gimmeDatCheddar
gimmeDatCheddar on Hacker News
This has always been a really stupid argument. You realize that the army would split up because people from the army would join the resistance and lend a hand, right? And you realize that guerrilla warfare is highly effective even against superior weapons, right? Basic history shows us this.
They don't have firearms. The loyalists and the government do. What do you expect the people to do? You can't revolt and take out the socialist tyrants if you don't have weapons.
This is why the 2nd amendment is absolutely crucial in ensuring that American citizens have the right to self-defense once these types of policies become more popular in America. Anyone still in Venezuela who has not planned to leave is utterly screwed.
I remember when people were saying that the end is near for web apps since mobile apps are going to eat everything. No one knows what will happen in the next three to seven years. Best we can do is observe the market every year and adjust course as necessary.
You're 100% right but the problem is that society will ultimately collapse because of those indoctrinated students. It's probably too late to reverse course. We should've paid more attention 30 years ago.
Impossible, we all know that communism means equality and prosperity for all. /s
Not to mention that the same data shows that we are poised to absolutely crush climate change with carbon sequestration, renewables, and innovations in supply chain / logistics in every industry.
Communists are insane and violent individuals who don't care about data and reality.
The brainwashing and propaganda are by design. The system was hijacked by Marxists who were playing the long game.
The politicians pushing that legislation really should face life in prison as the penalty. Absolutely atrocious.
That garbage ponzi scheme really should just be banned.
Do you have evidence that people will harass others out of a community under guidelines like these? Or is that just an assumption designed to justify weaponized guidelines / authoritarian responses?
I'm not really a fan of these types of posts. You can earn 6 figures in San Francisco or other expensive cities pretty easily as an entry-level employee, so this is just exaggerating people's expectations of the earning power of becoming a developer. Which will increase the rate of labor market saturation as people think they can earn a six figure salary as a developer in cities with modest costs of living.
He doesn't really have a point except to try to justify tanking the standard of living. As a preemptive attempt to justifying literal communism in 2018. Communists know that they cannot implement their vision while maintaining the current standard of living, so they want to tank it.
We need to do whatever it takes to ensure this type of system never gets implemented in America.
"everyone who advocates for socialism is a deluded naive child"
glad we could agree on something
> If capitalism is based around rational self-interest, why would anyone exclude political power as a means of increasing their wealth? It would be deeply irrational to avoid such an avenue.
Not true. It is in our best and most rational self-interest to participate in philanthropy and in building a nice society that we can live in, enjoy, and make a profit in. Capitalism and philanthropy and a social safety net are not mutually exclusive, which is why (like I already said) there are capitalists who vote for candidates who want to increase taxes and increase spending on social goods and services.
In fact I'd argue that it's only capitalists who can properly invest and sustain a strong safety net. That's why countries like Switzerland and Denmark are capitalist countries.
> Yes, regulations will interfere with the unfettered pursuit of profit, but that's by intent.
The example of it being hard to enter the pharmaceutical space to produce cost-effective generics is an example of government regulations prohibiting cost-reducing competition.
You can pursue profit while offering a good or a service that is less expensive and higher quality than the alternatives.
> Because it didn't really seem to make much of a point. Yes government spending priorities could be different and I'm sure there's wastage that could be lessened - although I'd guess less than you think. Cronyism exists in any organisation of more than one person.
But the point was that it isn't capitalism that is responsible for that cronyism. And that the wealthy wanting tax cuts does NOT mean that the wealthy need to dismantle the safety net in order to get their tax cuts. We can afford both tax cuts and a safety net if we eliminate cronyism in the government.
It does exist in the real world, although it can sometimes become obfuscated by government regulation and intervention. Example: Entering the pharmaceutical space to produce cost-effective generic medicines in order to steal market share from the big pharmaceuticals is hard because of government red-tape.
Using capital as leverage for political influence is not a central tenet of capitalism. You can be a capitalist and remain entirely outside the political realm. Some capitalists are known to use their capital for expensive philanthropic ventures or to support candidates who want to raise taxes.
Why did you ignore my comment about tax revenue and spending, by the way? That was the meat of the post.
1) When competition is allowed to enter the market, we eventually have an equilibrium where the right number of competitors is producing a good or a service at the best price and highest quality possible. That is capitalism. When concentrations of wealth are leveraged into political power, you have cronyism in the government. That's not a fault of capitalism itself.
2) The wealthy cutting their taxes does not necessarily mean the social safety net has to be dismantled. You can have lower taxes and a high safety net. It all depends on what your tax revenue is and where you spend it. The US has trillions in tax revenue coming in every year, and yet we had something like 60 billion dollars of medicare fraud in a single year, exorbitant spending on useless military ventures, etc. If we slashed wasteful spending and fraudulent activities at the governmental level, we could afford a lot more safety net with less tax revenue.
The issue is that cronyism in government results in government only ever being satisfied with getting by with more funding and more budget, and never less.
For anyone who doesn't have time to read the whole article, the conclusion is pretty much "No, as long as we have a strong social safety net."
IE capitalism with some elements of socialism to preserve individual liberties and dignities when economies slow down. Which sounds reasonable to me as a capitalist but also as a human being.
Welcome to a job market where there are hundreds of other qualified candidates competing for the same job. This is why government officials and company spokespersons peddled nonsense about there being a shortage in tech - it was to saturate the market with so much labor that they could start doing this and eventually paying less since they can just hire someone 5% better at 75% less pay.
Yep. You can also assume 45 years if someone starts working at 20 and retires at 65.
So invest it as $6,000 per year. Doesn't have to be $500 per month.
Making 7 to 10 percent after inflation is possible and it is sufficient to amass more than 1 million dollars by retirement just from changing this one habit. The point was that the average financed car is worth a massive amount in opportunity cost.
Mutual funds / index funds / real estate
The people who whine about systemic causes will never admit that there's elements of personal responsibility in these choices.
$500 a month is $6000 a year. $6000 a year invested from 26 to 66 at 10% interest per year is $2,921,110.87. At 12% it's $5,154,854.34.
Keep in mind this is just from a single decision the average person is making.
You can buy excellent cars that will last a long time for far less than $500 a month. $500 a month for much more car than you need is a very poor decision because you can get by with much less and invest the rest.