Its really a great system we have here --- get insanely wealthy off the backs of Americans who pay tons more for basic services and then when it's time to pay back run off and keep your change. No wonder America is doing so well.
You US folks have created this monstrosity yourselves, too. You let lobbyists (who work for the companies that the richest own) influence politicians, you allow companies to have personhood and other such nonsense.
Even the politicians you get to vote on are placed there by said lobbyists and thus the companies that pay for them.
Institutionalised, legal, and widely stimulated and motivated corruption is what causes all of this to happen. The rich make the rules, you not liking it can't be fixed because the rich decide what "fixes" are available for you to vote on.
I find it a bit startling to see this sentiment on HN, a site that used to be mostly full of people building startups, attempting to get wealthy by building something useful that people are happy to pay for.
If you don't see the difference between that and, say, Amazon, then I don't know what to say.
The fact that you can trace a line between a scrappy startup in a converted garage somewhere and a behemoth doesn't mean that they are both the same thing.
UBI is not the only solution. Islamic countries have for over 1400 years had the Zakat system, which provides for the poor and needy.
Personally I think everyone deserves a certain level of dignity, especially when they're going through hard times. But I've also seen plenty of examples of people who "work the system", which makes it harder to get funding for social welfare programs.
And it always strikes me as weird how willing people are to waste money and create inefficient systems only to keep some freeloaders from enjoying their life but balk at hunting down rich people for tax evasion, imposing proportional fines for offenses like they do in Finland or closing tax loop holes. I mean I think I understand why but I find it weird.
a) Undeveloped land is freely available, and anyone who wants to can go and cultivate it independently from anyone else, making a life entirely for themselves.
b) All land is already owned, and making a living must be achieved by exchanging (typically labour) with others.
Do you believe that people starting without capital in scenario b) will enter into contracts as freely as those starting without capital in scenario a)?
a) 100% of the world population can relocate globally without any need for visa so they can access the global job market and pick the best location
b) 1% of the world population has access to enough education to become highly skilled and be able to relocate legally. Everybody else has limited choice.
Another example:
a) Everybody has access to UBI and can freely choose to work or study or do volunteering, art etc
b) Unemployed people go hungry, homeless, get sick, get imprisoned
[0] https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro...
And that's only minimum wage workers, in a subset of the US.
Was there a particular reason you were under the impression that wage theft was uncommon?
In a market with multiple suppliers and buyers, the price will sort itself out.
That you don't like that price has nothing to do with either side being "evil".
Aren't these valid options? No "cigar smoking fat cat" force workers to sign the contract under duress.
If it's collaborative can we vote a new CEO?
Collaboration doesn't mean forcing others to work with you.
Instead, collaborative is about voluntary choice.
If you want to work somewhere else, under different rules, that would be your choice. Forcing others to do what you want isn't collaboration.
> why can't we vote for it
Co-ops exist. If that is what you prefer then go work for a co-op.
Creating a company _should_ be collaborative, but our current capitalist system has actually become more exploitative.
Take Jeff Bezos' commentary after his ride into space for example:
> I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this. So, to every Amazon customer out there and every Amazon employee thank you from the bottom of my heart.
https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/1417515577275453440
I get it that we, the consumers paid for this trip. But his employees? What do they have to do with this? Isn't it supposed to be a "collaborative and mutually beneficial" relationship, which would imply that Bezos is not making money from his employees, but exclusively through them, and paying them what they deserve? Yet he claims that they paid for it, which implies that he is not paying them what they deserve, since it is the customer who is supposed to pay his salary, not the exploitation of his employees.
Better cuisine is a big driver for me too - hello Italy or France.
New Zealand as it is rumoured although i don't believe it - for someone not rich enough to own a private jet where you can properly sleep, it is TOO far away from... just about anywhere.
Singapore. Some of the Southern and Eastern Europe for those not rich enough.
If I am not mistaken most of those suicides are among the Maori people not the white people of NZ.
"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Biblically speaking, its not whether one is rich or not, but whether one loves (or worships) riches and the associated power, or whether one uses his or her riches to serve God and love one's neighbor. Thus Paul wrote of learning to be content in plenty or in want, and James warns of not showing favoritism to the rich (echoing perhaps the Old Testament command to not pervert justice in favor of the poor or of the rich).
Trying to tie this thread back into the topic.... I guess it was good that when Abram emigrated from Ur in his home country, the Chaldeans Revenue Service didn't have the steep exit tax that the US imposes on rich emigrants.
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-of-the-latest-federal-inco...
>The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (38.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.9 percent).
IMO, this is one of this is why the American government seems so bad at spending money. It's not their money, so there's little incentive to care if it's misappropriated.
Wikipedia says the top 1% possesses precisely 38.5% of the country's wealth, so it's more than reasonable that they shoulder at least 38.5% of the taxes. [1] This stat is also from 2016. That divide has grown immensely these past few years.
The stat the Tax Foundation presents is made to make us sympathetic towards people who control basically the entire nation's wealth and pay, frankly, very little. There's a reason they're not putting their wealth in the EU or developed Asian countries--they'd be paying more.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...
So they have unnecessary wealth just sitting around that they don't need.
(also americans overall are rich compared to the rest of the world at this time)
You could just as well argue America gets insanely wealthy off the backs of globalist foreign labor. But in that case, no "duty" is owed it's just "fair" trade.