Hacker News Reader

red_blobson Japan Will Make Its Last VCR This Month

I have no nostalgia toward VHS tapes. They degrade too easily.

In fact, I made digital backups of all my dvds and got rid of the physical media.

Backup is easy and I can stream my entire collection to every room in the house (or my computer/phone when I'm outside).

red_blobson Why Tronc's ridiculous plan to produce 2,000 videos a day is doomed

The sad thing is this will actually make them money. Many of these automation strategies that usually end up getting banned by Google actually work too well.

red_blobson My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

"they all have property rights enshrined into the core of their economies, they all allow for the vast accumulation of wealth without forced redistribution"

I disagree. These nations do not allow vast accumulations of wealth. They have significant taxes that actually prohibit vast accumulations of wealth, by design. It's also a form of forced redistribution, because you are required to pay excessive tax rates..and if you don't, you be sent to prison or be subjected to some form of punishment.

In fact, if you look at the average wages across all industries in a country like Sweden, they are relatively the same.

Here are some stats: http://lostinstockholm.com/2012/01/10/average-salaries-in-sw...

Why are they the same? Because the government will tax the money away before you can ever get to those higher amounts.

"The nations you refer to, are actually welfare states, not Socialist - there is a very big difference."

I feel like this is the 'no true scotsman' argument all over again. At a certain tax rate, the government owns the means of production.

We can keep playing semantics and call it 'socialist' or 'welfare state', but the reality is that no matter what you call it, high taxes and excessive government regulations is not something that is conducive to a prospering nation.

Even look at California as a small example: The high tax rates and regulations have started squeezing out the middle class and in many parts of the state, you only have two classes of people: poor and rich.