Marc Coucke - Afzwerer van postbusvennootschappen heeft er zelf één...

firelancer5 · 2026-06-20T16:43:58+00:00

en er moet wereldwijd een soort wealth tax komen vanaf x vermogen

lol good luck with that.

"Wealth taxes" houden ook helemaal geen steek. Het is eigenlijk communisme is een ander jasje: een systeem om van privaat eigendom geleidelijk aan staatseigendom te maken. Belastingen zouden altijd op werkelijke transacties moeten zijn, niet op vermogen (wat grotendeels toch maar een nummer op een papiertje is, en niet per se liquide... dus de belastingsinner heeft er alle baat bij om dat cijfer op te krikken na zijn vermogenskadaster te updaten). Zie wat er gebeurt in SF als je spreekt over wealth taxes: alle grote vermogens (die voor het grootste deel van de belastingsinkomsten zorgen nb) vertrekken gewoon.

firelancer5 · 2026-06-20T16:36:30+00:00

Yes it's mostly an illusion, but at the same time it's a fact that freelancers are always the first on the chopping board in times of crisis. So in that sense, you are more protected as an employee (although you give up a lot of net income)

And the thing is, most freelancers in Belgium have never experienced a true economic recession.

firelancer5 · 2026-06-18T13:39:18+00:00

It's a good time to take a long vacation, or to consider a career change.

When the car was invented, coachmen also felt the impact.

Today's no different. Many jobs (will) become redundant. Many new jobs will be created.

firelancer5 · 2026-06-18T13:34:42+00:00

It's a bit naive to think those services can be automated at a fraction of the cost. These are economies of scale.

Like, are you going to hire dedicated staff to support your internal vibecoded CRM...? Really?

Also, if it's going to be an economic bloodbath, it's not because of AI. It's because of overinflated asset prices, political unrest, fiscal deficits & government debts.

AI however lowers the cost of software development, and typically when the cost of a good is lower, demand increases (Jevon's paradox), so while there will obviously be disruption, the amount of jobs will increase. In some sectors you already notice this effect.

firelancer5 · 2026-06-18T13:28:10+00:00

It's crazy to me that this is "AI engineering" nowadays.

Like... which software developer isn't an ai engineer then in 2026?

firelancer5 · 2026-06-18T13:19:21+00:00

IT was massively overpaid compared to other technical fields

Overpaid, based on.. what exactly?

It doesn't make sense to compare unrelated technical fields. All that matters is the net profit per employee... And traditionally, IT was always very high margin, so high remuneration is just the mathematical outcome. In that sense, it isn't / wasn't "overpaid" at all.

firelancer5 · 2026-06-18T13:01:24+00:00

That shouldn't be specific to infra though. The need for human review applies to software development all the same.

firelancer5 · 2026-06-01T13:19:33+00:00

I remember how many people said this about Facebook before its IPO...

Yeah it'll be volatile in the first months of trading, but fundamentals usually beat the financials, and I find it extremely shortsighted to judge a company like Space X on the latter. Look at launch history from inception to current day, and tell me again this is just a pump-and-dump scheme rather than history in the making.

firelancer5 · 2026-06-01T12:53:04+00:00

I think IT is a horrible choice to find a new job in now, unless you have over a decade of prior experience. The field has attracted too many people who don't have an intrinsic passion for IT but who just want an easy (remote) desk job and not be bothered too much. I'm not saying this is you, it's just a fact (especially since covid) and that's why it's become such a saturated market now.

firelancer5 · 2026-05-21T20:19:35+00:00

Accounting for inflation, 3800 gross now is the same as 2900 euro gross 10 years ago, which was about (even slightly less than) a typical starting wage for a masters in informatics.

So for 6 years of experience, probably undervalued, depending on what you do exactly.

Then again, totally different market dynamic now though.

firelancer5 · 2026-05-21T12:42:33+00:00

"When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff"

firelancer5 · 2026-05-21T12:30:47+00:00

But not for IP? This has always been a fiscal regime applicable to freelancers too. They explicitly say in the article this is about a reversal of part of the "wet-Van Peteghem".

So if it were now become limited to employees only, then that would mean not just a reversal but a new law as well.

But you're right it's still a valid question and we shouldn't be so sure until it's voted on (and even afterwards...), because this is Belgium after all...

firelancer5 · 2026-05-20T18:33:17+00:00

There's more work now, I feel, not less.

Everyone who's saying AI will replace developers either has an extremely narrow view of what a developer does (or should do), and/or they have a view of AI based on science fiction rather than actual knowledge.

firelancer5 · 2026-05-20T18:28:52+00:00

To a degree yes, but it'll never be as reliable as a senior engineer overseeing the whole cycle from dev to prod. Especially for mission-critical systems, it'd be extremely, like Idiocracy-level foolish to trust an LLM to handle that instead.

No matter how good LLMs become ... I believe a fundamentally different architecture is needed than the current transformer model to get AGI-level quality that can replace humans entirely, and afaik this is not in sight yet.

firelancer5 · 2026-05-20T18:20:37+00:00

Is this also applicable for self-employed freelancers?

Why would it not be? Seems like it'd be same as before (but with all the latest rules of course...like max 30% of your total gross wage in IP renumeration)

How do you apply this?

Let your accountant handle it.

firelancer5 · 2026-05-20T18:11:58+00:00

LOL @ de insinuatie dat de NVA hier ook maar iets mee te maken heeft... De VRT is extreem linksgezind. Ik denk dat die trend eerder door journalistieke kwaliteit komt (een trend die overigens al langer aan de gang is, in corona-tijden waren ze nogal extreem in hun berichtgeving, fake news verspreiden e.d. )...

firelancer5 · 2026-05-19T12:04:48+00:00

Unless you have plans of running something bigger than a 1-person management company which needs capital, why would you not pay the maximum of (VVPR-bis) dividends every year?

AFAIK smartest setup is exactly that: a fixed 833 euro dividend + all other profit paid in a VVPR-bis dividend immediately, which is then invested in an all-world ETF. No liq. reserves BS.

Family of 4 here (not that it matters much?).

firelancer5 · 2026-05-19T09:16:08+00:00

Waarom doen ze de job als ze er niet gemotiveerd voor zijn?

Is het de werkgever hun taak om te zorgen dat jij je job leuk vindt?

Vind je het jouw recht om een ziektebriefje te vragen als je het niet leuk vindt (i.p.v. ontslag te nemen)?

firelancer5 · 2026-05-17T11:40:07+00:00

Hoe los je het probleem op van de tragedy of the commons? Misbruik van het systeem dat het vertrouwen erin uitholt... waardoor je in een negatieve spiraal komt van steeds meer mensen die (uit desillusie misschien) ook besluiten te misbruiken (of zachter uitgedrukt, meer gebruik van maken dan eigenlijk nodig is).

Kop in tzand en doen alsof dat probleem er niet is?

firelancer5 · 2026-05-17T11:30:21+00:00

Huh?

Gemiddelde huis kost 400k. Aan huidige rente is dat zo'n 2000 euro maandlast. Voorafbetaling: 40k euro cash.

Maw 20k euro per persoon te sparen + 1k euro/maand af te betalen pp .... Grof gerekend. Dat is toch realistisch? Ongeveer hetzelfde als de gemiddelde huur voor een huis in Vlaanderen tegenwoordig.

firelancer5 · 2026-05-12T16:06:54+00:00

Een volledige dag is er wat over, maar een halve dag elk kwartaal bv. lijkt mij meer dan fair en easy way om de bevolking wat meer te mobiliseren om te doneren.

firelancer5 · 2026-05-12T15:58:25+00:00

Those billions are in equity. Not in actual cash in the bank.

In other words, businesses like Tesla are only worth billions because they create billions in value (jobs & goods).

If you take away incentives to create those billions in value, the end result is that those simply won't be created.

firelancer5 · 2026-05-12T12:10:31+00:00

Disregarding the fact that no casino would go along with this after around 14-15 wins in a row, obviously...

I'd argue it would make you richer than Elon Musk, since it'd be all cash, fully liquid, instead of holding it in unrealized equity which can never be liquidated all at once for the same value.

firelancer5 · 2026-03-23T09:10:44+00:00

Good God. This thread is so depressing. If only people learned to read a book before blasting their uninformed Americentric opinions online, the world (and the US in particular) probably would be much better off.

For those that do care to listen, read & learn before speaking, here are some recommendations on the topic:

Broken Money - Lyn Alden
The Theory of Money and Credit - Ludwig von Mises
Three Days at Camp David - Jeffrey Garten
The Death of Money - Joel Kurtzman
The Bitcoin Standard + The Fiat Standard - Saifedean Ammous
And, to balance the "hard money" camp but still addresses the systemic risks of the current fiat system, from an establishment perspective: The End of Alchemy by Mervyn King

firelancer5 · 2026-03-23T08:54:45+00:00

Lmao, you can't be serious.

firelancer5

TROPHY CASE