Comment by surgical_fire
13 days ago
The Netherlands had effectively full employment until a few years ago, last I checked.
Unless things got dramatically worse in the past 3 or so years, I think you are massively overreacting.
I happen to have a few personal friends that live there, for that matter.
I left mainly because of housing prices, the difficulty of being a freelancer, the 49.5% income tax after €78k, the 36% unrealized capital gains tax and just everything in life like supermarkets or public transport being so much more expensive than other European countries.
I took a big pay cut moving to Southern Europe, but post-tax I earn the same and everything is just so much cheaper. I honestly have a significant better life here. Good weather too.
> I left mainly because of housing prices
I understand you're not the landlord then. I agree this is a problem: the same(ish) earning you mentioned in another comment makes social mobility difficult. Some people are born with a house, others without. That's super unfair. I'd first tax that rather than income.
So you’re not retired? Confusing username to pick if so.
Did you get a local job, or are you taking advantage of geoarbitrage via a foreign remote job?
In the process of setting up a company to do consultancy services for Dutch companies, but eventually want to shift to local companies once I get to learn the language, culture and business.
Creating classes that bypass productive labor is possible. You then force workers to subsidize them. This maintains "full employment" on paper. The country, however, remains on the brink of collapse.