Ehhh going to have to disagree with you on some points. It’s a lot easier to get wealthy and upper middle class in the USA than Europe. There are just a whole lot more opportunities here than when I was in Europe. I would rather be very poor in parts of Western Europe than the USA though. However that has less to do with benefits and more to do with gun violence in the USA. There are better protections and benefits in the USA than a lot of people think but not as good as Western Europe.
I've been balls-deep in studying both countries for years now, I can tell you all about the climate of most cities from memory. You would be surprised how temperate most of Norway is, it does have significantly less sunshine but winter lows in most cities are relatively very mild for what you'd expect. New Zealand is far from being hot and tropical, the hottest month high for the farthest north city is 75 with a low of 60. NZ weather is essentially Oregon coastal weather, also a fairly cloudly country, but the Tasman and Marlborough districts do have sunshine hours close to Houston.
I do remote work with insurance, and for the most part, lived in Dallas and SF for short periods of time.
That seems to give you the option to possibly work from anywhere. I lived in Copenhagen for a couple of years, and while I found it nice, especially in summer, it's just too cold/dark/rainy in winter, which feels very long. With regard to NZ, we allowed one of our employees, who is from there, to move back and work from there (instead of Berlin). But collaborating with him has been really difficult, due to timezone differences.
Yeah not only is my work remote but my schedule and workload are completely flexible. My wife is on a similar boat with a different career. My family has seen rock bottom, which is probably the main source of my yearning to build our life elsewhere. If I can put my kids in a place with a higher floor, in a safer environment where they are more likely to grow up to live long healthy lives, I want to do it. If we have to deal with some dreary weather in Norway with dark winters or a lower income in NZ, I'm happy to make that exchange. I know the US can offer a very good life for the middle and upper class, but If I drop dead tomorrow and can no longer help and guide my family, I'd rather they be at the whims of life in a place with a higher floor...And if that's under the wicked and evil Jacinda, then fck it all hail satan.
I didn't say it wasn't easier to get wealthy and upper middle class in this country compared to what is typical in most European countries, not all all. The things I pointed to is what many of those same countries have that is a real advantage over our own. Far more vacation time and better healthcare benefits, which dovetail to what you said in your post. That you would rather be very poor there than here. However, I'd add that in most areas, one would also likely be better off being working class, or lower middle class, even into what we would consider here to be solidly middle class there than in the United States for those and other reasons. Those income groups make up a very large percentage of the population both here and there. I wouldn't disagree with you that it's "easier," in quotes because for most it still isn't easy, it takes hard work, to become upper middle class or wealthy in our country unless you inherited a significant step up. Even then you have to work to keep it, that last a problem most of us would like to have.
Even you are discussing about the practicalities of moving to NZ as you say you have an employee thereZ
The discussion was mostly about pay differences between Europe and the US, so your statement was factually incorrect at the time. Only one person had stated up to then that they were interested in moving to NZ. Not that it matters too much. Oh, and Jacinda Ardern is still evil and dangerous.
You are missing that while you can easily opt out of twitter, you cannot easily opt out of government. If a majority of your state's representatives say that you should be put in jail for smoking a joint or drinking a beer, you have to live with those consequences. If a corporation says you should be put in jail for smoking a joint or drinking a beer, you laugh at them and do what you want. Corporations do not have to cater to the people's interests, but that is also not their purpose. They are supposed to cater to their shareholders' interests. You can just choose not to do business with them.
If you think you can simply avoid the effects of corporate and mega wealth interest by laughing it off, god bless you I suppose. Money is power, if the prevailing power doesn't have to abide by we the people's interests, we the people are probably headed for a bad time.
A few posters expressed the desire to move to NZ but said they have difficulties doing so for a variety of reasons including pay differences that led to the tangent. You're free to believe what you want but I think overall NZ under Jacinda Arden has come off pretty well in this thread and look forward to visiting it. FYI this is the type of hyperbolic rhetoric that makes it hard to take things seriously.
The corporations do not have a monopoly on violence. The state does. That is the difference. Money is a form of power, but one of many. Votes are power. Guns are power. Time and effort are power. Knowledge is power. Corporations are not the prevailing power, or there would be no unions, no strikes, no raises, etc. The governor of California wouldn't be talking about a tax on oil companies if corporations were the prevailing power, BP would be talking about a tax on government. Try cutting off your interactions with WalMart and the government and see which one comes for you (hint: it won't be WalMart).
I'm not sure I'd agree with that https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...age-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B While our governance system is extremely corrupted by corporate and mega wealth, I'd agree it's obviously not the sole power, we the people still do have some form of power through our representation, and I'm really glad about that, and am hopeful we can find ourselves to a greater representation and a great democracy.
So you think the elected representatives passing laws that are binding on corporations are proof that the corporations are the prevailing power? You understand that the corporations have exactly zero votes and that the people can choose to vote for whoever they want, right? That the reason the "elites" have their policies advanced is because the people choose to elect representatives that advance those policies. Corporations aren't forcing people to vote a certain way, they can only influence through advertising. Advertising is a form of soft power, certainly, but I would hardly call it the prevailing power. If Target decided to annex Minnesota and no longer be a part of the United States, does Minnesota end up the nation of Target, or is Target destroyed? Your entire argument is that the government is doing things favorable to corporations (somehow completely missing that your evidence of corporate power is that the massive power of the government aligns with their interests). We don't live in Cyberpunk or Aliens or whatever dystopian fantasy where Corporations are more powerful than governments. How many aircraft carriers are owned by Google? How many nuclear warheads? What happens if you stop using MicroSoft Word and start using WordPerfect? What happens if you stop paying taxes to the United States and instead pay to China?
Actually the largest area of government influence is with the revolving door. Polticians promised stock options and board seats after they leave office for voting certain ways or bringing up bills the corporation literally authored. Anyways you seem to dismiss the power of "soft power". Corporations have so many different tools besides some generic TV ads. Things like stats, polls, data partisans cite to push their agenda are often from "think tanks" funded by corporations and "industry leaders" aka a cartel of CEOs with similar interests... So ya a cartel. So many tentacles corporations can use to place their thumb on our democratic process.
I'm starting to lose track of what your argument is I made the point on Invisible's post, It's funny people would be scared of Gov control of the internet over private control , because we have no control over corporate and mega elite's decision making, but we do have a *chance* of choice if control is through the government, which people should have representation through You responded with you can laugh off the private interest but can't do so with the government, I replied saying it's naive to think you can laugh off private interest Your response is ultimately private interest isn't powerful, the gov is. I point out the private interest is pretty damn powerful, now you reply with this The original point was I find Gov control less worrisome than private control as a fucntion, your trying to have a debate on what you think is currently more powerful, and then also not considering the danger of what private interest could do without the collective guard of the people's interest through government. Then to top the discussion off, I agree the government is corrupted through private interest, and that corruption leads to people's interests being massively unrepresented... because private interest function has near to nothing to do with representing people...
That's because he really does not have a point, he just likes to storm in and play the conservative contrarian and then derail the thread with an incredibly long and nonsensical post. Since you came off as being "gasp" a moderate, he will not have much to try and rope you into a back and forth.
We have far more power to counter corporations, because we can chose not to interact with those corporations that we disagree with, we cannot choose not to interact with the state, because our interactions with the state are compulsory. You don't have a chance of choice if control is through the government unless you can a) form enough of a coalition to get your preferred candidates elected, and b) somehow stop them from going against their campaign promises once elected. If WalMart does something you don't like, just don't shop at WalMart. You have the ultimate power to battle corporate control over you. It is naive to think that corporations have more chance to control you than government. Both have some degree of power, but government has far more coercive power and is far more difficult to resist. Yes, I continue to provide you with examples of how government is far more dangerous than corporations. I am trying to show you that it is generally pretty easy to avoid corporations negatively impacting you, and not at all easy to prevent the government from doing so. Certainly the government currently being more powerful is a factor in that. In some dystopian fantasy where Amazon mercenaries are blowing up your car because you shopped on WalMart.com, we might need protection of the government from those evil corporate interests. Here in the real world, you are free to use or not use the products and services of whatever corporations you want. The only real cases where your choices are limited are government enforced monopolies like utilities, cable providers, drug companies, etc. The point is that the government is the dangerous party, because you cannot just use a different government. You are talking about the influence of corporations on the government as being more dangerous, which is silly, because you are still saying the government is the danger, just that corporations are corrupting the government to direct that danger more at you. If they government were not engaging in the dangerous behavior, corruption of the government by corporations would be meaningless. The more power that is given to government, the more danger the government represents and the more danger influence on the government represents. A powerless government would not be a danger to you, and corruption of a powerless government would be meaningless. No one is sending the local mailman on a retreat to Bali, because corrupting him has no point.
