• 2 Posts
  • 15 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: December 16th, 2023

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  • This guy has like a billion videos that are just some variation of “Here’s a tech bro startup making a gadgetbahn and here’s why it wouldn’t work and trains are a thousand times better”. Great that it exists, but since these startups never learn from others’ mistakes and thus keep making the same missteps over and over and over again, it makes the videos very samey after a while. Not sure what I would do in his position.



  • I left a comment that made a similar point with some data:

    4: Please stop sharing conspiracy theories

    5: Higher wages are useless if your country’s infrastructure and tax system is so piss poor that you need to spend more on basic necessities. We have economic metrics that account for some of this, such as the difference between income and discretionary income. Free-market propagandists always point to the US having high income, but the same can not be said for discretionary income. For example, if we compare the US to the Netherlands, we see that the US median disposable income is 41K while in the Netherlands it’s 36K. But let’s compare how much you have to spend in your day to day life and calculate the discretionary income based on that:

    ________________________US_______Netherlands

    income________________41k_______36k

    food___________________5.1k_______3.7k

    shelter_________________13.2k______13k

    clothing________________1.2k_______1.5k

    transport______________6.3k_______3.4k

    health__________________3.2k_______1.8k

    student debt___________2.1k_______0.8k

    discretionary income__9.9k_______11.8k

    As we see, the case the free-market capitalist makes falls apart once we look at discretionary income, which collectivist and social policies ensure is higher in the Netherlands.

    EDIT: Scott has edited the post to make 4 seem less like an endorsement and more an ironic share. This is better, but I still prefer it if these things aren’t spread at all.

    EDIT 2: Source for the 2021 US-Dutch disposable income vs discretionary income (as well as a lot of other comparisons between median US and Dutch expenditure): https://www.moneymacro.rocks/2021-07-02-dutch-vs-america-middle-class/