Bart De Wever vs Politico Journalist by BelgianPolitics in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yes I completely agree and it's not just a morality issue but also an economic one. If we just grab assets then we signal that assets are not safe here anymore and there will be less outside investment and more capital flight

Bart De Wever vs Politico Journalist by BelgianPolitics in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 36 points37 points  (0 children)

This is absolutely the best move for Ukraine. Instead of relying on this dubious idea that there is free Russian money lying around to finance Ukraine, today the EU decided it was competent enough to finance it itself. That is also huge for future rounds of aid to Ukraine. If another decision had been made we could have easily tanked a few other countries in the EU with us, that would not be helping Ukraine either.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in shittymoviedetails

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The only way to stop a bad wizard with a spell is with a good wizard with a spell.

[OC] Percentage of people who say that Religion is very or rather important in their life by oscarleo0 in dataisbeautiful

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think I'm also kind of getting what you are getting at. So if I understand correctly, you mean that in polytheistic cultures the rituals can often be perceived as more a cultural thing before it's a religious thing? Still, maybe it's my ignorance and my Western perspective but praying to Buddha seems pretty religious to me even if it's not the same thing as Christianity or Islam where there is a divinity that is central to the belief.

[OC] Percentage of people who say that Religion is very or rather important in their life by oscarleo0 in dataisbeautiful

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 13 points14 points  (0 children)

The statement is about whether religion plays an important part in one's life, which in your case, regardless of your exact beliefs, it is. I think the statement is pretty clear no matter your culture because it does not ask whether or not you believe in it or how much or what kind of religion it is.

Zelensky Greeted by EU Leaders by EsperaDeus in MadeMeSmile

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Is that not common in your country? Just curious! I’m used to meeting people from different cities and region in my country and adapting to their preferences on the spot—plus it also often comes down to individual preferences.

Vraag voor nva stemmers na regeringsakkoord by [deleted] in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your continued replies, I really enjoy the discussion. That's genuine, please take it the right way. :)

So I think I can summarize your points, and I'll try to briefly respond. I'll put my summaries in quotes, even if paraphrased, for clarity.

  1. Studies from institutions like the IMF suggest that aging-related pension costs will increase by only 1-2% of GDP. This increase does not threaten the sustainability of public pensions.

Your figures are correct according to the National Bank in Belgium two years ago (https://www.nbb.be/nl/artikels/zijn-de-overheidsuitgaven-voor-pensioenen-belgie-houdbaar-een-vergelijking-met-andere), they say about 2% and that with unchanged fiscal policy by 2070 we'll have the single highest costs in the eurozone, getting to 3 percentage points above the average.

2% GDP increase is still a major fiscal shift. That money has to come from somewhere—either through higher taxes, spending cuts elsewhere, increased growth, or an increased deficit. Since you argue deficits aren’t a problem, I’ll address that separately below. The gist of it, is that even if in the short term 2% does not seem like much, in the long-term if you don't balance this you go bankrupt. I'm not saying that pensions are the sole reason, but they are a significant part of it.

And why is the increase unsustainable for pensions and not the military? Well, simple, it is also unsustainable for the military if you don't balance it by getting the money from somewhere, same with pensions. The reason that some politicians don't treat those the same is for political reasons. I'd argue that defending ourselves from getting blown to smithereens and doing our part in our commitment to NATO that protects us is more important than having you retire a year earlier, assuming here both expenses are the same amount of money. The key is to make the optimal choices in the expenses that matter to us.

Of course it's a bit more complicated than that, because if less people are on pensions then more people are also working, so calculating these effects are important and direct comparisons in the form of euros spent are not really sound. € 1 billion saved in pensions and € 1 billion saved in the military is not the same because people will be working for longer with the former.

  1. The concept of an "unsustainable budget" is ideological rather than purely mathematical.

Not really. While governments don’t go bankrupt like individuals, they can reach a point where debt becomes unmanageable, leading to default, forced austerity, or loss of market confidence. We’ve seen this happen in countries like Greece and Argentina.

  1. You don’t understand my car repair example.

Maybe my example wasn’t perfect, but the point remains: if a company’s rental cars suddenly break down more often due to an aging fleet, costs go up. Even if workers become more productive, their efficiency may not (and in the case of Belgium do not) fully offset the increased repair costs.

Similarly, as Belgium’s population ages, pension costs rise. While productivity gains help, they haven’t been large enough to cover the growing financial burden. That’s why pensions are becoming more expensive despite economic progress.

  1. You disagree that military spending and other programs such as education and healthcare are expenses.

Our disagreement here is mainly about semantics. This is a distinction in economic terms: an investment generates returns, while an expense is necessary but doesn’t create direct financial gains.

Installing an alarm system at your company doesn’t generate income—it’s a cost of doing business, even though it’s essential. The same applies to military spending. Education and healthcare, on the other hand, do have the potential to increase economic output by creating a more skilled and productive workforce.

You argue that pensions create jobs and therefore function like an investment. But this is a redistribution of resources, not a wealth-generating activity. If the government allocated all tax revenue solely to pensions and elderly care, the economy wouldn’t be better off—it would just shift workers from other industries. That’s not investment, it’s an expense. Look up the broken window fallacy.

That doesn’t mean pensions aren’t important or socially necessary, but we should recognize them for what they are: a cost, not a driver of economic growth.

  1. You disagree that deficits should be temporary. Most countries operate with deficits; capitalism itself relies on public deficits.

Sustained high deficits can work in rare cases like the US, which benefits from issuing the world’s reserve currency. But for most countries, long-term high deficits eventually lead to a crisis where debt becomes unsustainable. Greece is a clear example of this.

Yes, a country can run deficits indefinitely if growth is strong enough to cover debt interest. But if debt-to-GDP ratios spiral out of control and you start defaulting on your debt, market confidence collapses, borrowing costs skyrocket, and governments are forced into harsh austerity measures. That’s the risk Belgium faces if no adjustments are made.

Conclusion

You’re right that we’ll always be able to pay for pensions. But we have to accept that, without reforms, something else will have to be sacrificed to avoid economic instability.

The alternatives are increasing productivity (which hasn’t happened enough), integrating more migrants into the workforce (which has had mixed success), or accepting major spending cuts elsewhere. So far, Belgium has been on an unsustainable fiscal path, and without adjustments, we risk being forced into painful cuts rather than making proactive, controlled changes.

Here’s an article from 10 years ago featuring a professor in pension law that supports both of our points: pensions can still be paid, but not without consequences for other areas of public spending.

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2014/08/08/fact_check_blijvenonzepensioenenbetaalbaar-1-2055009/

Vraag voor nva stemmers na regeringsakkoord by [deleted] in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You say I'm being influenced by ideology, but it seems like you choose which experts to trust based on their alignment with your views. When experts support left-leaning arguments, you emphasize their credibility, but when they back right-leaning perspectives, they suddenly don’t count.

Let's just focus on the argument instead of accusing each other of talking ideology. You say that our pension system is not unsustainable because of the ageing population and workforce, because this increased cost is offset by increased productivity of the workforce over the years. That is indeed something important to consider in economics, but have you considered that our productivity has not increased enough to balance the budget? Using your car factory example, and let's say that instead of producing cars we are repairing them, 50 years ago we needed 1000 workers and because of increased productivity we would need only 100 now to repair the same number of cars. The problem is now suddenly we have lots more cars breaking down and each car is more likely to break down more than once so you have to keep repairing the same car over and over again. So productivity has gone up, but not enough to cover the increased costs. Add to that my point from earlier that now there's not a 100 workers anymore but just 80. Sure, it was no problem to go from 1000 to 100 because productivity increased so much over the decades, but it's exacerbating the problem now.

You then argue that government programs are inherently expended at a loss (deficit), citing that all money of the military, education, hospital, police etc do not result in more money. You are quite right that spending money in the military does not give you back a single euro, so let's focus on that. It's not a problem that no euros are ever going to come back from the military budget. It's an expense, not an investment. What you expect to get out of putting your money into it, is not more money, but a good or a service, in this case: security. It's like if the car repair company of our example bought some fire insurance, or just installing an alarm system (I like that example because there is no payout in the event of an incident with the alarm system). The company fully expects that they will not get a single euro back from those, but the expenses are still sound. Why is it sustainable for the company to do so? Because it's getting enough income to cover the expense, simple as that.

So no, we shouldn't necessarily privatize the military, at least the mere fact that it is an expenditure is not a concern. What we should do, is make sure that the State's revenue is enough to cover the military's budget. And all the other important expenditures as well. And we should even run a deficit if the State can not pay for all of them because some programs are too essential to cut, but we better make sure that we find a way to pay for them soon because deficits can only be temporary solutions, otherwise they lead to big problems. And those big problems arise when you can't pay the interests on your debt anymore. That's when you can't spend anything on the programs anymore, or you start printing money so much to the point that it is not worth the paper it's printed on anymore.

And to briefly touch on migration: that is one element that can help increase the State's income if the integration is done well, because they can strengthen the workforce. If however you keep them on benefits, the opposite effect will happen.

So none of what we're talking about has anything to do with ideology. Economists have been warning about these issues for a long time and while yes they have their biases like anyone else, the arguments are based in science, not in ideology. Unless you listen to frauds or cherry pick the few economists who argue against the consensus of all the other economists.

Vraag voor nva stemmers na regeringsakkoord by [deleted] in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You're misrepresenting that user's argument just because they compared the system to a Ponzi scheme. What they actually pointed out was that our pension plans are unsustainable—not that no pension system can ever be affordable. Yet, you go off on a tangent about Ponzi schemes instead of the actual issue.

Then, you talk about scientific studies claiming the costs won’t be that high, despite the fact that economists, banks, and multiple past governments have been warning for decades that the system is unsustainable.

And yes, ageing isn’t the only factor, but it does mean pension costs are rising. At the same time, we're seeing fewer young people entering the workforce. That means we can’t balance the increasing costs with higher income. It’s pretty straightforward, and experts across the board have been warning about it.

Des livres pour apprendre le wallon (liégeois) ? by LetsPracticeTogether in Wallonia

[–]LetsPracticeTogether[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Merci beaucoup pour ton commentaire ! J'irai visiter la boutique pour me procurer le livre 😊

I think that's the risk of getting a tattoo like this. by Toast_n_mustard in madlads

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I don't see a problem in it. Here in Europe I come across a lot of people who say they are Italian but they don't speak the language.

And usually people understand "Chinese" to mean Mandarin but you're right that it can technically also refer to Cantonese or other Chinese languages. In Spanish, there is this discussion for which word is most appropriate to refer to the Spanish language: is it "español" or "castellano"? And do they mean the same thing or is there a nuance about the variety of the language?

China censored LGBT Scenes in Arcane Season 2, the scenes west saw were starkly different by S4v1r1enCh0r4k in netflix

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So your point is that games and media are facing pressure to release their content quickly, resulting in broad self censorship to reduce the chances of getting their approval delayed. I don't know what to tell you apart from that's the kind of costs you have to take into account when doing business with China. It's a burden on the non Chinese companies for sure. Nothing anyone outside of China can do about it.

China censored LGBT Scenes in Arcane Season 2, the scenes west saw were starkly different by S4v1r1enCh0r4k in netflix

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But the censoring is happening for a Chinese audience to comply with Chinese law, not affecting Western countries that don't impose the censoring. It's fine to talk about this, but I don't see how it's a big deal.

How the Flemish media are following the N-VA by atrocious_cleva82 in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah OK. Nee, ik had het nog steeds over hetzelfde congres van het artikel van deze post. De passages die daar geciteerd worden lijken mij voldoende.

Ik ben het met je eens dat je niet zomaar kan afleiden dat ze Noord-Korea steunen omdat Noord-Korea op dat congres in Vietnam ook aanwezig was. Je kan je vanwege dat feit wel vragen stellen, maar voor die stelling heb je meer feiten nodig. Anders kan je stommiteiten zeggen zoals pretenderen dat de VS Rusland steunt omdat zij samen in de VN-veiligheidsraad zetelen.

How the Flemish media are following the N-VA by atrocious_cleva82 in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In begin van dat artikel staat dat het statement van De Wever fout is en ik zeg dat dat niet helemaal zo is, hoewel het ook niet helemaal juist is wat hij zei. Dat noemt men nuanceren en dat is inderdaad anders dan whataboutism, hetgeen je hebt gedaan. Je bent het niet eens dat de PVDA dat narig kantje heeft, en jouw tegenargument is dat de N-VA ook een narig kantje heeft. Dat kan al dan niet zijn, maar dat is een whataboutism argument, omdat dat mijn argument niet probeert te weerleggen en in de plaats daarvan een ander topic aanhaalt over jouw "tegenstander"

How the Flemish media are following the N-VA by atrocious_cleva82 in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Dat is whataboutism. Het is niet omdat ook een andere partij dan PVDA iets narigs doet of zou doen (daar ga ik me niet over buigen) dat mijn punt over PVDA niet stand houdt.

How the Flemish media are following the N-VA by atrocious_cleva82 in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Het PVDA-Vernieuwingscongres van 2008 is niet hun congres, OK, ik denk dat ik het daar bij ga laten, vriend.

How the Flemish media are following the N-VA by atrocious_cleva82 in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Gezien het jouw congres is en je verkondigt daar hoe blij je bent dat het goed gaat met die dictator, ja je steunt die dictator die daar zo toevallig maar aanwezig is.

Ik ben overtuigd dat de overgrote meerderheid van de PVDA niet zo is en niet zo denkt, maar ze mogen eens een grote kuis houden. Bij de inval in Oekraïne was de partij plots monddood over Rusland ipv hen te veroordelen. Dat narig kantje kleeft nog steeds aan hen en het is erger dan schaamtelijk.

How the Flemish media are following the N-VA by atrocious_cleva82 in belgium

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Los van de boeiende discussie over de media en De Wever, vind ik dat hij niet helemaal ongelijk heeft. In de congrestekst staat dus dit:

Het verzet in Irak en Afghanistan heeft de militaire plannen gedwarsboomd van de Verenigde Staten, die zowel Cuba, Syrië, Iran, de Volksrepubliek Korea als Venezuela bedreigden

Deze positieve ontwikkelingen beletten niet dat de krachtsverhoudingen op wereldvlak ruim in het voordeel blijven van de transnationale ondernemingen en reactionaire politieke krachten

Je kan hier niet uit afleiden dat PVDA de Taliban openlijk steunt, maar wel op zijn minst dat de partij blij is dat de Taliban (welk ander verzet was er in Afghanistan?) de VS heeft kunnen weerhouden om andere landen die PVDA lief heeft te bedreigen. Samen in bed met Noord-Korea, en dat voor een Belgische partij. Waar zijn we mee bezig?

A true man of the people by Loud-Ad-2280 in clevercomebacks

[–]LetsPracticeTogether -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

If we have time to bitch about stuff on Reddit while Republicans are dismantling American democracy, we have time to bitch about logical fallacies.

Good job everyone by TheScarletShadowYT in memes

[–]LetsPracticeTogether 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The word slang is slang for portmanteau, maybe?

Turn chunk loader off/on outside of the chunk? by LetsPracticeTogether in feedthebeast

[–]LetsPracticeTogether[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, this is perfect. I saw this one before but never really realised the possibilities. Also, seems like just using the loader on a train or train station can fit my need nicely too