It seems to me that the burger Bob bought (and the check the restaurant wrote to its supplier for the ground beef, and the check the supplier wrote the farmer for the cow) is a direct payment into the food production system, while 'making capital available' may or may not land anywhere near the real economy. What's the sophisticated view here?
There's an enormous amount of complexity here. For one thing, it's not like there is an infinite amount of beef available at a fixed price. Bob's eating that burger probably on the margin increases the supply of beef, but it also on the margin increases the cost. Now everyone else has to pay 0.0000001c more for their hamburgers. Or what if Bob bought a filet mignon instead of a hamburger. Maybe farmers will now be (o…
You make a lot of good points. I think we should also consider the fact that if you invest your money rather than spend it, the firm may not invest directly into capital projects for increased productivity. So much money is returned to shareholders via buybacks and dividends these days. So in those cases, your wealth isn't transferred to labor, instead it's transferred to other shareholders who already have wealth and a flywheel effect occurs. This creates more and more distance between labor and capital.
I could be completely off here but am interested in opinions on this.
If it wasn't for "socialist Europe", our health care would be shit (see the US where people die on the streets because they can't afford an ambulance), my brother would be homeless and probably dead, my dad would've been without any income at age 60, years before his retirement, my sister wouldn't have been able to attend university, and I wouldn't have been able to attend college and land a job in Amsterdam where I…
Speaking of memes that need to die:
> see the US where people die on the streets because they can't afford an ambulance
American hospitals cannot deny emergency treatment for lack of ability to pay.
I make $100k in Texas and after taxes and everything including healthcare I have approximately $75k. Living in a democratic state has its price.
If I made $100K in NYC I would have likely had the same $75k .... which would have left me with $0 after housing and child raising costs. If I made $10k, I would have had the entire $10k. You are comparing big apples to oranges.
You said:
> When I was living in NYC I paid 39% federal + 13.5% state/city - that’s over 50%
It seems to me that the burger Bob bought (and the check the restaurant wrote to its supplier for the ground beef, and the check the supplier wrote the farmer for the cow) is a direct payment into the food production system, while 'making capital available' may or may not land anywhere near the real economy. What's the sophisticated view here?
There's an enormous amount of complexity here. For one thing, it's not like there is an infinite amount of beef available at a fixed price. Bob's eating that burger probably on the margin increases the supply of beef, but it also on the margin increases the cost. Now everyone else has to pay 0.0000001c more for their hamburgers. Or what if Bob bought a filet mignon instead of a hamburger. Maybe farmers will now be (o…
You raise fair points about the spending of money on physical assets/consumption. Can you elaborate similarly on the potential problems with how saved/invested money is allocated?
The Künstlersozialkasse is funded by companies which utilize creative work such as publishers, media, ad agencies, museums, etc.
You are technically correct. In practice, I had colleagues working as "web designers" who were working right next to me and would not get a substantial part of their salary taken out for health insurance. So, they were still funded by the non-artists. Why the distinction? Because this work involved Photoshop and mine used emacs?
As I said, the portion they don't pay is taken from companies using creative work. Not from you and not from me.
It is only available to freelancers. People working in those fields usually don't have the option of regular employment. For that reason was decided that companies using their work still need to contribute to health insurance (as all regular employers need to do as well). For everybody else the answer is: seek regular employment if you want someone else to pay half of your health insurance.
No, all sides are fine if the argument is made within the site guidelines. We need you to make your comments more thoughtful and informative because readers are here to learn something substantive.
How do I know my comment is not thoughtful and informative enough to meet the guidelines so I won't make such mistake in the future? If I had added more details regarding the taxation and who benefits the most from it, would that been enough to not trigger such response?
Imagine a reader who is not you, and imagine whether or not such a reader would learn something intellectually interesting that's grounded in our shared reality. The guidelines themselves give a lot of other specific advice, so you may find it helpful to re-read them closely.
There's an enormous amount of complexity here. For one thing, it's not like there is an infinite amount of beef available at a fixed price. Bob's eating that burger probably on the margin increases the supply of beef, but it also on the margin increases the cost. Now everyone else has to pay 0.0000001c more for their hamburgers. Or what if Bob bought a filet mignon instead of a hamburger. Maybe farmers will now be (o…
You make a lot of good points. I think we should also consider the fact that if you invest your money rather than spend it, the firm may not invest directly into capital projects for increased productivity. So much money is returned to shareholders via buybacks and dividends these days. So in those cases, your wealth isn't transferred to labor, instead it's transferred to other shareholders who already have wealth an…
You're not wrong that that effect can exist. And I'm not saying that investing is a totally altruistic, virtuous action. However, the criticisms of the stock market as not being "real investing" are largely off-base. Liquidity encourages investment -- illiquid investments are universally less preferred than liquid investments, all other things being equal. Even if non-IPO investors/subsequent issuance investors are not directly providing capital to a company, nobody would participate in IPOs or other stock issuances unless they were confident of a market for that stock in the future. Therefore participation in the secondary market for stocks is necessary for a primary market to exist in any meaningful way. (In a similar way, if the public market did not exist, there would be much less private investment, much fewer startups, etc.)
My example comes from Greece where I reside for the past 9 months. People owning touristic buisnesses on the islands are moaning about how much they need more staff and can't find any, and they are arguing why younger people tend to not work and just receive benefits instead of going to work. The argument here that they won't understand though is that, 1st they are paying very low. They are all willing to pay the min…
The thing you describe is the narrative of the evil capitalist owner exploiting poor workers. Here's a thought experiment - those (tourism businesses) owners are making lots of money, so why not create such a business yourself (maybe with help of some external capital) and pay better wages and treat your staff better and pay taxes? Your clients will be much happier with you while having to pay the same. Other capital…
> so why not create such a business yourself
Not many people have €5M to build their own hotel, particularly those who are unemployed. Furthermore, not everyone can overcome all the barriers to entry, or have the know-how to keep a hotel operating.
>On top of all of that, I'm 49.5% moron. Most of the guys I work with here in the US and in the EU are much better than I am. The only reason I go on these trips is because nobody else wants to be away from home for a month. This sounds like a job that would be perfect for me. Where do you find a software job like this?
Just send him your business card and he'll pass it to HR.
Sometimes you get stuck on multiple scrums, back-to-back. Separate projects, but the same plans and activities each.
Then that's not agile. Agile means small teams focused on one project communicating constantly with the client in a feedback loop. If any of these elements is missing, you are not doing agile, you are doing the same thing most companies do, but with some agile pieces and labels attached to it. It's like saying you are on a keto diet, but you eat ice cream, or that you are for democracy as long as the press is control…
> Then that's not agile.
It's kinda saddening that from everything OP said, the only take you got from the message is whether a soul-crushing mouse-wheel is buzz-word compliant in your opinion.