Portugal

Someone explain to me what's the matter with this country. They had a big empire in the Discovery Ages, colonized Brazil, which had loads of gold and are located in a strategic place of Europe, far from potential invasors and wars. Why were they not more relevant or rich throughout History? Compare them with the Netherlands, or even Denmark. Why are they still so poor?

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because happiness is a different kind of goal

Napoleon happened.

Anglos betrayed them, and just used them to fuck spanish interests, they were a puppy in englands hands

what do you mean? are you claiming people in Portugal are happier than in Germany?

you think that justifies it all?

Yes, and much less likely to lie about it.

Spain and Portugal fucked their economies by bringing home ridiculous amounts of gold. A massive influx of currency without a corresponding growth in products to by caused a hyperinflation that wiped out the middle class.
It took literally centuries to recover.

I mean, I don't know any German who is genuinely unhappy about their lives in Germany, apart from obviously the shitskins around here. On the other hand, when I went to Portugal for vacation, locals I spoke with were always complaining about their country, about how backwards it was.

It's never been about the gold nor the riches.
It's about food, going to the beach, rest for long periods of time, great weather and uncriminalized drugs.

It's pretty great out here.
Come for a visit.
Don't stay we don't like foreigners staying.

>Loads of gold used to useless churches
>Thinking the gold will last forever so wasting it in expensive things
>Not thinking like the jew about saving the money and investing for the future because too catholic

Result debts and being poor since the XIX century, but we're like the 15th country with the most gold and we have more than Spain makes us feel a little bit better.

Check em moortugal.

...

No no, you got it wrong. I already went there, and I absolutely loved. BUT, for vacationing only. From what I understood, and from what I heard from local I befriended there, life is not as good. Mainly because of the lack of money. Hence my question: why is it that, given the opportunities they had, Portuguese couldn't become like, say, Netherlands?

Already posted here mostly because we lacked the entrepreneurship mindset that other countries had and we got rid of all the jews so they went to the netherlands helping them with money

because they let galicia slip away. but now is their chance to take it back.

it's full of Portuguese people, that's what happened.

we have the sane problem over here, we're filled to the brim with Brazilians.

A big talking point in history class about this period is trading deficit. Apparently Portugal was too reliant on other countries for manufactured goods, so Portugal just squandered all their gold paying for them. The Napoleonic invasion pretty much destroyed the Portuguese empire by forcing the royal family to flee the country.

Because they are allowed to complain, and there's often an expectation of change. In Germany, there is no expectation of change. Complaints are met with "it must be a you-problem"

Sure, I get that. But I'm not completely satisfied by your explanation. For instance, Denmark was also kind of poor up until the 20th century. But now, look at them. And that is also valid to other northern european countries, or asian countries, that have always been poor, but modernized. Why didn't that happen to Portugal too? You have a very nice territory, in terms of weather, geography and resources. Way better than Denmark's. And the people I met there seemed most of them smart and with modern thinking. Why does that not translated in economical terms?

Sure, that must have affected them at that time. But check my more recent post: How do you answer that?

Not White

we were relevant and we were rich, it's just we and Spain fell short when Industrialization happened because the gold from South America made the kings believe we didn't need it

when the last dinasty could not ride the gold wave any longer the Republic appeared, which was also shit so Salazar appeared, he actually fixed our economy and started industrializing and developing our country, with Marcelo (Salazar's successor) Portugal was growing at amazing rates and it was clear it would catch up to the rest of Europe in a couple of decades but then Socialist coup happens and we get fucked

the end

Man, you are really bitter about Germany. You can objectively state that Germany could manage their resources and they economy much better than Portugal throughout ages. And I'm not dissing on Portugal, I loved my vacations there and its people, I'm just wondering why are they not more powerful? They have that potential.

Way whiter than you, I've been to both places.

>America

...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_de_Oliveira_Salazar#Economic_policies

greatest leader of the 20st century desu, too bad he was a mortal like the rest of us

t. 56%

the same thing that happens to everyone when they gather alot of power in a short period of time they waste it away the eternal burger didnt help when we were trying to get our shit together tho

>Gets out of monarchy to try democracy and enter WWI
>Fails
>Dictatorship starts
>Was doing fine we're poor but happy saved lots of money avoiding WWII and the dictator wasn't corrupt he really wanted the best and never had lots of possessions because he grew in a poor place and used is intelligence to get to top underrated fascist dictator not really that disliked even by commies from here
>Colonial war happened wasted money on the war
>Military coup happens peaceful but bringing corrupt socialists to take over and waste the money since then

Hey, I love germany! But you can't tell me depression isn't rife there, or that you guys aren't self-censoring on some super-sayan autist level. It makes me really uncomfortable to hear Germans tip-toe around their own opinions.

As for portugal, why should they change? why should any individual risk themselves "for the good of progress"? Germany's rapid desire to industrialise came certainly from a knd of fear that doesn't exist in romance-speaking countries - the fear of inadequacy. You think portugal isn't good enough for running on your terms? I think you are not good enough for running right past the chance at a good life and into concrete industiral wasteland.

I was not aware you were under a dictatorship. But, from that link you provided me, it seems like you only started growing at the end of it, and during the first 30 year of it you were still quite poor.

How do you reckon the nowadays Portugal? Do you foresee economical growth?

The fucking Zapatero sold ours...
God how I hate the fucking socialists...

Don't you talk shit about my ally

Why don't we look at the sorry state of Germany for a second, even disregarding the millions of muslim immigrants:
Why are there so many poor germans, working full time or two jobs and still not earning more than a danish welfare recipient?

on another note this is after the creation of NATO somthing that portugal and the US were both founding members

Also your own comparison defeats you

>Compare them with the Netherlands, or even Denmark
Okay, which major countries on Earth speak Dutch and Danish, besides the Netherlands and Denmark themselves? Neither of them established a massive, powerful colonial country.

Meanwhile Portugal established Brazil which is a pretty major country. Also of course there's Macau, which has one of the highest GDPs per capita in the whole world. And there's Angola and Mozambique too.

Germany is not like you imagine it man. Believe me. It's way better than that.
But, btw, I'm not claiming Portugal should change. It was their people who claimed that: When I visited it, almost all the locals said stuff like: "Oh Germany is so good, I wish I lived there", "Oh my country is so backwards", "We are so poor". Not that I agree completely with them, but I was just wondering why do they have that mentality? Why can't they just improve their economy, what is blocking them from doing so which didn't block other countries?

>I was not aware you were under a dictatorship.
Well it's weird to think that up until pretty much recently Portugal and Spain were under fascist regimes. The west sort of just allowed it for some reason. Also, it's not fascism - it's the people who make a difference. The Aryans can make anything work, except for maybe gommunism, but even back in the day people here were always talking about how nice East Germany was compared to the rest of the Eastern Bloc.

I was not aware you were under a dictatorship. >But, from that link you provided me, it seems like you only started growing at the end of it, and during the first 30 year of it you were still quite poor.
the last years of Monarchy and the Republic left us in a huge debt, those 1st 30 years were to fix what they did

>How do you reckon the nowadays Portugal? Do you foresee economical growth?
No, unless they somehow managed to bring back the portuguese emigrants and start industrializing east Alentejo with them

but I guess the poo in loos the government is bringing for slave work will grow our gdp a lil

What the fuck? You are very misinformed.

Portugal is the Greece of Europe.

>fucked up the greentext

maybe us Portuguese really are inferior

But I meant in population or size, they are comparable to Portugal, but in terms of economy, they are way above. I'm not even saying that they live better than in Portugal (actually I loved being in Portugal), but for sure they have more reputation.

And how is foreign investment received in Portugal? Does the government encourage that?

Not really, our pro-germany/eu/Merkel media constantly report about it. Try searching for german working poor, plenty of articles.
Is this information being censored in Germanystan?

The socialist governments always try to grow the economy through internal demand. After the debt crisis in the EU we had some reforms to attract more investment and some of those still remain, despite the subsequent governments tried to do the revert them. Chinese and angolan investors have participations in many key portuguese companies

it's hard to tell cuz you see the current ruling party , the Socialist Party (which has become more Social Democrat throughout the years), needs the Left Block and the Communist Party (Stalinist like commies) to stay in power, so even if they have more libertarian approach they need to bluff it up a lil so the LB and PC don't get mad

all things considered, the current economic minister ain't looking bad

Portgal was a migthy castlilian naval base who went rogue. Not much to tell apart from this.

>Why are they still so poor?
Socialism/communism, poor education (w.r.t. handling money--most people spent as if money is free; politics--they don't care about the broader picture), jealousy (w.r.t. success), taxes (holy shit, run for your life) very self-centered and a lack of nation-wide goals. Patriotism is kinda frowned upon and not even encouraged because it makes people relive the dictatorial epoch.
Our best students or employees are forced out of the country because the market can't be competitive enough--there's not a lot of money.
And *some* employers are cheap types (mostly boomers) who won't pay proper salaries.
There's also A LOT of employers/CEOs/CFOs who don't know what they are doing and fuck up the economy.

It's not a simple answer, really. Plenty of variables to take into account.

Portugal has always been poor if you look only at its internal economy. It converged with Europe during its imperial age but since Napoleon invaded us it has been a largely downhill ride.

France at the time absolutely wrecked our country and we largely had to use scorched earth tactics to win. In this period, our trade with Brazil and England, our major partners, simply collapsed, which was worse than a Great Depression tier depression. Moreover, power was shifted to Brazil, and Rio became the center of the empire. Lastly, immediately afterwards, the (((winds of change))) from Europe affected us and we became embroiled in a deadly civil war between traditionalists and liberals, which ended in an unstable non-democratic democracy, concentrating even more political power in Lisbon, in the hands of (((enlightened))) idiots.

Today, I think the major issue is indeed politics. Compare Spain and Portugal and you will see major differences, even though the people are similar. On one hand, Spain has ridiculously high unemployment rates, and this is so both in the south and the north. As for Portugal, we clearly have a lower GDP per capita. So, this suggests the difference lies on political institutions:, like the case of North Korea and South Korea, but more moderate. And, again, the best evidence for this is that during the regimes of Salazar and Franco, Portugal and Spain were similar on all relevant economic variables, even though Portugal was a bit behind in terms of GDP because of our terrible 19th century.

My friend, thanks for your words, but the thing is that we are a really old country. I think the oldest in Europe with borders unchanged since 1297. Since then, we've been invaded by Spain, Napoleon, (the british helped a lot but then they started to abuse and we had to kick them out kindly), then the Freemason Regicide, then the Republic Revolution, then Sindicalism, then Salazar, then another jewish revolution in 74.

Since this last revolution Portugal was taken apart by such shitty politicians, you wouldn't even imagine the degree of their incompetence. One of them (Mário Soares, who formed the Socialist Party in Germany by the way) gave away the colonies to communist militias, without popular consult, by mass propagating the idea that that was the best way to do it. So now some of the ex-colonies resent us for colonizing them, and leaving them to the wolves literally, while all we wanted was to maintain them, because they were part of Portugal as well.

So all this rethoric around hate for the ancient-portuguese is quite alive in this country, sadly.
Whenever I speak about the pride I have in being portuguese, I nearly tear up, and other people just look at me like I'm just an enthusiast.
You may think you're happy in Germany, but believe me, I'«ve been to some places (not germany unfortunately, but like me, I bet everyone gets the feeling that you are live in a kind of Faux-Germany, like you're not what you're supposed to be. Your efficiency is notable when we face off (football for example). It's admirable.

Because of this mentality, since I remember, I hated Germany until a few years ago. And I noticed that everybody around here was the same. Then I found Sup Forums.. But this is just to give you the idea. We got fed a lot of bullshit throughout our childhood about you. Sorry.
I love you though. I hate Merkel and the EU. Everyone would be better off on their own, even if that implies some economic dificulties, but that would inspire actual altruism.

Is Portugal a rich country? No.
Is it even relevant not just in a global scale, but even european? No.

Its comfy.
It stays in its own corner and does its own thing.

No major issues, no crippling problems, non-existent scandals that matter. Our flaws are miniscule and their blown out of proportion in the news cuz we need something to be mad about.

The best thing about this country is nobody gives a fuck about it unless they want good cheap vacations in the summer, and i like it that way.

Don't bully Portugal, Germany. They suffer greatly from saudades. You need to be more understanding.

The governments all try to encourage it rhetorically but they always fail to do so. Why? Because one of the things that investors desire most is the expectation that the rules will not suddenly change. And that's precisely what we are terrible at. I look at the US, at the tug war between the Republican and Democratic parties, and I see the US becoming like Portugal. Whenever a new party gets into power, it reverses everything the previous one did. This means there is a huge deal of uncertainty tied to investing in Portugal, and this applies both to foreign and internal investment. To circumvent this, many foreign firms sign specific and ironclad agreements with the Portuguese state, which tend to be very favorable to them. But, of course, the next government will still try to annul them, which is why they're very draconian.

here you are

eupedia.com/genetics/spain_portugal_dna.shtml

Its acutally simple.

Most off the intelligencia left, our graduates all left the country, meanwhile our reproduction rates are the lowest in Europe and instead of fixing the problem we will begin to import africans, we're a bunch of fucking retards.

>Its comfy.
You misspelled mediocrity.

The Lusitanian has been a power to be reckoned since we cucked the romans. My theory is that they're afraid of us. We built this country literally removing kebab nonstop, all this while hearing our Spanish brothers' battlecry killing each other and the muslims on the other side of the border.

When they push shit too far, we, like the Spanish (I hope) will wake up and fuck shit up. I HONESTLY believe this, I may not live up to see it, but we are in some kind of slumber.

kek.jpeg

kek

>far from potential invasors and war
Not far enough.

>Why were they not more relevant or rich throughout History?
Even more? Take a look at Portugal's historical demographics.
1527 1,262,376
1770 2,850,444
1864 4,188,419
1950 8,510,240
You wanted us to be more relevant?
Compare to the population of countries like Spain or the UK
Spain
1833 12,286,941
1877 16,622,175
1950 28,117,873
UK
1851–1861 27,368,800
1951–1961 50,225,000

why weren't we MORE relevant?

Why are we poor in comparison to the netherlands or denmark?
Industrialization was for faggots.
We wanted to play the Norwegian game. Fuck industry, acquire oil.

But I guess with Africa we'd just end up a Russia-like country with niggers for chinks.

In the end that was it, we forego industrialization.

Because you didn't leave Lisbon.
And this "smart" really is relative because it's those idiots who are trying to destroy our country with immigration and don't have kids.

and i think you meant midiocre.

t. Andaluzian Manolo ReviveMoros

btw my moor friendos

pt.metapedia.org/wiki/Página_principal

They're not as rich these days, no. Northern Europe seems to be much richer in current times. Who knows why that is. Maybe it's because the people in the colder climes of Northern Europe have spent more time studying in the last century, while Southern Europe have enjoyed their sunny climate instead. Who knows.

But in the OP you said "why were they not relevant or rich throughout history", when you can certainly argue that Portugal were definitely more relevant than Denmark (who never had an empire, apart from Greenland I guess), and perhaps even more relevant than the Netherlands (although I'd say that's pretty close because the Dutch did have a bit of a trading empire, and they invented loads of stuff too).

Maybe I'm putting down the Danish there, but I would definitely say Portugal were one of the great powers of colonialism, and we can say with certainty that their empire was larger than those of Denmark and the Netherlands.

s-sorry

>feels good man
Historically? well second world war fucked us pretty bad... We had a repressive dictatorship after that, that lasted till 1974. So imagine a country that only started true democracy 25ys later than germany "forced" to be at Germanys level with a 25 years head start. Yea. No.
Us and poland are in similar positions we are technically europe's corner back yard so. yea

np Ivan cant really hold u responsible for the actions of commies unlike the US

You did good in the war, actually. Not even all assistance to niggers changed the situation, only traitors catered to colonials.

>1755 earthquake obliterates Lisbon, kills several tens of thounsands of people
>1807-1809 french invasions, royal family forced to flee to Brazil, many dead, much destruction
>1822 Brazil declares independance, our main source of wealth is gone
>1890 British Ultimatum, Kingdom of Portugal is humiliated and forced to give up territory in Africa to the UK. republicanism starts stirring up
>1910 republican revolution, monarchy ends
>1910-1926 First Republic, 46 governments in 16 years
>1926 military coup, military dictatorship is established
>1933 New State Regime, people are kept poor and uneducated as to not revolt
>1961 Colonial War Starts, soon becomes a proxy war with USSR and US both arming opposite sides of the conflict, war goes on and on and on.... communist movement within the army appears
>1974 communist coup
>1975 Portugal gives up all of it's colonies except Macau, in China. Near civil war, almost became soviet sattelite, massive nationalisations
>1976, new constitution, Portugal becomes a socialist state
>1976-1985 socilism works it's magic, widespread poverty, bankrupcy
>1985 join EEC, become France and Germany's bitch
>1985-2011 survive almost exclusively on EU handouts, socialism continues to work its magic
>2011 bankrupcy, third by then
>2011-2015 EU, IMF and Germany's bitch
>2015 on - more socialism

just a summary

Bad summary. The problem in Portugal was the 19th century, yet you forgot most of it. This is why our education sucks: they rewrite our history to pretend we are poor because of Estado Novo, when in fact the period between 1822 and 1926 is by far the worst century in Portuguese history.

Portubros are lowkey based. My opinion of them changed since I came here to Sup Forums.

Their business client attention still sucks though.

Impecável

Go back to burger land jew central plskthx.

>Why were they not more relevant or rich throughout History?
You are talking about a country with people of a IQ of 50, extremely short term memory and no spirit of self sacrifice for a better future.
99.9% of the population are just a bunch of "gibemedats", always wanting more free shit from the government, giving 0 fucks about debt or actually having a better future.

Sure. And everyone of should bow their knee for the mighty ruler of the peninsula right? fucking monarchs

>they rewrite our history to pretend we are poor because of Estado Novo

The XIXth centuy was one of decadence, which accounts for the widespread poverty during the first half of the XXth century. The New State overstayed its welcome. Sweden and Norway were also poor, Germany was reduced to ashes in the 40's, Spain and Italy also very poor. But all of them were able to overcome that and prosper, some better than others, while Portugal continued poor, even with the wealth of colonies at our dispose for far more time than the rest of other european countries.

Dictatorship and New State started well - in the 30's, they brought much needed stability; in the 40's, Salazar kept out us of the war and in the 50's he fought commies. But it should neve have existed beyond the 60's. It's because it lasted so long that today we are in this situation.

Outjewed by the UK

Actually laughed. olé

why are you hiding behind a meme flag?
Don't tell me you're one of those angolanos who come here to take our places at the universities just because you're black

>Why are they still so poor?

because we have communist sympathizers and government?

anyways dont bother us just leave us be k thx.( my country is doomed our government just opened the boarders. and made it so that if you are from african decent you cant be deported you are legally allowed to rape and do any type of crimes)

Forgive me portubros, I ran away to a better place. I send money home though, I even voted for autarquicas.

Sweden, Norway and Germany surpassed by a wide margin during the 19th century.

It's funny you claim Estado Novo should have lasted less as it was precisely during the 60s and 70s that Portugal became a developed economy. Given its effects on GDP, I'd say it should have lasted longer, as there is an immediate break in economic convergence starting in 1974.

Just behave like a gentleman and don't embarace us like the rest.

meant for

he is not that wrong man :\
Love my fucking id.

I feel like you are already aware that the biggest enemy of portuguese people in Switzerland are portuguese people.

Inner competition?

ID: redpils delight

>Given its effects on GDP, I'd say it should have lasted longer, as there is an immediate break in economic convergence starting in 1974.

Oppression never lasts long, even when it's light. Just imagine if, in the mid-60's, Salazar started a peaceful hading over of the colonies to the Africans, instead of prolonging the war, which was lost when the US and USSR became involved. No MFA. Not to mention the absurd amount of money financing the war could have been invested in the country, furthering the economic development.

And what if he had peacefully abdicated in favour of democracy around the same time? He would have been able to guarantee the economy wasn't tempered with by commies and socialists, like Pinochet.

Stop romanticizing Salazar. He wasn't all that bad, but also he wasn't all that good.

If you try to get a job at, let's say swatch factory, and the person incharge of hiring is portuguese, they will throw the portuguese CVs away first.
Also if you are living here and trying to emulate the swiss lifestyle to a certain point, you'll be made fun of.
Also most swiss claim portuguese are lazy, but you dont see a swiss person working on a construction site.
In the end it depends if you are on the french side or german side of switzerland, it's like 2 completely different countries culture and ideology wise.

On another note is Coelho btfo?

Não, azeiteiros e brejeiros.

I know they look down on us, and seing the type of people that usually go there, I fully understand why.

Sorry man i'm still studying... i know that's not an excuse but i'm trying to learn current politicas portuguesas. don't rly know

this is stuff like this that makes me love this place. Thank you guys.

I'm an American living in Portugal. It's absolutely lovely here and the majority of people understand English in the city. I can't find any major complaints besides the fact that the food is quite bland and Lisbon is filled with Africans and nasty Brazilians. Other than that, it really is a lovely country and warrants a visit. If I had to live here permanently I'd kill myself though.

Except the youth was already full of commies, so they were bound to end up in politics. Moreover, these ideas came mainly from France. They were not original to us.

>Lisbon
that was your first mistake