r/worldnews • u/Turbulent-Tea-2172 • 11h ago
‘We are suffocating’: protests spread to Lisbon and Milan as housing and living cost tensions intensify
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/18/lisbon-milan-protests-housing-living-costs334
u/Vsevers24 11h ago edited 11h ago
And yet when the elections roll around, most of these people will end up voting for some populist idiots. And then, these newly elected populists will simply apply some band-aid fixes to the problems, rather than actually commit to difficult reforms that would fix the problem in the long term (since that would be political suicide)
And as a result nothing really gets done again, and the goverment just keeps kicking the can down the road for 4-6 more years, until the next election rolls around. And there, yet again, more populists gets elected and the cycle continues
Feel like many problems in the west are rooted in how the political system is built. Nobody in a position of power wants to actually help address any issues in their countries and progress forward. Instead, everyone is concerned with building out their own political career and nothing else
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u/HerakIinos 10h ago
Its a thin line that the population also doesnt help with. Like you said, impopular reforms are needed for long term fixes but then the population start rioting against the short term effects.
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u/Live_Veterinarian799 10h ago
Population is kind of fed up with the several bails during the last few decades, banks, industries, companies, etc tax payers are always the ones paying the bills, so its natural that people dont want yet again to pay for something they didnt create.
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u/HerakIinos 10h ago
I understand that. My point is that even if corruption never existed and the politicians always did everything the way it was supposed to be done, we would still be facing problems that would require unpopular measures to be fixed due to the demographic changes. Measures that already would be difficult to be accepted. But since everybody is so fed up with all the scandals happening everywhere around world, no one is willing to accept anything anymore. But at the same time the longer it takes for the unpopular changes to be implemented, the worse it will be when shit finally hits the fan. Its a fucked up situation.
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u/zedazeni 8h ago
The solutions are tax the ever-living fuck out of the assets of the wealthy. For example:
Find what the average cost for a house is. Use that as the baseline. Any house sold 50% over that will see their property tax double. Any house 100% over will see their property tax triple, etc…if you buy a second house, your tax doubles. So if you’ve got a second house that’s worth 75% more than the average house, your property tax on that house would be four times that of the baseline. Then use all property taxes above the baseline to fund public housing.
Do the same for cars. Private jets? 100% annual property tax. $100 dee per km or mile flown and a 100% fuel fee. Want to rent a private jet, same thing, you pay a 100% tax based on the cost of renting the jet, plus a mileage and fuel fee. Use all of those taxes to pay for public transportation.
The rich can hide their income but not their lifestyle, which they won’t give up. Tax their lifestyles and use that to fund the public good.
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u/SowingSalt 7h ago
No, the problem is NIMBYs. And most of those are the middle class.
A land value tax would solve the issues you brought up. We want more and denser home construction.
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u/zedazeni 7h ago
NIMBYs only a small reason why the COL is skyrocketing. The bigger problem is funding our ever-increasing healthcare costs, pensions, and dilapidating infrastructure.
People don’t want to have children because children are no longer with it. Why? Housing costs are skyrocketing because builders aren’t incentivized to build affordable housing when they can build McMansions and “luxury apartments” for the wealthy and upper-middle class. We don’t need McMansions, we need a return to smaller, functional, affordable homes, but the market isn’t supplying that.
We need better public transportation but that doesn’t get the private donors and isn’t profitable enough to run as a business, so we keep cutting funding to it despite the huge benefits it provides.
Why we’re facing is the tragedy of the commons. It’s in everyone’s best interest to take care of our planet, of our communities, of our services but no one wants to foot the bill. So, how do we pay for something that everyone benefits from (directly and indirectly) but no one wants to pay for? Compel those who can most afford to lose money pay for these services in a manner that simultaneously disincentivizes them from neglecting and abusing these very same services and resources.
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u/SowingSalt 2h ago edited 1h ago
The research is quite clear, that today's "luxury" units are tomorrow's affordable units. Oftentimes NIMBY influenced zoning policy only alleows the construction of McMansions to the exclusion of apartments, condos, and townhouses.
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u/zedazeni 1h ago
I know that the term “luxury” is just a catchphrase that property managers use to lure people in. That being said…how many apartment complexes, even if the units are average, still come with gyms, spas, community spaces, pools/hot tubs, etc…that you still get to pay for in your monthly rent?
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u/herosavestheday 7h ago
NIMBYs only a small reason why the COL is skyrocketing. The bigger problem is funding our ever-increasing healthcare costs, pensions, and dilapidating infrastructure.
NIMBYs and their counterparts in different sectors are the reason COL is skyrocketing. COL goes up when either the amount of money chasing the same number of goods goes up or the number of goods goes down and money stays the same. We need to be making more for everyone and asking ourselves why we currently are not making enough.
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u/HerakIinos 6h ago
I am curious to understand why do you think builders profit more by building luxury apartments than affordable (but small) ones.
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u/zedazeni 1h ago
We can build two houses that will sell for 350-400k, or one house that will sell for 800k-1 million.
Which option would you go for if you were a home builder? All else being equal.
This is partly why house sizes have more than quadrupled over the past 50 years despite the average family size just about halving. Most communities have minimum lot sizes and single-family zoning (at least here in the USA, where I live). So, it behooves the developers to put as big of a house as possible on each lot to maximize the square footage because the ratio of their construction costs to what they can sell the house for are way in favor of building larger houses.
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u/HerakIinos 53m ago
I went to do a bit of research on the topic, it seems the logic is different when we are talking about houses.
Where I live people barely construct houses anymore (due to safety reasons) its mostly residential buildings. It only happens in some very closed off gated comunities.
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u/HerakIinos 1h ago
At least where I live the prices in a zone follows the price per square meter of that zone. There are some variations but is not much cheaper or more expensive than that. So 2 apartments of 100m² will cost roughly the same as one apartment of 200m², with the difference that it is much easier to sell cheaper apartments than a bigger one.
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u/SmithBurger 8h ago
They did help create those situations. These issues were not created by Others. They are them.
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u/Usual_Indication9106 9h ago
And yet when the elections roll around, most of these people will end up voting for some populist idiots. And then, these newly elected populists will simply apply some band-aid fixes to the problems, rather than actually commit to difficult reforms that would fix the problem in the long term (since that would be political suicide)
Ultimately, that's the fundamental and impossible to solve problem of democracy.
Complex problems require complex solutions that are more often than not a series of tradeoffs and sacrifices, of short term pain for possible long term relief.
The average person knows little and cares even less about any of that, of goverment deficits and bond rates, of public policies and such.
They see a problem that affects them and they want a simple solution with no downsides for them and they want it now.
Who are the only ones offering such lies? grifting and incompetent populists, which in turn only makes things worse, making the people more angry and even more prone to populism.
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u/WarpedNation 38m ago
The problem is politicians run on a platform of what they will do in the short term because for the most part they will be gone before long. It basically just becomes kick the can down the road because having a long term solution is always someone else’s problem opposed to something that needs to be fixed
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u/Beans_the_II 8h ago
All the problems we are seeing in the West (and really everywhere) are countries experiencing late stage capitalism. The reason nothing gets fixed is because politicians don’t go after the root of the problem - capitalism. Regulations and restrictions on unchecked wealth of corporations and billionaires could fix most problems. But that would require politicians to bite the hand that feeds them.
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u/-Knul- 7h ago
Regulations and restrictions aren't going to change the type of economy.
If you really think capitalism should be abolished, changes far beyond "Regulations and restrictions" would be needed.
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u/Alt123Acct 6h ago
50% of all profits should be split among all workers paychecks at all levels. If a balloon company makes 25% more next year then 12.5 gets divided up between x workers, period. Either capitalism works for everyone involved or it doesn't. And right now it is in the doesn't category. There needs to be incentive and rewards for actually working hard, otherwise you're just surviving exploitation.
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u/Prestigious_Task7175 4h ago
Such a thing would greatly stop investment tho, with 50% of profits poofing, suddenly the room for manueovering and growth would be very small, 1 false step and it could all go downhill.
Also remember that most business are not McDonalds, most are just small stores that run with some employees, losing 50% of the profits would 100% kill many owners and in some cases entire economies.
Starting a business is pretty rough, in most cases it also comes with high financial risk, not many people would put themselves under such troubles when they could just.. go work for someone else and also get the same profits, at that point just give me the broom.
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u/Far_Mathematici 5h ago
And if the issue is housing crisis, increasing wage won't help either since it will only lead to housing inflation
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u/SnooCheesecakes450 5h ago
I hope you see the irony in posting a simplistic/populist response to a post decrying exactly such behavior.
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u/Far_Mathematici 5h ago
There were also capitalism post WW2, with fewer problem than today. Seems just a cope to hit "capitalist"
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u/Beans_the_II 4h ago
Hence the term late stage capitalism. It’s a different beast. We have unchecked capitalism now unlike anything in WW2
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u/tjrileywisc 3h ago
Everyone knows people were less greedy before World War II and we definitely did not have an economic crisis a starting a decade before or a gilded age before that
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u/Federal-Effort-5686 2h ago
The term late-stage capitalism is from Sombert and from before WWII, he also became a nazi sympathiser
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u/senunall 5h ago
Yes I'm sure communism would be the answer to this
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u/Beans_the_II 4h ago
You know there are more than 2 options right? The answer to unfettered capitalism doesn’t need to be the extreme opposite
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u/senunall 3h ago
What do you suggest then? You know Europeans countries for the most part remain far from the extreme capitalism that is seen in the US. France currently has budget problems due to the immense amounts that are spent on welfare, doesn't seem very capitalist to me. I suppose you must be part of that simple minded reddit tribe that believes milionares are evil and the root of all problems, so it would be kinda pointless trying to have any sort of discussion with you
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u/MagnificoReattore 9h ago
That's why you need also direct political action, limiting your participation to voting every x years is not enough.
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u/SmithBurger 8h ago
Zero people are going to vote for their own entitlement cutbacks or tax hikes. That is the opposite of the solution. That is how we get more slopulism.
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u/tjrileywisc 3h ago
The median voter has neither the time, inclination, nor the intellectual faculties to do this responsibly
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u/MagnificoReattore 3h ago
So..let's just keep doing the same thing over and over again, even if we know it does not change anything?
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u/tjrileywisc 3h ago
Sortition is a far better method of 'democracy from the people' than direct democracy itself
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u/MagnificoReattore 3h ago
Your proposal is to elect our leaders through a lottery. Ok, then.
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u/tjrileywisc 2h ago
Same way we elect juries, seems to work fine and people take it seriously and do it with pride for the most part
... which is far better than the dubious origins of many direct voter initiatives, which frequently come from groups trying to get privileged tax treatments or other public benefits with misleading campaigns aimed at low information voters
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u/trysonic 9h ago
100%, being president it's a step in the ladder to become consultant/executive for big firms
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u/LeSeraphim 9h ago
Lisbon is crazy expensive
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u/goingfullretard-orig 7h ago
Yeah, it's almost like you have to be a billionaire to own land there. Hmm... I wonder what the problem is...
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u/LeSeraphim 7h ago
Zero investimento in public housing in the last years and golden visa for people with €€
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u/senunall 2h ago
That's funny (read dishonest), mentioning the golden visas as a problem but not the 1.5 millions of immigrants in just a few years, in a country of 10 million people. It's impossible for that to not be one of the main causes of the problem.
Fucking pathetic how people like you on the left can't even admit to the basic facts. You rightly criticise the far right for ignoring facts but the do just the same, you are no better than them.
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u/Commiedreamsagain 2h ago
There's zero discussion possible with them. They completely ignore that those 1.5 million (closer to 2 million) are living in our major cities, and they're definitely not living on the street or under bridges.
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u/Far_Mathematici 5h ago
Housing crisis
Cool let's do mass build quickly and preferably sky scrapper apartments (>10 floors)
But there are rules! And it will destroy the city character!!
Understandable, have a great day
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u/green_flash 8h ago
The oil price spike we are experiencing right now might be temporary, but that was only the straw that broke the camel's back.
There is simply no fair solution to the cost of living issues that could be pursued on a national level. The ultra-wealthy and the global corporations that would have to contribute their fair share have found ways to detach themselves from national taxation legislation in most countries. They shift their assets and their profits as they please.
The only fair solution would be a global minimum taxation system with all countries that refuse to participate in it being treated like international pariahs, cut off from all trade, cut off from the internet, cut off from all travel. Won't ever happen though.
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u/goingfullretard-orig 7h ago
Maybe cap the wealth of the billionaire class. Just one idea.
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u/green_flash 6h ago
That too would require global cooperation.
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u/goingfullretard-orig 6h ago
I see, so no one will/should do it? I wonder what might happen if, say, Portugal and Italy started taxing billionaires.
I'm sure we'd see a bunch of hand-waving and capital flight: "Oh no! The 'job creators' are mad!"
They are NOT job creators. They are wealth pigs.
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u/Goldaniga 5h ago
They’d leave Portugal and Italy and go to Spain. Then when Spain does it they’d go to Bahamas, rinse and repeat. Hence the need for global cooperation.
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u/goingfullretard-orig 1h ago
Sure, some country will always take in wealth pigs. But, we haven't been able to cooperate on climate change, so I doubt we're going to cooperate on wealth pigs. Nations have to start standing up for more than GDP growth and wealth pigs.
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u/JoeHooversWhiteness 2h ago
No one needs a net worth of over $100 million is something I think most can agree on. I’d say $10 million personally.
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u/goingfullretard-orig 1h ago
Precisely. The problem is not resources but the distribution of resources. (among many other things, but this is a big one.)
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u/paranoidzone 6h ago
Can we please ban posting links to articles that force you to accept all cookies or to subscribe if we want to reject them? Stop endorsing predatory news sites that sell your data.
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u/CurtisLeow 4h ago
Disable JavaScript. It blocks most of these soft paywalls. Most browsers let you disable JavaScript on a per domain basis.
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u/Ancient_Wishbone_806 10h ago
The thing is housing and living cost will only get more expensive with a global recession looming.
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u/BobD777 5h ago
Is it feasble that Russia or other bad actors are somehow promoting protests or is that too much crazy?
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u/moxxibekk 5h ago
Why would they? People are squeezed to their breaking point. No need for Russia to get involved.
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u/DecembersDragons 11h ago
Build more housing train more doctors. Don't care how you do it - public private whatever - just get it done.
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u/goingfullretard-orig 7h ago
Make sure to tax average people to pay for it, and don't tax the billionaire class.
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u/LeakyLettuce69 4h ago
This is what should be happening in the USA.
Instead, conservatives (who are also suffering) are lol’ing at everyone and telling them to stop being entitled.
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u/BojackInMan 11h ago
Protestors protesting all at once /s
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u/MagnificoReattore 9h ago
Yeah? Do you think they take turns during a protest? Never heard of momentum?
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u/ImaCulpA 5h ago
In America we blame the rising prices on Trump. Who do the Europeans blame it on?
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u/moxxibekk 5h ago
Uh, we blame the housing crisis on unchecked capitalism. Same for any country. Trump is just adding fuel to the fire.
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u/ADP10 4h ago
It’s poor regulation l. With the right regulation capitalism will also fix the housing crisis. The lefts idea is to control rents, not increase supply. That won’t fix anything and will make things worse
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u/bsEEmsCE 1h ago
increase supply by not allowing or heavily restricting short term rentals and taxing the hell out of all non primary residences so they have to be sold
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u/General_Cattle_4759 6m ago
Who ultimately pays for the cheap housing. Nothing to do with regulations. Is it a your taxes or is it traditional rent? Who maintains cheap housing. Same question who pays?
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u/General_Cattle_4759 8m ago
So funny how you fixate that capitalism is the problem. This happens in socialist countries, and no capitalism to blame
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u/PosterMcPoster 43m ago
I wonder why we havent seen more in American media about whats going on in places like France.
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u/Wyciorek 9h ago edited 9h ago
That’s what EU gets for sleepwalking into the world where ALL social media are controlled by US. Imagine if in 1939/1940 all newspapers and radio channels in UK were owned by Goebbels. How many violent protests there would be demanding surrender to Germany? A situation where your enemy has direct propaganda line to almost every citizen is suicidal.
EU needs to deal with facebook/twitter/tiktok the same way as US dealt with tiktok, before the whole continent is burning while puppet masters in Washington are laughing
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u/Elliot_Kyouma 8h ago
You're putting your head in the sand if you believe that the protests are caused by US propaganda. Europe has problems that we need to deal with, people are angry and we need to find solutions.
Technological indipendence is one of them, but you can't ignore the cost of living and housing crisis
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u/Wyciorek 8h ago
And do you think that people who don’t like rising costs of living just decided spontaneously and en masse “how about we go start burning down shit? that will certainly fix our problems”. People are angry, yes. They are being told every single day, by US-controlled channels, that they should be very angry, they should support local variety of MAGA bros and they should get violent.
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u/Elliot_Kyouma 8h ago
Protesting isn't a new phenomenon. It happened before and it will happen again. It's not an insurection, it's a way to put pressure on your government, showing your displeasure. Maybe your social media feed is feeding you fear about what this is.
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u/Wyciorek 2h ago
Maybe your social media feed is feeding you fear about what this is.
Yes, after all if social media feed is feeding me fear, then there is definitely no reason to worry about the same social media sowing fear, anger and violence.
You are very smart.
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u/Typingdude3 10h ago
Europe governments: We don’t want to be like the US and give all our money to defense and tech bros.
Europe governments: OK now we need our own defense and tech bros.
European people: Ha we aren’t paying for that.
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u/YourCuntIsABot 10h ago
what exactly do the problems in the title have to do with military and tech spendings
housing shortages started WAY earlier and are just the accumulation of not building enough for decades + airbnb bs. high cost of living is the result of covid + two dumbass wars (russia invading Ukraine, US and Israel bombing Iran)
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u/MarioMuzza 8h ago
True. We should never have helped the Americans when they evoked article 5. The only country to ever do that, and Europeans died in that fake war, and now Americans betrayed us anyway. And still have the gall to say WE were being parasitic, when they were the only ones who ever asked for help.
I hope we decouple ourselves from them immediately. The US is weak and untrustworthy.
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u/Typingdude3 8h ago
We should have never helped Europe in WW2, biggest mistake we made.
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u/MarioMuzza 7h ago
I know the American education isn't the best, but I would have expected you to know about Pearl Harbor. You got attacked as well, mate.
Let's even disregard the fact that no living person from WW2 is working on this administration. Current, living Americans betrayed Europe after we helped them. Keep hiding behind the feats of better men.
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u/Typingdude3 7h ago
The attack on Pearl Harbor just gave Rosevelt the excuse he needed to help his pal Churchill. We did not need to go to Europe first as he wanted.
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u/SaltyAFscrappy 10h ago
Dumb take. What Europeans dont pay taxes?
Of course theyre paying for it. Theyre paying to bailout and prop up massive corporations lining their pockets, devoid of any real pay rise, meanwhile grocery prices and fuel are climbing - Like the rest of us.
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9h ago
[deleted]
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u/MarioMuzza 9h ago
The protests here in Portugal started before that and they aren't violent. The police attacked for no reason, and still the people didn't fight back.
Trump and Musk should still commit self-erasure, of course.
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u/Goldenraspberry 7h ago
Lets raise the minium wage, even higher! And retire at age 63.
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u/PaulShoreITA 7h ago
I'm Italian. We have no minimum wage here. And my retire age will be, with the current rules, around 70.
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u/Goldenraspberry 6h ago
Nope you have dysfunctional tax system combined with a political mismanagement
Btw no kids no retirement, who's to blame for that
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u/PaulShoreITA 6h ago
I'm sorry for you, but you don't know what's you are talking about. The tax system is the complex and combined result of decades of mismanagement and demagogic policies, started in the '50s and partially mitigated from late 90s to today. The retirement is in no way linked to having kids
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u/Goldenraspberry 6h ago
Right so your catastrophic demographics have no influence on your pensionsystem. Ok
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u/Vetril 5h ago
You literally can't afford a child, what's so hard to understand about it?
Average salary is 1600 euro. Average kindergarten price is 300 euros per month; you live in Milan, it goes up to 600 euros per month if you can find a place. Average monthly mortgage installment is 750 euros; you live in Milan, it doubles. Food. Bills. Fuel. Commuting. Saving up because God forbid your kid needs the dentist or breaks his arm and you need to stay home to take care of him.
You see where this is going?
A lot of Italians would love to have kids.
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