• 0 Posts
  • 37 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 31st, 2023

help-circle
  • I might have applied and i wasn’t being a dick. you removed my comment because why? you think the lord of the rings was written for grown-ups or something? time to test you and see how outlandish you can be. i’ll think twice about participating here. not a safe place for me when I haven’t said anything wrong. fortunately for me, technology isn’t my specialty. it’s literature. so, say goodbye to me from your community. also, didn’t appreciate your insult. I’m from the community you’re from. the comment from the other person came from another instance. you have nothing to worry about. in technology you won’t hear a peep from me, because I learned how this place works. humanities and cultural literacy is not appreciated here.










  • Well, good for them. Maybe they’ll wake up and smell the capitalism. I’m an American and I have lived in Europe for over a decade. I am a person who has lived through the 1970s, the 1980s, and to now. Never ever could my family, when I was a little boy, afford to go on vacation to another place. Vacation for us was a time to not be working. Like I said, I have been living in Europe for over a decade. You Europeans sure are into traveling when you’re on vacation. It’s really necessary for you to afford to go somewhere else for vacation, to disconnect, and all that. Are you really in touch with what most people experience in your home countries? I certainly can say you are not in touch. In Spain, we’d call you all a bunch of “pijos.” Los pijos dicen, “dios mío, no puedo pasar las vacaciones en la playa” and etc. Welcome to the capitalist world, my bitches. You can’t live all comfortable anymore just summering away in some other place other than your own fucking house. Which means, my euro beauties, you’ve unexpectedly become americanized. This is the new way of life for you unless you vote better in your democratic elections, to make sure you can summer away from home and have your lovely summer life you see in the media that you can’t have, the same one I’ve never had, like ever.





  • That is a secondary concern for me, although I think it’s an important point to bring up. I’m more worried about people who open their small shop and can’t afford to accept cards as payment. People are making purchases with a card that 20 years ago I wouldn’t have even thought of doing, such as buying a can of soda and only a can of soda, which can amount to under a dollar (or under a euro). More and more often I see people trying to pay with a card and the person at the register says, “you need to spend 1 euro more if you want to use your card.” What would happen to these small businesses if they didn’t have the option to demand cash for purchases under a certain amount? They would drown in fees. The merchant has to pay for being able accept cards. A big company can afford it. A small rinky-dink shop can’t right now. This would mean, what? The need for subsidies for small businesses so they can accept cards? In the USA (where I’m from) I don’t see that happening. In Europe (where I live) I see that type of policy - which would totally happen, unlike in the USA where maybe not depending on the state you’re in - having a time limit on it, like so many other subsidies for small businesses here. Typical subsidy for small business would be like, “for the first five years you are open, and only on your first business” or “for small business owners 40 years old or younger for the first five years.” Yes, age discrimination in Europe, or what we Americans would call age discrimination, is rampant. Anyway, a cashless society would give preference to big retail corporations and corporate restaurant chains, making small business retail and hospitality all the more difficult to keep open.



  • In Sweden, merchants can refuse to accept cash if they want to. As seen here Sweden is predicting the future of society as cashless. So, it’s a worldwide trend, and there are countries with policies in place already that are encouraging a move from cash to all digital money, such as Sweden. Where I live, my bank has refused to handle cash transactions at most branches for years now. If you want to make a cash deposit, you have to use the ATM. I think where I live it’s not really possible for merchants to refuse cash because they get charged fees for accepting credit cards. They don’t want you to scan your card for a purchase below 5 or sometimes 7 bucks. But, restricting cash circulation is a way to control tax fraud, so I’m sure a lot of governments will be looking for ways to make policies that discourage the use of cash. I think the major problem is going to be for the small mom and pop stores and businesses. To accept cards they have to pay fees that are still too expensive. It’s not fair to them if the banks aren’t going to find a way to lower fees for Visa, MC, etc.



  • Higher education problems collide with healthcare problems to create a gigantic mess that seems nearly impossible to fix. The public doesn’t care about academics, who are viewed as lazy people who barely do any “real work” for their salaries. The public isn’t voting in a direction for healthcare reform, either. Graduate students, professors, and teaching staff continue to be exploited. Corporate healthcare continues to dominate and interface with higher education at the medical school and the hospital. Public officials aren’t doing anything because nobody asks them to. I wonder when enough people will get concerned about this? Maybe when it’s too late?