Well yeah, but there is a difference in the US where Amazon is your best bet to get things quickly and cheaply while in Europe smaller stores can offer similar prices and often they also do next day delivery. Especially in The Netherlands

Sorry but I don’t follow you.

But yes we should listen to sciencists and other experts.

The minimum wage thing I can explain, in companies where a big part of the direct cost is the wage of the people working there (the service industries like restaurants or accountants etc). Increasing the wage will also increase the price of the services (or goods) they sell. If costs go up they will either have to eat the loss, which is unsustainable or increase prices. Which is what a lot of restaurants have been doing especially since covid. Hence we are paying 3,5+ € for a beer here in The Netherlands.

A way to fix this is to give those people who need it suplemental income using social security. Same way as that the government here in NL pays companies money when they have somebody on parantal leave.

Another downside of reasining the minimum income is that in a lot of countries and or companies the higher wages are based on minimum wage. Often adding a certain percentage on top. So raising the minimum wage will also increase those.

I am all for everyone being able to afford all the basic plus have money extra for fun shir and that’s why I am all for an universal income, but I don’t dig the minimum wage income. However, minimum wage should increase at minimum with inflation until there is a UBI and then even that should increase with inflation.

Yea you are right some people cannot do that, but there are a shit ton of people in first world non corrupt countries who literally waste money.

Some people need to hear that buying the cheapest thing is the right to do when they don’t have a choice, but some other group of people need the financial advice to do shit properly.

Telling people that buying the cheapest thing is good for some, but financially hurting others who can afford to spend 5 bucks instead of 1 on a better knife or whatnot.

We can have a whole other discussion about raising minimum wage cause that will drive costs up in certain sectors even more. Government’s need to step in and increase minimum INCOME. UBI etc.

Edit: i have seen people waste money on terrible products when they could afford better. There is a group of people who has the money but never really learned how to save and spend it properly to get the most out if it. Buying plastic plates every week or so is way more expensive than buying an actual plate.

Marginal tax is the percentage calculated using the following formula:

(Tax paid + missed social security benefits) / income before tax.

It basically means that the missing of social security will impact the middle class a lot more than the rich percentage wise.

Not sure what statistics you are talking about

Generally the slightly more expensive shit is cheaper in the long run that’s the thing. And some people choose to spend more money buying shit om Amazon/Aliexpress/Wish etc instead of buying something similar locally.

Not Just Bikes makes a great video how the cheaper options like Walmart are actively destroying America. Partially because they more their profits to a company outside the US and partially because they remove jobs.

But yeah, shit is hard to fix in corrupt countries.

Not the person you responded to, but personally I just went Truenas scale on baremetal and it worked really well. Currently they also work with docker so setting up additional apps is really easy as well.

Not Just Bikes made a video about how American chains are just killing the US

That depends a bit on the situation, I have seen some people from rich companies who learned things like in the quote from Sir Terry Pratchett, aka the cheapest is not always the best option.

Some people also got rich in the first place because they either studied hard and got to be a specialist earning hundreds of thousands a year for their job and others just came with the right invention in the right time, and we overpaid for it. You see that especially in tech where the costs where generally pretty low (especially bookkeeping wise since the original owner’s hours are generally not added in the bookkeeping) and they sold it for a lot.

It also works the other way around, if you choose to spend your money on cheap supplies (because you are shortsighted) it will cost you more money in the long run.

A lot of people need to learn how to use their money effectively, and budgeting can help for some.

F.e. the current Dutch penal code was accept in 1881. Thats 144 years ago.

Part of the issue is that we are mostly stuck in an economic structure that cannot continue forever unless everybody partakes. Getting more wages every year, getting more revenue and profit every year, just doesn’t work for eternity. In theory, if everybody got their 2%$ wage increases and interest was just 2% a year (excluding promotions or corrections for pas years etc) it would be fine.

The circular economy theory is one of those theories that attempts to fix that AND also work on helping the repair, reuse, recycle movement.

In a normal state of things the police doesn’t decide who is a criminal, the justice system does and that should be separated from the government. Sadly there are more and more corrupt countries these days. But yeah giving them more money for anything else than to get more/better personel doesn’t help.

I understand your way of communicating, we are all busy but you acting like you are better doesn’t help your point of view. I have said that to more people who are really left leaning like yourself, if you want to help people convert you don’t want to “hit” them (be mean or acting like you are better etc) you want to support them and show them why your opinion is better.

I already pay like 80% marginal tax, I get no benefits, I get shafted with every political decision both left and right leaning parties make or are planning to make. Why would I get converted to the left? There is a bigger chance I get converted to the right because that is where my food is since I work in finances.

You dont have a leftist party like what I’m talking about. One that wants to abolish hierarchies between people. One that guarantees food and shelter for everyone, no matter where they are from.

The left parties here generally do want everybody to have the basic necessities, they are generally pretty shortsighted in where to get the money from to fund that.

Your idea of many classes is exactly what actual leftists are trying to get out of your head because it is detrimental to you.

Why? It is fact that you have multiple classes. I see it on a daily basis (I work in finances) and people have different goals in life based on where they sit. There are other ways of looking at it, like working class and not-working class or whatever, but that’s nothing more than a different opinion.

People who receive say unemployment benefits arent another class. They simply dont have a job. Dividing people into classes makes them weak and conquerable.

There is way more social security than just unemployment benefits. There is a massive amount of people who (need) to live of social security. Who cannot work because they are suck, or well they are in between jobs or whatever. We need to financially support those people, but it shouldn’t be the case that if you start to work, you get less money than when not working. That is currently an issue since social security stops at certain incomes and if often happens that people who barely get out of the social security system get less money. But in the tax system those people are different than the working class who receive none and generally they have a different look at social security because they marginally (taxes they pay plus the loss of social security) pay a lot of taxes (up to 80% or something like that even when earning like 30k a year).

If you have to sell your time for money, you are working class, like all others. Currently, this working class is under attack by the capital. Incomes for the mahority of people is not going up and by dividing us into many classes we can be told this doesnt concern us.

I believe that you are forgetting that a lot of the working class is also the part that is causing stress on the capital or whatever you want to call it. There is an economic flaw in the current system of always wanting more salaries wanting more profit, revenue etc. Most people have savings which banks invest into companies to then generate a profit or people do it together.

This leads to folks driving a ferrari through a part of the city where people starve on the streets. That is a sign of fully deleted empathy to your fellow humans.

Just because somebody owns or drives a Ferrari doesn’t mean they don’t care for others? We had a client who had to win in advice here how to give money anonymously to a food bank. The dude is pretty dang rich (a couple 100k euro to spend a year), but generally does things like that on a regular basis.

Actual leftists have the sole goal of destroying homelessness and hunger. Thats what we do.

No, that’s YOUR opinion on what leftists sole goal is. I have talked to others who’s main goal it is to create a better environment for war victims, which in turn causes more people to be here. Most people shouldn’t really be homeless in The Netherlands unless their either choose to be homeless (some people do, but they might be sick, idk) or the more realistic case of them falling in between the social security benefits due to the current structure. Which is also the reason why sometimes working more or getting a pay raise will result in less money to spend in a given moment. UBI will fix that, but we need to get that and fund it. Or people who went into shit with the company or just generally don’t make a lot of money from their company. Those get barely any support from the government.

In theory, the minimum income somebody should have if they would be homeless is a bit more than 2k a month.

In a lot of countries (like the US f.e.) there are no middle parties so then I can understand that people either not vote or vote for what they feel like is the lesser of two evil. I have the ability to vote on the person I feel like will do the best job in the parties that will do the best job. And even those I am more middle aligned I am also for getting actually rid of hunger/homelessness etc. But I also want people to be able to run a company (not a massive corporation) and be able to make it so they can live of that company. I feel like a lot of parties (and people) just have a general hate against companies unless you specifically mention that it is the local bakery or something.

I also don’t believe in you are either left or either right or whatever. People can have opinions and make statements, and those statements can make a person more left leaning or more right leaning. The most important part is that we make sure everybody has basic needs, but also to impact peoples lives in a way that benefits them fairly. And there are different ways of doing it and going into it in an extreme way generally doesn’t help.

Remember that we Dutch are pretty direct and don’t overexeccurate that much. So yes we have leftist parties.

Also yes we have a lower, middle and upper class. Basically lower is people who uses social security, middle is people who themselves don’t receive anything anymore and upper is well the rich

I am in NL and in the previous election the left where absolute trash which if their plans would continue they would destroy me.

The middle party was way better for the middle class. And yes that exists. They actually went for a more fair progressive tax system and would be able to pay for universal healthcare

I chose to vote middle since the left parties seem to have no idea of how taxes work and will fuck me over even more than the tax system already does. Edit: I am in the lower middleclass

Cool!

That happens in some places yes, I have seen vending machines for Strawberries, Eggs, Bread, Pizza, Factor like Meals among other things

Somewhere along the lines a lot of people in HR and upper management in some companies (cultures) forget that you need people and that you need to listen to then to make it all work

You mentioned almost nothing? Tuta can even more easily change their privacy policy. Not saying Tuta isn’t the right choice, but it’s worse than a lot of people make you think it is