Mr Prime Minister, I understand you subscribe to the Portugal News. You obviously know you are in a very deep hole, and that you’ve screwed up rather badly. It will take years, if not decades, to sort out the mess.
Your predecessors joined a capitalist club called the EU. That club spends all its time operating socialist principles. No-one in any EU government seems to notice the contradiction. But that contradiction has thrown up a problem. As Mrs Thatcher once said “Socialism is wonderful until you run out of other people’s money.”
You have run out of other people’s money, and now no-one wants to lend to an incompetent businessman, which is what you are.
To spend money you first have to make it. You dont do that. You expect us to make the money and give it to you, however, you make sure that at every twist and turn your minions are hell bent on preventing us from making money.
When I came here ten years ago the Portuguese people called Portugal Paradise, now every third guy I meet wants to leave. I cant even have a quiet cup of coffee without a posse of waiters descending on me to ask what I think of the mess you’ve made. They then announce they are leaving….. for Switzerland, France, Brazil, the UK, anywhere but Portugal.
Your policies are crucifying the middle class, and a country without a middle class always descends into poverty. Money and people go where they are best treated. At every step we are harried and hassled. At every step we are prevented from earning a living. I was even sent a tax demand three days after I set up a company and the week before it started trading. Naturally I closed it and moved it out of Portugal. I’m not the only one.
Sensible countries offer incentives to start business. Bulgaria offered me a five year discount, Panama offered me a ten year discount, Portugal wanted money before I’d even opened the shop door. Under those circumstances where are the businesses going to go?
Kids have no prospects. Foreign parents are leaving in droves. Why? “I cant bring up my children here. What future is there for them? No work, no money, no prospects.” In the Algarve schools they dont even learn proper Portuguese but some patois that will guarantee them failing to get any decent job in Lisbon.
“I cant stay here. Five years ago I was working 42 hours a week and I had a good life. Now I work 67 hours a week and I cant pay my bills. I am going to be a waiter in Switzerland.” That’s a Portuguese guy. And he isn’t the only one. He cant make money being a waiter in a tourist zone! Krikey!
There is a serious structural problem in this country and unless someone does something about it the country is going to be known as the sick man of Europe. The people need a decent education, they need incentives to start businesses, they need help in making money. You cant keep on bleeding us all and expect the country to grow. It will shrink. It is shrinking.
One more thing. Highways bring in people and business. Make the highways difficult to use and the people wont come and the business wont come. And remember, it was the foreigners who paid for your motorways. Why should we pay again? I want an exemption. The average UK tax payer has over the years paid more than £50,000 to the Portuguese government. The least we should get in return is free use of the roads we’ve already paid for.
John Clare.
