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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

I trust my government (Switzerland) way more to do the thing that is right for the people and the law then some private company that has the primary goal of making money. It doesn't mean that governments don't make mistakes but the primary goal is to serve its people.

That is what government is for in a functioning democracy. A functioning government is of the people for the people.

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Trust Switzerland? Protonmail is literally fleeing Switzerland. You now have to upload Government ID to use any online service with more than 5k users!! They are also now requiring backdoors (Article 50a). Literally the end of privacy!

It's honestly depressing no one talks about this, or even knows about this.

[flagged]

Dang has stated these sorts of comments do not belong on HN news. Discussion of specifics are fine, but nationalist slurs are not.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48100358

Edit: wow, my bad. HN really loves low effort nationalistic slurs as entire comments now.

What's the slur here? American? Mind?

I'm American, and I wasn't offended. Because it's true, we actually can't comprehend this because we are the poster child of government via huge corporations. We literally don't know what it's like to have a functioning and trustworthy government handling these things, it's completely foreign to us.

It's a joke but Visa and Mastercard are American corporations so Americans can feel relatively secure using them. If you live in another developed country, relying on the whims of American entities feels less secure than something subject to the laws of your own country.

American consumers have no democratic control of that duopoly either.

To be fair both are publicly traded and owning shares would give you voting rights.

Point is: traded companies function like a democracy in which money is a vote, which is the opposite of democracy.

this doesn’t sound reassuring. there is not a nationality test on buying shares

They're protected by the laws of their country. Foreigners aren't. That's the point.

Americans corporations have shown they'll just pull out of countries if the law comes down on them too hard.

Americans are pretty aware that government by large, multinational, unaccountable corporations sucks and has basically all of the downsides of big government without any of the accountability upsides.

American media may be less likely to share that narrative with you. But the actual people figured this out a while ago and they're mad.

If I had the Swiss government instead of the US Federal Government I'd trust it a lot more too.

I assume the concern is more about moving to mandated digital currency where every transaction is tracked by the government, no cash allowed.

I hope I get to live in such a place some day.

> I trust my government (Switzerland)

I do, too. I’m not sure I trust Brussels.

I certainly trust the EU a lot more than I trust US corporations.

Considering the head of EZB is a convicted criminal with, lets call it interesting, letters to the convicted criminal Sarkozy I am not sure what is plague and what cholera.

Taken into account than of two convicted criminals, Sarkozy went to prison and will probably be sent there again, whereas Trump is running a big country, I'm pretty sure which is which.

Lagarde is not a convicted criminal. She was convicted for negligence, but this is not a criminal conviction.

Lets see. Gerhard Schroeder, fled to RU. Nicolas Sarkozy, convicted. Silvio Berlusconi, convicted. Geert Wilders, convicted. Slobodan Milošević, convicted. Jean-Marie Le Pen, convicted. Marine Le Pen, convicted.

Donald Trump, convicted (pardoned everyone who attempted a coup on Jan 6 2021).

Victor Orban, surely he'll get convicted.

Benjamin N., Vladimir P.: wanted by ICC.

(This excludes cases like Jan Maršálek / Wirecard fraud / GRU spy. Also, have a peak at all the cleaning Zelenski's government had to do, including in his inner circle.)

Seems we in Europe at least are attempting to uphold the rule of law. I can't say the same for US corporations or US government, given the current administration. That being said... can we stop voting for these narcissistic criminals? Thank you in advance.

I met Mr Schröder on Saturday in the Opera. I can therefore vouch that he is not in Russia.

> attempted a coup

funny everyone forgot to bring guns for the coup

Having seen some of the footage, that is the oddest coup attempt I've ever seen. Wasn't the only violence a police officer shooting a woman climbing into a window?

I even trust EU more than the local corrupt country governments.

Oh, 100%. But the choice here is between European banks and a state-run Pix equivalent.

Do they deserve your trust?

The government? Either the national government or the EU get legitimacy by being democratic instructions. That doesn't mean they get blind faith, it is healthy to scrutinize their actions.

US corporations on the other hand get only my contempt and scorn.

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