The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger • Hacker News Board

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#71

Post by parenthephobia » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 12:11 PM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #3

Why pay $2000 a month when you have the whole country you could live in for much less? Why should I have to pay increased taxes for your ignorance/provincialism? Is living in San Francisco a fundamental right? I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'd suggest that these people move there, for the low cost of living combined with the vibrant-enough economy. Unemployment was at 5% through the great recession . However, I fin…

Lincoln, Nebraska. Population approx. 350k.

Do you imagine that adding an extra million people would not effect the cost of living or the vibrancy of the economy?

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#72

Post by rjsw » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 12:34 PM UTC

Kurtz79 wrote: post #59

throwaway31231 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than that. Money's value depends on everyone's collective attachment to it. The winners of a game remain so, only as long as a significant number of people are playing. Ditto with USD, ditto with BTC. UBI is one way to keep people playing; but I'm extremely wary of this idea. UBI without some sort of communal/anarchist/kibbutz-ian distributed structure binds society in yet another way. 'You're free as long…

I like the idea of UBI in theory, but I cannot imagine it won't have any impact on the cost of living. At the very least, it would force companies contracting minimum/low wage workers to raise wages substantially (because why work on a shitty job if I can have the same money for free ?), which in turn would mean a substantial increase in prices, which in turn would make UBI money not enough to survive for most people…

Or we find out whether those minimum wage jobs really need to be done.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#73

Post by stadeschuldt » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 12:43 PM UTC

stinky wrote: post #26

mjfl wrote: post #3

Why pay $2000 a month when you have the whole country you could live in for much less? Why should I have to pay increased taxes for your ignorance/provincialism? Is living in San Francisco a fundamental right? I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'd suggest that these people move there, for the low cost of living combined with the vibrant-enough economy. Unemployment was at 5% through the great recession . However, I fin…

There is a solution. At the moment successful EU countries such as Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark are struggling with aging population and not enough people to fill blue colar jobs. I think EU should make it easier for US citizens who get any job here to move over. Americans in general are super hard working. Europe needs hard working people, while we can provide them with free universal healthcare, free universit…

Unless you move into one of the bigger cities like Berlin, Hamburg or Munich you will be out of luck if you don't speak German. And especially if we are talking about blue collar jobs.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#74

Post by lr4444lr » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 12:46 PM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #3

Why pay $2000 a month when you have the whole country you could live in for much less? Why should I have to pay increased taxes for your ignorance/provincialism? Is living in San Francisco a fundamental right? I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'd suggest that these people move there, for the low cost of living combined with the vibrant-enough economy. Unemployment was at 5% through the great recession . However, I fin…

I've been saying almost this verbatim for years about New York City. So much self-imposed misery by people who will never make progress financially on their current life trajectory by staying prevents them from living independently elsewhere in the wide expanse of the USA.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#75

Post by saiya-jin » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 12:46 PM UTC

doktrin wrote: post #49

JoshMnem wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already possible if you have technical skills. Just find a company to sponsor you. I once emigrated to Austria. Permanent residency would have been offered after 5 years, but I came back to the US before that.

> It's already possible if you have technical skills. By and large, an American engineer moving to Europe is trading down in a big way - including but definitely not limited to financial compensation.

... which is not true at all, I get above-US-average enginnering (IT) salary in heart of Europe, and that is before taxes. After taxes, it's day and night.

Plus small added benefit of actually having a life after work, have plenty of vacations, system that properly takes care of you in you are ill or unemployed, or detail that my paid taxes are not directly used to kill innocents half around the globe for corporate&political greed. Yepp, life can be good here.

Of course Europe is big and extremely diverse, much more than US, so some of this is valid only for some parts.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#76

Post by arkh » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 12:46 PM UTC

stinky wrote: post #26

mjfl wrote: post #3

Why pay $2000 a month when you have the whole country you could live in for much less? Why should I have to pay increased taxes for your ignorance/provincialism? Is living in San Francisco a fundamental right? I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'd suggest that these people move there, for the low cost of living combined with the vibrant-enough economy. Unemployment was at 5% through the great recession . However, I fin…

There is a solution. At the moment successful EU countries such as Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark are struggling with aging population and not enough people to fill blue colar jobs. I think EU should make it easier for US citizens who get any job here to move over. Americans in general are super hard working. Europe needs hard working people, while we can provide them with free universal healthcare, free universit…

I think it would be a huge error. The US culture already pervades everywhere in the EU thanks to their medias. We really don't want them to invade us directly and out-birth our native population using our health care system and social benefits. They should stay in their country.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#77

Post by madengr » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 12:50 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #27

mjfl wrote: post #3

Why pay $2000 a month when you have the whole country you could live in for much less? Why should I have to pay increased taxes for your ignorance/provincialism? Is living in San Francisco a fundamental right? I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'd suggest that these people move there, for the low cost of living combined with the vibrant-enough economy. Unemployment was at 5% through the great recession . However, I fin…

"You're more likely to die of boredom, but isn't that better than food stamps, and isn't boredom good if you want to raise a family?" That's pretty much it. The Bay Area gives you the chance to be on the cutting edge of change, which - for a certain personality type that tends to be overrepresented in the Bay Area - is often reason enough to live there. Most of the people who want a stable & boring environment to rai…

45% of births are paid by Medicaid.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#78

Post by lr4444lr » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 12:51 PM UTC

d--b wrote: post #18

mjfl wrote: post #3

Why pay $2000 a month when you have the whole country you could live in for much less? Why should I have to pay increased taxes for your ignorance/provincialism? Is living in San Francisco a fundamental right? I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'd suggest that these people move there, for the low cost of living combined with the vibrant-enough economy. Unemployment was at 5% through the great recession . However, I fin…

How? How do you move to Nebraska when you have $100/week for food? How do you find a job, when you have literally 0-day you can spend without working? Are there really than many jobs for people who flip burgers in Lincoln, Nebraska? And are people who flip burgers in Nebraska so much better?

Oh please: how do the homeless streaming into NYC find their way over in the first place? But let's be charitable: we can fund a one-way ticket back, first class, to their state of residence at a vastly cheaper cost than for housing them on expensive land they will never be productive enough to work their way out of.

EDIT: (Because the preceding was hatsher than it had to be without explicit statement of the upside) The point is, if their skill set and ability to advance is little beyond flipping burgers, their cost of living will leave them far better off economically long term in middle American heartland than being forever at the margin of poverty, propped up by municipal welfare in high cost coastal cities.

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#79

Post by celdon25 » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 1:05 PM UTC

arkh wrote: post #76

stinky wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a solution. At the moment successful EU countries such as Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark are struggling with aging population and not enough people to fill blue colar jobs. I think EU should make it easier for US citizens who get any job here to move over. Americans in general are super hard working. Europe needs hard working people, while we can provide them with free universal healthcare, free universit…

I think it would be a huge error. The US culture already pervades everywhere in the EU thanks to their medias. We really don't want them to invade us directly and out-birth our native population using our health care system and social benefits. They should stay in their country.

1. I can't picture that many Americans moving to Europe, even if it were easier. 2. Of those who do move, do you think they will be smart or stupid for doing so? Will Europe get America's best or worst people? 3. Isn't Europe full of Middle Eastern refugees and globalists? Is your view a minority or is it a common opinion of Europeans?

Re: The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger

#80

Post by vadimberman » Thu, Dec 14, 2017, 1:09 PM UTC

stinky wrote: post #26

mjfl wrote: post #3

Why pay $2000 a month when you have the whole country you could live in for much less? Why should I have to pay increased taxes for your ignorance/provincialism? Is living in San Francisco a fundamental right? I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska. I'd suggest that these people move there, for the low cost of living combined with the vibrant-enough economy. Unemployment was at 5% through the great recession . However, I fin…

There is a solution. At the moment successful EU countries such as Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark are struggling with aging population and not enough people to fill blue colar jobs. I think EU should make it easier for US citizens who get any job here to move over. Americans in general are super hard working. Europe needs hard working people, while we can provide them with free universal healthcare, free universit…

> I think EU should make it easier for US citizens who get any job here to move over. Americans in general are super hard working. Europe needs hard working people

Chinese, Indians, Filipinos, Russians want to have a word with you.

And no, Americans won't move to Europe to do blue-collar jobs. That's what East Europeans, Asians, Africans already do, Americans won't do it any cheaper. Heck, go to the South, compete with the Mexicans. Why do you think it's any different?

If you really, really want to move elsewhere, there are plenty of opportunities. You'll have to brush up on geography and languages first though, and start assuming nobody will grant you special privileges for being an American.