6 ms·
Imagine the world, where instead of making billionaires and trillionaires, we would actually share with society. Providing affordable products/services to commo
by Adiqq 4mo ago
Imagine the world, where instead of making billionaires and trillionaires, we would actually share with society. Providing affordable products/services to common people. Decommodification of life.
There's no money for public investments, but there is always money for wars. There's no money for raises and bonuses for workers, until workers show there's no company without them.
So, if there's no money for public investments, it's time to show there's no public for their wars and exploitation.
- aetherspawn 4mo agoEngineers are awful at advocating for themselves, and that’s why they study and work twice as hard as lawyers and finance, have less perks (travel, food, cars, private offices) yet they get paid half as much.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- recursivedoubts 4mo agoMost engineers who advocate for themselves would simply be fired. Job hopping was the way to get your salary up fast previously.
- autoexec 4mo agoThat sounds like the kind of problem unions were invented to solve.
- aetherspawn 4mo agoUnions are basically mafia.
- autoexec 4mo agoSo are corporations.
- pjmlp 4mo agoYeah, for the good guys.
- lores 4mo agoThe American propaganda machine has done a good job on Americans...
- autoexec 4mo agoIt's no surprise that the companies with all the money and influence over government have managed to manipulate the general public to turn against the things that could get in the way of those same companies exploiting their workers and screwing over everyone else in the process. I'm just surprised that such weak arguments were what ended up being actually effective! On one side they tell you "You'll get Weekends off! You'll get more money! You'll work fewer hours!" and other side says "You can't talk directly to your boss! Corruption could happen in your union if you do nothing to stop it! Lazy people might keep their job unless HR documents the problems!" and somehow people are like "Man, I'd much rather spend less time on my family and hobbies than not be able to go directly to my boss!" Same with regulations. One side says "Have clean air and water! Don't get screwed over by companies who poison you!" and the other side says "Billion dollar companies would have to pay more to not poison you! Look at all these terrible regulations we already bribed lawmakers into passing! Regulations BAD!" and people just eat it up. It makes me wonder how much more extreme they could take things before people stopped falling for it.
- Haven880 4mo agoJust take company secrets and walk over to competitors. That is the greatest perks every engineers have but don't exercise it. Some literally become billionaires. You think China overnight taught of everything by themselves? Go ask what did the Japanese and SKorean senior engineers did over the weekends from 90s to 2010s. Law is only effective if it can be proven in a court and judge sentenced it. Vast majority never even reach the lawyers ear. You advocate means you most likely will divulge. The quietest and least "smart" engineers probably are the smartest and riches.
- energy123 4mo agoThe majority of people in finance are working in low paid back office or retail roles. Less than an engineer on average. You only hear about the outliers. These finance jobs are low paid because they're not that skilled and many people can do them. Same basic reason as why fast food temp worker is low paid.
- arjie 4mo agoPeople are billionaires because they “share with society”. They take a small fraction of the wealth and surplus they create. If you create $6 of value for every American and capture half of it you are a billionaire. “Public investments” besides are heavily spent on. The majority of the US federal budget goes to welfare. If you want new infrastructure and so on, the primary blockers are the universal veto powers we hand normal people.
- vasco 4mo agoPro-tip: more often than not people are billionaires because their parent was a billionaire or multi millionaire
- Detrytus 4mo agoYes, and the contributions from those parents were so valuable that the society still owes them, even long after their death. That's why we pay our dues to their children and grandchildren.
- vasco 4mo agoYou might be living inside a philosophy book about capitalism. Do you know about the existence of Russian oligarchs and their offspring? Or Texan billionaires that one day woke up and found out they were living on top of oil? What contribution did they give to society?
- Detrytus 4mo agoWell, I can give you Russian oligarchs - they came to their wealth during time of chaos, and mostly through stealing. But Texan oil billionaires? They won their wealth fair and square, if not for anything else then for just recognizing an opportunity and acting on it. Believe me, there are many people in this world who would blew it in stupid ways.
- vasco 4mo ago
- jimbob45 4mo agoIs anyone really upset by billionaires having their money tied up in assets? It goes against the public good to force someone to break up a public company just so that the owner has less assets on their balance sheet. Aren’t you really just mad at leveraged assets? Even non-billionaires can damage the public good doing that.
- bmn__ 4mo agoYou were downvoted as a punishment because you made a retarded argument and HN users saw fit to not engage with words. No billionaire is forced to break up a public company to pay taxes, the same as no average Joe is forced to sell his clothes to pay taxes. The idea in common is that if one knows that one must have cash at the end of the fiscal year, then one sets aside the money and simply avoids buying clothes or investing in assets.