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Wow. Rant incoming. Im just aghast how shitty your country is. I can understand living in fear of mortgages and the like, jak with at will nonsense and the lik

Wow. Rant incoming. Im just aghast how shitty your country is. I can understand living in fear of mortgages and the like, jak with at will nonsense and the like (gags) But your employer having a gun to your beloved's head - that what it basically is - is just rotten. I genuinely wish that any libertarians here (in Poland) move to USA or, Friedmans beloved, Chile. I hope they get to experience shit like that. I guess im a filthy little commie for expexcting to be able to live my life without shit like that /s

MC7447a 11y ago
You don't have to pay your mortgage if you get laid off in Poland?
- Ensorceled 11y ago
  They said they understood the mortgage part, it's the health care they don't understand.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  In some European countries (probably not Poland) the unemployment you get for about 2 years if you lose your job is sufficient to cover a mortgage. The philosophy is that it is cheaper for the state to help people stay in their existing home than to have them lose it and potentially have to house them and them never go back to being a net contributor.
  - cookiecaper 11y ago
    All states in the United States have unemployment assistance programs, as well as programs like Medicaid to provide health care to the poor. OP's dad is nearing retirement age and can probably take advantage of some state-provided retirement benefits, like social security and/or Medicare. While things may be less extreme here than in Europe, you aren't just left to die if you become unemployed. Government-provided insurance that you have to be either poor or old enough to get is actually much better than a lot of the private insurance plans that are the only option for the middle class.
wyclif 11y ago
Chile is a far stronger economy than Poland will probably ever be.
- emj 11y ago
  Is this a joke? Poland has a larger population than chile, better per capita GDP, and is a power house in the middle of Europe. They do still have some internal problems but this is nothing compared to the (low key) international conflicts Chile still is involved in. I love both countries though.
  - wyclif 11y ago
    Why would you think that's a joke? GDP is only one metric, you know. And Poland's GDP Growth Rate is 1.67% to Chile's 4.07%. Chile also has a lower unemployment rate, and ranks higher than Poland on economic freedom.
    - emp_zealoth 11y ago
      And how is GDP growth more relevant than GDP itself? And what about humongous, growing income inequality? Chile doesn't really rank that well, does it? 140th out of 159 ranked countries http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gini+index+chile http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gini+index+chile
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - drzaiusapelord 11y ago
    GDP per capita is higher in Chile and has 2-3x the growth Poland has.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - panzagl 11y ago
    So why are there so many Polish immigrants and so few Chilean ones?
drstewart 11y ago
>I genuinely wish that any libertarians here (in Poland) move to USA Lots of Poles, libertarian or not, do that for the massive quality of life increase.
dovereconomics 11y ago
But... ,in a libertarian country, HP wouldn't exist in the first place. Crony capitalism still is not capitalism.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  The worst, unchecked, crony cap Papuan is exactly the system for which the name "capitalism" was coined, and crony capitalism had been part of what the term had referred to -- and an element of all real-world systems with the name -- since the real-world nineteenth century system that features it was named "capitalism" by its critics. Cronyism is central to capitalism, and you can't have one without the other.
  - dovereconomics 11y ago
    Cronyism, referring to a system where incompetent agents are given special favors, doesn't survive in the free market - merciless competition destroys any underperfoming organization. Cronyism only exists when competition doesn't work by means of a government. Get some politicians, create regulations, build a monopoly. No matter how uncompetitive it is, you're still a billionaire.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > Cronyism, referring to a system where incompetent agents are given special favors, doesn't survive in the free market The "free market" in which that is a defensible claim is a counterfactual construct that is sometimes useful as a simplified analytic model, but fundamentally incompatible with the behavior of real human beings and conditions in the real world. > merciless competition destroys any underperfoming organization. In real unregulated markets, that may happen initially, and the most successful parties in that situation mercilessly move to lock-in advantages against future competitors by use their economic power they have as a result of that success to monopolize key inputs, preventing competition. > Cronyism only exists when competition doesn't work by means of a government Yes, and a particular, common, real-world version of cronyism by which government structures the economic regime to favor the interest of the capital-holding class was identified by its critics in the 19th Century, and given the name "capitalism".
Grue3 11y ago
Those "libertarians" as you call them are the reason why you're not living in communist shithole and it's clear from your post that you're too young to truly appreciate the advantages of free market.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  And the socialists are why we aren't living with a fully free market where every child has a price tag attached. (I mean, if we are going to go 110% overboard with our statements.)
- forgotpasswd3x 11y ago
  Bringing out the "you're too young to understand" argument. Awesome.
- Apocryphon 11y ago
  Actually, Catholics and trade unionists are the reason why Poland is no longer communist.
- dang 11y ago
  Personal attacks are not welcome on HN, nor ideological ranting. Please don't do these things here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
>Im just aghast how shitty your country is. We have a lot of social programs for the poor, especially in regards to health. No its not Euro-style universal healthcare, but this idea that they'll starve in the streets if they lose their jobs is ridiculous. That's on top of COBRA, which allow you to stay on your employers plan for a bit while you work out a new provider. Or subsidized ACA exchange insurance. We are down to 11% uninsured right now. In the 90s we were getting close to hitting 20%. There's a lag period before you can apply for and get benefits, but that's what unemployment insurance (which is mandatory) is for and you know... your own savings. You are putting away savings right? The real problem here is that I find most middle-class people have no idea how welfare works. None. They've never had to apply for these things. They just think they're for "welfare queens" and "drug addicts." They don't realize that these programs are pretty much everywhere in the USA. For example, food stamps are mostly used by white people. So these people have unrealistic ideas of what loss of income means. They think they're going to debtors prison and being forced to die in their basements from lack of healthcare. Europeans like yourself buy into this nonsense because they have an anti-US bone to pick. The reality is that you're both being incredibly disingenuous. Perhaps you should do some basic research before making these shoddy generalizations? Its also worth mentioning that every HP product we use is fairly terrible. All of our servers, printers, etc. A lot of sysadmins I've talked to are either considering moving to Dell or already have moved. These jobs are going to migrate to Dell or elsewhere I imagine. That's how competition works. Yeah, its ugly, but HP has not been competitive for some time in many areas. You can't expect a lifetime of labor without shake-ups, especially in the volatile tech sector.
- Domenic_S 11y ago
  > The real problem here is that I find most middle-class people have no idea how welfare works. I got a taste when I applied for PFL in California when we had a baby. The scale of people the State serves is insane, and navigating the system could be a full-time job in itself. (PFL is California's supplemental program that pays some fraction of your salary for family leave - in my case new child bonding) I took 3 weeks leave, and on the last Friday got a phone call from the PFL office: "We have a question about your PFL application, and if you don't return our call today we will deny your claim". I call, and after battling the phone tree got, "Our system is over capacity. Please try again later click". I finally got through at the end of the day via email. I finally got paid the first day I returned from leave (!). Luckily for me I wasn't depending on the money or else my kids would have been eating rice. What a nightmare. I don't envy anyone who has to use social services.
ido 11y ago
I am wondering about using Chile as another example - as far as I know they have public healthcare?

MC7447a 11y ago

You don't have to pay your mortgage if you get laid off in Poland?

Ensorceled 11y ago
They said they understood the mortgage part, it's the health care they don't understand.
JupiterMoon 11y ago
In some European countries (probably not Poland) the unemployment you get for about 2 years if you lose your job is sufficient to cover a mortgage. The philosophy is that it is cheaper for the state to help people stay in their existing home than to have them lose it and potentially have to house them and them never go back to being a net contributor.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  All states in the United States have unemployment assistance programs, as well as programs like Medicaid to provide health care to the poor. OP's dad is nearing retirement age and can probably take advantage of some state-provided retirement benefits, like social security and/or Medicare. While things may be less extreme here than in Europe, you aren't just left to die if you become unemployed. Government-provided insurance that you have to be either poor or old enough to get is actually much better than a lot of the private insurance plans that are the only option for the middle class.

wyclif 11y ago

Chile is a far stronger economy than Poland will probably ever be.

emj 11y ago
Is this a joke? Poland has a larger population than chile, better per capita GDP, and is a power house in the middle of Europe. They do still have some internal problems but this is nothing compared to the (low key) international conflicts Chile still is involved in. I love both countries though.
- wyclif 11y ago
  Why would you think that's a joke? GDP is only one metric, you know. And Poland's GDP Growth Rate is 1.67% to Chile's 4.07%. Chile also has a lower unemployment rate, and ranks higher than Poland on economic freedom.
  - emp_zealoth 11y ago
    And how is GDP growth more relevant than GDP itself? And what about humongous, growing income inequality? Chile doesn't really rank that well, does it? 140th out of 159 ranked countries http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gini+index+chile http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gini+index+chile
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- drzaiusapelord 11y ago
  GDP per capita is higher in Chile and has 2-3x the growth Poland has.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- panzagl 11y ago
  So why are there so many Polish immigrants and so few Chilean ones?

drstewart 11y ago

>I genuinely wish that any libertarians here (in Poland) move to USA Lots of Poles, libertarian or not, do that for the massive quality of life increase.

dovereconomics 11y ago

But... ,in a libertarian country, HP wouldn't exist in the first place. Crony capitalism still is not capitalism.

dragonwriter 11y ago
The worst, unchecked, crony cap Papuan is exactly the system for which the name "capitalism" was coined, and crony capitalism had been part of what the term had referred to -- and an element of all real-world systems with the name -- since the real-world nineteenth century system that features it was named "capitalism" by its critics. Cronyism is central to capitalism, and you can't have one without the other.
- dovereconomics 11y ago
  Cronyism, referring to a system where incompetent agents are given special favors, doesn't survive in the free market - merciless competition destroys any underperfoming organization. Cronyism only exists when competition doesn't work by means of a government. Get some politicians, create regulations, build a monopoly. No matter how uncompetitive it is, you're still a billionaire.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > Cronyism, referring to a system where incompetent agents are given special favors, doesn't survive in the free market The "free market" in which that is a defensible claim is a counterfactual construct that is sometimes useful as a simplified analytic model, but fundamentally incompatible with the behavior of real human beings and conditions in the real world. > merciless competition destroys any underperfoming organization. In real unregulated markets, that may happen initially, and the most successful parties in that situation mercilessly move to lock-in advantages against future competitors by use their economic power they have as a result of that success to monopolize key inputs, preventing competition. > Cronyism only exists when competition doesn't work by means of a government Yes, and a particular, common, real-world version of cronyism by which government structures the economic regime to favor the interest of the capital-holding class was identified by its critics in the 19th Century, and given the name "capitalism".

Grue3 11y ago

Those "libertarians" as you call them are the reason why you're not living in communist shithole and it's clear from your post that you're too young to truly appreciate the advantages of free market.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
And the socialists are why we aren't living with a fully free market where every child has a price tag attached. (I mean, if we are going to go 110% overboard with our statements.)
forgotpasswd3x 11y ago
Bringing out the "you're too young to understand" argument. Awesome.
Apocryphon 11y ago
Actually, Catholics and trade unionists are the reason why Poland is no longer communist.
dang 11y ago
Personal attacks are not welcome on HN, nor ideological ranting. Please don't do these things here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

>Im just aghast how shitty your country is. We have a lot of social programs for the poor, especially in regards to health. No its not Euro-style universal healthcare, but this idea that they'll starve in the streets if they lose their jobs is ridiculous. That's on top of COBRA, which allow you to stay on your employers plan for a bit while you work out a new provider. Or subsidized ACA exchange insurance. We are down to 11% uninsured right now. In the 90s we were getting close to hitting 20%. There's a lag period before you can apply for and get benefits, but that's what unemployment insurance (which is mandatory) is for and you know... your own savings. You are putting away savings right? The real problem here is that I find most middle-class people have no idea how welfare works. None. They've never had to apply for these things. They just think they're for "welfare queens" and "drug addicts." They don't realize that these programs are pretty much everywhere in the USA. For example, food stamps are mostly used by white people. So these people have unrealistic ideas of what loss of income means. They think they're going to debtors prison and being forced to die in their basements from lack of healthcare. Europeans like yourself buy into this nonsense because they have an anti-US bone to pick. The reality is that you're both being incredibly disingenuous. Perhaps you should do some basic research before making these shoddy generalizations? Its also worth mentioning that every HP product we use is fairly terrible. All of our servers, printers, etc. A lot of sysadmins I've talked to are either considering moving to Dell or already have moved. These jobs are going to migrate to Dell or elsewhere I imagine. That's how competition works. Yeah, its ugly, but HP has not been competitive for some time in many areas. You can't expect a lifetime of labor without shake-ups, especially in the volatile tech sector.

Domenic_S 11y ago
> The real problem here is that I find most middle-class people have no idea how welfare works. I got a taste when I applied for PFL in California when we had a baby. The scale of people the State serves is insane, and navigating the system could be a full-time job in itself. (PFL is California's supplemental program that pays some fraction of your salary for family leave - in my case new child bonding) I took 3 weeks leave, and on the last Friday got a phone call from the PFL office: "We have a question about your PFL application, and if you don't return our call today we will deny your claim". I call, and after battling the phone tree got, "Our system is over capacity. Please try again later click". I finally got through at the end of the day via email. I finally got paid the first day I returned from leave (!). Luckily for me I wasn't depending on the money or else my kids would have been eating rice. What a nightmare. I don't envy anyone who has to use social services.

ido 11y ago

I am wondering about using Chile as another example - as far as I know they have public healthcare?