how I love socialist europe: free world class college in germany and france, in holland and danmark, in austria and switzerland. that and world class health care for free too.
yes taxes are high, insanely high by american standards - but in the end it more than evens out. plus life is less stressful.
As an Australian living in one of the most heavily taxed countries in the world with socialised health care, education etc, all I can say is that I love my very high standard of living and freedom from any real financial concerns related to health, education, housing etc. You can keep your minarchism.
I'm from a country that has public health and free college education (Finland).
I much prefer paying bit more in taxes than having to have a bad conscience knowing that a lot of the people living in my country would not have the same options as myself.
I'm not exceedingly wealthy but I make more than the statistical average employee.
This is one thing I think a lot of young people here (Denmark) don't really realize about their advantages. Yeah, the taxes are higher, but they have no student loans to pay off. (Not to mention: they can start a business without worrying about healthcare premiums.)
"No healthcare costs. Scraped elbow? Free. Brain surgery? Free.
- No saving up for college for my kids.
- No student loans tuition is free in all universities and colleges.
- Goverment-paid pension savings"
It's a little disingenuous to talk about all those 'free things' that 'others' or 'the government' are paying for, because it communicates that those costs are magically externalized.
They are not, of course.
Citizens are paying for all of those things through very aggressive taxation.
Denmark has basically the highest degree of government participation in the economy in the world. [1]
Taxation in Scandinavian countries run deep.
Swedens top tax rate is 67% (!!!) though this includes social security. Payroll tax (employer side of social security) is about 30%, deducted before transfer to employee. And then after you take your money home, you pay an additional 25% VAT on everything you buy.
Think about that: Swedish company allocates $100K to employee. ~30% deducted for SS, so employees income is really $70K. Now, you pay up to 66% of that in taxes (not at 70K, but for higher income earners - certainly a lot of Google folks would!), so say 50% taxes, 'take home' is now $35K. Now, you pay 25% taxes on everything you buy. Assume people save 10% conservatively, meaning $31.5K in spending, which is about $6 VAT taxes.
So from $100K in comp, you're paying $70K to the government.
In the US obviously it would be considerably less.
I know all this has been argued before, but it's important to consider how aggressive that taxation is, I don't think it's ever fair to talk about 'no student debt' or 'free healthcare' without taking into consideration that level of taxation.
The real issue is the cost vs. quality of things like healthcare.
Now - in Canada, we have similar levels of taxation as California or New York and we get healthcare out of that, so now that's something to talk about ...
I probably pay more tax than you do (based on your comment).
I live in Sweden, in Europe. For that I (and everyone around me) have free school up to and including university studies (actually I would get paid USD 330 in grants, up to 240 weeks, plus the ability to take a loan, neither which I have to use for tuition fees).
I have nearly free health care and medicine (max costs for 12 months $120 and $230 respectively). Subsidised child care, and more.
Cost of living is lower in Sweden [1] rather than in the US, as a comparison (partially because the Swedish currency has dropped in value). But I don’t have to go bankrupt just because I got cancer and didn’t have a good health insurance or sign up for a massive debt to get a university education.
You're missing out on the significant unemployment in countries like Sweden. There is significantly better free healthcare in Australia - which has an average tax rate of 23.6%.
The correlation of high taxes = better quality of life doesn't hold much strength when you consider that there are plenty of countries doing well without it, and plenty of countries with high taxes that have a poor quality of life.
Among a few things, that's why I'm happy to live in France where with a medium wage (35,000$ / year) I'm sure that my wife will get the house ( the loan insurance will pay that) and the hospitalization would be nearly free...
Be in a welfare state is somewhat a good thing even if you pay more taxes.
I get this way of living is personally advantageous but it's pretty shitty right?
Work in the USA, pay lower tax there and get higher salary, fly back to Europe and take advantage of everyone's contributions to get yourself free healthcare while having contributed nothing yourself ?
Some of my colleagues at Microsoft have worked in Denmark and they all complain about the taxation there and consider it unacceptable. I honestly can't understand that. I'd rather give half my salary in taxes to the government and get free education, healthcare and whatnot. My wife and I definitely don't aspire to be rich, as long as we're comfortable we're ok, so maybe that's our difference.
What I don't get is how people in the US pay 25% income tax and don't get outraged for getting almost nothing back. Heck, we just put our daughter in public school, and even though it's a public school we have to pay $360 a month for full Kindergarten, otherwise she can only attend 2 hours a day. Besides that, the school has to promote fundraisers to cover their costs, because apparently the only thing the state pays for is teachers' salaries. At least 911 is free.
To me it feels like all taxes I pay in the US are mostly just for funding wars :( Even in a shitty country like Brazil you get free education (up to grad school - and state universities are the best in the country), free healthcare and a state pension when you retire. Sure, it all sucks one way or another [1], not because there's not enough money but because politicians down there are extremely corrupt - fix the corruption and you get a tremendous quality of life with a 27,5% income tax.
[1] Public healthcare varies from place to place - where I lived (Porto Alegre, RS) it was ok, but in poorer places they don't have a lot of necessary equipment and are understaffed. Although state universities have a lot of research funding and the best professors, the facilities are quite poor. And the state pension is very low, but that could be fixed by fixing the high level of corruption we have first.
I agree. I think in US you pay a lot of taxes to get pretty much nothing in return. You have no universal healthcare, students have to make huge debts to be able to study, there is no maternity leave, no support for childcare, seriously there is basically no welfare whatsoever. Not to mention property taxes (at least in California) that are outrageous.
And if you get seriously ill and lose your job you are pretty much ... done! oO
High taxes, but on the other hand you receive: a top-notch public healthcare, arguably one of the best standards of living in the world (good ratio of earnings vs. expenses, strong labor law, relatively affordable rental prices).
You do realize that taxes don't just disappear, right? Tax revenue pays for things like child care, health care, universities etc. That means the average consumer can spend more on frivolous things even if they are more expensive. So yeah us Scandinavians are living a pretty sweet life :)
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