You want to see income disparity at work, travel to Mumbai and live there for a day. I've lived in Mumbai vicariously through VICE, and that was an eye opener on the income inequality issue.
Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep
151–160 of 387 posts
Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep
#152The guy's Scottish, he thinks it's about San Fran specifically, it's really about AMERICA. Maybe San Fran puts it even more in your face. But compared to most any other country even half as rich as America, the lack of social safety net in the U.S. is kind of shocking. People in Europe don't really realize the extent of it.
I'm French living in Jersey. I have been to San Francisco, even though it's blatant when you walk here, everywhere in the US I have that feeling that the poor are really forgotten. And they live in third-world country conditions. In France, the average rich is not as rich, and it's probably a lot harder to become successful and wealthy than here; but the poor are not left behind as much. It feels more like a society…
"it's better to be born poor in Europe than in the US, and better to be born rich in the US than in Europe"
Absolutely fantastic comment.
Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The solution is simple. You simply give every adult citizen enough money every year to insure that they can afford food, shelter, and other basic needs. Give it to everyone, rich or poor, same amount. BAM! You left out the part where the money comes from. Your idea is fine and dandy, but I doubt you are currently implementing it yourself by spending your own money. The idea depends on everybody being forced to pay.…
>Distributing money indiscriminately devalues work and effort. This is a poor understanding of the concept. The idea behind a Basic Income Guarantee is that it is received equally by every citizen in the country. It's an idea linked to Negative Income Tax and other like proposals, and shares support of many with a more libertarian/economically conservative bent. In most areas of North America where Basic Income exper…
run4yourlives: Well stated. Warren Buffet, I believe, has often emphasized the fact that the growing wealth disparity is not good for long-term economic growth in U.S.
Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
same goes for the OP (or the inverse statement)
You need a citation to prove that homeless people don't want to be homeless? Silicon Valley has peaked. Idealistic, social-conscience-having nerds take note: This is what happens when you let neoliberalism, Randroidism, and corporate psychopathy infect your tech community. Technology is supposed to be used to create a Star Trek future. Not to spy on everyone as we make their jobs obsolete, drive up their rental costs…
I'm not in silicon valley, but I know people who volunteered in homeless shelters.
Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep
#155"Last night, someone told me “In California, there isn’t a conflict between being a Capitalist, and a Liberal”, with a wry grin on his face." Of course there isn't. Liberalism in its purest form (as espoused by Hayek, say) is, in effect, free market capitalism with a light but universally applicable (no "special cases", as those lead to totalitarianism) set of regulations to prevent bad actors (e.g. hey, let's put he…
"Obamacare" is not socialist, it's liberal, as a core concept of liberalism is that the state should fund things that people cannot or will not fund for themselves, like roads and healthcare. "More doubtfully compatible with the liberal conception of equality is another measure which also gained wide support in liberal circles, namely the use of progressive taxation as a means to effect a redistribution of income in…
Why are you conflating Obamacare with progressive taxation? Incredibly misleading. Hayek was clearly fine with social insurance programs.
"Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong. There are many points of detail where those wishing to preserve the competitive system and those wishing to super-cede it by something different will disagree on the details of such schemes; and it is possible under the name of social insurance to introduce measures which tend to make competition more or less ineffective. But there is no incompatability in principle between the state’s providing greater security in this way and the preservation of individual freedom." -- The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek
Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm Scottish and while I've not quite experienced it myself, I'm happy living in Europe where m taxes are spent on health care as opposed to bombs. It's not so much shocking as it is just really sad. :(
It's not zero-sum. The US already spends more per capita on healthcare than every other country. It just does so extremely inefficaciously.
Are you talking about the states/fed? As that'd suprise me.
Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm Scottish and while I've not quite experienced it myself, I'm happy living in Europe where m taxes are spent on health care as opposed to bombs. It's not so much shocking as it is just really sad. :(
It's not zero-sum. The US already spends more per capita on healthcare than every other country. It just does so extremely inefficaciously.
True. Not only does the US as a nation spend more on healthcare than almost anyone else, US citizens also spend more on healthcare than citizens of almost any other country. So the govt. and the citizens are paying boat-loads--that's inefficiency.
And, it doesn't help anything that we're one of the most unhealthy nations.
Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep
#158It is no different online. People online know I am homeless. Most of them step over me and move on, though all I have asked for is help figuring out how to make money online instead of going back to a normal job that was helping to kill me. I imagine this comment will get buried or ignored or negative attention, an ironic repeat of the problem people are decrying.
Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Parents in the US have children for recreational purposes" Really?!? I don't know a single parent who would list or even hint that they needed "recreation" when deciding to have a child. Let's assume you were half-joking, I still don't see having kids as something anyone takes lightly no matter what country you are born in. "child birth rates do not fluctuate with the demand for labor" Another horrible reason to hav…
When I say "recreational" I mean that there is no need for parents to have children, other than the fact that they are biologically motivated to. We have more people than resources in this world. That is a problem, and the only way to fix it is to encourage people to be realistic about the potential for their children to have happy, productive lives in a society that almost certainly has no use for them.
Overpopulation is a myth. Actually in the first world underpopulation is greater risk, most European countries have a lower fertility rate than the 2.1 children replacement rate. Even at a global level the world population will reach a plateau somewhere around the middle of the century.
Re: Come here and work on hard problems – except the ones on our doorstep
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm Scottish and while I've not quite experienced it myself, I'm happy living in Europe where m taxes are spent on health care as opposed to bombs. It's not so much shocking as it is just really sad. :(
It's not zero-sum. The US already spends more per capita on healthcare than every other country. It just does so extremely inefficaciously.