Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

story.californiasunday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 209 posts

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#171

Post by user5994461 »

allendoerfer wrote: post #155
user5994461 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Index funds, 401k and some stocks exist only in the USA. They don't exist in most of the western world (e.g. Europe). Please don't call that "western financial planning"

> Index funds, 401k and some stocks exist only in the USA. I am not sure whether you are European making fun of the financial system of the USA or an American thinking Europe somehow lives in the stone age. Of course we have those things. Also there are these things called stock exchanges, were even people from poor, underdeveloped nations like Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands or Germany are…

None of these.

I am an European who is sad that Vanguard doesn't exist there, and there is no comparable local equivalent.

And no, an European either cannot and/or should not buy American stock.

1) Some stocks are simply not available for trades by your local brokers

2) You cannot use some remote products/brokers because they require you to be an US citizen or resident

3) There are taxations and constraints that makes international stock worthless. For instance, American stocks are taxed by the USA (by USA law) then taxed again by your home EU country (local country law).

P.S. I am sure there are loopholes to get it done if you have more than 10M€ to invest but that's not the case of the majority of people.

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#172

Post by user5994461 »

drpgq wrote: post #149
user5994461 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Index funds, 401k and some stocks exist only in the USA. They don't exist in most of the western world (e.g. Europe). Please don't call that "western financial planning"

Europe doesn't have index funds?

Long story short: no.

Vanguard, which is the gold standard, almost exclusively operates in the USA. (even though it's registered as a UK company and based in the UK).

As far as I could find in the UK, the closest local equivalent is L&G (Legal and General).

In the rest of Europe, for the few countries I checked, there is nothing comparable whatsoever.

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#173

Post by merpnderp »

traveling wrote: post #19

Newsflash: Life sucks anywhere when you're poor and uneducated. I worked as an independent Google contractor before for less than $11 an hour with very stringent rules, ever increasing performance requirements, no holidays, no sick pay, no nothing. If you're poor and uneducated you're disposable dirt anywhere these days, even though people would like you to think otherwise and it's obviously even worse in 3rd world c…

"these days"? When was there a time that the unskilled and uneducated masses were treated better?

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#174

Post by wyclif »

jacquesm wrote: post #17
wyclif wrote: post #12

If you're a Filipino man and reading this, please don't be tempted to take one of these jobs. Your health is something that you can't replace.

What do you suggest that Filipino man does instead?

Anything that doesn't end up destroying his health and life. I reject the notion that cruise ship work is the only job available to him.

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#175

Post by allendoerfer »

user5994461 wrote: post #171
allendoerfer wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Index funds, 401k and some stocks exist only in the USA. I am not sure whether you are European making fun of the financial system of the USA or an American thinking Europe somehow lives in the stone age. Of course we have those things. Also there are these things called stock exchanges, were even people from poor, underdeveloped nations like Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands or Germany are…

None of these. I am an European who is sad that Vanguard doesn't exist there, and there is no comparable local equivalent. And no, an European either cannot and/or should not buy American stock. 1) Some stocks are simply not available for trades by your local brokers 2) You cannot use some remote products/brokers because they require you to be an US citizen or resident 3) There are taxations and constraints that make…

Still there are index funds in Europe, 401k equivalents and you can buy international stocks.

What kind of stocks do you need for your personal financial planning, that you cannot get in Europe? I have heard nice things about Vanguard on HN, but so far have not had any troubles with iShares and the like.

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#176

Post by brianwawok »

vacri wrote: post #163
senior_james wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you have actual experience with the system. Most people commenting here seem to be parroting talking points from politicians. When I actually post my real experiences, I get down voted to -2. ....and we wonder why there are so many broken systems in the US.

You called $250/month affordable, which is almost an entire week's salary full-time on the federal minimum wage. 20% of your wage for a poor person is not 'affordable'. There are 45M people poor enough to be on food stamps in the US - the average monthly net income of these people is $335[0]. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/food-stam...

Median household income is 52k. At 52k, you get massive ACA subsidies. At say 75k or 100k, yes you can afford the $250 (or more realistically $1000 or $1500) it costs to get a family health insurance.

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#177

Post by GFischer »

paulddraper wrote: post #61
Isamu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney cruise was awesome, on one of the big new ships. I would recommend.

Ironically, Disney Cruises is owned by...Carnival.

Doesn't seem like it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Cruise_Line

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#178

Post by alphonsegaston »

paulddraper wrote: post #170
vacri wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, you could simply vote with your wallet and not increase demand for exploitative industries. The world is rife with stories of menial workers who were lured to international job roles that turned out to be lies. One common one is subcontinental workers lured to the gulf states to work on construction, and when they arrive they have their passports confiscated and a treated like slaves. Another common on…

Those stories involve immigration. Cruise ship workers don't do that. They will the world and return home to tell all their friends about the experience.

You can literally just google "cruise industry immigrants" to find that this isn't true:

http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2014/04/17/health-and-fam...

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#179

Post by tootie »

TheSageMage wrote: post #117
kafkaesq wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newsflash: Life sucks anywhere when you're poor and uneducated. And abundant evidence indicates that (most) corporations will do everything within their power to take advantage of this fact, unless very strongly regulated.

Not trying to start a capitalism war, but would an Earned Income Tax Credit be a more viable alternative to higher minimum wages? I've not done the leg work, but the IRS has a lot more info to help determine who's making how much that could help make the EITC even out unequal pay.

EITC is a sort of backdoor minimum basic income. There's a few places experimenting with basic income right now, so we'll have empirical data soon.

Re: Below Deck: Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers

#180

Post by tootie »

merpnderp wrote: post #148
katzgrau wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, just two different ways of looking at the same thing. I personally view all employment as fundamental exploitation. Obviously you only hire employees with the intention to extract more value than what you give back in compensation. Some employers are downright extreme in this exercise. I'm not against all of it. I just appreciate viewing things from as many perspectives as possible, uncomfortable or not.

What's a better system? About the time that Marx was formulating his ideas on society and markets, the US was just about finishing up several decades of government businesses that kept losing money against free market ran businesses even though they had the weight of the US treasury behind them. I doubt anyone would disagree that the reason the government businesses failed was that they were not sensitive to market s…

Socialism need not be paired with a command economy. Capitalism plus redistribution works better.
Post reply on HN