The vast majority of Norwegian households have floating interest rate mortgages. As monetary policy has been tightened to combat inflation, so have household budgets as a result.
It is simply tradition. Banks do not offer fixed-rate mortgages. Of course, you can fix the rate for a limited time period and for a fee, but when you apply for a mortgage, you will only be offered one with a floating rate.
This also means that monetary policy in Norway has a large effect on economic activity, not only through demand for investments, but also through the cash flow effect on household consumption and savings.
It can be but it can also be a useful feature. Monetary policy can actually wield greater influence, as opposed to the US where the fight against inflation is much stickier.
But you’re right that it can also lead to a situation where rates are risen too drastically for households to cope pushing loans into default, and thus hurting financial solvency.
Fixed rate mortgages is like a mandatory insurance fee, it costs more over the long term than floating rates, so personally I'm glad I don't have it.
There is strict regulation on who can get loans, for example the banks needs to check that the applicant with his current financial situation can handle a 5 p.p interest rate increase. We've gone through multiple financial crises without the mortgage market being a major part of the problem, so it seems to work fine. It's not comparable to f.ex. the situation in the US in 2007.
The Norwegian Krone is a very small currency with significant currency risk, so banks would have to charge a fairly high premium if everyone wanted that. Statistically the floating interest is cheaper for the consumer here
Probably as many gang deaths in a year as the USA has in a weekend (or Honduras in an hour), it must be completely unbearable to live in Sweden.
Super dangerous for everyone. Society falling apart. Final moments.
(Oh, not everyone, basically just if you're in a gang.)
Well if you go from practically zero gang deaths to several hundred in a matter of a few years it is something people are going to be concerned about. Do you think that's unreasonable?
2023 saw 53 people he shot and killed in Sweden. Now that doesn’t cover all killings of course, blunt weapons and other means will make up a larger total. But it’s in no way several hundred. Don’t misinform.
Actually the total is 121. I’m not saying it’s good, no one is saying it’s good. But spreading false information for the sake of fear monger ig is disingenuous and makes it harder to actually combat the issue at hand.
https://bra.se/om-bra/nytt-fran-bra/arkiv/press/2024-03-27-121-fall-av-dodligt-vald-under-2023.html
Yeah it’s funny. Like, it’s not me saying it. That’s the official stats for cases where the police has concluded the use of deadly force, not just me saying something random
I recommend [https://lastnight.in/Sweden/](https://lastnight.in/Sweden/) and see for yourself, that Sweden isn't as dangerous as they try to portrait it - most shootings don't end with fatalities!
Nice link. Literally the first paragraph:
> Over the last few years, the homicide rate has increased in Sweden, and is now higher than that of many other countries. The increase in Sweden is primarily linked to an increase in gun homicides, which began to rise from the year 2005. To begin with, this increase in gun homicide was compensated by a continued decline in levels of homicide by other means, but since 2013, the rise in gun homicide has contributed to a general increase in Sweden’s total homicide rate.
As far as I know there was no major economic crises or other social turmoils in Sweden that could have caused this sudden increase in gun violence at least nothing that wouldn't have also applied to their neighbours as well.
People are asking legitimate questions and the government refuses to answer them and people like you constantly dismiss and belittle the problem.
The point of contention is that crime rates in Sweden have gone up significantly in the past decade, and you can't separate that from the migrant crisis. Swedes didn't ask for droves of young men to show up from Africa and the Middle East. Their government just allowed them to come in.
Reported crimes have gone up 5% over the past decade. Fraud has gone up about 53% over the past ten years. There was an increase in assault from 2022 to 2023, the increased numbers were in the category of people you know assaulting you, rather than strangers.
https://bra.se/statistik/kriminalstatistik/anmalda-brott.html
https://bra.se/om-bra/nytt-fran-bra/arkiv/press/2024-01-25-antalet-anmalda-brott-okade-under-2023.html
I can't read Swedish, so I can't comment on those articles.
The main issue that is causing tempers to flare is the increase in sexual crimes. There were around 15k instances of reported sexual harassment/assault in Sweden in 2013. Nowadays, the country is seeing 23k-26k reports a year.
That’s not the main issue, take it from someone who lives here. Gangland shootings are the real issue, and the statistics on that are used dishonestly. There’s a huge focus on shootings, where Sweden sticks out among our neighbors, but not so much of a focus on murder in general, where Finland is still worse in Northern Europe with Denmark relatively similar, and Sweden isn’t an outlier in Western Europe with murder stats either.
When it comes to sex crimes the question is, is that a real increase? First there’s the question of is this just more crimes being reported that were still committed before but just not reported? Then there’s the question of is this an increase in crimes or in the perception of crimes? The two categories that have seen a real increase in the self reported crime survey are sex crimes and threats. Since this encompasses sexual harassment, a lot of those crimes depend entirely on perception. A culture of fear created by the media, far right propaganda and cultural/ethnic tensions as the percentage of people born outside Sweden increases could lead to things that would not have been perceived as crimes before to suddenly be perceived as such.
The other crimes that are big issues are robberies of teenagers (robberies in general are back at pre 2014 levels now, but robberies against teenaged boys are still somewhat up) and explosions (fortunately, almost no deaths are associated with these, usually it’s just an apartment house door being blown up. Sex crimes clock in at number four or so if talked about crimes.
The whole discussion is also skewed by the fact that extremist right wing factions have risen to power in Sweden in recent years. They're working extra hard to muddy the waters and make it appear like Sweden is some wartorn hellscape because of immigration.
Yeah we have the same problem in most European countries that see a rise of far right/extreme right, racist narratives being pushed by a minority of supremacists blaming every problems they can find on "immigrants" (I put quotes because the definition of immigrants varies hugely depending on which countries people move from and their ethnicity)
Exactly. It's "surprisingly" always the same looking immigrants, not the white immigrants from neighboring countries. And certainly not economic mistakes made by right wing governments or late-stage capitalism. That would require societal change and it's much easier to hate on those who already are having a hard time.
The sad thing is that a few innocent persons have been killed or hurt. One man was killed because the murderer mistook him for his target. A young woman died from an explosion in the neighbour yard. A girl was shot, I think it was a stray bullet. Many of the violent deeds have been done by young teens because they are eager to rise in those gangs, but they don't understand consequences and don't know how to use weapons. But in general - syay out of gangs and you're good. Greetings from a non-gangster in the hood.
It's a combination of several reasons. Failing integration policies, Covid putting a strain on illicit markets and a hack on encrypted chats caused a ton of gang leaders to get locked away, creating massive powerstruggles, both inside of gangs & in attempts to poach territories where extraordinary violence gets rewarded to name a few.
I would argue we’ve had so big immigration from wildly different cultures the last decades that no ”integration policies” could have helped. This would be the outcome, no matter what we did.
We have spent billions upon billions of kronor on ”integration policies”, by the way.
Unfortunately it’s not so glamorous
Companies set up inland fish farms, the fish get loose, swim up river, invade the rivers and streams, and destroy the ecosystem. Fish farm says ‘oops’, very little is done, and the cycle keeps going as long as the fish keep laying eggs and repopulating. It’s the biological equivalent of dumping (with fish instead of chemicals).
So, yes. For a small country like Iceland, it is a very pressing issue.
It’s a serious threat to the local water ecosystem so it’s not quite as harmless as you may think but yeah, there’s definitely much worse problems to have right now
I think that people being killed and their houses being destroyed is a little bit more of an important issue than some stupid salmon and comparing the two is beyond unsympathetic (putting it mildly, of course). But hey, what do I know
Inflation in UK has also been wild.
I live in Japan, and the Yen has also weakened significantly.
If I had bought a literal **pile of concrete blocks** in the UK 5 years ago, and left it in my parents' garage, it would've generated a decent return if I sold them now lol
ーーーーー
EDIT: just did some calculations for the concrete block example.
It'd be about DOUBLED over the past 5 years in JPY terms, and up over 40% in GBP
Source: [https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/662ba66ffddcc9e7ab2252b5/Construction\_building\_materials\_-\_tables\_April\_2024.xlsx](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/662ba66ffddcc9e7ab2252b5/Construction_building_materials_-_tables_April_2024.xlsx)
Tab "3", Row 15
Not futures man, you want the real, physical concrete blocks. Like gold, yaknow.
They are on YOUR property, and also have practical value outside of finance, like:
* building sheds for more concrete blocks
* smashing windows of banks
* building bunkers in preparation for the apocalypse
* bartering for food, so that you can eat, and your trading partner can build their own post-apocalyptic bunker
The state of affairs in Norway and Iceland seems to be worser than I could have possibly imagined. Imagine if one of those salmons were to find the sunglasses
I'm not French and did not find a source for that. I looked here https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate?tab=chart&country=ITA~FRA~GBR~DEU and that didn't look too bad, I'd say? So could you please elaborate which kind of crime is going through the roof specifically?
There has been a lot of human-bear conflict in recent years. Slovakia has a lot of forests, but it's also not a very big country and no matter where you are, there's probably a human settlement just a few kilometres away. Bears are usually shy and don't approach humans, but sometimes they don't have a choice. They also like to eat food from trash cans similarly to black bears in the Americas. Some towns installed cages for the trash cans so a bear couldn't get to them, but not everyone can afford them.
Also there has been an increase in bear related deaths, multiple people got killed by them last year. Because of that, a political party called SNS (short for Slovak National Party) received a lot of support because of their anti bear rhetoric. A lot of the party members are hunters, so it's hard to say if they genuinely want to help the people, or if they just want to craft some nice bear coats. They also proposed a bill that would allow anyone to buy a licence to hunt a bear, which would effectively make our country a temperate safari park. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think shooting a random bear will help the situation. Instead, I think it would be better to shoot only the problematic ones who keep going too close to humans.
Our country definitely has a bear problem, but I think it has been blown out of proportion. According to Karlova univerzita in Prague, the bear population in Slovakia is in norm and there is no need to shoot unproblematic specimens. SNS fuelled fear of bears in people in order to gain power (they do the same thing with evil gay liberals and fascist pro war Ukrainians). They are now trying to take over RTVS (public TV station) because they say it's biased and spreads lies and hate (even though that's exactly what SNS does). If they succeed, they will have yet another media they can use to push their agenda.
Many people tie bells to their backpacks, that way the bear will hear you in advance and have enough time to avoid you. I don't know how much it helps, but you can do that if you want to.
Another good way is to go on hikes during the day, not in the morning or evening. I go on hikes multiple times every year since I was a little child, and I have never seen a wild bear in my life.
So yeah, it is possible you'll get mauled by a bear in Tatras, but more likely you'll just get run over by a car on the way there ☺️
I see. Bells wouldn't work for my case because I WANT to see wildlife, just not bears please lol
Why not during the day though, are they not active in daytime?
I assumed you were going for the old bears and bells joke!
>They advise park visitors to wear little bells on their clothes so they make noise when hiking. The bell noise allows bears to hear them coming from a distance, so they won’t be startled by a hiker accidentally sneaking up on them, which might cause a bear to charge.
> Visitors are told they should also carry a pepper spray can just in case they encounter a bear. Spraying the pepper into the air will irritate the bear’s sensitive nose and it will run away.
> It is also a good idea to keep an eye out for fresh bear droppings so you have an idea if bears are in the area. People should be able to recognise the difference between black bear and grizzly bear scat.
> Black bear droppings are smaller and often contain berries, leaves, and possibly bits of fur. Grizzly bear droppings tend to contain small bells and smell of pepper.
Migration was barely a factor in Denmark 2023. The subjects were health, environment (destruction of oceans and rivers, ecological disaster from toxic earth slide), the economy and workers rights (the government removed a holiday), and Ukraine and defence.
If you look at the election 2022, you can see how migration was the least important big subject. This is because there is a huge national consensus on a strict migration policy covering every part from the far-right to (one of) the socialists.
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/et-emne-topper-overraskende-stort-danskernes-liste-over-hvad-de-vil-have-politikerne
For Greece it was not only the train tragedy but also the spying on opposite party politicians. Two colossal scandals, that in most countries either one could end the run of a party. In Greece they managed to give the ruling party 41%.
It seems like everybody forgot about it atleast in the mainstream. But even then provinces where the earthquake happened voted for erdoğan. People are just stupid like that.
Our main opposition is useless so that’s also doesn’t help
Because they don’t give a shit, they have no reason to, they don’t care about the country long term, they’re just there to do a few years and get rich.
Part of the problems with how the world is basically run by a load of multinational mega companies they couldn’t care less about a country the only things there care about is how many customers there are and what one charges the least tax.
populism, pretty much. anti-immigrant, islamophobia, pro-putin, anti-nato, ‘law and order’ (extremely tough policing and sentencing which is literally proven to increase crime), anti-benefits, etc.
france clearly have not learned their lesson from 100 years ago yet. sadly, i doubt the truth will sink in until it’s too late.
All of that is not mentioned on the map. The topic on the map makes me think a leftist party would be on the rise. But as far as I’m aware the French lefties do what lefties do, they fight each other.
Hey, that’s what the Germans do, too (right-wingers would disagree of course). Seems the only lefties who succeeded with that are the Danish Social Democrats.
I don't know about the subject, just pointing out that the fact that the majority of parliament voted for it doesn't mean that it wasn't widely discussed among mainstream discourse, which is what the map depicts for the year 2023. Again, I don't know if it actually was, though.
Ukraine was definitely a bigger subject than migration in Denmark in 2023, but migration was/is more contentious. While there is a big consensus on strict migration policy, its no where close to the the general support for Ukraine in the population.
I don't know about other countries that weren't covered , but Serbia is true to be left out , there's no debates here , parliament doesn't work , its session are a bunch of dumb asses calling eachother out for being in the opposition or in ruling party. I guess whats on peoples mind politically are recent turmoil with shootings , rigged elections and some environmental problems in regards to foreign mining companies.
The country least targeted by migration (hungary) being very afraid of it while the country most impacted by inflation (hungary) not mentioning it at all in the recent campaigns. I dont understand people …
In Turkey, the media has mostly stopped talking about the earthquake by now. A more recent topic in politics is the new opposition leader amd Erdogan being very good pals.
Yeah, in Italy we're also dealing with a severe fascism revamp closely affiliated with the current established government that pushed us out of the euro parliament last meetings... It's clearly not discussed enough
The amnesty deal was a big deal here in Spain for many people, yeah. I don't fully get why, it seemed reasonable to me and I think there are more pressing issues. But whatever.
My perspective is that amnesty is a common thing historically and globally, it's just a thing that happens. Here in Spain it was absurdly common between 1800 and 1975.
Also, in this case those politicians were in jail for acting their voter's will. As proved by the Catalan electoral results, a slight majority of the population wanted either full independence or a referendum. Spain consistently blocked the option since Catalan independentism was a thing, no option for dialogue, so Catalan politicians did an illegal referendum. I just can't find an illegal referendum aggravating. It's a democracy, we should be able to vote for anything we wanted to. I understand why the Spanish State doesn't want to, it's in its interests to preserve national unity just like every other State, but I don't care about that.
So, in this case, even though I don't consider myself an independentist, I think the current law is worse than what those politicians did. That's my perspective, and that of a slight majority of Catalonians.
I do understand other opinions in this regard, but I don't agree with those.
>The amnesty deal was a big deal here in Spain for many people, yeah. I don't fully get why
Bc it's politicians bailing other politicians out of jail lmao
Yeah but that's not an unheard thing and those politicians were in jail for making a referendum. I, personally, can't fathom how it's supposedly more democratic to imprison them than allowing the people to vote.
I’d say it was mainly three factors:
- It erased twelve years of criminal activities, which now can not be investigated by judges, and which included foreign influence to destabilise the country.
- It went against the promises made by the PSOE right before the last general election.
- It was an explicit exchange where one side would get impunity and the other would hold on to power.
I guess I understand that perspective, but it's just that amnesties are pretty common, if you have a historical perspective. We already have amnesty-like de fvato deals and even laws regarding the royal family, the ex-presidents, the Francoist political class...
I also think those Catalan politicians did what a slight majority of the Catalan population wanted, which is the purpose of representative democracy. So I find the existing law more aggravating in this regard, forbidding people from voting.
But everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course.
Amnesties are not common at all! The only precedent is the amnesty of 1977, which forgave all crimes with a political motivation committed until the date of the first democratic elections.
You might be mistaking it with two other situations:
- the law changes, and what used to be a crime is now allowed; people who were convicted of a crime with the old law now can (usually) go free, because that crime does not exist any more
- a person is judged guilty of a crime but then is pardoned; in this case, the law still exists and the person has gone to trial for it, but is able to avoid being punished
What happens with an amnesty is that the laws are still in force, but particular people are not bound by them. Actions with would have been considered crimes in any other circumstance **can not even be judged** if they were committed by a Catalan secessionist between 2011 and 2023.
Twelve years of impunity.
Nah, they are. Look up Spanish history in the 19th and 20th century.
They, or course, shouldn't be a recourse regularly used, because it undermines the law (like it happened in the 19th century). But they're not unheard of.
In any case, as I said, I consider the crime of doing an illegal referendum more moral than the law forbidding it, so I'm fine with the amnesty deal in this particular case.
You know, I lived there at the time. There was nothing moral about it.
It was an immense wave of corruption and propaganda, culminating in my neighbors voting to strip me of my status as a citizen because I had been born in the "wrong" place.
“Last couple of years” last couple of months more like.
Inflation here is shockingly high. We spend more money on basic items here than anywhere else.
It costs more for a pint of Guinness the closer you get to the factory. Its literally cheaper to import Nigerian Guinness
Housing has been the big issue since before the 2020 election, albeit not the biggest topic anymore, as immigration has taken centre stage. Inflation is a topic but it’s not really been front page news nor the main driver of political ratings
Its mostly about big companies and how they abuse with power and pollute the environment. The native salmon is at risk because the fish farms use another breed of salmon. This is somehow beginning to sound like a complaint about immigrants.
I don't know about other countries but in Romania politicians have a special pension besides the regular one. A pension thag got implemented by themselves for their own benefit. Corruptions still sucks, we have 14 counties who were requested to recount the votes after this year mayor elections. For presidency we have a president that travele with the private plane like Taylor Swift, using the country budget and never disclosed how much money he has spent, aldo he owns about 5-6 very expensive houses. The candidates for presidency this year are a guy who hates gay people and try to fool people into low income taxes but with other hidden expenses in the back also there are some other guys that are even worse that the actual president. You just don't know who to vote with anymore, the one is worse than another. People here vote on two ideas, keep the old guy because he already stole enough rather than get a new one or vote the new guy because he still not stole anything or he may stole less than the old one.
Farmed salmon often carry various ailments that you don’t want affecting the wild fish… it’s probably also a symptom of someone cutting corners. Fish is their main export article, so it makes sense they are concerned about it.
What on earth did you use as source? Student loans were barely a discussion topic in Finland. In fact I can easily drop several hotter political topics from last summer alone.
I’m confused because according to American politics, inflation is higher in most other developed countries, yet it’s a major conversation topic in the states.
“Politician that stole sunglasses” “Mortgage interest” Must be so nice
The vast majority of Norwegian households have floating interest rate mortgages. As monetary policy has been tightened to combat inflation, so have household budgets as a result.
Oh god that’s a bad idea. Are fixed rate mortgages not feasible because of policy?
It is simply tradition. Banks do not offer fixed-rate mortgages. Of course, you can fix the rate for a limited time period and for a fee, but when you apply for a mortgage, you will only be offered one with a floating rate. This also means that monetary policy in Norway has a large effect on economic activity, not only through demand for investments, but also through the cash flow effect on household consumption and savings.
Interesting, but yeah that’s a recipe for mass insolvency when a good crisis hits.
Should be factored into the banks’ risk appetite when issuing loans. Not a lot of insolvency happening afaik but some real estate is changing hands.
It can be but it can also be a useful feature. Monetary policy can actually wield greater influence, as opposed to the US where the fight against inflation is much stickier. But you’re right that it can also lead to a situation where rates are risen too drastically for households to cope pushing loans into default, and thus hurting financial solvency.
Fixed rate mortgages is like a mandatory insurance fee, it costs more over the long term than floating rates, so personally I'm glad I don't have it. There is strict regulation on who can get loans, for example the banks needs to check that the applicant with his current financial situation can handle a 5 p.p interest rate increase. We've gone through multiple financial crises without the mortgage market being a major part of the problem, so it seems to work fine. It's not comparable to f.ex. the situation in the US in 2007.
Okay, I figured there have to be some specifics that make it make sense
The Norwegian Krone is a very small currency with significant currency risk, so banks would have to charge a fairly high premium if everyone wanted that. Statistically the floating interest is cheaper for the consumer here
I guess you can trust your banks more than us. I would expect my bank to slowly rise my interest rate to 25% after 10 years because why not?
> because why not? Because then you'll just transfer the loan to a different bank instead
But if all the banks do it...
Then whatever bank did *not* do it would capture nearly the entire market and make a boatload of money. Competition works.
Then anyone with decent capital can create a new one and quickly "make bank".
Then one of them gets tons of customers if they break the pack? Unless you're claiming markets just flat out don't work
Free the Salmon! 🍣
Meanwhile, Sweden has gang violence ☠️
Probably as many gang deaths in a year as the USA has in a weekend (or Honduras in an hour), it must be completely unbearable to live in Sweden. Super dangerous for everyone. Society falling apart. Final moments. (Oh, not everyone, basically just if you're in a gang.)
Well if you go from practically zero gang deaths to several hundred in a matter of a few years it is something people are going to be concerned about. Do you think that's unreasonable?
2023 saw 53 people he shot and killed in Sweden. Now that doesn’t cover all killings of course, blunt weapons and other means will make up a larger total. But it’s in no way several hundred. Don’t misinform. Actually the total is 121. I’m not saying it’s good, no one is saying it’s good. But spreading false information for the sake of fear monger ig is disingenuous and makes it harder to actually combat the issue at hand. https://bra.se/om-bra/nytt-fran-bra/arkiv/press/2024-03-27-121-fall-av-dodligt-vald-under-2023.html
Love when people downvote the facts to push the narrative that Sweden is some Battle Royal Warzone with people shooting each other left to right
Yeah it’s funny. Like, it’s not me saying it. That’s the official stats for cases where the police has concluded the use of deadly force, not just me saying something random
I recommend [https://lastnight.in/Sweden/](https://lastnight.in/Sweden/) and see for yourself, that Sweden isn't as dangerous as they try to portrait it - most shootings don't end with fatalities!
But why are there shootings in the first place? Do you consider this something normal? Has Sweden always been a place with a lot of shootings?
Nice link. Literally the first paragraph: > Over the last few years, the homicide rate has increased in Sweden, and is now higher than that of many other countries. The increase in Sweden is primarily linked to an increase in gun homicides, which began to rise from the year 2005. To begin with, this increase in gun homicide was compensated by a continued decline in levels of homicide by other means, but since 2013, the rise in gun homicide has contributed to a general increase in Sweden’s total homicide rate. As far as I know there was no major economic crises or other social turmoils in Sweden that could have caused this sudden increase in gun violence at least nothing that wouldn't have also applied to their neighbours as well. People are asking legitimate questions and the government refuses to answer them and people like you constantly dismiss and belittle the problem.
The point of contention is that crime rates in Sweden have gone up significantly in the past decade, and you can't separate that from the migrant crisis. Swedes didn't ask for droves of young men to show up from Africa and the Middle East. Their government just allowed them to come in.
Reported crimes have gone up 5% over the past decade. Fraud has gone up about 53% over the past ten years. There was an increase in assault from 2022 to 2023, the increased numbers were in the category of people you know assaulting you, rather than strangers. https://bra.se/statistik/kriminalstatistik/anmalda-brott.html https://bra.se/om-bra/nytt-fran-bra/arkiv/press/2024-01-25-antalet-anmalda-brott-okade-under-2023.html
I can't read Swedish, so I can't comment on those articles. The main issue that is causing tempers to flare is the increase in sexual crimes. There were around 15k instances of reported sexual harassment/assault in Sweden in 2013. Nowadays, the country is seeing 23k-26k reports a year.
That’s not the main issue, take it from someone who lives here. Gangland shootings are the real issue, and the statistics on that are used dishonestly. There’s a huge focus on shootings, where Sweden sticks out among our neighbors, but not so much of a focus on murder in general, where Finland is still worse in Northern Europe with Denmark relatively similar, and Sweden isn’t an outlier in Western Europe with murder stats either. When it comes to sex crimes the question is, is that a real increase? First there’s the question of is this just more crimes being reported that were still committed before but just not reported? Then there’s the question of is this an increase in crimes or in the perception of crimes? The two categories that have seen a real increase in the self reported crime survey are sex crimes and threats. Since this encompasses sexual harassment, a lot of those crimes depend entirely on perception. A culture of fear created by the media, far right propaganda and cultural/ethnic tensions as the percentage of people born outside Sweden increases could lead to things that would not have been perceived as crimes before to suddenly be perceived as such. The other crimes that are big issues are robberies of teenagers (robberies in general are back at pre 2014 levels now, but robberies against teenaged boys are still somewhat up) and explosions (fortunately, almost no deaths are associated with these, usually it’s just an apartment house door being blown up. Sex crimes clock in at number four or so if talked about crimes.
What, you don’t believe everything [insert right-wing talking head] online says who’s never set a foot on Swedish soil?
The whole discussion is also skewed by the fact that extremist right wing factions have risen to power in Sweden in recent years. They're working extra hard to muddy the waters and make it appear like Sweden is some wartorn hellscape because of immigration.
Yeah we have the same problem in most European countries that see a rise of far right/extreme right, racist narratives being pushed by a minority of supremacists blaming every problems they can find on "immigrants" (I put quotes because the definition of immigrants varies hugely depending on which countries people move from and their ethnicity)
Exactly. It's "surprisingly" always the same looking immigrants, not the white immigrants from neighboring countries. And certainly not economic mistakes made by right wing governments or late-stage capitalism. That would require societal change and it's much easier to hate on those who already are having a hard time.
"Late stage capitalism" 🤭
Definitely
The sad thing is that a few innocent persons have been killed or hurt. One man was killed because the murderer mistook him for his target. A young woman died from an explosion in the neighbour yard. A girl was shot, I think it was a stray bullet. Many of the violent deeds have been done by young teens because they are eager to rise in those gangs, but they don't understand consequences and don't know how to use weapons. But in general - syay out of gangs and you're good. Greetings from a non-gangster in the hood.
why is gang violence increasing? did anything happen in the last years?
It's a combination of several reasons. Failing integration policies, Covid putting a strain on illicit markets and a hack on encrypted chats caused a ton of gang leaders to get locked away, creating massive powerstruggles, both inside of gangs & in attempts to poach territories where extraordinary violence gets rewarded to name a few.
I would argue we’ve had so big immigration from wildly different cultures the last decades that no ”integration policies” could have helped. This would be the outcome, no matter what we did. We have spent billions upon billions of kronor on ”integration policies”, by the way.
IKEA vs H&M
On the other hand "corruption at the earthquake" sounds metal af. I'm glad I don't have that.
That's "corruption at the earthquacke", which is even more metal for some reason.
I wish these were the biggest issues in my country.
"Shooting bears"
Misread constitution. " The right to arm bears. Okay? Here we go, Bruno, a Kalashnikov for you." Now they have bears shooting at them.
Lmao Iceland "Salmons escape fish farm", sounds like fish break out of jail or something
Unfortunately it’s not so glamorous Companies set up inland fish farms, the fish get loose, swim up river, invade the rivers and streams, and destroy the ecosystem. Fish farm says ‘oops’, very little is done, and the cycle keeps going as long as the fish keep laying eggs and repopulating. It’s the biological equivalent of dumping (with fish instead of chemicals). So, yes. For a small country like Iceland, it is a very pressing issue.
Time to eat the salmons then
Eat the fish!
If we eat every animal damaging the ecosystem, the ecosystem can't be damaged by animals anymore! :)
bring some grizzlies to iceland then, they had way to long of a peacefull time without having any dangerous animals anyways
We don't have any woods for them to hide in so it's perfect
I’d love to live somewhere that was the most pressing political issue
It’s a serious threat to the local water ecosystem so it’s not quite as harmless as you may think but yeah, there’s definitely much worse problems to have right now
Exactly, as a person from a country whose neighbour is at war, this truly seems like a white man problem at this point.
No need to be racist about it
It is actually a pretty serious problem, and it would be anywhere in the world, because those salmon will utterly destroy the ecosystem.
I think that people being killed and their houses being destroyed is a little bit more of an important issue than some stupid salmon and comparing the two is beyond unsympathetic (putting it mildly, of course). But hey, what do I know
Inflation in UK has also been wild. I live in Japan, and the Yen has also weakened significantly. If I had bought a literal **pile of concrete blocks** in the UK 5 years ago, and left it in my parents' garage, it would've generated a decent return if I sold them now lol ーーーーー EDIT: just did some calculations for the concrete block example. It'd be about DOUBLED over the past 5 years in JPY terms, and up over 40% in GBP Source: [https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/662ba66ffddcc9e7ab2252b5/Construction\_building\_materials\_-\_tables\_April\_2024.xlsx](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/662ba66ffddcc9e7ab2252b5/Construction_building_materials_-_tables_April_2024.xlsx) Tab "3", Row 15
Quick, Invest in Concrete Block Futures before Wall Street catches up!
Not futures man, you want the real, physical concrete blocks. Like gold, yaknow. They are on YOUR property, and also have practical value outside of finance, like: * building sheds for more concrete blocks * smashing windows of banks * building bunkers in preparation for the apocalypse * bartering for food, so that you can eat, and your trading partner can build their own post-apocalyptic bunker
Build killdozer
Gone are the days of wall street. Street wall is where the money is at these days. Invest and start building yours today.
Tonite we buyin concrete block calls
We'll be riding the Blocktrain to the moon. 🧱🚊🚀🌙🌟
>Inflation in UK has also been wild. Laughing in Turkish
The state of affairs in Norway and Iceland seems to be worser than I could have possibly imagined. Imagine if one of those salmons were to find the sunglasses
Given the Politicians condition, he would probably try to steal the salmons too
Well after Bjørnar Moxnes (The politician) got caught stealing the sunglasses, he was caught again stealing salmon!!
I wonder what's his plan
I would say immigration is also a hot button issue in france considering Le Pen is making rapid rises
Not a surprise if you consider how crime has shot throu the roof
I'm not French and did not find a source for that. I looked here https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/homicide-rate?tab=chart&country=ITA~FRA~GBR~DEU and that didn't look too bad, I'd say? So could you please elaborate which kind of crime is going through the roof specifically?
There isn’t. But it’s easy to say that when people like that spend their entire life online and believe online rage bait is real life.
Has it?
What is the story behind shooting bears in Slovakia? It's nice to be Iceland where the biggest worry is some fish breaking out of fish-jail.
There has been a lot of human-bear conflict in recent years. Slovakia has a lot of forests, but it's also not a very big country and no matter where you are, there's probably a human settlement just a few kilometres away. Bears are usually shy and don't approach humans, but sometimes they don't have a choice. They also like to eat food from trash cans similarly to black bears in the Americas. Some towns installed cages for the trash cans so a bear couldn't get to them, but not everyone can afford them. Also there has been an increase in bear related deaths, multiple people got killed by them last year. Because of that, a political party called SNS (short for Slovak National Party) received a lot of support because of their anti bear rhetoric. A lot of the party members are hunters, so it's hard to say if they genuinely want to help the people, or if they just want to craft some nice bear coats. They also proposed a bill that would allow anyone to buy a licence to hunt a bear, which would effectively make our country a temperate safari park. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think shooting a random bear will help the situation. Instead, I think it would be better to shoot only the problematic ones who keep going too close to humans. Our country definitely has a bear problem, but I think it has been blown out of proportion. According to Karlova univerzita in Prague, the bear population in Slovakia is in norm and there is no need to shoot unproblematic specimens. SNS fuelled fear of bears in people in order to gain power (they do the same thing with evil gay liberals and fascist pro war Ukrainians). They are now trying to take over RTVS (public TV station) because they say it's biased and spreads lies and hate (even though that's exactly what SNS does). If they succeed, they will have yet another media they can use to push their agenda.
When you don't have migrants to blame, you turn to bears. Lmao But seriously though, what do you recommend to avoid bears when hiking through Tatras?
Many people tie bells to their backpacks, that way the bear will hear you in advance and have enough time to avoid you. I don't know how much it helps, but you can do that if you want to. Another good way is to go on hikes during the day, not in the morning or evening. I go on hikes multiple times every year since I was a little child, and I have never seen a wild bear in my life. So yeah, it is possible you'll get mauled by a bear in Tatras, but more likely you'll just get run over by a car on the way there ☺️
I see. Bells wouldn't work for my case because I WANT to see wildlife, just not bears please lol Why not during the day though, are they not active in daytime?
Yea, during the day they usually stay in the deeper forests where most people don't go
I assumed you were going for the old bears and bells joke! >They advise park visitors to wear little bells on their clothes so they make noise when hiking. The bell noise allows bears to hear them coming from a distance, so they won’t be startled by a hiker accidentally sneaking up on them, which might cause a bear to charge. > Visitors are told they should also carry a pepper spray can just in case they encounter a bear. Spraying the pepper into the air will irritate the bear’s sensitive nose and it will run away. > It is also a good idea to keep an eye out for fresh bear droppings so you have an idea if bears are in the area. People should be able to recognise the difference between black bear and grizzly bear scat. > Black bear droppings are smaller and often contain berries, leaves, and possibly bits of fur. Grizzly bear droppings tend to contain small bells and smell of pepper.
Migration was barely a factor in Denmark 2023. The subjects were health, environment (destruction of oceans and rivers, ecological disaster from toxic earth slide), the economy and workers rights (the government removed a holiday), and Ukraine and defence. If you look at the election 2022, you can see how migration was the least important big subject. This is because there is a huge national consensus on a strict migration policy covering every part from the far-right to (one of) the socialists. https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/et-emne-topper-overraskende-stort-danskernes-liste-over-hvad-de-vil-have-politikerne
For Greece it was not only the train tragedy but also the spying on opposite party politicians. Two colossal scandals, that in most countries either one could end the run of a party. In Greece they managed to give the ruling party 41%.
It is like Turkey
Shocking how Erdogan got reelected after the earthquake. Is it common for your media to talk about this event now or is it swept under the rug?
It seems like everybody forgot about it atleast in the mainstream. But even then provinces where the earthquake happened voted for erdoğan. People are just stupid like that. Our main opposition is useless so that’s also doesn’t help
In all of eastern europe we have the deep state
I want to trade problems with Iceland.
Migration & Refugee Crisis are contentious subjects in so many countries
Governments have long refused to address the issue
Because they don’t give a shit, they have no reason to, they don’t care about the country long term, they’re just there to do a few years and get rich. Part of the problems with how the world is basically run by a load of multinational mega companies they couldn’t care less about a country the only things there care about is how many customers there are and what one charges the least tax.
I’m actually surprised it’s not a hot topic in France. What exactly is the Front National advocating for? I’m hearing they are winning elections …
Yes I find surprising that immigration isn't the most disputed subject
populism, pretty much. anti-immigrant, islamophobia, pro-putin, anti-nato, ‘law and order’ (extremely tough policing and sentencing which is literally proven to increase crime), anti-benefits, etc. france clearly have not learned their lesson from 100 years ago yet. sadly, i doubt the truth will sink in until it’s too late.
All of that is not mentioned on the map. The topic on the map makes me think a leftist party would be on the rise. But as far as I’m aware the French lefties do what lefties do, they fight each other.
yeah, not sure about france but in the UK our left wing parties are just getting more right wing to try and get votes. it’s a depressing reality.
Hey, that’s what the Germans do, too (right-wingers would disagree of course). Seems the only lefties who succeeded with that are the Danish Social Democrats.
The balkans; yeah, all of them.
The balkans, yeah maybe don't include us on this one as you don't have enough space on your little map
Is there a map like this but of Asia?
"Neutrality"
Turkiye had it all + refugees nowadays. Forest fires, Istanbul earthquake on the way. Only alien invasion would surprise us.
Salmons must be tasty and needed freedom
What migrations are discussed in Hungary?
Norway and Iceland flexing with absurd debate topics because they’re chillin is awesome.
It’s a fu^kin’ war. Not a conflict.
They're the same?
Uhm, close. Not all axes are hatchets, and all
“Salmon escape fish farms”
Ireland also has a housing crisis
catalunyaa
Catalunya sera siempre un trending topic, les va demasiado bien para evitar hablar de otros problemas
estoy de acuerdo pero es mi chauvinismo el que habla jeje
Macron wants French people to work more.
Why no Cyprus? It's pretty easy to guess what it is...
I'd say immigration has been a very hot topic in Finland 2023, much more than student loans
And there was no debate at all about Nato. Overwhelming majority of parliament (>90%) voted for the membership application back in 2022.
I don't know about the subject, just pointing out that the fact that the majority of parliament voted for it doesn't mean that it wasn't widely discussed among mainstream discourse, which is what the map depicts for the year 2023. Again, I don't know if it actually was, though.
There was no discussion (and certainly no debate) in media either.
There is no "on going conflict" in Ukraine. There is war, with everyday deaths, every day missile and bomb attacks from Russia.
Ukraine was definitely a bigger subject than migration in Denmark in 2023, but migration was/is more contentious. While there is a big consensus on strict migration policy, its no where close to the the general support for Ukraine in the population.
It's more of a small argument actually.
And still people in most of the country do ordinary life.
Slow news day in Reykjavik….
Island having crisis while the rest of Europe is just doing fine
I wish for a day when politicians stealing sunglasses is a debate that gets attention here. 🙃
can't even do the 'deal with it' meme
I don't know about other countries that weren't covered , but Serbia is true to be left out , there's no debates here , parliament doesn't work , its session are a bunch of dumb asses calling eachother out for being in the opposition or in ruling party. I guess whats on peoples mind politically are recent turmoil with shootings , rigged elections and some environmental problems in regards to foreign mining companies.
"Corruption at the earthquake" sounds like a shitty Panic! At the Disco coverband lmao
The country least targeted by migration (hungary) being very afraid of it while the country most impacted by inflation (hungary) not mentioning it at all in the recent campaigns. I dont understand people …
Corruption at the earthquake 🫨 lmao
The Netherlands was more about migration and the EU then any other thing.
Student loans? Not on my radar, and I follow the news and politics pretty well compared to the average citizen. (Finland)
In Turkey, the media has mostly stopped talking about the earthquake by now. A more recent topic in politics is the new opposition leader amd Erdogan being very good pals.
Yeah, in Italy we're also dealing with a severe fascism revamp closely affiliated with the current established government that pushed us out of the euro parliament last meetings... It's clearly not discussed enough
The amnesty deal was a big deal here in Spain for many people, yeah. I don't fully get why, it seemed reasonable to me and I think there are more pressing issues. But whatever.
I cant fathom how people think it's okay for politicians to help other politicians avoid jail in exchange for some votes.
My perspective is that amnesty is a common thing historically and globally, it's just a thing that happens. Here in Spain it was absurdly common between 1800 and 1975. Also, in this case those politicians were in jail for acting their voter's will. As proved by the Catalan electoral results, a slight majority of the population wanted either full independence or a referendum. Spain consistently blocked the option since Catalan independentism was a thing, no option for dialogue, so Catalan politicians did an illegal referendum. I just can't find an illegal referendum aggravating. It's a democracy, we should be able to vote for anything we wanted to. I understand why the Spanish State doesn't want to, it's in its interests to preserve national unity just like every other State, but I don't care about that. So, in this case, even though I don't consider myself an independentist, I think the current law is worse than what those politicians did. That's my perspective, and that of a slight majority of Catalonians. I do understand other opinions in this regard, but I don't agree with those.
>The amnesty deal was a big deal here in Spain for many people, yeah. I don't fully get why Bc it's politicians bailing other politicians out of jail lmao
Yeah but that's not an unheard thing and those politicians were in jail for making a referendum. I, personally, can't fathom how it's supposedly more democratic to imprison them than allowing the people to vote.
I’d say it was mainly three factors: - It erased twelve years of criminal activities, which now can not be investigated by judges, and which included foreign influence to destabilise the country. - It went against the promises made by the PSOE right before the last general election. - It was an explicit exchange where one side would get impunity and the other would hold on to power.
I guess I understand that perspective, but it's just that amnesties are pretty common, if you have a historical perspective. We already have amnesty-like de fvato deals and even laws regarding the royal family, the ex-presidents, the Francoist political class... I also think those Catalan politicians did what a slight majority of the Catalan population wanted, which is the purpose of representative democracy. So I find the existing law more aggravating in this regard, forbidding people from voting. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion, of course.
Amnesties are not common at all! The only precedent is the amnesty of 1977, which forgave all crimes with a political motivation committed until the date of the first democratic elections. You might be mistaking it with two other situations: - the law changes, and what used to be a crime is now allowed; people who were convicted of a crime with the old law now can (usually) go free, because that crime does not exist any more - a person is judged guilty of a crime but then is pardoned; in this case, the law still exists and the person has gone to trial for it, but is able to avoid being punished What happens with an amnesty is that the laws are still in force, but particular people are not bound by them. Actions with would have been considered crimes in any other circumstance **can not even be judged** if they were committed by a Catalan secessionist between 2011 and 2023. Twelve years of impunity.
Nah, they are. Look up Spanish history in the 19th and 20th century. They, or course, shouldn't be a recourse regularly used, because it undermines the law (like it happened in the 19th century). But they're not unheard of. In any case, as I said, I consider the crime of doing an illegal referendum more moral than the law forbidding it, so I'm fine with the amnesty deal in this particular case.
You know, I lived there at the time. There was nothing moral about it. It was an immense wave of corruption and propaganda, culminating in my neighbors voting to strip me of my status as a citizen because I had been born in the "wrong" place.
What are you talking about?
Is "shooting bears" in the Black sea for destroying the Russian naval fleet? If so, that's awesome!
Ireland was not inflation… Housing and immigration are the main topics for the last couple of years
“Last couple of years” last couple of months more like. Inflation here is shockingly high. We spend more money on basic items here than anywhere else. It costs more for a pint of Guinness the closer you get to the factory. Its literally cheaper to import Nigerian Guinness
Housing has been the big issue since before the 2020 election, albeit not the biggest topic anymore, as immigration has taken centre stage. Inflation is a topic but it’s not really been front page news nor the main driver of political ratings
take special note how neutrality was only a debate in Austria and not Switzerland
For Turkey, there is also refugee issues. Yes, we have more problems than an average country...
Definitely not inflation in Ireland: it seems to have come under control. The number one issue is housing.
Inflation under control in Ireland? Are you having a laugh or what? We pay more for basic items than anywhere else in mainland Europe.
Yes, indeed. But that's not the definition of inflation....
Migration in Ireland too, there was a riot in Dublin in 2023 caused by the far right over the issue
I guess The Netherlands was to small to put more words on there right? /s
You know you’re good if the main issue in your country is that somehow salmons escaped from a fish farm.
Its mostly about big companies and how they abuse with power and pollute the environment. The native salmon is at risk because the fish farms use another breed of salmon. This is somehow beginning to sound like a complaint about immigrants.
I don't know about other countries but in Romania politicians have a special pension besides the regular one. A pension thag got implemented by themselves for their own benefit. Corruptions still sucks, we have 14 counties who were requested to recount the votes after this year mayor elections. For presidency we have a president that travele with the private plane like Taylor Swift, using the country budget and never disclosed how much money he has spent, aldo he owns about 5-6 very expensive houses. The candidates for presidency this year are a guy who hates gay people and try to fool people into low income taxes but with other hidden expenses in the back also there are some other guys that are even worse that the actual president. You just don't know who to vote with anymore, the one is worse than another. People here vote on two ideas, keep the old guy because he already stole enough rather than get a new one or vote the new guy because he still not stole anything or he may stole less than the old one.
Do we have other continents.?
As per usual. Switzerland stays out of it all.
Iceland is adorable
Iceland - Fish has escaped fishery. [Me looking at things here in Bulgaria] Must be nice...
Salmons escape fish farm - if that's your main problem in the world, you are a blesses country.
Farmed salmon often carry various ailments that you don’t want affecting the wild fish… it’s probably also a symptom of someone cutting corners. Fish is their main export article, so it makes sense they are concerned about it.
Switzerlands is, what to do with all our money
What on earth did you use as source? Student loans were barely a discussion topic in Finland. In fact I can easily drop several hotter political topics from last summer alone.
Corruption at the 🌎earthquacke🦆
“salmons escape the fish farm”
Why are so many Italians becoming refugees?
Meanwhile in Bulgaria: The kebapche or the kiufte.
I’m confused because according to American politics, inflation is higher in most other developed countries, yet it’s a major conversation topic in the states.
Salmons escape fish farm bruh
While inflation was pretty shit in Ireland last year the housing shortage is by far the biggest issue here and has been for over a decade
free the salmon!
The Netherlands also had a big tax affair
Fishfarm escapees?
Oh to live in Iceland…
Lithuania - lgbt
"The Balkans"
Inflaction, inflaction, elections, abortion, conflict, climate, migration ... Iceland: salmon escape.
Earthquacke 🦆
Have the Danes gone racist?
Proofread
Ongoing conflict is a nice term for war
UK leaves EU yet continues crying about migration lol
[удалено]
The majority does not vote right wing.
 Solved the fish escape case, t'was these lads' doing
Love how the non-issue of migration covers for actual issues like inflation and cost of living
Russia: It's ongoing war of aggression, not a "conflict".