4 ms·

I for one am also happy to live in one of the few places left on earth that focuses more on the betterment of people than the few ultra rich, and tries to preve

I for one am also happy to live in one of the few places left on earth that focuses more on the betterment of people than the few ultra rich, and tries to prevent the ultra rich from abusing the people.

cbeach 2y ago
The EU has certainly been successful in preventing any of its citizens from becoming ultra rich.
- kjrfghslkdjfl 2y ago
  [dead]
- phh 2y ago
  Bernard Arnault isn't too poor for a French man.
  - GlobalFrog 2y ago
    And there are others, but not ultra young ones actually. But why would it be bad if the goal of a country is to raise a little the wealth of everyone instead of a lot the wealth of very few ? A country is succesful not by the number of billionaires but by quite a lot of other criterias.
    - askonomm 2y ago
      And yet from some of the HN comments I've seen on this topic it seems that quite a few of the Americans are stockholm syndromed to the point that if you do not want to benefit the ultra rich at the expense of regular people by removing their healthcare, vacations, employee safety and protection rights, ability to unionize, and basically by doing all you can to milk the average worker for your own gain, then you're stupid, and they demean EU by constantly bringing up the tired trope of us not having some mega billion valuation companies here because ... our people have rights ... and so no law-breaking/lobbying silicon valley god wants to come here. And they say this seemingly without realizing that yes, that is exactly by design. This is what we want. Keep your mega wealthy and 3rd world life quality, and we'll here be poor, but can at least attend our children being born without getting fired for it, and giving our mothers a year or more of paid maternity leave, among many many other things we value a hell of a lot more than making our billionaires richer.
- amarcheschi 2y ago
  As of 2023, eu citizens report higher satisfaction than us, although by 0.3 which is not that much https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Quality_of_life_indicators_-_overall_experience_of_life https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/ https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/ EU citizens lifespan is also (very roughly) a few years more than us citizens. Is the purpose of life living a happier, fuller life or being richer? I'd rather take the former than the latter. On a more serious approach, I guess millionaires in usa will fare better than poor Americans, but at least in Europe you will still have access to some sort of safety net when things get rough. As imperfect as eu might be, I do not get why the hatred is so strong (especially for some libertarian or similar breeds here on hackernews, the thread on eurollm had quite strong opinions on both sides)
  - cbeach 2y ago
    > Is the purpose of life living a happier, fuller life or being richer? I'd rather take the former than the latter. Why are you creating a false dichotomy?
- thatguy0900 2y ago
  Noone needs to be so rich they can casually biy whole governments. Rich enough to never work another day if they don't want to is plenty. Producing multibillionares is not a good thing
  - parineum 2y ago
    Nobody needs a computer in their pocket either. > Rich enough to never work another day if they don't want to is plenty. I'm that rich. I'd have to move to an impoverished country but I could do it. > Producing multibillionares is not a good thing What about producing people who create products so loved that the people give them billions of dollars? The "nobody needs..." way of thinking is very Soviet.
    - DanAtC 2y ago
      > What about producing people who create products so loved that the people give them billions of dollars? Billionaires don't create shit.
      - int_19h 2y ago
        Au contraire, one thing that we can be absolutely certain about is that billionaires, being human, create shit. Creating value, now, that's a whole different story...
      - parineum 2y ago
        This is easy enough to refute since it only requires one example. Bill Gates created Microsoft Windows.
        pixelbro 2y ago
        Well, he sure wasn't a billionaire when he did it.
        sundaeofshock 2y ago
        No he didn’t. Bill Gates was the CEO of the company that employed the people who did the actual work of creating Microsoft Windows.
- DoctorOW 2y ago
  Good. If you look at the people who are ultra rich they ultimately seem incredibly unhappy, the richest people in the world have more than they could ever use and still aren't satisfied. This incredible amount of wealth and power comes at a massive societal cost and it isn't even helping the lives of the handful of people who are getting it.
- thomassmith65 2y ago
  The EU/US dynamic is comparable to the US/China dynamic: America's manufacturing jobs are Chinese today because China had a lower bar for working conditions and pay.
  - euroderf 2y ago
    So America is caught in a middle ground between EU & China where it can't do social welfare right and it can't do authoritarianism right. But there's been... progress.

cbeach 2y ago

The EU has certainly been successful in preventing any of its citizens from becoming ultra rich.

kjrfghslkdjfl 2y ago
[dead]
phh 2y ago
Bernard Arnault isn't too poor for a French man.
- GlobalFrog 2y ago
  And there are others, but not ultra young ones actually. But why would it be bad if the goal of a country is to raise a little the wealth of everyone instead of a lot the wealth of very few ? A country is succesful not by the number of billionaires but by quite a lot of other criterias.
  - askonomm 2y ago
    And yet from some of the HN comments I've seen on this topic it seems that quite a few of the Americans are stockholm syndromed to the point that if you do not want to benefit the ultra rich at the expense of regular people by removing their healthcare, vacations, employee safety and protection rights, ability to unionize, and basically by doing all you can to milk the average worker for your own gain, then you're stupid, and they demean EU by constantly bringing up the tired trope of us not having some mega billion valuation companies here because ... our people have rights ... and so no law-breaking/lobbying silicon valley god wants to come here. And they say this seemingly without realizing that yes, that is exactly by design. This is what we want. Keep your mega wealthy and 3rd world life quality, and we'll here be poor, but can at least attend our children being born without getting fired for it, and giving our mothers a year or more of paid maternity leave, among many many other things we value a hell of a lot more than making our billionaires richer.
amarcheschi 2y ago
As of 2023, eu citizens report higher satisfaction than us, although by 0.3 which is not that much https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Quality_of_life_indicators_-_overall_experience_of_life https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/ https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-states/ EU citizens lifespan is also (very roughly) a few years more than us citizens. Is the purpose of life living a happier, fuller life or being richer? I'd rather take the former than the latter. On a more serious approach, I guess millionaires in usa will fare better than poor Americans, but at least in Europe you will still have access to some sort of safety net when things get rough. As imperfect as eu might be, I do not get why the hatred is so strong (especially for some libertarian or similar breeds here on hackernews, the thread on eurollm had quite strong opinions on both sides)
- cbeach 2y ago
  > Is the purpose of life living a happier, fuller life or being richer? I'd rather take the former than the latter. Why are you creating a false dichotomy?
thatguy0900 2y ago
Noone needs to be so rich they can casually biy whole governments. Rich enough to never work another day if they don't want to is plenty. Producing multibillionares is not a good thing
- parineum 2y ago
  Nobody needs a computer in their pocket either. > Rich enough to never work another day if they don't want to is plenty. I'm that rich. I'd have to move to an impoverished country but I could do it. > Producing multibillionares is not a good thing What about producing people who create products so loved that the people give them billions of dollars? The "nobody needs..." way of thinking is very Soviet.
  - DanAtC 2y ago
    > What about producing people who create products so loved that the people give them billions of dollars? Billionaires don't create shit.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      Au contraire, one thing that we can be absolutely certain about is that billionaires, being human, create shit. Creating value, now, that's a whole different story...
    - parineum 2y ago
      This is easy enough to refute since it only requires one example. Bill Gates created Microsoft Windows.
      - pixelbro 2y ago
        Well, he sure wasn't a billionaire when he did it.
      - sundaeofshock 2y ago
        No he didn’t. Bill Gates was the CEO of the company that employed the people who did the actual work of creating Microsoft Windows.
DoctorOW 2y ago
Good. If you look at the people who are ultra rich they ultimately seem incredibly unhappy, the richest people in the world have more than they could ever use and still aren't satisfied. This incredible amount of wealth and power comes at a massive societal cost and it isn't even helping the lives of the handful of people who are getting it.
thomassmith65 2y ago
The EU/US dynamic is comparable to the US/China dynamic: America's manufacturing jobs are Chinese today because China had a lower bar for working conditions and pay.
- euroderf 2y ago
  So America is caught in a middle ground between EU & China where it can't do social welfare right and it can't do authoritarianism right. But there's been... progress.