I live in what's not exactly a digital nomad hotspot, but they do come. You pay 150€/month for a coworking space in a city where some people pay 300-400€/month rent. These digital nomads come here, pay absurd amounts of rent without blinking an eye.
And the tax thing is not a bogus argument. When people only pay taxes indirectly, they are tourists. Digital nomads pay _much_ less tax overall than other people, because people who pay income tax pay indirect taxes as well. If the digital nomads don't come, they also wouldn't raise rent and café prices for everyone around them. You come here, register yourself as a freelancer and pay income tax? You're very welcome in my book. But if you come to the country to leech off its cheap prices but don't pay income tax, you can go back where you came from.
We bring in millions of poor immigrants for various reasons: It's the human thing to do, these immigrants do cheap and hard labor that a lot of natives won't do (think construction, food delivery, etc.) and as such even provide benefits to us.
Digital Nomads mostly aren't immigrants. They come for a limited time, don't provide much to the local economy outside spending some money (and even then it's not that much because a lot of them come to cheap countries to live for cheap and save money) and then leave again. It's not really comparable.
> When people only pay taxes indirectly, they are tourists. Digital nomads pay _much_ less tax overall than other people, because people who pay income tax pay indirect taxes as well
Bad argument, as the alternative is the DN (just as the tourist) simply not coming to the island. If a DN spends 2000€ a month, that is 2000€ taxable income for someone else. If the DN doesn't come someone else makes 2000€ less of income. This does not compare to people living in the place, as they are there no matter what. Every cent of foreign money flowing into your economy ON TOP is a bonus. It is only bad if it removes someone else who would spend that money, but that is not the case.
And if you would argue that the economy does not need more foreign money and you do not want productivity and wealth increase and have stay things as they are, you are advocating socalism - look at cuba, venezuela or argentina how that worked out.
Well, that only counts if you see the DN as a net positive. Similar to tourists, a lot of people see DN as a net negative because they spend some money, sure, but they also raise rent and hospitality prices. This can harm local communities and economies because it may benefit few people over many or change where people have to go live.
Places relying on tourism as economic activity are very susceptible to economic crisis and it can even go as far as suppressing generation of jobs in other sectors and people leaving because you only find jobs in tourism or you can't afford to live in the city because Digital Nomads live there already. This is obviously exaggerated to make a point, but I think the point still stands in smaller scale.
Foreign money flowing in does not need to be a bonus. DN have the potential to change the microeconomy and in ways that affect your macroeconomy much more than just money flowing in.
Take a place like Barcelona, a famous example for people not being able to live there anymore due to high prices. On top of that, a lot of digital nomads don't interact much with local culture. When people start leaving, is the influx of DN money really still a net positive? Especially considering some of them don't even pay income tax?
I don't want to demonize immigration, but people moving somewhere and treating it like a cheaper version of their hometown is not a positive in any way, culturally or economically.
I am not arguing for socialism by saying that people coming and spending some money (not even that much) is not a sustainable way to do economy. I've got no problem with foreign investors building things that are actually valuable to the economy by building up industry, creating jobs or whatever. Cuba, Venezuela and Argentina have a whole lot of different problems and the reasons they are in the positions they are are much more nuanced than "socialism bad".
> Take a place like Barcelona, a famous example for people not being able to live there anymore due to high prices.
I always hear this bullshit "People can't afford to live there anymore". That is complete nonsense, because unless there are deserted buildings and empty apartments, people DO live there and people CAN afford it. Just not you.
I feel like either you're really dense or you're misunderstanding me on purpose.
It's exactly my point that mist people can't afford to live their because they're being priced out by foreigners. Most people native to such an area see that as a net negative, regardless of how much you want to dress it up as people coming and spending their money.
I understand you perfectly clear, but to me you are spreading socialist ideas. If prices are high for a given scarce resource, it is because of high demand. Now you want to basically cut off demand (less foreigners, DNs) for prices to go down. But you do need the high price signal in order to create an incentive to create more of that resources.
In the case of the EU (I'm a german EU citizen living in another EU state) we are all equal in terms of freedom of movement. There are no "locals" that have for some reasons more rights to any resources than anyone else. Giving "locals" preferential rights is completely unfair, as this would be excercising some kind of birth right.
I myself getting priced out of vintage german sportscars myself, could we please cut the rights for non-germans to buy up those cars so I can afford one again? You can see how ridicioulous that would sound.
I think there's multiple things coming together. I'm in no way arguing to forbid immigration, I'm just pointing out that I don't think Digital Nomads are a net positive and that there are real economic consequences beyond "they spend money so it's good".
I also specifically said I don't have a problem with anyone coming. You're welcome. I expect people that come to to a country to pay income tax there (as is usually required by law), but I'm in no way arguing to "cut off demand".
Arguing that someone who would want to close borders and stop immigration (both of which policies I don't support at all, btw) is socialist is a bit far fetched. As I said, I welcome immigrants. Immigration brings with it a whole class of problems that need be addressed, but that doesn't mean it should be forbidden.
And lastly, there's also a big difference between housing a vintage cars. One is an essential need, the other is not. You getting priced out of vintage cars, a luxury item, is not nearly as bad as you getting priced out of housing. That is a real problem that is actually happening in a lot of places, not some weird fantasy.
The quote reminds me of Tucholsky, a German journalist known for this style. An example that comes to mind was his review of James Joyce's Ulysses: "It's like meat extract: you can't eat it, but many soups will be made with it".
I think putting a bit of fun writing into reports of everyday events or reviews can go a long way. Tucholsky again, I'm paraphrasing and translating from memory where he wrote a trial against dada artist Grosz who depicted army officials as grotesque and ugly: "To demonstrate that there are no faces like this in the Reichswehr (the army), they brought in lieutenant so-and-so. They shouldn't have done that."
For context, because I had to look it up: For BB(6), Σ(6) is known to be least 10 ↑↑ 15 for in Knuth's up-arrow notation. You can read this as 10^(10 ↑↑ 14) = 10^(10^(10 ↑↑ 13)) and so on. It's much more than just a lot.
Interesting, the dentists I have asked (4) all said it doesn't matter (Spain and Germany, maybe it's relevant) at all and it's up to personal preference.
I was traveling in the EU a year ago and was in need of a toothbrush. The one I picked up at an arbitrary pharmacy in Antony, FR has nothing special about it but has lasted (I mean the bristles are not wearing hard or splaying, getting soft, whatever the usual failure mode for a toothbrush is) in 12 months of use. And I'm usually pretty hard on my brushes.
Why can't we in the US just have nice cheap things. Why is everything an electronic life-hack with a fun take on how to be eco-concious, that involves buying something I don't already own?
For what it's worth, the toothbrush was also not the cheapest I could find (that would have been Lidl or somesuch), and was made in France, so maybe that makes a difference.
The usual problem with toothbrush bristles is they become microscopically worn down, so they don't scrape off plaque as effectively. Even if you can't see the problem, it might not be working as well as a fresh head will.
You can find electron microscope scans of fresh toothbrushes and worn ones in this[0] Applied Science YouTube video.
A Boatmurdered read is one of the few times I actually burst out laughing in front of my screen - multiple times.
Every time I read it I want to get back into dwarf fortress, but this damn game introduces so much new stuff over time that I can't shake off the feeling it's just too much for me. I _loved_ that game until about ten years back but haven't played in ages.
Congratulations! The local API client space urgently needs some Open Source tools that don't suck. I've ditched Postman and Insomnia for Bruno, but since this supports gRPC I really want to give it a try.
Python as a scripting language sounds nice, I don't particularly enjoy working with JS and I think it'd be a nice addition for people like me who prefer something else. Not having to install an electron app is also huge for me.
For me, installation failed with "Package xkbcommon-x11 was not found in the pkg-config search path.". I needed to install libxkbcommon-x11-devel on fedora.
It definitely is super snappy and lightweight.
Is there an option to use a dedicated directory for a workspace to share it in git? That'd be huge for me, being able to commit the request yaml files to git is super nice
What I mean is that it'd be nice if you could store them somewhere else explicitly. Create a new workspace and store its contents in your code repository so that you can commit it and share it with your team directly through git.
I'd be super interested in your writeup, I'd like to build a homemade Tonie for my kids as well. Any way you could contact me when you're finished or do you have a blog I could regularly check out?
It definitely does not show that, it's just a number and you're interpreting it. But other interpretations are just as valid, e.g.
- Germans founding less because they're more risk-averse
- having less AI startups because other types of companies are founded more often
- Less wish to found because of a strong job market that gives you excellent jobs with decision power/money/whatever it is you seek in founding yourself
- People have more families and don't want to quit their current jobs
I probably could come up with more. Is it a hassle to found a new company in Germany? Sure. But I've found that for people who do want to start something, that's not a showstopper. Personally, I would attribute low startup numbers to cultural risk aversion of Germans
> I would attribute low startup numbers to cultural risk aversion of Germans
Which is literally one aspect of how easy or hard it is to create a startup and get it somewhere. Can't fire people quickly enough since market is changing daily? Well it will be a nightmare for the owners to become or remain relevant enough to stay afloat.
I am not bashing EU just to be clear, having more job stability has tons of long term positive consequences on population's mental state and 2nd and 3rd order positive effects (the usage of various 'mental' medication in US seems to be ridiculously high compared to 3 countries in Europe I've lived in for example), but good environment for agile fail fast startups it ain't.
In Germany specifically, but I'd guess it applies to most other countries as well, these strict rules apply once you have 11 employees. A lot of startups work with contractors anyways. And you can always fire people if your company needs it to survive.
As far as I'm aware, California has some of the strongest labor protection laws in the US, yet lots of startups. There's clearly more factors involved than labor protection laws, e.g. VC money, culture, etc.
Sure, stronger labor protection might be a result of cultural risk aversion. But I'd be very hesitant to call it "literally one aspect of how easy or hard it is to create a startup and get it somewhere"
I didn't say its the only aspect, just one of key ones. Bureaucracy must be another critical aspect, one reason why ie France or Italy are literally centuries behind with very little to no hope to ever catch up given its population priorities.
I agree with what you say, SV culture and sheer amount of startup-compatible talent plays a massive role too. Its a momentum that would take half a century of dedicated effort to even catch up.
The thesis of the article is broadly correct but the reasoning it uses to get there is questionable.
Every country has its quirks. The US has a very high cost of living and consequent high salaries. No wonder it’s important to be able to fire workers quickly. The high wages are also more than balanced by the amount of capital available.
In Germany it’s harder to fire workers but they also get paid a fraction of their counterparts in the US, so there’s not such a rush.
I wouldn’t start a startup in Germany either, because of the insane dysfunction of German bureaucracy. The money is not even a factor when dealing with the system is already such a pain.
