Great question. Let’s take a deep dive on money. Getting $100 at the right time can be a game-changer! It’s not only a store of value — it’s a means of exchange!
I distincly recall many articles stating that for ridiculous EUR like 50k you could buy housing in spain right after 2007 the crisis, for many years afterward. Because it was so overbuilt , at least outside of the big metros) that the builders and sellers were desperate to move.
I wonder if they all wiped out by the crisis (subprime really hit spain hard), and what we are seeing now is the consequence of that wipeout, and bankruptcies.
In large parts of Spain, that is still true. Entire rural villages for sale in some cases even.
Problem is that it's in areas where people don't want to live. In the areas people want to live, the problem is the opposite, there isn't nearly enough housing, so you end up with some of the highest population densities in EU (#2 and #3 are both in Spain at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_Union_cities_... in "density per km2" for example, 50% of top 10 on that list is in Spain!) and prices keep going up.
Add in that salaries are pretty low so cost of living is subsequently low, so you end up with a ton of "expats" and other fun folks like "foreign investors" who purchase up all the livable/rentable properties with their "higher value" money, because everything is so cheap for them.
Owners realize this, and while the government is (now at least) trying to put a stop to all of this with limiting rent increases and more, owners still try to take advantage of it as much as they can.
Personally, I think we need to temporarily put a complete halt to non-residents buying any sort of properties or even land here, at least for a short period of time so the people who actually live and work here can recover from the situation.
For the average person with a normal job here and not working for foreign companies with a higher salary, it's short of impossible to be able to afford to eventually buy a house.
More fundamentally, the trend of the world economy is toward turning everything anywhere in the world into either a resource to be exploited or a playground for the rich.
This is a big generalization but I think it's broadly true.
If you are in a "resource" area you'll get pollution and often instability and war.
If you are in a "playground" area you get massive cost increases and are eventually forced out.
As the trend is toward concentrating more and more wealth at the top, the slice of rich who can afford to enjoy the playgrounds becomes smaller and the number of refugees, homeless, and poor becomes larger and poorer.
That list does not make much sense, because it mostly consists of small municipalities that have been engulfed by growing metropolitan areas. Four of the five Spanish entries are like that, three in Valencia and one in Barcelona; and most other entries in the top 20 are suburbs of Paris, Athens or Naples.
> A city proper is the geographical area contained within city limits
I'm not sure about the others, but the one from Barcelona is a city actually, with their own local government and all, separate from Barcelona, exactly like Badalona on the other end of Barcelona. It is within the city-limits of Barcelona (region, not city) though.
It is, but my point is that these entries are more historical oddities than a sign of particularly high population density of Spanish cities. There are similarly dense suburbs in most cities/countries, they just happen not to have a local government.
I got myself a pretty little condo in Asturias for a steal, at least compared to US prices. I tried first just outside Madrid but it’s crazy expensive there, I saw a small and modern condo and they wanted more of what I paid for a brand new large home in the US very close to a big city, massive in size by European standards. If you want a modern tiny condo in Madrid city center you are looking at over a million euros for sure. Almost NYC prices. But Asturias is so freaking beautiful, and people are sooo laid back and kind, the best! There’s also a train that takes just over 3 hours to Madrid.
You can get houses even cheaper now. The two things are not related though. Huge areas of Spain are barren empty places, with no jobs, transport, or anything. Nobody really can or want to live these places. Thats why the houses are so cheap.
Yep. I've followed Micron since before Y2k. I've seen the ups and downs of their stock. Seen a CEO literally crash and burn (RIP).
This is a mistake. The consumer business is a bet , which they excel at. Yes, its not printing money right now, but it is an option. Exiting the consumer business will mean they may miss insights into the next hot consumer trend.
The game for large companies like this should be to keep small bets going and literally, just survive. That's what Micron was doing, that's what NVIDIA did for a better part of a decade. Now that both are printing money.
Yet, Micron has decided its retiring from placing more bets. Mistake.
I've not had issues with Steam, though my Steam journey was early into online purchasing adventures
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