unclesams-uncle's comments

a) I have EU nationality so I'm here to stay.

b) Like it or not, the US military still guarantees European security. An EU-wide military force could change that dynamic.

c) Have you not watched Europe as a whole completely shoot themselves in the foot with an artillery rifle during this pandemic?

The continent completely closed in on itself, falling back to national borders while the EU flubbed response after response.

It took months to get a bloc-wide recovery bill which still hasn't been deployed (meanwhile the US have done three rounds, including one within weeks of the pandemic starting).

The vaccine roll-out has been a debacle, starting with Brussels' decision to make group-wide purchases then waste months haggling over a few billion EUR.

We're in June and there still isn't a common policy on inter-EU travel. This vaccine passport might roll out in a month, but even then there's no guarantee it will work.

In many ways, Europe's inability to effectively govern got the worst of both worlds of the pandemic. We had strict lockdowns like in parts of APAC but w/o the contact tracing (didn't want to sacrifice GDPR for that), while at the same time, it didn't invest seriously in vaccines.

The result? All of the deaths of the United States, with the economic carnage of strict lockdowns, while still lagging other parts of the developed world.

There's a large disconnect here with many people trying to still hold onto an outdated and nationalistic way of thinking. That mentality conflicts with the modern reality of a global world where capital and innovation flows freely and competitively with little regard towards nationalist quirks.

The only response to American tech superiority is to "tax and regulate it," yet policymakers here are still stunned as to why the continents most talented people and startups flock to the United States.

I really hope this continent gets it together because there is too much potential and pressing issues to continue on the current trajectory.

>but I'm less angry than lazy.

Nice. I think that's probably a better approach to the internet than most people take.

Fair points. I see what you're saying about Balkanized regulations.

I guess in a perfect world, data protections rules/practices would have a global standardization.

I'm doubtful that would ever happen, though.

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) might serve as a foreshadow of how these discussions might play out.

If you're not familiar, FATCA came out of the financial crisis as a way to uncover the undeclared assets held in foreign banks by wealthy Americans.

To get foreign governments to go along, the US more or less forced their parliaments to sign agreements with the US and pass local enforcement laws.

In short, these rules compelled domestic banks to share the bank account data of any US person in their system. If the bank didn't comply, the US could seize 30% of their US-based assets.

The results have been mostly catastrophic.

For one, FATCA didn't capture a lot of revenue for the IRS as most wealthy Americans shelter their assets domestically in trusts and LLCs.

Second, it had the effect of ruining the lives of ordinary Americans living abroad who, while by no means wealthy, were working middle class. People like myself had our bank accounts closed and were subject to being presumed money launders and tax evaders. Many expats -- including accidental Americans who only gained US nationality because they were born on US soil while their parents were on short-term work assignments -- lost their retirement accounts and mortgages.

More damningly, the US continues to refuse sharing bank account data of foreigners living in America back to their home countries, as per the agreement.

The reason for this refusal? The US government cites American banking privacy laws.

In other words, FATCA turned the US into the world's largest tax haven.

I have no doubt that the US will leverage its position as global tech leader in any data sharing deal to create a similar useless structure abound with unintended negative consequences.

Objectively, what would you have against your data going to the US?

Because unfortunately, the combination of a US absence from the global stage under the previous administration and the pandemic showed how unable Europe is to run its business.

I say this as a US expat who has lived in various parts Europe long enough to have an EU citizenship. I wish it wasn't the case, but it's the sad reality.

Central banks in many countries (including all of Europe, US, Canada, Japan, etc) are all effectively in public hands.

The banks' boards and many employees are political appointees nominated by elected officials.

They are accountable to legislatures.

I'm not sure how, other than go for a "Swiss-style" direct election of directors (which, considering the complexities of macroeconomics, would be like shooting ourselves in the foot with a cannon), you could get more public than that.

> In my opinion the value is in the network and the ability to move money instantly (or at very least faster than traditional methods), securely, to anywhere in the world for a fraction of a cent. That ability alone is valuable and hasn't existed until now.

I spent some time working in a relatively-unknown but high volume clearing bank.

Banks can and do move billions instantly, and have done so for years through SWIFT and ACH. It takes literal seconds for a confirmation to pass through different clearing networks around the world.

Even today, we're seeing banks improve their correspondence networks with each other.

For example, you could have a Transferwise Account where you receive USD and convert to GBP.

If you wanted to move that to a Monzo account, you can do so instantly as Transferwise and Monzo have accounts either with each other or in the same institution.

The bank debits and credits each counterparty immediately.

At the end of the day, it nets its position, then sends its report to the central bank, netting positions between other participants.

Looking at crypto from the outside, I really don't see the added value based on existing infrastructure.

It seems more like a proof of concept rather than a viable long-term asset.

The rest of us have mostly given up trying to troubleshoot his IT issues. For his part, he recognizes that he's on his own and will take the time to (try to) fix whatever issues he has.

Interestingly to you point, I've worked in banking for a number of years. The number of institutions that depend on legacy systems coded in otherwise extinct languages is concerning.

On the other hand, I've met some of the consultants banks use for IT maintenance. These guys (mostly in their 50s) can easily earn 40K a month (in Europe!) just for knowing COBOL and late 70s/early 80s era infrastructure.

I was thinking that. And I guess, considering that his machines don't have a lot of RAM in them, blocking JS is a lot more resource-effective than running a bunch of browser plugins to achieve the same results.

A close relative of mine swears by WP 5.1 and running as many programs as he can from the command line.

He also:

- Refuses to upgrade to Windows 10 (he's trying desperately to stay on XP for as long as he can, although I think either 98 or even 3.1 is his favorite. He has, however, made peace with Windows 7)

- Will buy out-of-date but refurbished laptops to achieve this goal.

- Prefers obscure browsers over Chrome, IE/Edge and even Firefox.

- Will actively block JS from loading in browser. It makes for a 'unique' browsing experience.

As a result, I get the impression that he's created some sort of high-end IT security policy in the sense that no nefarious hacker would bother even looking for hardware and software that obsolete and obscure.

He's in his mid 70s. I've tried to get him to migrate to a lighter-weight Linux distro running XFCE or MATE but he seems adamant on sticking to his guns. I kind of respect that dedication, even with the mind-boggling frustration it comes with.

Spain really needs to fix its autonomo system to let people add to the economy without being overburdened with taxes and paperwork.

I remember reading that PSOE wants to amend it, but I don't know how much of that was just campaign rhetoric.

I've been a US expat in Europe for almost 20 years now.

I spent a lot of time in Belgium (to the point I became a citizen) and am now in Barcelona starting a FinTech.

Europe lacks both a risk-taking mentality and the framework to foster real entrepreneurship.

Spain was able to become much more competitive thanks to the austerity they were forced to go through post-crisis, but there are still way more bureaucratic hoops I have to jump through compared to what I would need to do to start my business in the US.

Incorporating an LLC alone (the equivalent of a c-corp is rarely used by startups over here) requires 3,000 EUR in the bank plus about the same amount in legal fees. In many other countries, it's a five-figure deposit to get a company set up. As the director of the company, I'm required to register as a freelancer so that I "can't fire myself and claim unemployment" which is ridiculous within itself.

Stock options don't really exist in Europe either, meaning I can't really issue them to attract talent. In otherwords, I need to access more capital at an earlier stage to grow my business in comparison to US competitors.

Finally, there is no such thing as chapter 11 bankruptcy within the EU, which limits risk-taking by businesses.

As for France, it's great that they have a visa. However, the legal and labor system is similar to Belgium, making founding and scaling a company a royal PITA. Belgium is a great place to work in a giant company (usually a bank or an insurer) but an absolutely lousy place to start a business, visa program or otherwise.

Europe needs to get this figured out. The continent has too much talent and too large of a market to not be able to be a global innovation force.

Belgium is a great test case for your theory.

The country is split linguistically between Dutch speakers in the northern Flemish region, and French in the southern Walloon region.

The Flemish region's television stations and cinemas run mostly subtitled programs (really, anything outside of children's shows and content made in the region or in the Netherlands).

In the French-speaking areas, the media companies and cinemas buy their content from France, where the vast majority of it comes overdubbed.

As a result, the Flemish have a much stronger command of English than their French-speaking counterparts.

That said, the French-speaking Belgians, at least in my experience of living there for a long time, speak English much better than the French.

A lot of that has to do with how international the country is, where Brussels not only hosts many international institutions, but also a lot of companies have their EU HQs there. Many people need to speak English to get jobs with these firms, so it drives up the English competency among the local population.

Your theory definitely has some merit.

I do financial data analysis and Jupyter Notebooks allows me to run scripts while explaining my findings/arguments about the data within the same space.

It's a convenient way to present both data and narrative to whoever might need to see it.

I also like being able to run snippets when writing scripts, at least when it comes to building/testing. I'm more on the data science side than the dev side though, so that's probably why Jupyter Notebooks appeal to me more than other IDEs.

It's quite a cool line. It's the only metro connection to Barcelona Airport, although if you're going to the center, it's a bit of a detour, as there are more direct routes.

Since the line is completely automated, you can sit at the front or back and get an unobstructed view of the tracks/tunnel.

If you're into trains/trams (like a certain founder of Pied Piper), it's worth checking out.

In Belgium, you can't just stop showing up without consequences. You need to give 6 weeks notice, otherwise, they can take legal action against you, along with firing you, which means you lose any claim to unemployment benefits.

Likewise, if you quit voluntarily, you aren't entitled to unemployment right away.

But I agree, you'd most likely want to have your next job lined up before putting in your notice.

I'm an American who lived in Belgium for 15 years, first to study then for work.

I always told people that the difference between the US and Belgium is that you "live to work" in the former and "work to live" in the latter.

Belgian labor laws are much more enforced than they are in the US. The unions in Belgium have a lot of sway in big companies and employers tend to respond positively to work-life balance.

In the US, there's the expectation that if you're hired for a role, you should be able to onboard as quickly as possible. There's no 6 month trial period or even the concept of an indefinite contract (CDI in French, I forgot the acronym in Dutch) (EDIT: in the private sector).

Likewise, an American employer can get rid of an employee (and likewise hire one) in less time and with less cost than a Belgian one. That flexibility drives a lot of the business decisions in a way that would never translate in Belgium (or much of Western Europe, for that matter).

On the other hand, if you're in a situation where your employer goes over the line (like the person at the top of the thread describes), you can generally just walk away from the job. There's no 6-week notice.

There's for sure a lot more to it, but that's mainly where I see the difference between the two countries.

If Turkey leaves NATO, they will further ally with Russia.

Considering Turkey's strategic location, it's better to have Turkey in NATO instead of as an adversary, even if its leadership doesn't align with the values of other NATO members.

Erdogan knows that he has a ton of leverage and chooses to maximize his advantage.

There are a lot of moving pieces here. He's overcalculated a bit and his nationalist policy has hurt the Turkish economy.

Likewise, many European countries rejecting Turkey's EU bids last decade on thinly-veiled Islamaphobic pretenses only strengthened his nationalist message at home.

The west knows it, but they also know that they would rather have Turkey nominally on their side than not.

It will probably take cooler heads and or a major economic downturn to shift that sentiment. Until then, Turkey maintains its seat in NATO.

This sounds like a refugee camp but with extra steps.

When I bought my apartment in Spain, I had to get a Cashier's check for both the deposit and the final purchase.

There's apparently still some utility in them in parts of Europe. When I challenged it (I had to pay 80 EUR for the check!) I was told that a bank transfer could be reversed or canceled, and that Cashier's checks prevent that from happening.

I don't see this situation changing until the banks get together with the central bank and create a unified escrow system to replace Cashier's checks.

As of now, they don't see the benefits of changing to a new system outweighing the costs.