Boomers: "I don't understand why everyone hates living here and kids won't stay to pay our pensions 😩"

@braveheart21 Joe Public might consider voting these freaks out of office then. 😑

@helenS I don't know if this happens in your country but in the UK, the fuel companies are quick to put up the retail prices of petrol and Diesel oil when the international cost of crude oil (traded in US $) rises; but remarkably slow to reduce them when it falls.

Yet they claim they buy in advance, so they can't really use that excuse.

I should add we cannot blame the retailers themselves. They make so little profit on fuel sales, and have been hit so hard by supermarket filling-stations that can withstand negligible profits per sale, that a huge number of garages around the country have stopped selling fuel. Many now concentrate on servicing and car sales, others have gone out of business altogether - some have sold the premises to car-washing businesses.

Any British motorist will tell you that most of the filling-stations on the motorways make things worse. They are notoriously more expensive, charging anything from 10p to 20p a litre more than the garages on the ordinary roads in their area. (4.54 litres = 1 UK Gallon so a substantial price difference.) This has helped a lot of filling-stations near motorway / main road junctions, though.

Of course this is not just hard-hit commuter and social drivers. It affects all businesses including farmers and delivery companies; and the cost of heating-oil or bulk propane used by a lot of rural homes with no mains-gas connection - whose own cost has risen steeply too.

@Classified I've taken Amsterdam as a reference especially for its reputation of "expensive city to live in"

@Elessar Makes sense. Us Dutchies also complain a lot thoug. 😋

@Classified That's the national sport also here, especially in my city 😅

@Elessar And lately floods as well. 😬 At least so I heard.

But I saw Amsterdam in November and it looked pretty depressing. Stressed out grumpy locals always rushing somewhere, lots of tourists, cold rain, strong wind.
Idk, I've never liked big cities but the more of them I see the less I wish to live in one. Especially those constantly flooded with groups of tourists.

@CrazyMusicLover Milan is the same: it's gray, it's depressing, it's expensive as hell, people are always nervous, everything is fretted, the traffic is insane. People only live there because basically obligated; landlords were terrified of the prospect of WFH remaining after COVID, and they're the main reason why everyone's being forced back to the office (and not only in Milan).

Of the two, if I had to move to one of the big cities I'd go hands down to Rome. It has many of the issues too but it's far, far more livable and aesthetically pleasing. Once your work hours are finished at least you can have a walk in a place that actually looks nice, offer an incredible amount of history and places to be seen and doesn't feel like an open-sky prison for modern slaves.

@Elessar So this is what you mean.. 😅

@helenS Salaries / expenses, I suppose

@Elessar Ah yes, Δ% of salary is 112.9, which is pretty close to the number given in the file.

@SW-User ... me included!
Problem is that people try to "understand" something that's purely mathematical. You understand everything there is to understand if you can calculate with it. There is no good pictorial approach to it.

@helenS Yes, it’s a sea of maths, and I felt I was no further forward at the end than the beginning.

I left that world behind to work with troubled students. Much more fulfilling.

@SW-User Troubled students? What do you mean, please?