Hacker News Reader

Comment by eudox | Hacker News Reader

I'm so god damn tired. First Gawker, then HuffPo, and now the Guardian.

"The President is so austere!". With his own money. This is who he is: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=ht...

"Weed!" That only the State can grow and sell (Smoking it was always legal, and buying/selling has always been and will continue to be illegal).

If you think Uruguay is a "liberal dreamboat", as one Gawker article said, then please, move in. We can even exchange citizenships. If misery is your thing, then by all means, do whatever country you live in a favor, and move to Uruguay. It's not like this continent can get any worse.

View on HN

So what is actually wrong with it?

Nothing you mentioned sounds bad at all (and the translation of that article seemed pretty poor, so hard to draw conclusions). I would LOVE to live in a more "socialist" country. I'd much rather be poorer in a place where my basic needs are met and I don't have to fear starvation or freezing to death if I catch an unlucky break. Instead of a rising tide lifting all boats, I'd rather lower all the boats but make sure that none of them sink.

Yes, because we see news reports of poor American citizens dying everyday because of starvation.

Keep pushing your propaganda though.

Don't forget, for most Americans... one unexpected hospital bill is all that stands between them and financial ruin. USA can be an okay place to be as long as you don't get sick...

Most Americans have insurance so your assertion is dubious

The vast majority of Americans even pre-ACA had either government-provided insurance or employer group insurance, neither of which would lead to "unexpected hospital bills". Even the existing private insurance market was pretty reliable here ("rescission" was vanishingly rare).

So I'm curious how you came up with "most Americans".

I live in a more socialist country where health care and education are free, and where we have have a good balance between work and personal time and I hope it'll stay the same despite the international pressure. I don't know why "socialism" is such a bad word in the US. Probably propaganda from the rich to keep their privileges.

I had the chance to live in the US for a couple of years (it was a child dream of mine to do so) and now I have much more mixed feelings about its ideology. Overall, I think I have a better life in Europe.

>>Probably propaganda from the rich to keep their privileges.

Not probably. It's exactly that.

I can't believe no one has challenged you on this remark for 5+ hours.

Not at all - a "socialist" system involves doubling taxes On the middle class - that's really tough to sell to....the middle class, shockingly

1) Are US taxes half EU taxes then?

2) "Middle class", do you mean working classes?

3) Why do so many people think its a choice between the two, socialism and capitalism? What people want is a sensible compromise where both systems work to service all of society's needs, instead of a single system which can only benefit one part of society. No one serious thinks pure, exclusive socialism is the answer to anything? Its not. Neither is pure exclusive capitalism. Simply, capitalism raises the money to pay for socialism to provide a useful work force and services for capitalism. We need a balance.

Absolutely! Although she's been politically forced, Merkel is setting up minimum eages in Germany, while Raul Castro has issued some (however mildly) free-enterprise initiatives, and something like that is coming up in China. Leave dogma to the ivory towers.

Of course, even the U.S. is not pure capitalist system - we have a multitude of programs that are design to support the poor

The frame of debate provided by Anglo Saxon media/politics does not allow one to think that such ideals exist or are worth striving for. We are wage slaves.

healthcare and education in your country aren't free - they are paid for by high taxes on the middle class

Do you even know where the parent poster is living?

Since healthcare in _my_ "socialist" (from a USA point of view) country certainly isn't generally paid for by taxes but by insurance fees. (Exception: the unemployed are covered by social security, which is an insurance system partially backed from the tax pool)

The only "socialist" part here is that they make it hard to avoid the system (that is, leech off from others when you eventually get sick and end up in the ER, incurring costs higher than your net worth)

Money is fungible. Generally, the higher level of services is paid for by the higher level of overall taxation - you can call it fees or whatever, it doesn't change the fact that on average, you are left with less disposable income. This might be fine as a societal choice, but just don't think it's free.

It's no free, but it's shared on everybody in a way that we don't feel it's a burden, and everybody gets access to decent healthcare without having to worry about it.

"the higher level of services is paid for by the higher level of overall taxation"

Not necessarily. You can also try to reduce the cost of the service. Healthcare in most European countries costs less than in the US for the same service (for instance medical acts prices can be largely controlled by the state).

Honestly, I don't know much about economics. However I think it's fair to say that in that particular field, what may be great on paper may not work in practice. The theoretical models are so remote from real life that I'm not sure they provide much value. So it essentially boils down to ideology.

If one has to be dogmatic, I would privilege "free" healthcare and education to private property and free market.

High taxes are fine with me as long as I, and everyone else, also get a high level of services. In some sense it is understandable that middle-class Americans have a distaste for taxation since most of the tax money just ends up being funneled to the upper-class through corporate subsidies, grants, tax credits, and warfare.

According to the article he is a former bank robber who had shootouts with the police. I hope he's changed since then, but robbing banks tends to lead to long prison sentences in any country I know of (unless you're a banker, but that's another story...).

Now, I'm not claiming to know anything specifically wrong with him, though an endorsement from the Daily Mail generally has the opposite effect for me.

So are you saying that 14 years is not a long prison sentence?

By the way, that is about 10% longer than the average prison sentence for bank robbery in the US. See http://www.popcenter.org/problems/robbery_banks/4

Quite the opposite, I'm saying that it is long, but such sentences are normal for people convicted of bank robbery.

Also take into account that it is not the same to be in prison on a democracy that in a dictatorship.

Well yes, it's true that I have no way of knowing that he was actually guilty, that he got a fair trial, etc. But assuming he actually was guilty (a potentially bad assumption), then the prison sentence itself was not objectively unreasonable (it's within striking distance of an average sentence), though the prison conditions very well might have been unreasonable.

I agree that the "sentence" is probably reasonable, but I was thinking more about the prison conditions, isolation, torture, etc.

The article uses Brazil as a bad example, when in fact it's a country where 20+ million were lifted out of poverty by welfare systems, investments in education and economic growth in the past half decade.

This attempt to paint a picture of left-wing governments as condemning citizens to a "median life" and "bread and sausage" is also used by the right-wing in Brazil, and bears no relation to reality. The nobody is going to get rich line means that nobody will profit in excess from your work, not that you will be prevented from getting richer if you really want to. E.g. nordic countries, switzerland...

Is it as bad as Brazil? I have Uruguayan citizenship but never quite "exercised" it i.e. I've never lived and worked in Uruguay. I grew up in the border with Rivera though, and it was a much nicer place than Livramento on the Brazilian side: good street lighting, WAY better streets and sidewalks, nice parks, cops patrolling the streets. I remember finding it much safer to stay out late with my friends in Rivera than in Livramento. And not to mention the duty free shops where we could buy electronics and stuff for a much lower price than anywhere in Brazil :)

Can you give more specifics about your complaints, especially about Uruguay? I've had the opportunity to work with several people in the past year in Uruguay, Columbia, Brazil, and Argentina. The consensus has been uniformly positive that Uruguay's economy and politics are stable, the tech workers have plenty of opportunity and good wages. Some of the taxes and import duties are tough, but better there than in Argentina, for example. Thoughts? I'm honestly curious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com