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Comment by TalkingCodeMonk | Hacker News Reader

This "greed is good, and should be rewarded" philosophy is one I see all too often on HN, and the entire reason why Americas political, regulatory, and business leadership have been overrun by the countries most criminally corrupt narcissists and psychopaths; why its democracy has collapsed.

When you reward the most selfish, corrupt, and antisocial behaviours with wealth and power, you're guaranteed to create a selfish, corrupt, and antisocial society. IMHO it's indicative of what I have dubbed Americas "mental illness epidemic"; specifically cluster B personality disorders [0] which are characterised by socially-destructive and self-destructive behaviours.

If that's the world you want for you and your loved ones, congratulations. You've earned it!

[0] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_personality_dis...

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If tax incentives to attract companies and at-will employment are already viewed as a destructive collapse of democracy, it's no wonder we are not getting anything done here in Europe.

I suggest you take the time to read independent analysis on the benefits of corporate subsidies in America.

I know I've read of many cases where they cost cities and communities far more than the economic activity they promise to generate (eg Amazon warehouses and sportsball stadiums).

Subsidies could make strategic sense in the case of AI, but it's terrible economics to encourage businesses that take more from communities than they give back, especially those that don't employ many people.

Data centers are known to create few local jobs while requiring upgrades to the power grid or water infrastructure.

Wouldn't that make it important to subsidize them at the national level, precisely for that reason? Otherwise it seems likely to be a NIMBY problem.

But now I'm talking about data centers, the main thing we lack here is AI research labs, is it not? I think those should create many jobs.

Why should taxpayers anywhere pay private enterprises to create infrastructure they own and control for-profit, rather than just cutting out the monopoly middle man and establishing that infrastructure as a public utility who services the domestic economy, equally?

This is the kind of madness I'm talking about. If taxpayers have to subsidise products and services the "free" market refuses to provide, they should have direct ownership in the profits; not just the losses. Why is the default for society to subsidise expenses and privatise profits? That is ideologically-driven dogmatic insanity, which allows select individuals and foreign entities control over the national economy and its security, and is the entire reason madmen in the USA have the EU (and world) by the balls.

No greed will be rewarded. If European consumers don't like the end AI models that are produced, they can forgo buying them and the investors can watch their fortress burn. For the EU taxpayer, nothing was gained and nothing was lost. All the state did was stand out of the way.

If the models are good though, they will have their sovereign AI and should be happy to pay for it instead of American or Chinese models. You may call it greed, but to me it just sounds fair.

> For the EU taxpayer, nothing was gained and nothing was lost.

Except for the "massive" subsidies you advocated for, right? Except for the massive cost to provide utilities and infrastructure to support those businesses? Except for the cost to support the employees they refuse to provide minimum "protections" for? Except for any damage they do to the local environment?

You seem to think that businesses exist in a vaccum where they have no impact on society or its population, except when they succeed and everyone should be eternally grateful. This is the systemic greed and narcissism America exports to the world; not just through its businesses, but its media and population across forums such as this one, and is exactly what I'm talking about.

There would be no subsidies and the companies would be responsible for funding their own infrastructure. Protections for workers would be minimal, because we wouldn't really be interested in hiring people who want strong protections. They can stay at their current job. You balk at this, but all of Europe's capable tech minds left the EU to go work at tech in the US over the last 30 years. They didn't care about the generous protections, they cared about making stuff and making money. Which they did, overwhelmingly.

What I am describing is an existential battle for the relevance of Europe on the world stage in the future. Right now Europe is looking like a vasal state, picking between the US and China for who it's overlord will be. If Europe wants independence, it needs to mobilize immediately to catch up.

3 Times As Many Europeans Move to the US, than the Other Way Around.

[1]: https://mises.org/mises-wire/3-times-many-europeans-move-us-...

In 2017. Wonder what it's like today.

"US, for 1st time in 50 years, experienced negative net migration in 2025" [0]

Curious how they jumped for nearly decade old stats, huh?

[0] https://abcnews.com/US/us-1st-time-50-years-experienced-nega...

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