Earlier quoted context omitted.
Completely agree, the problem in Europe is not regulations or anything like that - it is a mindset issue. It is one of things that europeans can learn from Americans. My hypothesis is that this is a combination of old money and class consciousness. In other words, the rich are risk averse because all they care is preserving their wealth and the working class don’t believe and can’t even imagine that more is possible.
Let's make simple calculations. In California, near the start of the 20th century there were more than 34 million native Americans living in what was their land. Now there are in California 300-700.000 native Americans. They were exterminated and replaced by a very small European population. Like sterilising a Petri dish and letting bacteria grow, the opportunities that population experienced were the biggest any pop…
UK's hardware talent is being wasted
361–370 of 1001 posts
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
Idk about the Netherlands, but in France you can take your unemployment benefits for 3 years upfront as a capital investment in a new business. And there are various grants and aid you can apply for.
Can you get unemployment if you quit? Annoyingly, in 20 years of working I've never been fired or laid off.
If you're already unemployed, it's possible to keep your allowance longer for a business start-up or takeover.
It's also possible to sign a “rupture conventionée”, which entitles you to unemployment benefits.
But no, if the employee resigns, he or she is not entitled to unemployment benefits, nor to business start-up assistance.
the French system is generous, but not as generous.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. But I wonder what’s the underlying cause? Europe wasn’t like this for centuries. What is the cause of this mindset?
In the UK’s case, feudalism is alive and well. The entire tax system is designed so parasites descended from thugs like the Duke of Westminster or Charles of Battenberg-Saxe-Coburg und Gotha never have to pay property taxes on their extensive land holdings.
I think the answer is something the left won't like - we (Europe) are killing ourselves with bureaucracy, often environmental bureaucracy. A road to hell paved with good intentions.
The documentation to the Lower Thames Crossing, a planned highway tunnel, already exceeds 360 000 pages. This is just crazy.
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/lower-thames-crossin...
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#364Pay engineers billions, then, not CEOs, VCs and shareholders.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#365Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#366God, this place is such a sh*thole (literally if you count the sewage in the water). It's depressing. Every week, X is going downhill, Y is failing, we're out of money. I am so hopeless about my country's future. I feel that this is our century of humiliation.
Well - care to be joined by the Germans? It's the reason I am now living in Japan...
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#367Here's a story I tell from time to time. When I was at uni, we had an internship as part of the course. The course was a joint course between Engineering and Econ/Management, so you could choose from a very wide variety of industries to satisfy the thesis requirement. The business school would coordinate the internships. So I went interviewing in the engineering firms to the west of the country. Aerospace, materials,…
Fundholding GPs don't do badly. A lot get 6 figures if they are partners in a surgery. I think most Doctors etc need to wait until they're consultants until they make decent money. But I'm like you - fell into banking due to being a Lotus Notes developer when it was flavour of the month and have never left. I reckon I'm on over double what I would be if I'd ended up working for IBM or Cap Gemini or similar. [And I sh…
A consultant gets £100k -> £140K ish from the NHS. However, many supplement that with private work and therefore make significantly more.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, "winning" as in not being completely destroyed, occupied, and maybe even enslaved. Check out what Poland looked like in 1940 when it lost, or what Germany looked like in 1945, or, well, 1949. USSR was also terribly battered by WWII, and its leadership was not highly competent either; I'd say both parameters were much worse than UK's. But it managed to remain a large empire with a high economic potential, and UK…
>USSR was also terribly battered by WWII, and its leadership was not highly competent either The USSR moved all its industry eastward, as the German army advanced, waiting for the very last moment to do so. Quite an incredible feat that allowed them to beat Germany at industrial efficiency and secure victory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_in_the_Soviet_Union Here's an analysis of the mechanisms underpinnin…
Czechoslovak industry in the early 1950s was producing a shitton of products sold under their real price to the Soviets, or bargained for cheap agricultural products.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotally, the British people I have interacted with in a business setting seem to have a dearth of ambition. These people weren’t depressed, but I sensed a kind of defeatist cynicism. As an American I realize our culture encourages taking risks and we are remarkably forgiving of failure. In fact, we seem to congratulate people for the fact that they tried in addition to overlooking the failure. I’m not sure if thi…
It really starts at a young age. I remember playing (my) football (your soccer) in school and my neighbourhood as a kid. If you were going to strike you needed to be pretty sure that you can score or that you can take the heat from your team mates if you fail. In contrast watching kids play sports in the US, everyone is constantly trying to lift each other up after failure. These small cultural differences easily add…
The “happy go lucky” observation squares with what I have been told by my Eastern European friend. Any stranger, or mere acquaintance, who is friendly and offering help is likely trying to obligate you into repaying the favor later on. People who for fall for this are naïve or simpletons. There’s definitely a level of trust that needs to be earned before you experience the same kind of positivity and goodwill that Americans seem to dole out to “randos” they just met.
Right after that “like to help” comment he followed it up with: “It is like you are all Golden Retrievers”. Which I found both hilarious and fitting.
Re: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which regulations exactly you find burdensome or overwhelming and stopping you from attempting the become wealthy, change your life and the world maybe? Why would you skip having 1 billion Euros just because you could have had 2 Billion but the government took the rest? Up until 1960's rich Americans payed %91 tax, and yet they kept their entrepreneurial spirit - why you can't do the same at the stated %50? When Appl…
Nominal tax rates were 70 or 90 per cent, but no one really paid them. The tax code was full of loopholes for that purpose. You can't rely on such paper figures to determine real tax burden in the past.