supertrope (u/supertrope)

supertrope commented on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/alephnerd

sandworm101 · 17 hours ago

Ya but those countries also do not enjoy private health insurance and for-profit care providers. The ability to purchase shares in both the hospital that is treating you and the company that authorizes your treatment is a uniquely american priviledge.

supertrope · 9 hours ago

You jest but to play devil's advocate every system has its supporters. One of the reasons we didn't get a public health plan option is because the Senator for Connecticut was representing his constituents such as Cigna and Aetna. If you provide an easier exit for the former death panel workers in the form of working at the public option administrator, re-training, etc. you might be able to assuage unemployment based opposition to reform.

People don't gloat at privatization but aforementioned wealthier retirees rely on corporations squeezing ever more money out of customers, employees, and vendors.

supertrope commented on Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun europeanbusinessmagazine.... · Posted by u/NewCzech

ApolloFortyNine · 16 hours ago

The problem with these is always who pays for fraud.

With credit cards, they actually claw that money back from the merchant, and then if the merchant can't pay they just eat it themselves.

So the merchant has to work in fraud rates into their pricing, and the credit card company has to work in fraud rates that the merchant can't cover into their rates.

It always seemed toxic it to me that the merchants are the one's responsible, despite the fact that they easily have the least power to do anything about it. But the ease of payment processing, and the number of people who just won't buy it if they can't use a card, outweighs dealing with fraud I guess.

supertrope · 11 hours ago

In theory merchants can notice some fraud signs so shifting fraud losses onto them gives an incentive to take action on those signs. In practice banks have a better overall view of fraud and this is just externalizing bank fraud losses onto stores.

supertrope commented on Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun europeanbusinessmagazine.... · Posted by u/NewCzech

hearsathought · 15 hours ago

> I never invited the extra surveillance middleman

What's an extra layer of surveillance? Why accept the "credit and debit" surveillance middlemen but not the google/apple middlenmen?

What the world needs are "cash cards". Something equivalent to cash not tied to your identity that you can use in the real and virtual world.

I simply do not understand why governments or the private sector do not provide such options.

supertrope · 13 hours ago

Governments frown upon KYC-less digital purse cards. Gotta force everyone to share their national ID number to just open a bank account to keep out drug dealers, terrorists, or NSFW game peddlers.

Banks generally don't like disposable digital purse cards. They make money off fees and interest. If a product doesn't rope you into a customer "relationship" where you link your pay deposits or later might get a mortgage or car loan they can only make money off fees. Enjoy paying $5 to activate a $100 prepaid debit card!

supertrope commented on Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun europeanbusinessmagazine.... · Posted by u/NewCzech

KellyCriterion · 16 hours ago

What would Google prevent from taking a similar cut as Apple is taking?

supertrope · 13 hours ago

Lack of negotiation power. Less control over Android than Apple has over iOS.

Google keeps self-sabotaging Android Pay. They lacked market power so cellular carriers blocked it hoping to advance their own payment ecosystem (ISIS). Google changes the payment brand every few years, and fragments it into two separate apps or combines them. It's rather like their messaging strategy.

supertrope commented on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/alephnerd

acheron · 17 hours ago

In general the “housing is too expensive” people mean “I looked at every available house in both San Francisco and New York City, and didn’t find anything cheap!”

supertrope · 17 hours ago

When picking a city, pick two:

-Good job market

-Not high cost of living

-Good quality of life (commute, amenities, etc.)

Many industries are concentrated in high cost of living cities or very high cost of living cities. Not everyone is a nurse who can work anywhere. Big cities generally have bigger salaries.

supertrope commented on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/alephnerd

mekdoonggi · 17 hours ago

As a parent, I genuinely question why I continue to participate in a society that tolerates traffic deaths and firearm violence like the US. If there's a large chunk of people who won't lift a finger to keep kids from being shot at school, there's a large chunk of people who value my child's life at zero.

supertrope · 17 hours ago

One of the ways the Netherlands made streets safer for dismounted people was by framing it as stopping killing kids with your cars. Yes this is "think of the children" logic but since kids are generally healthy the top causes of kid death in the US are gunfire and cars.

supertrope commented on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/alephnerd

Sol- · 17 hours ago

Because progress and growth makes us wealthier and happier? It's pretty simple.

People say "Oh, but GDP isn't everything" - but it's correlated with almost everything good, so might as well be.

supertrope · 17 hours ago

This. The prospect of a brighter future at least means capital and labor are fighting for slices of a bigger pie. If the pie per capita stays constant or shrinks there will be a lot more anti-social behavior to response to the zero-sum environment.

supertrope commented on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/alephnerd

sandworm101 · 17 hours ago

If they were only eating there would be no problem. But they want fancy vacations. They want houses. They need drugs. They need MRI machines. And they need these things for decades for minimal cost irrespective of ability to pay. And, when they do die, they expect to pass estates tax-free to thier children. Supporting the retired population is one thing, but the day may soon come when we revisit what it means to be retired.

supertrope · 17 hours ago

If you want to punch up try aiming higher than the upper-middle class. Other countries have MRIs and drugs as part of universal healthcare.

supertrope commented on The US is flirting with its first-ever population decline bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/alephnerd

jdlyga · 17 hours ago

Once you have a kid, it's obvious why even besides the costs involved. There's not much sense of community, particularly in the white middle class. People are very individualistic and distrusting of others. There's a good reason for some of this, but to have a community you need to be a community member. And that means letting people in, trusting others and being trustworthy, and being out for the group instead of just yourself.

supertrope · 17 hours ago

The book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam is about the decline of civil society.

Church membership is down. Labor union membership is down. Parents got crushed in the pandemic with school shutdowns, daycare shutdowns, and formula shortages. It takes two incomes to afford a family's lifestyle. Someone has to take care of the kid. Two people have to do the job of three people.

supertrope commented on NIMBYs aren't just shutting down housing inpractice.yimbyaction.or... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo

innagadadavida · 5 days ago

A key issue that often gets missed is that job growth and housing supply are tightly linked. When cities add office jobs without adding enough housing, the results are predictable: longer commutes, overcrowded housing, or both.

In that sense, it makes little sense to approve large amounts of office space without considering the housing capacity needed to support it. If the jobs-to-housing ratio grows too high, the costs are pushed onto workers and surrounding areas rather than being addressed directly.

This problem is compounded by limited public transit and inadequate road infrastructure. Framing the issue solely as NIMBY opposition misses the structural imbalance at the core of the problem.

Instead of treating symptoms or assigning blame, governments should focus on correcting the underlying mismatch between employment growth and housing supply.

supertrope · 4 days ago

Local governments have a huge incentive to favor commercial construction over residential construction: schools. Adding an office building adds tax revenue without adding students. Adding housing means they have to enroll students.