u/BeNotAfraid

Of course you like it, it affords you the ability to live. Capitalism is devised to keep that status quo. We are trained to love our gilded cages. Thank you for qualifying that you don't support fascism, self-interest is key to allowing the continuation of the exploitation of the working class.

Leave, protest. Refuse to work in a system that does not oppose fascism. I have two Bachelor's degrees, one in the arts, one in horticultural science. (indoor gardening) At home, I produce fresh air, clean water, grow my own drugs and my own food. I sell car parts and I bar tend for capital because the company I worked for previously is owned by an American investment firm. I make substantially less than I was a couple months ago. But I can sleep at night, if enough people say "go fuck yourself" it will work. Do not devalue the importance you bring to your job, finding people who can work in the most banal roles, effectively. That have to be trained and won''t immediately bounce when there's a better cash offer, is way harder than people realise. I am asked to come back every few months and I say "no." We need to work as a group to send the message. Life is only so hard and money so important, because of the system. If the system starts to fail or become less effective, the power of bodies to restrict our access to the resources of capital disappears. Keep fighting.

Try 150 Billion, if you actually want to make a difference. Why are we fining companies with more money than the collective GDP of Europe hidden in offshore bank accounts, the equivalent of pennies? That's like giving someone a 10c speeding ticket for doing 210km/hr in a 50 zone and then letting them continue to drive at speed. Big tech are the ones behind the social engineering that brought us Trump and the rise of authoritarianism around the globe. For fucks sake EU, why are you so toothless even NOW? Politicians just capitulate and line their pockets with slivers of prophets generated by surveillance capitalism and the intentional destruction of our planet. For no fucking reason other than our enslavement. Lads, when do we just nut up and burn Google, Microsoft, Apple and all these companies servers to the ground? Why are we still allowing this? Google has paid Billions for our data, GDPR never stopped anything and even if it did, they just buy it from workday, or any "free online tool" with 10,000 "Legitimate Interest" partners that you grant access to by being opt out. Scanning and ripping binaries from your computer, every time you log online. Fuck these fucking people claiming to represent us taking cents on the euro from their American corporate masters. While the rest of us are expected to swallow this fucking bile and pretend like justice is done, while we still struggle, starve and live on top of each other. Under surveillance without our own homes, for us that understand to even be able to secure our connection to the online world. Fuck This.

No, it does step towards a circular European Economy. If you actually read into the proposed legislature instead of just assuming what it says based on the headline you would see that. Point two the added requirements of staff and logistics = things are more exponentially more expensive is a false dichotomy perpetuated by American corporate interest in order to demoralise and discourage competition, thus increasing their market share and their stranglehold on retail as a whole. Point three, you emphasise that the store upcharges you for convenience and then change the argument to be in order to pay people a fair wage. A wage which amazon does not. Notice how you subconsciously demonise the intention of the local retailer? Even though amazon is literally the reason for the accelerated global warming. I would argue the increase in price is directly caused by the decrease in traffic created by amazon and global online retail as a whole. I would further add to the point that reputable companies line Sony, or Bosch. Still charge as much, if not more to sell through amazon. Many producers of high quality electronics just do not use amazon anymore, because their return policy has always been detrimental to producers of quality goods, immediately taking the proceeds of the sale from the store with no evidence to support the customer claims and making it prohibitively costly to do business on the platform and make products that are not complete garbage.

Counterargument, removing the "cheap alternative" will 1) Drive additional traffic to stores, allowing people to shop locally again and re level the playing field in terms of competitive pricing. 2) Allow more retail businesses to open up and meet newly available niche requirements created by the absence of these retailers. 3) Create a whole new argument for the increase of income to a liveable minimum wage, benefiting literally everybody but the 1% We have been conditioned go think that things are the way they are and they can't change. It is complete nonsense, it is a lie perpetuate by the middle class, who are owned by our corporate masters. We do not need these, we do not need their products and we can all achieve an improved level of personal wealth through the removal of them and their monopolistic hoarding of capital through tax evasion and political corruption. Google's parent company Alphabet, valued at over a trillion Dollars, Amazon valued at 2.4 trillion, Apple at 3.6 Trillion. 2781 inidividauls with a combined networth of over 3.6 trillion dollars between them. The entire global gdp is 13.6 Trillion dollars. Norway's entire store of wealth, largest in Europe, sits at 1.6 Trillion euro. With all due respect my friend, stop looking at this so myopically as to look at your comfort in existing as another person's slave and wake up to where *all the wealth has gone.* We have all been lied to.

Yeah, but they enjoy their tax bracket because they purchase it from the leaders of EU governments for pennies of its value to them. Look at Ireland, where the politicians refused to comply with EU's tax requirements for Google, Apple and Meta. Men are weak and can be bought with trinkets. The Middle Class simply exist as mouth pieces for the corporate owners of Earth.

Yeah, but they can just lie. That's how all this happened. Generate distrust in the media, create a fake climate of fear against "evil immigrants." No politician calls them liars, because they're all complicit. Capitalist mouthbreathing drones.

Retail Therapy, we've all been programmed to find pleasure in consumption.

Yeah, pay more. To a reputable company, that isn't a Chinese substitution, counterfeit or replacement product with a made up name. Computer products containing firmware that *doesn't* immediately capture your data and send it to a 3rd party without your consent. Extra business in a circular economy like this increases resale value and the uptick in business allows more local options to open, generating competition and lowering prices, whilst increasing the number jobs in logisitics, transport and retail. Or did you not realise that Amazon was the reason that the same set of headphones was €50 more in the store than through them?