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Am sorry, but this whole comment reeks of delusion. First of all, it is important to understand that it is not businessmen who created the markets thanks to wh

Am sorry, but this whole comment reeks of delusion. First of all, it is important to understand that it is not businessmen who created the markets thanks to which we have such "prosperity", it was indeed the state. Second of all, am extremely supportive of small/medium sized businesses, am not a fan of megacorps. I understand that there are several sectors, which benefit greatly from vertical integration, but these should be few and far between and be under heavy regulation, which is not a case today. I think today's governments still do relatively little to actually incentivize people to start a business, there's still an unhealthy amount of risk and worry involved. Perhaps you're impressed because you came from a very poor country and this all seems very impressive, I don't know. But why do you think you have many of the rights as a worker that you do today? Precisely because of public interest organizations. And if megacorps are responsible for our "prosperity", why worker compensation has not kept up with the increases in productivity? Why has the minimum wage not only not kept up with inflation, but has not risen at all in a decade? Why when corporate tax breaks are passed and advertised as "the savings will be passed down onto the workers", that has historically never happened? Only executive pay has increased? Ask yourself why you even need the minimum wage in the first place in the U.S. Since I am not merely impressed by tall buildings, shopping centers and blinking LEDs, my vision is for every Western country to move towards the Nordic model, a strong social democracy. Guess what? Norway doesn't even have a minimum wage, you know why? Because it has strong unions i.e public interest organizations who negotiate better wages than the minimum one would be, so it is THEM who actually don't want minimum wage there. And do 45,000 people die and thousands more go bankrupt because of (lack of) medical insurance, like they do in the U.S.? No. Are they mostly harvesters? No. Are there no businesses, or even a few properly regulated megacorps in Norway? No. Do people from Nordic countries usually report themselves as happiest? Yes.

rayiner 8y ago
> First of all, it is important to understand that it is not businessmen who created the markets thanks to which we have such "prosperity", it was indeed the state. The state creates an environment to allow businesses to flourish, but it is businesses that create prosperity. Specifically, mega-corps. Mega-corps invented the transistor, email, computer networking, AIDS cocktails, etc. > Second of all, am extremely supportive of small/medium sized businesses, am not a fan of megacorps. I understand that there are several sectors, which benefit greatly from vertical integration, but these should be few and far between and be under heavy regulation, which is not a case today. I think today's governments still do relatively little to actually incentivize people to start a business, there's still an unhealthy amount of risk and worry involved. Small and medium sized businesses don’t have the economies of scale to do really cool things. They may begin as startups, but to have impact they need to scale to mega-corps. You can’t build an iPhone ad a small or medium sized business. > my vision is for every Western country to move towards the Nordic model, a strong social democracy. The Nordic model is heavily dependent on mega-corps. It’s more accurate to characterize those countries as practicing welfare capitalism, rather than democratic socialism. The Nordic countries score among the highest in the world in measures of business freedom. Norway is hard to analyze because of the massive oil money, so let’s use Sweden. Sweden is heavily dependent on large multi-national corporations: http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/mirror2/SI/security/economy.html http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/mirror2/SI/security/economy... > The Swedish economy is highly dependent on a limited number of very large international companies. In 1992 the United Nations estimated that there are a total of some 35,000 multinational corporations in the world. Of these, about 2,700 have their headquarters in Sweden. Sweden has low corporate tax rates (21%, the same as under Trump’s tax plan). It has no minimum wage. It has deregulated or privatized the same industries the US has. It has no farm subsidies. It has no inheritance tax. It has school vouchers. The Swedish tax system is also flatter. The maximum marginal rate kicks in at about $100,000. There is also a 20% VAT, which is borne mostly by people in the lower income brackets. The result is that each third of the income distribution pays about the same percentage of its income in taxes. That’s very different from the US, which singles out the top 25% to pay a higher percentage of its income in total (state plus federal) taxes. Capital gains rates in Sweden are a flat 30%, about the same as the top rates in New York or California under Trump’s tax structure. Sweden is not a “New Deal” style social democracy. It implicitly recognizes that businesses create prosperity. So it combines a deregulated market economy, with high taxes on individuals to pay for a robust welfare state. The government doesn’t create prosperity; it simply redistributes it once the income from the corporations passes to individuals. > Because it has strong unions i.e public interest organizations who negotiate better wages than the minimum one would be, so it is THEM who actually don't want minimum wage there. Unions in Europe are different in important ways from unions in the US, which makes them unpopular in the US. The New Deal Era NLRA enshrines this concept of the “union shop” where if a majority of workers vote to unionize, the union becomes the exclusive bargaining agent in the employer, and union membership is often mandatory. That system is often illegal in Europe, because it violates workers’ freedom of association. As a result, the public prefers the current weak level of union influence in the US: https://news.gallup.com/poll/241679/labor-union-approval-steady-year-high.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/241679/labor-union-approval-ste.... 26% of people want to maintain the weak union status quo. Another 29% want them to be weakened even further (so 55% want same or less union influence). A distinct minority, 39% want US unions to have more influence.
- SamReidHughes 8y ago
  > Small and medium sized businesses don’t have the economies of scale to do really cool things. They may begin as startups, but to have impact they need to scale to mega-corps. You can’t build an iPhone ad a small or medium sized business. To veer off-topic, one neat thing is that the standard for "really cool things" is a moving target. Tools for producing things, like free software, CAD software, CNC machines, etc, make it more and more possible for small firms to accomplish great things, while raising the bar for what we consider great things.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    > Tools for producing things, like free software, CAD software, CNC machines, etc, make it more and more possible for small firms to accomplish great things, while raising the bar for what we consider great things. I don't think that's true in any practical sense. For example, even with CAD, the cost of designing an airplane continues to skyrocket (even in inflation-adjusted dollars).
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  > The state creates an environment to allow businesses to flourish, but it is businesses that create prosperity. Specifically, mega-corps. My claim was that the state was the original force for the existence of markets, (namely for soldiers), way before megacorps were even a thing. So the state clearly has a significant role to play in them. > Small and medium sized businesses don’t have the economies of scale to do really cool things. They may begin as startups, but to have impact they need to scale to mega-corps. You can’t build an iPhone ad a small or medium sized business. I specifically stated that for certain businesses where vertical integration is needed, mega-corps make sense, because they also serve a different purpose apart from trying to monopolize the market. But there's no reason for say Wall-Mart, Google etc. not to be broken up. Moreover, most research starts as publicly funded, but the reward from it is then entirely gobbled up by the corp that bought the rights to the IP. And even megacorps still receive grant money from governments, not to speak about many of them would not survive in an actual capitalist market, without the government grants, which allow them to run into massive ober-budgets and deadline-slips, unlike any private customer would be willing to accept, (see i.e. the F-35). I however disagree that it is not possible to build a smartphone as a small and medium business. As companies like Purism are proving, it is approachable. Even using entirely free-software tools nowdays. Now, you won't be able to design every single component yourself, but megacorps like Apple don't do that either. And if more grant money was awarded to these smaller businesses, better cooperation facilitated between them and universities etc. I believe they could innovate rather well. In fact most of today's innovation is a result of a small team, even if within a larger whole. The microprocessor team was a tiny part of Intel for example at the time of the 4004. So was the UNIX team etc. > The Nordic model is heavily dependent on mega-corps. It’s more accurate to characterize those countries as practicing welfare capitalism, rather than democratic socialism. I refereed to it as "social democracy", which is different from democratic socialism. Social democracy is absolutely fine with regulated capitalism. The rest of the way you go on to specify how the U.S. system is different, yeah, I know it's different. Am saying something's not working in it if you have 45,000 people die annually due to lack of medical insurance and nearly half of Americans earn less than $30,000 annually. Yeah, you pay less taxes, but then you pay premiums, co-pays, deductibles etc. Is that really less money paid in the end? There's so many GoFundMe campaigns, you essentially outsourced the welfare state. I know that the Nordic model seems to be working much better. As for Norway, doesn't the U.S. have massive amounts of oil and other natural resources as well? The point is, nobody's saying apply the Swedish model, or the Norway model 100% to the U.S. No, what I think makes sense is to take inspiration from them and modify the system accordingly so that it works for the U.S. Take some parts, leave/modify others etc. Unless you think that people dying due to lack of medical insurance is inevitable, because that's what the current system gives you. What I think we should aim for is a model that works for both individuals and businesses to an acceptable degree. Right now, you have a model that works exceptionally well for business and extremely poorly for a giant portion of the citizenry. The imbalance is off there. Just look at the permanent tax decreases in the newest tax bill. I am not anti-business by a long stretch, am just for a better balance between the two.

rayiner 8y ago

> First of all, it is important to understand that it is not businessmen who created the markets thanks to which we have such "prosperity", it was indeed the state. The state creates an environment to allow businesses to flourish, but it is businesses that create prosperity. Specifically, mega-corps. Mega-corps invented the transistor, email, computer networking, AIDS cocktails, etc. > Second of all, am extremely supportive of small/medium sized businesses, am not a fan of megacorps. I understand that there are several sectors, which benefit greatly from vertical integration, but these should be few and far between and be under heavy regulation, which is not a case today. I think today's governments still do relatively little to actually incentivize people to start a business, there's still an unhealthy amount of risk and worry involved. Small and medium sized businesses don’t have the economies of scale to do really cool things. They may begin as startups, but to have impact they need to scale to mega-corps. You can’t build an iPhone ad a small or medium sized business. > my vision is for every Western country to move towards the Nordic model, a strong social democracy. The Nordic model is heavily dependent on mega-corps. It’s more accurate to characterize those countries as practicing welfare capitalism, rather than democratic socialism. The Nordic countries score among the highest in the world in measures of business freedom. Norway is hard to analyze because of the massive oil money, so let’s use Sweden. Sweden is heavily dependent on large multi-national corporations: http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/mirror2/SI/security/economy.html http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/mirror2/SI/security/economy... > The Swedish economy is highly dependent on a limited number of very large international companies. In 1992 the United Nations estimated that there are a total of some 35,000 multinational corporations in the world. Of these, about 2,700 have their headquarters in Sweden. Sweden has low corporate tax rates (21%, the same as under Trump’s tax plan). It has no minimum wage. It has deregulated or privatized the same industries the US has. It has no farm subsidies. It has no inheritance tax. It has school vouchers. The Swedish tax system is also flatter. The maximum marginal rate kicks in at about $100,000. There is also a 20% VAT, which is borne mostly by people in the lower income brackets. The result is that each third of the income distribution pays about the same percentage of its income in taxes. That’s very different from the US, which singles out the top 25% to pay a higher percentage of its income in total (state plus federal) taxes. Capital gains rates in Sweden are a flat 30%, about the same as the top rates in New York or California under Trump’s tax structure. Sweden is not a “New Deal” style social democracy. It implicitly recognizes that businesses create prosperity. So it combines a deregulated market economy, with high taxes on individuals to pay for a robust welfare state. The government doesn’t create prosperity; it simply redistributes it once the income from the corporations passes to individuals. > Because it has strong unions i.e public interest organizations who negotiate better wages than the minimum one would be, so it is THEM who actually don't want minimum wage there. Unions in Europe are different in important ways from unions in the US, which makes them unpopular in the US. The New Deal Era NLRA enshrines this concept of the “union shop” where if a majority of workers vote to unionize, the union becomes the exclusive bargaining agent in the employer, and union membership is often mandatory. That system is often illegal in Europe, because it violates workers’ freedom of association. As a result, the public prefers the current weak level of union influence in the US: https://news.gallup.com/poll/241679/labor-union-approval-steady-year-high.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/241679/labor-union-approval-ste.... 26% of people want to maintain the weak union status quo. Another 29% want them to be weakened even further (so 55% want same or less union influence). A distinct minority, 39% want US unions to have more influence.

SamReidHughes 8y ago
> Small and medium sized businesses don’t have the economies of scale to do really cool things. They may begin as startups, but to have impact they need to scale to mega-corps. You can’t build an iPhone ad a small or medium sized business. To veer off-topic, one neat thing is that the standard for "really cool things" is a moving target. Tools for producing things, like free software, CAD software, CNC machines, etc, make it more and more possible for small firms to accomplish great things, while raising the bar for what we consider great things.
- rayiner 8y ago
  > Tools for producing things, like free software, CAD software, CNC machines, etc, make it more and more possible for small firms to accomplish great things, while raising the bar for what we consider great things. I don't think that's true in any practical sense. For example, even with CAD, the cost of designing an airplane continues to skyrocket (even in inflation-adjusted dollars).
AsyncAwait 8y ago
> The state creates an environment to allow businesses to flourish, but it is businesses that create prosperity. Specifically, mega-corps. My claim was that the state was the original force for the existence of markets, (namely for soldiers), way before megacorps were even a thing. So the state clearly has a significant role to play in them. > Small and medium sized businesses don’t have the economies of scale to do really cool things. They may begin as startups, but to have impact they need to scale to mega-corps. You can’t build an iPhone ad a small or medium sized business. I specifically stated that for certain businesses where vertical integration is needed, mega-corps make sense, because they also serve a different purpose apart from trying to monopolize the market. But there's no reason for say Wall-Mart, Google etc. not to be broken up. Moreover, most research starts as publicly funded, but the reward from it is then entirely gobbled up by the corp that bought the rights to the IP. And even megacorps still receive grant money from governments, not to speak about many of them would not survive in an actual capitalist market, without the government grants, which allow them to run into massive ober-budgets and deadline-slips, unlike any private customer would be willing to accept, (see i.e. the F-35). I however disagree that it is not possible to build a smartphone as a small and medium business. As companies like Purism are proving, it is approachable. Even using entirely free-software tools nowdays. Now, you won't be able to design every single component yourself, but megacorps like Apple don't do that either. And if more grant money was awarded to these smaller businesses, better cooperation facilitated between them and universities etc. I believe they could innovate rather well. In fact most of today's innovation is a result of a small team, even if within a larger whole. The microprocessor team was a tiny part of Intel for example at the time of the 4004. So was the UNIX team etc. > The Nordic model is heavily dependent on mega-corps. It’s more accurate to characterize those countries as practicing welfare capitalism, rather than democratic socialism. I refereed to it as "social democracy", which is different from democratic socialism. Social democracy is absolutely fine with regulated capitalism. The rest of the way you go on to specify how the U.S. system is different, yeah, I know it's different. Am saying something's not working in it if you have 45,000 people die annually due to lack of medical insurance and nearly half of Americans earn less than $30,000 annually. Yeah, you pay less taxes, but then you pay premiums, co-pays, deductibles etc. Is that really less money paid in the end? There's so many GoFundMe campaigns, you essentially outsourced the welfare state. I know that the Nordic model seems to be working much better. As for Norway, doesn't the U.S. have massive amounts of oil and other natural resources as well? The point is, nobody's saying apply the Swedish model, or the Norway model 100% to the U.S. No, what I think makes sense is to take inspiration from them and modify the system accordingly so that it works for the U.S. Take some parts, leave/modify others etc. Unless you think that people dying due to lack of medical insurance is inevitable, because that's what the current system gives you. What I think we should aim for is a model that works for both individuals and businesses to an acceptable degree. Right now, you have a model that works exceptionally well for business and extremely poorly for a giant portion of the citizenry. The imbalance is off there. Just look at the permanent tax decreases in the newest tax bill. I am not anti-business by a long stretch, am just for a better balance between the two.