Comment by gls2ro | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gls2ro | Hacker News Reader

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Whenever there is a discussion about EU there are very similar arguments against EU: - Too much birocracy - Too many taxes - Too much regulation that protects workers

And I have to remind myself that people writing this are having a bias: they believe that in a system with few taxes (so less public health care, public eduction, less support for unemployment ...) they are on top, they are the ones with money, they are the ones that win the game.

But when they are without money and in a precarious situation they too might vote an extremist that will promise to distribute wealth via the state => more taxes. You have a real example happening these years in a country that proudly promote itself as the best one in the world: low taxes, no healthcare, no free education, little regulations - the most amazing place to start a business.

I am not saying everybody is like this, but it is very important to question yourself about where are you seeing yourself: as the one on top winning from the system or the one that has some needs. And second question: how many people will be on one side or the other?

Regarding birocracy: this comes exactly from the fact that EU is not a federation so each state needs to have their voice heard and so a lot of regulations/law are complex => more birocracy.

Of course EU has a lot of things to improve and a lot of regulations to rewrite and can and should do more for business. But let's not put those two in an antagonist system: you can support businesses while not punishing the people, the consumers, the users and the labor market.

>And I have to remind myself that people writing this are having a bias: they believe that in a system with few taxes (so less public health care, public eduction, less support for unemployment ...) they are on top, they are the ones with money, they are the ones that win the game.

What if your assumption here is incorrect and you are more likely projecting? What if there are other reasons people have?

What people are complaining about is that they visually see an increase in taxes and bureaucracy without a proportional increase in what they get back from the government. OFten the contrary. THye pay more and get less. They don't want to cancel all that, they just want their government to be less corrupt and more savvy with how its spends its taxpayers money.

>but it is very important to question yourself about where are you seeing yourself: as the one on top winning from the system or the one that has some needs.

Yes, that's important to ask yourself, But more important would be to ask yourself what happens as more and more people become parts of the "needs" group, who will be left to contribute to fund those with needs? If you compensate by increasing taxes and burden your fewer remaining productive workers to redistribute their labor to a growing pool of unproductive members with needs, your skilled people emigrate and you're left with just the people with needs. Who is then going to pay for all those needs? Raise a Berlin wall to keep them from leaving?

Caring for people in needs is nice, but this isn't' the 1960's anymore when Europe had international monopoly over entire industries and could afford generous welfare. The truth is if you run your government like a charity, you can't compete with major powers that run their country like ruthless corporations or industrial factories. Eventually they will steam roll you with their economic and military might and your former prosperity will be gone in a blink of an eye.

The problem with Europe's needs based system is that it's unsustainable within both its current domestic conditions and the international conditions eroding its wealth, but no EU citizen wants to hear that they system they paid for their whole lives is not working.

> But more important would be to ask yourself what happens as more and more people become parts of the "needs" group, who will be left to contribute to fund those with needs?

If that happens, you're doing it wrong. The point of helping people with social programs is to ensure (ideally) no one falls through the cracks and becomes an even bigger cost to society, so they can eventually contribute to society again instead of being a cost to it instead of getting trapped in poverty.

Of course, some people are not well enough they will ever be able to contribute to society, but providing them with the basics is less expensive to society than not doing so.

>If that happens, you're doing it wrong.

They already are doing it wrong and they have been since its inception, since the pay-as-you-go system is unsustainable unless population and economic output grow forever and EU has stagnated for the last 20 years and shows no signs of massive comebacks.

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