Alcea

vom Los zur Lösung! @[email protected]

[Sarah Wilkinson @swilkinsonbc]

When the Filton trial didn’t get the verdict the state wanted, it bent the system to produce the desired results, aka corrupt official misconduct https://t.co/36uM7TTgAA

[legal YIMBY alien @YIMBYPoland]

Okay I've had enough of this europoor adjacent slop.

How do Europeans (Poles in this example) live? Differently than Americans and the prices reflect that.

Restaurants are WAY cheaper than in America. First of all, you don't have all the junk fees, tax and tip on top of the price on the menu. In San Francisco, when you see $30 for a pasta dish, it's gonna end up being closer to $50 on the final bill. In Kraków, if you see 50 zł ($13.70) for a pasta meal, it is going to be 50 zł exactly. And Poland isn't even a good example because it famously has relatively expensive restaurants compared to places like Italy or Spain.

This extends to other services, too. A flight from rainy July Kraków to sunny Italy will set you back like $50. A flight from Columbus, OH to sunny Florida will be more like $250, same to Mexico. And then when you're there, everything is more expensive, too, starting with a hotel.

Groceries are also significantly cheaper than in America if you compare like for like. I'm not going to sit here and say that every Biedronka has Whole Foods-level produce and meats but on average, groceries in Poland are comparable to middle price tier groceries at Safeway, and when you compare those together, Poland is like 2x cheaper.

Cars and fuel are more expensive but you also use them less. Not only because there's more public transportation but mostly because the distances are shorter. This isn't Phoenix where everything is 30 mins away on a freeway.

Rent is expensive but also, let's not exaggerate. Kraków is the most expensive city in Poland because it's touristy, rapidly growing, and a huge college hub. A comparable US city would be Boston. But even if you compare Kraków to Columbus or Indianapolis (undoubtedly 2/3-tier cities), rent is still cheaper. A comparable one-bedroom apartment will be $1200-1400 in those cities vs. 3000-3600 zł ($800-1000). And in Katowice, where salaries are only 10% lower than in Kraków but the city is not touristy, you're looking at 2200-2600 zł ($600-700).

Oh, and the median after-tax salary in Kraków is $1700 a month ($20,400 a year), the average is even higher. Yes, this is less than in Columbus (~$60,000, according to BLS data) but surprise surprise, Poland is a poorer country than not only the US but also Germany or France.

But there are also many things that you don't pay for in Poland that you do pay for in the US. Childcare is a big one. In an average American family unit, the mother only works so that they can afford childcare. It's free in Poland. Healthcare is free, too, and before you attack me saying "yeah but the wait time for hip replacement is long!" I'll tell you that even if you go private to get it immediately, it's gonna be cheaper in relation to your income than in the US. Public schools are good, and college is again free. You don't have to pay $500/month in your college repayment plan for 10 years after graduation. And there are also no income taxes for those under 26 years old, by the way. And speaking of income taxes, filing them is free and automatic every year, even if you have a more complicated tax situation. You don't need to spend $100 on Turbotax or a comparable service.

So again, the answer is: people just live life differently. Life in Europe (in general, also in the 2000s, when Europeans were not yet "Europoor") is less about consumption.

I discovered that when I've started traveling with my American friends. They go to Barcelona and all they do all day is running from one coffeeshop to another, from one restaurant (ideally Michelin-starred) to another. They'll see the Sagrada Familia and that's about it. A completely different (and dare I say worse) way of traveling than the European way, which is to walk the streets, see some sights, get sangria in a random bar and eat dinner in a small neighborhood cafe.

I think this is also in part a function of Europe having functional public spaces. If you don't need to worry about a crazy homeless person attacking your kids on the public playground, you don't need to have a private playground in your backyard. So yeah, while Americans are richer in terms of take-home pay, the actual, useful gap, is not that big. Europeans just don't need to spend money as much.

[Ahmad Tamim @ahmtamim9]

Sie opfern ihre Gesundheit bei der Suche nach Coltan, Kobalt und anderen seltenen Erden für Smartphones und Elektroautos. Doch sobald sie selbst ein Stück vom Wohlstand wollen, nennt man sie Invasoren.
Die Migrationspolitik beginnt nicht an Grenzen, sie beginnt in den Minen und Giftgruben Afrikas. Ein gerechter Handel und menschenwürdige Lebensbedingungen sind stärker als jede Mauer und jede Festung.

[James Throt MBBS, MD, PhD, FRCPath @JamesThrot]

And people will tell you with a straight face that this government won’t use the U16 Social Media Ban (requiring identification from all adults to use it) to shut down free speech and/or begin arresting people for saying things the government doesn’t like.

[Raunak @caps_raunak]

Bro I'm so fucking sick of pretending this is normal.

AI was trained on Stack Overflow answers written by developers who got zero dollars and zero credit, and now those same developers are losing their jobs to the thing their free labor built.
We built the rope. They just used it.

[Basil the Great @BasilTheGreat]

🚨 BREAKING: It has been revealed that the public consultation data Keir Starmer is using to promote his social media ban did NOT have an ‘against’ option

[#MadeInGermany2035 🇪🇺🤝🇩🇪 @42tw1tter1sd3ad]

E.ON-Chef Birnbaum schimpft über die „irre Subventionierung von Wärmepumpen". Wirklich irre ist:
E.ONs größtes Netz erzielt 45% (!!!) Eigenkapitalrendite - über die Netzentgelte - hinkt aber bei der Digitalisierung der Netze hinterher. Teuer ist nicht die Wärmepumpe - teuer ist dieses Monopol.
Eine SWR-Recherche zeigt, was uns E.ONs Monopolmacht kostet: Deutschlands 18 größte Verteilnetzbetreiber erzielten 2024 im Schnitt 30,1% Eigenkapitalrendite - der Regulierungsrahmen sieht 5 bis 7% vor. E.ON-Tochter Westnetz - ja das Westnetz von KathErina (das E steht für EON) Reiche - kommt auf 45% (!!!!). Analyse des Bundesverband Neue Energiewirtschaft e.V. (bne): https://t.co/7oQMZZNV7A

Aber der ehemaligen E.ON-Managerin KathErina (das E steht für EON) Reiche reichen selbst diese 45% offenbar nicht. Beim Handelsblatt-Energiegipfel im Januar verlangte sie höhere Renditen für die Netzbetreiber und drängte die unabhängige Bundesnetzagentur, die diese Renditen festlegt!!!!

Ab 13:30: https://t.co/uFmz8YZOhA

Die Renditen aus dem Netzmonopol fließen an die Eigentümer von E.ON - bezahlt werden sie von Verbraucher:innen und Unternehmen über die Netzentgelte.
Sinken die Renditen, ließen sich bis zu 3 Milliarden Euro im Jahr sparen. Trotzdem soll Haushalten die Wärmepumpen-Förderung gestrichen werden.
Und anstatt das Netz auszubauen, zu digitalisieren oder besser zu nutzen, wollte Katherina Reiche nun - auf explizite Wunsch der Verteilnetzbetreiber (Zur Erinnerung wir haben 860 - alle mit eigenen Prozessen, Geschäftsführern, Marketing und Strukturen!!! - Erneuerbare entschädigungslos abregeln. Nach großem Protest gegen diesen Redispatch-Vorbehalt rudert sie zumindest hier zurück.

Ein Zwischenerfolg!
Energiepolitik ist Freiheitspolitik - für uns alle. Die Kostenvorteile der Erneuerbaren müssen bei allen ankommen. Förderung lässt sich über die Zeit verbessern - jetzt aber braucht der Markt Stabilität statt Verunsicherung.

Deshalb: Unterzeichnet unseren Aufruf.
https://t.co/zxTLtY0QGC

Text von @sven_giegold.
Angepasst von mir. Ich habe nur Verachtung für „Speicher sind nur für Glücksritter“ Birnbaum.

[Gordon Dimmack @GordonDimmack]

One of these people is an 83 year old Priest who held up a sign expressing her right to free speech. The other has decapitated his political enemies with a knife.

Guess which the UK government calls a terrorist, and which gets invited to number 10 for dinner.

[Kevin Bass @kevinnbass]

We are hearing most British parents support the social media ban.

That's because they weren't given a choice to oppose it.

The poll was rigged to give the illusion of consensus.

People of the UK- your country is being ruled by a man who fancies himself a Third World dictator.

[David Stier @davstier]

Unabsichtliche Kapitalismuskritik, Teil 4847.

Die Preissetzungsmacht der Wenigen sorgt für höhere Kosten beim Einkauf der Vielen und während das Vermögen dieser Wenigen immer mehr wächst, haften sie in keiner Weise für die Konsequenzen.

Lösung: Kapitalismus beenden.

[SEIU @SEIU]

The last time the US had Robber Barons — men who hoarded wealth while workers struggled to survive — was the Gilded Age of the late 1800s. Workers had organized into unions, and the threat of collective power was enough to force action. The rich gave back — not out of decency, but because workers demanded it. Today's Robber Barons like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos buy the narrative, platforms, newspapers, & politicians. They don't fear us — yet. We’re still fighting back because history shows us what works: organized, relentless, loud collective action. It worked in the 1880s. It's the only thing that's ever worked for working people.

[Anonymous @YourAnonNews]

Learning financial literacy

[Alcea @Alcea16]

@RockChartrand There are things that can't be created, land beeing the most important.

And for the rest: there are limits because we live on earth, a limitd system. We already risked it's life sustaining function, there is no way of growth solving our problems.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is a very good example of how democracy works at a local level in China 👇

To explain succinctly, at every administrative level in China, they have a "people's congress" (人民代表大会 - rénmín dàibiǎo dàhuì).

At the county, district and township level, representatives are directly elected by voters in their constituencies. Above that (prefectural cities, provinces, and the National People's Congress) - representatives are elected by the congress one level below.

Depending on the location, local people's congresses have more or less oversight power on local spending, appointments, and policy.

Zhejiang province is one of the places in China where people's congresses have the most power after an official named Xi Jinping - you may have heard of the guy - established a framework called "do practical things for the people" (为民办实事 - wèi mín bàn shí shì) when he was provincial party secretary in the early 2000s.

What "do practical things for the people" established was a principle that local people's congress representatives should have a direct say in how local public money got spent. Over time, this evolved into a formal voting system where representatives vote on proposed government projects.

They just exercised this power in a major way: the Huangyan District People's Congress (黄岩区人大) in Taizhou, Zhejiang voted on 16 major government investment projects for 2026 but killed two of them on the spot - a sports center and an irrigation megaproject, totaling over a billion yuan - with roughly 80% voting against.

This doesn't mean these 2 projects are dead forever but they're sent back to the drawing board. The responsible departments have to address whatever concerns representatives raised, bring in experts for further review, and resubmit when they're ready.

This is a level of local democracy that many people will probably be surprised exists in China: it's genuine democratic oversight, they can actually block government spending, and the executive has to go back and try again.

It's also - and this is where China is complex - something that surprised many people in China.

As I mentioned above, not all people's congresses have this sort of power and the story generated a lot of national interest - with many national outlets writing about it, such as Guancha (https://t.co/Ad94EJH3vt) or The Paper (https://t.co/EPPcXQxXRV).

So much so that the Zhejiang People's Congress deleted their original WeChat post about it. We don't know why - the story wasn't suppressed since so many state media outlets carried it - but the Zhejiang People's Congress probably didn't love being the face of a national debate about why other provinces aren't doing this too, as it amounts to throwing shade on their peers. I genuinely don't know, just a hypothesis.

Anyhow, that's China in all its complexity and why sweeping narratives about it are always wrong: a country where elected local representatives can genuinely exercise oversight power over the government thanks to reforms initiated by Xi Jinping himself, and where mainstream media boast about it, but where the provincial organ that broke the story would rather avoid the publicity.

[Pete North @FUDdaily]

"We've decided that you plebs being online, sharing news and exchanging your thoughts is a threat to our stranglehold on power, so we're going to close down your access to information and take away your right to anonymity in the name of protecting children, while also assuming total control over what your children are subjected to"

You cannot hate these people enough.

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

A weapon designed to specifically maim and kill children.

Illegal under the Geneva Conventions for numerous reasons, including being disguised as an ordinary object, and being specifically targeted against civilians.

A War Crime of the highest order.

[Ginny @GinnyA24601]

We all have to say no to digital ID.

Or it’s game over.

I already miss the world I knew.

I don’t want to live in the world they have planned. Do you?

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

A Wealth Tax just in NYC raised billions.

Imagine how much it would raise in the UK?

Lets cut billionaires Welfare.

They won't even notice.

[Mrs Millicent: Witchy Lesbianism ✝️♿ 🏳️‍🌈 @MillieCheesey]

"90% support it"

Yeah in the same way dictators "win" elections - its a made up stat; the survey was publicly available and there was NO way to say no lol

[Gert Wöllmann @Gert_Woellmann]

Und nochmal, weil das auch Leute in Deutschland toll finden:

Wer ein Verbot für 16-Jährige einführt, führt eine Alterskontrolle für alle ein. Dann ist es nur noch ein kleiner Schritt zu digitalen ID und einer Klarnamenpflicht. Kurz: worum es eigentlich geht!