall greater need for cooperatives. Added to this is the fact that a lot of French farms are still fairly small in size (definitely not over 120ha), and they all need processing facilities. I see. Thank you. I think only then Italy is big on cooperatives.
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Mar 31, 2020 17:06
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Most farms in Finland are pretty small, though their sizes are growing because of the intristic nature of the market to eventually ruin everything They often get squeezed by the companies, cooperatives and supermarket chains who buy their produce. Like the price of food rose recently but the amount the farmers got was lowered.
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Mar 31, 2020 17:21
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punk rebel ecks posted:I see. Thank you. I think only then Italy is big on cooperatives. I understand Italy has a big tradition of cooperatives especially in the region around Bologna. Their university puts out some workplace democracy literature, but unfortunately mostly in Italian.
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Mar 31, 2020 17:58
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Also a distinction needs to be drawn between "co-ops" and actual co-ops. As in, the former are giant corporations who have essentially regulatory captured their way into controlling a political party and several banks. They are colossi in food and goods distribution, esp. produce. They are garbage in labour relations, exploiting labour law loopholes to severely underpay workers and keep them in precarity, and they're possibly even worse when it comes to market power and abusing their position wrt smaller farmers and driving the cost of produce low beyond unprofitability, while on the other hand signing lucrative deals with the rear end in a top hat farmers who are essentially slave-drivers and employ foreign workers in slave conditions. Then there's the actual co-ops, who have been slowly driven to the corner and are no longer a significant proportion of enterprises. When you talk co-ops in Bologna, or its region, Emilia-Romagna, you are 90% talking about the former, unfortunately. There is a stronger tradition wrt coops in the North. I personally know a bunch of people who operate one, or who live in co-op housing complexes and the like. But they are significantly rarer than I'd want.
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Mar 31, 2020 18:36
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How effective are actual coops in output?
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Mar 31, 2020 18:48
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That's very disappointing to hear. I was hoping there was some residual Gramsci influence or something.
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Mar 31, 2020 18:49
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punk rebel ecks posted:How effective are actual coops in output? YMMV, but in general I feel like they're not operating in a traditional market. They rely a lot more on community support and knowledge. This is pretty natural with a housing co-op, offering afforable rents or a property for an affordable price. Agri coops tend to follow along those lines, they sell to a niche, the price is about on par with a high end farmer's market to account for labour costs and the methods used being usually better. Very good all around, to work for and quality produce, but I don't see the potential for mass expansion unfortunately, the entire productive model needs to be thought over for that to happen. Would be very good if production were decentralized and smaller scale. As it stands, everyone else in the agri market is selling worse quality, but at a far lower price than a coop can manage for obvious reasons. As regards housing coops, I can only say they're rare because housing suffers especially badly from being perceived as investment property, so profiting off 'the brick' is paramount. Most housing built in Italy is for profit, also thanks to high home ownership rates, and our market is garbage as a result.
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Mar 31, 2020 19:47
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Ghost Leviathan posted:For all the talk about the ant and the grasshopper, people forget that the ant actually spent their summer gathering food, a vital resource to weather a period of difficulty, rather than a pile of money that can't be used for anything. The ant was very happy to have all these banknotes around after the toilet paper shortage and the lockdown. GABA ghoul posted:The main German argument for closing down smaller hospitals is that they offer poor treatment quality. The claim is that they have too little patient turnaround to accumulate and keep specialized knowledge so when they perform surgeries or other specialized treatment, the outcomes are worse compared to the big hospitals. When my dad had a serious health alert a couple years ago, what happened was that he was sent in emergency to the nearest hospital, and then after diagnostics and stabilization he was sent to the specialized hospital in the local major city for the required surgery. I'm sure the ghouls would have been happier if the emergency ambulance ride had lasted one additional hour. Especially since the emergency guys who stabilized his condition said he arrived just in time. D. Ebdrup posted:Do people who live in those remote areas live there because they want to get away from things? Because mission loving accomplished. You could have just said, "die you filthy non-urban". When infrastructures such as a hospital is closed, it's not the locals who get away from things, it's the things that get away from them. Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Mar 31, 2020 |
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Mar 31, 2020 23:26
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Holland should just be one giant city with greenhouses to one side and a swamp to the other, if you think about it
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Apr 1, 2020 01:44
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Apr 1, 2020 01:54
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Got a Slovak take on all of this:quote:As a central European living relatively not too far from the Hungarian border, I'll say this: Many in Hungary admit that Orbán, under all the Putin-style self-assured bluster, is actually on the verge of panic. He underestimated the outbreak when it was coming, and worse yet, Hungary's public healthcare system is often one of the most neglected in the entire V4. Along with the brain drain of younger people to abroad, this has backfired in a very ugly way on the current Hungarian government. Not even blaming the migrants or Soros or the Martians has been able to disguise the fact that the government has screwed up. It's the same scenario as in the PRC, Russia and a lot of other countries with a haughty, arrogant domestic political culture, especially of an authoritarian bent: The government has grown content with feeling all powerful, and routinely overestimates its competence. Grouchio fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Apr 1, 2020 |
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Apr 1, 2020 04:56
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Cat Mattress posted:You could have just said, "die you filthy non-urban". When infrastructures such as a hospital is closed, it's not the locals who get away from things, it's the things that get away from them. First the locals moved away to look for a better life and then the infrastructure began to contract when the remaining few couldn't support it anymore.
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Apr 1, 2020 05:28
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Cat Mattress posted:You could have just said, "die you filthy non-urban". When infrastructures such as a hospital is closed, it's not the locals who get away from things, it's the things that get away from them. I'm also immune-compromised, and as a result have voluntarily self-isolated since the 9th of March. Non-urban people are much less likely to catch the disease; there's only been 9 new cases in my entire region, whereas the region where the capital is in has seen by far the biggest change in new cases, meaning the correlation coefficient by which infectious diseases are estimated (and which forms the red vs green curves you see) looks a lot different.
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Apr 1, 2020 12:29
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJFXTvJrQjM Interesting for everyone I think.
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Apr 1, 2020 14:08
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D. Ebdrup posted:Non-urban people are much less likely to catch the disease; there's only been 9 new cases in my entire region, whereas the region where the capital is in has seen by far the biggest change in new cases, meaning the correlation coefficient by which infectious diseases are estimated (and which forms the red vs green curves you see) looks a lot different.
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Apr 2, 2020 05:32
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https://twitter.com/alexandreafonso/status/1245351618775846912?s=20 https://twitter.com/alexandreafonso/status/1245442014516314112?s=20 lol orange sky fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 09:16
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lol at Germany running a surplus in 2008 and 2009. Also yes, the Dutch tax haven thing is basically stealing from all the EU partners. But it helps rich people from all EU countries so it's not just tolerated but encouraged. From personal experience, Dutch voters will laugh at you if you call NL a tax haven because they will only think about their own income taxes. Completely ignoring that NL is indeed not a tax haven for regular people, but absolutely is for wealthy motherfuckers. It kind of reminds me of Americans who thought "my gas prices haven't come down" was a counterargument to "one of the primary motivations for the Iraq war is oil". People just flat out not entertaining the notion that maybe the government doesn't give a gently caress about them and isn't acting in their interest. Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Apr 2, 2020 |
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Apr 2, 2020 09:32
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A Buttery Pastry posted:I think this is making some assumptions. Sure, if there's a strong state response that effectively quarantines the infected within certain cities and regions, then yeah, it is much safer outside those regions. If it's not though, then all that's happening is that the more peripheral regions have their outbreaks delayed - just like our outbreaks were delayed from that of China.
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Apr 2, 2020 09:37
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Orange Devil posted:lol at Germany running a surplus in 2008 and 2009. While that's absolutely true and should be adressed by the Netherlands not being a loving tax haven for the rich. I do think the argument that the Dutch have super low taxes like that tweet implies (unless I'm misinterpreting it, in which case mea culpa) will do more harm than good. The Dutch, like most people on this earth are a very recalcitrant and contrarian: "You think I have it easy? Well gently caress you, that's what I think. I gotta pay for this, this and this and gently caress you if you think I'm paying for more. I'm already living hand to mouth and Rutte is right now, yeah that's what I think! At least he's not making me feel bad when I have nothing." Rutte and his ghouls are canibalizing the most right-wing parties according to the current polls though, so that's something. Now we just need to find a way for him and his ilk to eat themselves as well. Also, it should be said that it's not just the other countries who are pissed at the Dutch government for their hardline stance, a lot of Dutch people including the old president of the central bank are like wtf.
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Apr 2, 2020 10:39
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That tweet is in reference to Wopke Hoekstra saying that southern countries should be investigated due to not having enough of an economical buffer to deal with COVID. The point is that we tried to create such a buffer, but the imbalances we have due to, among other things, having the same currency but paying a shitton more in interest than other countries in the eurozone, didn't alllow us to have a bigger buffer, like the big boys would like us to.
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Apr 2, 2020 10:53
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Belgium has one of the highest tax burdens for individuals, last year our Tax Freedom Day was the third of August. We also keep giving one-time breaks and overall cuts to corporations because we 'need to keep the multinational HQs in Brussels'. This is because we have a relatively high cost of wages (as over half goes to the government). Because of this, the tax code is a complicated mess which gets (ab)used by a lot of people to be creative when doing their taxes. Also because we as a nation are so creative with regulations, we're creative with the regulations put in place to stop/slow down the corona virus meaning we keep seeing a steady increase in the number of cases and have the third highest amount of deaths/million inhabitants. You should probably just let the Low Countries get swallowed by the ocean and be done with us.
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Apr 2, 2020 11:01
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nimby posted:Because of this, the tax code is a complicated mess which gets (ab)used by a lot of people to be creative when doing their taxes. Also because we as a nation are so creative with regulations, we're creative with the regulations put in place to stop/slow down the corona virus meaning we keep seeing a steady increase in the number of cases and have the third highest amount of deaths/million inhabitants. This is very familiar to what was happening in NL with the nitrogen emissions issue and the ensuing farmer's protests we posted about earlier. Successive governments had used creative bookkeeping to basically ensure that the emissions were fine on paper. This worked until a judge got presented actual numbers of nitrogen that was actually accruing in the actual soil of actual nature reserves. The state's defense was a bunch more creative bookkeeping trying to basically count potential/expected future emission reductions to offset actual current emissions and the like and the judge decided he/she wasn't having it. This caused entire sectors of the country to come to a complete standstill. It's emblematic for neoliberal regulatory culture imo. If you can make the numbers add up on paper then you've done a good job governing. Whatever you do, don't pull your head out of your rear end and take a look at what is actually happening in people's lives, just look at numbers on paper. And if those numbers start to look bad, come up with a clever theoretical scheme to make them look good again. This "works" until you run into a political opponent who doesn't give a gently caress about your clever number tricks. Like say, a deadly virus. It doesn't care if you've theoretically controlled it. It'll kill people until you've actually controlled it.
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Apr 2, 2020 11:16
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I love how the right-wing parties are always touting 'fiscal and corporate responsibility' and how they're keeping the numbers in the black until someone with actual relevant knowledge looks at books and goes...wait you're straight up lying about everything. Well you're supposed to take our word for it. But at the moment, bar something major happening (which I still think would be the north of our country getting as crippled as Brabant by COVID) I think the sad truth will be that the only good thing to come out of this is election losses for PVV and FvD. VVD is going to coast...
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Apr 2, 2020 12:34
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Something major is happening. Every economic indicator is absolutely making GBS threads it's bed, either we are about to go back to the year 1960 OR poo poo will change. Now, it can go all pear shaped even more, but things won't go back to what they whrre.the anemic 00's and 10's died the day the first covid case was detected outside China. The fact that it's all crumbling down when right wing governments are in charge is a blessing and curse, because historically people will have a decisive loathing for however was bumbling the response in a time of crisis.a curse because , well violent men respond in a violent way. But we're also in pretty much uncharted waters. Food security might be a issue in Europe, a thing not though possible since WW2. It is interesting times.hope you can all live through it.
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Apr 2, 2020 15:38
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It is very unfortunate, but history indicates that big change largely comes during times of major crisis.
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Apr 2, 2020 16:31
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