Incorrect:
When I say a statement like “life is shit” here’s what I mean (and no i didn't call Hungary a shithole):
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Poland, while based, will be eventually forced to cede to the EU’s demands to let migrants in. Yes they have a rightist government, but the economy is simply the biggest issue for the Poles. They’ll roll over to the EU that way the populist government has something to run on for the next elections. For all the guys gaming there, the situation is very temporary and soon you’ll see plenty of migrants there. Put simply, if the Poles don’t comply with EU’s demands they’ll get kicked out. That’s not a reality Poles want to live with. The country in many ways is surviving off of remittances being sent from the UK and other Western Countries. They can’t lose that lifeline for their citizens who face a somewhat undesirable domestic job situation.
That's the reality in most of eastern europe. Remittances and poor jobs, lack of jobs as well.
You fail to see the parallels between Poland and countries that have recently joined the expansion:
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Did Poland, a really positive case for globalism and the EU ever catch up? The answer is no. They are the de facto mexico of europe.
They won't catch up the game is rigged. They will never reach Western standards. There are way too many factors at play that prevent it.
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Ukraine continues to be a massive shithole much like Russia. Many Ukrainians go to Poland. There is no EU anytime soon, as corruption continues to paralyze the place not to mention the proxy war in the East that has caused living standards to noticeably decrease.
Note: I did call Ukraine a shithole, but I don’t think anyone is gonna disagree with me. Corruption there and in many other places does not make the place attractive long term. As well as ongoing geopolitics of the region. Situation is so bad they have to go to Poland, ironically the Poles leave Poland to go somewhere better.
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The Balkans, next frontier of European expansion are a mess: likely they will be the cross the EU dies on given the volatility of the region, if not Russia/ Ukraine. Massive amounts of corruption are being ignored to accelerate the expansion project which demands cheap, transient labor. If you think the economy is weak in a place like Poland, and others, boy is it bad in the Balkans. Autocratic tendencies of many Balkan leaders are being ignored, which really shows you how anti-democratic the EU is. It's a geopolitical game to expand european influence while neutering Russia.
Don't get overly triggered because much of the Balkans are a legitimate shithole much like Ukraine. Ask someone from the Balkans, or maybe run into some of them in Germany. Again, I give a clear reason for why. I feel empathy for people who have a bad situation to deal with.
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Russia, although only partly Europe is a key example of misplaced hopes among European natalists who somehow think Putin is reversing the decline. First of all, Russia is massively multi-ethnic, much like the US, so in any meaningful sense their fate is already sealed. Yes, more people are going to church but state religion is being used as a cultural zeitgeist to placate the population while their country suffers from massive graft, economic mismanagement and demographic decline. You could say in simplier terms the church is a low-risk outlet for civic oriented russian nationalism, which is exactly what putin wants. HIV/ AIDs huge problem there because of drug use. Alcoholism still a massive problem but only decreased because the living standards finally improved after the breakup of the Soviet Union, that was bound to happen period because communism is always more shitty than capitalism. Abortions have dropped, but holy shit do the Russians like to abort. The economy is shit and thus people will have very few kids. Another element of the dynamic ignored is that there is massive immigration from FSU states/ Russian states like Uzbekistan, Georgia, Caucuses, etc. No one knows how many but it’s a lot. Need you remember the places have much higher birthrates than the ethnic Russian-slavic population. The improvements have been marginal, but one thing for sure: Russia is a place in decline, and has been for quite some time now. Russia's wealth class makes every effort possible to get out of the country physically as well as getting their money out. The kids they have are raised in the West. Simply put, the population that has the most of a stake in Russia has already cashed their chips in and walked away. That tells you all you need to know about the place's future.
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And Hungary: yes Orban is nationalist. He expelled the Soros hydra. Good for him. But life there and in other Eastern European places is still shit. The might of Hungary is nothing compared to the France/ Germany dominated EU. They will meet the EU’s demands or be expelled like Poland. The fact that they have minimal migrants is just a temporary thing. How populist is your populism if the EU gets a veto on it? That’s my question.
It's very simple many of the EE countries are net drains on the EU and rely on their handouts to keep afloat. Thus they will follow EU dictates. Keeping in mind, EU is happy to exploit EE. That is "multi-speed europe" in a nutshell.
I do not just place the blame on these countries: I also put it on the EU, and to a lesser extent the US, because there really no was any post-wall Marshall Plan for EE:
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Fundamentally the EU has acted as a check on nationalism in the Western countries, keeping in mind that it was still somehow unable to prevent the genocides and ethnic cleansings of the Balkans in the 90s (despite already having plenty of regional power at that point), but in more recent times has been unable to prevent democratic backsliding in countries that are now members, both before and after their EU accessions.
This is a recurring problem and is now happening in potential Balkan candidates as well as arguably Poland and Hungary.
Easterners head West for the Same reason refugees head West:
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But, when you really understand these massive inflows of immigration you understand it's not about humanitarinism. It's about economics. That is why they choose not to stay in Greece or Italy and head either North (to Scandinavia) or West, to Germany, France or the UK.
Why do you find some many Poles in UK? Why do you find so many Balkans people in Austria, Germany or Switzerland?
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Notice that I didn’t call Hungary a shithole. Rather I said life there is shit. Why do you think people on the forum visit or live there? Is there a cost factor involved? The answer is yes.
No answer from you on this point.
One of my main points about Eastern Europe, it won’t catch up to the West:
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The end of communism was nearly 30 years ago. Yet somehow Eastern Europe hasn’t caught up yet. Some Eastern European countries have even joined the EU. What you can observe is “Multispeed Europe” in action. The east won’t catch up with the west, in fact, the normative premise of the EU is to take advantage of this fact, while selling to the Eastern Europeans that their development process is going well. That’s the truth. You don’t have to agree with it
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The problems of much of Eastern Europe are similar: poor employment, not enough children, bloated or corrupt civil sector, democratic backsliding (noticeable), and continued exploitation from EU—making them subservient to the rest of Europe. Sure, there aren’t many migrants, but you seem to forget places like Hungary are huge transit points right now. So the crisis does touch Hungary.
You didn’t address my point about the situation in much of EE outside of the capitols. You show a stunning lack of awareness of the situation on the ground for someone that professes to live there:
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The ironic thing of course is people think by visiting Budapest they’ve visited Hungary, but hey I actually don’t know where you’ve visited. When you get out of the large cities with big infrastructure in Eastern Europe, you start to say “shit, this place doesn’t seem as livable as a thought.” Of course you seldom hear about that because everyone is in the cities. In some of these cities the living standard is measurably 2 to 3 times greater.
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Places like Budapest and others can be quite nice, again I didn’t call it or shithole, but remember what the local population is dealing with.
Locals don't get to live like you.
If you want to objectively see how good of a place it is, look at incomes, crime, employment rate, corruption, ease of doing business, freedom of press, and adherence to democratic values. None of that is subjective by the way.
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Ironically I have a fondness for shitholes, and no I don’t live in a big city.
Where I live is not relevant, but I've seen plenty of the world. I know enough to know that people who don't see more than the surface level of things have perceptions of reality that are massively skewed.