[joe_mamba]

>are we not also talking about enabling restaurants to exist in order to make our city livable?

No! Why are privately owned restaurants part of a city's "livability", as if going out to eat food made by an underpaid slave wage class of migrant workers, is somehow a god given entitlement for the western person, and not something beholden to the same supply and demand market rules of any other business? Why should restaurants get special treatment so that their owners can buy another Porsche while they exploit cheap desperate foreign labor and the taxpayer subsidies? What about plumbers, hairdressers, landscapers, web-dev shops, yoga, why aren't those businesses part of a city's livability and entitled to subsidies?

And if you expect restaurants to be a public service for sake of livability, then they should also be state run and not for the profit of the restaurant owners.

> in vienna more than half of the population lives in subsidized housing.

What about the other half who pays for those getting the subsidies but don't get to live in subsidized housing? What's their opinion? I doubt they're happy they're paying market rate rent to a private landlord just so their neighbors can pay much less subsidized rent and beat them at wealth building.

It's always nice and easy when you're the one getting subsidies to justify how amazing subsidies are. I've never met a person complaining about receiving too many subsidies or asking themselves where the money from the subsidizes is coming from and if that's fair to others.

>it's redistribution of income.

Who would agree to this if they'd get to vote on it. I mean to have their income redistributed to others, not to have others income redistributed to them.

Forced income redistribution like in the case of Austria since you brought it up, just creates a vacuum where the most talented most hardworking people leave for greener pastures abroad to escape it, and you're left with a stagnant economy of average or below average people who don't see any point in hard work and will prefer to optimize for a life on getting the subsidies rather than funding them, so the government ends up with a bigger and bigger debt hole funding all this in exchange for votes.

See the Austrian guy who developed Openclaw then left because of the way Austria treats small business success and entrepreneurship.

Central planned income redistribution always leads to failure in the long run. This only worked in the post-WW2 Europe when there were a lot more people paying into the system than receiving, but not in today's world and economy.

[em-bee]

Why are privately owned restaurants part of a city's "livability", as if going out to eat food made by an underpaid slave wage class of migrant workers, is somehow a god given entitlement for the western person

that's the point, it's not an entitlement, it's paid for by taxes. and it is what makes a city attractive. same goes for shopping streets (as opposed to shopping malls) etc.

they make the city desireable and livable. which in turn attracts business, which brings in tax money.

you have never been to vienna, i guess. it's the most livable city in the world it frequently comes out at the top of the most desirable city for expats.

support for entrepreneurship is indeed a problem, not just in austria, in all of europe, but those are two different issues. there is no reason why it could not be improved while continuing to subsidize housing. on the contrary. subsidized housing means that as an entrepreneur i don't have to pay premium salaries in order to hire people like eg. in san francisco.

steinberger got hired by OpenAI three months after he revealed his project. to argue he left because because of how austria treats entrepreneurs makes no sense. did he say that that is the reason? i'd like to know if that's really true.

Central planned income redistribution always leads to failure in the long run

vienna's housing policy is successful for a century now. and i expect it will continue to be successful.

[joe_mamba]

>that's the point, it's not an entitlement, it's paid for by taxes.

You're whitewashing subsidies. And you refused to answer my question, why should restaurant owners have their businesses subsidized by taxpayer so they can get away with more profits? Why not other businesses too?

>they make the city desireable and livable. which in turn attracts business, which brings in tax money.

Which businesses move to a city because of restaurants and the "vibe"? Why does Amsterdam or Berlin have way more tech, startups and business than vienna if the city is more desirable?

Maybe businesses investments and restaurants are a completely different things.

>vienna's housing policy is successful for a century now. and i expect it will continue to be successful.

Only for those who benefit from it. But what about the rest on the rest?