Portugal goes bust.

[Caliga]

While Dilma simply scurried off (literally; she cancelled every appointment and went straight back to her plane) when the issue of buying our debt came up. Brazil simply cannot afford it - for all it's talk, it is a developing nation, and this is Europe we are talking about.

Haha...

It's like Dilma visited her ailing grandmother, and someone said "You need to pay to put her in a nursing home."
"Ok."
"That's going to cost $1 million a year."
*door slamming, tires squealing*

[The Brain]

[Martim Silva]

eh, it's a Catholic country... it'd probably be easier to jail the non-corrupt people.

It's got nothing to do with catholicism. We don't have nationalism, so the general ideia is that everyone "is out for him/herself". That means everybody you meet will try to steal from you, one way or another. I myself am already tired that every single taxi I get into tries to scam me in one way or another, or on how my bills are always inflated by 20-30% due to "processing errors" that the companies only get when I complain. Or why it's 40% cheaper to buy stuff from Amazon than it is to get the exact same stuff from the store next door.

Did anyone actually think that would work long term or were they all just "screw the next generation" while uttering an evil laugh? 

Everybody believes everything will last forever. If not, that the bad things will only happen after we're dead.

Even now, the general atitude of the population is one that "nothing will change" or "how will they steal from us?". Most still have NO idea of the problems the country is facing - and until last week, the only thing our Economists did was to DEMAND the Germans to just GIVE us the money without any conditions, saying we only "need more time" (for what? We had decades and decades and did nothing!).

Needless to say, the general impression the Germans got was that they were talking to "children". Which is the best way to describe the mindset of the average portuguese "responsible" economist/politician.

[The Brain]

This is why only whites should have countries.

[KRonn]

eh, it's a Catholic country... it'd probably be easier to jail the non-corrupt people.

It's got nothing to do with catholicism. We don't have nationalism, so the general ideia is that everyone "is out for him/herself". That means everybody you meet will try to steal from you, one way or another. I myself am already tired that every single taxi I get into tries to scam me in one way or another, or on how my bills are always inflated by 20-30% due to "processing errors" that the companies only get when I complain. Or why it's 40% cheaper to buy stuff from Amazon than it is to get the exact same stuff from the store next door.

Did anyone actually think that would work long term or were they all just "screw the next generation" while uttering an evil laugh? 

Everybody believes everything will last forever. If not, that the bad things will only happen after we're dead.

Even now, the general atitude of the population is one that "nothing will change" or "how will they steal from us?". Most still have NO idea of the problems the country is facing - and until last week, the only thing our Economists did was to DEMAND the Germans to just GIVE us the money without any conditions, saying we only "need more time" (for what? We had decades and decades and did nothing!).

Needless to say, the general impression the Germans got was that they were talking to "children". Which is the best way to describe the mindset of the average portuguese "responsible" economist/politician.

Sheesh, what a mess!! And an infuriating way to do business, buy things, and the norm is to get cheated and over charged.   

Figures though, that the Germans would be looking to  "move in".     

[Martim Silva]

Sheesh, what a mess!! And an infuriating way to do business, buy things, and the norm is to get cheated and over charged.   

Another problem is that the Portuguese are lazy.

For example, when Ubik accepted to commercially develop Magna Mundi using Paradox's EU3 engine, he lost about half of his foreign help, who did not want to do things for money.

He then decided to try national labour. Which turned out to be a horror story.

For example, he had a web designer for the Magna Mundi site. When he told her what he wanted, she looked at it weirdly and said it would take a month and a half. He mentioned this to one of his foreign programmers (a Russian), who just said to "leave it to me" and did it all in 15 minutes.

(he sacked the portuguese web designer and raised the wage of the Russian to take care of the site).

He then hired a Portuguese artist to make the conceptual art for Magna Mundi. He told him in November 2009 he needed all the work done by July 2010. The first thing the Portuguese guy did was to take two months' worth of vacations. Come July, he only had 20% of the work done, and asked for more time, saying it was "complicated". He got the boot.

(The opening images, as well as the portrait of a leader and nobles around him that you will see in MM HRE screen are his)

He also found a kid that he thought would be a good programmer when he heard the young one criticize the massive corruption in the portuguese videogame industry (which basically doesn't exist; companies just make some conceptual crap up to get subsidies and never put anything out. We have a company called 'iDreams' that has never produced a single game in the last five years, but has gobbled five million euro worth of subsidies in the meantime).

When hired, the kid proved to be a deadbeat. Ubik had to call him often at 4AM to get him to do any work, and today he is the worse guy in the whole programming team, trailing FAR behind all foreigners.

[Caliga]

What happened to the Portuguese who discovered the Azores, Madeira, rounded the Cape, etc.?

Did their descendants all: emigrate to Brazil?

[Martim Silva]

What happened to the Portuguese who discovered the Azores, Madeira, rounded the Cape, etc.?

Rule of thumb in Portugal: anyone of worth that does something for the country either gets ignored or is punished for it. Only the dirt rises to the surface.

As to your examples:

Tristão Vaz Teixeira, who discovered Madeira, was charged with Abuse of Power and exiled.

Diogo de Silves, who discovered the Azores, was deemed of low station and got no reward.

Bartolomeu Dias, who crossed the Cape, got no recognition and was kept as a mere captain, drowning when his ship went down in a storm in 1500.

The only one that escaped punishment was Afonso de Albuquerque (who conquered our Asian empire almost single-handedly), but that was just because he died of disease before the royal order for his arrest could arrive (it was alread on route when he passed away).

[MadImmortalMan]

 

No wonder nobody wants to be the party that fixes this.

[Caliga]

How about the guy that discovered Tristan da Cunha?  Did he get punished?

[The Brain]

How about the guy that discovered Tristan da Cunha?  Did he get punished?

No, he was given a lifetime governorship of the island.

[garbon]

How about the guy that discovered Tristan da Cunha?  Did he get punished?

Inaccessible Island

[Martim Silva]

How about the guy that discovered Tristan da Cunha?  Did he get punished?

The guy, oddly called Tristran da Cunha (Tristão da Cunha), was later appointed first ViceRoy of the Indies. But he never got to take over the post, due to... unfortunate circumstances... that led him to become blind.

His son, however, was a shrewd politician, and got the post for himself in 1529.

[Liep]

At least you still got football... well, I don't know if anyone actually watches the Euro League, but still!

[CountDeMoney]

They're an eggplant people who don't even speak correct Spanish.  Fuck 'em.