Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Norway, you pay an annual tax on basically everything you own (update: yes, everything you own , not everything you earn that year ) past the first ~$180k. I don't really care what sort of "independence" this supports for somebody, I'm not going to live somewhere that makes you rent everything from the state, after paying exorbitant taxes to "buy" it. update: corrected the cutoff figure with new exchange rates and…
Everything you own? Or everything you earn? If the former, then this would an application of Piketty's idea, of taxing capital instead of revenue, which I thought had not been implemented anywhere yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty
Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
21–30 of 72 posts
Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Norway, you pay an annual tax on basically everything you own (update: yes, everything you own , not everything you earn that year ) past the first ~$180k. I don't really care what sort of "independence" this supports for somebody, I'm not going to live somewhere that makes you rent everything from the state, after paying exorbitant taxes to "buy" it. update: corrected the cutoff figure with new exchange rates and…
Taxes are not rent. Taxes are the share of expenses you pay for the services and security the state provides. In European countries, especially in the Scandinavian ones it’s commonly understood and agreed upon that the stronger ones carry more of that burden. That may sound like communism to people from a country with a stronger “each for his own good” mindset, but pretty much all statistics point in the direction th…
A wealth tax is exactly equivalent to a rent. There is a genuine owner (the state) which has control of the property in a default, there is an unlimited recurring fee set by the owner (the state), and access to the property is predicated on paying that fee.
Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
If what happens to your income past the first $100k is a major concern for you, you are very much in the minority in the US, as the median family income in the US is about $60k[1], and most Americans have less than $1k in savings.[2] Sure, rich people have little to gain by having a great social safety net, as they can just rely on their own money for all of that. But for the vast majority of Americans, it matters. A…
The poster was talking about what "you own". It's really easy to have more than $100k in assets. That's basically anybody who owns a home.
The median net household worth in the US in 2013 was still below 100k USD as per https://www.yahoo.com/news/median-wealth-whites-us-nearly-16... (can’t find newer numbers atm, but I’d be surprised if the median did move significantly upwards) Keep in mind that wealth in the US is extremely unevenly distributed and you might be making observations in a bubble. The white median is for example about 50% higher than the combined.
Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
If what happens to your income past the first $100k is a major concern for you, you are very much in the minority in the US, as the median family income in the US is about $60k[1], and most Americans have less than $1k in savings.[2] Sure, rich people have little to gain by having a great social safety net, as they can just rely on their own money for all of that. But for the vast majority of Americans, it matters. A…
The poster was talking about what "you own". It's really easy to have more than $100k in assets. That's basically anybody who owns a home.
The median net worth of Americans is $97k. [1]
As for owning homes, many Americans don't own their home but rent.
[1] - http://www.newstrategist.com/median-net-worth-97300-in-2016/
Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Norway, you pay an annual tax on basically everything you own (update: yes, everything you own , not everything you earn that year ) past the first ~$180k. I don't really care what sort of "independence" this supports for somebody, I'm not going to live somewhere that makes you rent everything from the state, after paying exorbitant taxes to "buy" it. update: corrected the cutoff figure with new exchange rates and…
Taxes are not rent. Taxes are the share of expenses you pay for the services and security the state provides. In European countries, especially in the Scandinavian ones it’s commonly understood and agreed upon that the stronger ones carry more of that burden. That may sound like communism to people from a country with a stronger “each for his own good” mindset, but pretty much all statistics point in the direction th…
"it makes for fewer extremely rich people but to an overall happier society."
The extremely rich are still going to be extremely rich after paying taxes.
Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
The poster was talking about what "you own". It's really easy to have more than $100k in assets. That's basically anybody who owns a home.
The median net worth of Americans is $97k. [1] As for owning homes, many Americans don't own their home but rent. [1] - http://www.newstrategist.com/median-net-worth-97300-in-2016/
Land and housing is cheap in the U.S, relatively speaking. in Norway, wealth taxes start after about 40 sqft of out-of-town apartment.
Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taxes are not rent. Taxes are the share of expenses you pay for the services and security the state provides. In European countries, especially in the Scandinavian ones it’s commonly understood and agreed upon that the stronger ones carry more of that burden. That may sound like communism to people from a country with a stronger “each for his own good” mindset, but pretty much all statistics point in the direction th…
A wealth tax is exactly equivalent to a rent. There is a genuine owner (the state) which has control of the property in a default, there is an unlimited recurring fee set by the owner (the state), and access to the property is predicated on paying that fee.
Of course not. You still own whatever you own, and can still sell it, destroy it, modify it, whatever.
You do pay tax on owning it, in a system that taxes wealth, but that does not mean someone else owns it.
Calling it rent and calling the state the true owner doesn't really make sense--you're conflating two separate ideas, I think, to play on people's emotions ("oh noes, the state owns everything!"). It's not true or accurate, though.
Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taxes are not rent. Taxes are the share of expenses you pay for the services and security the state provides. In European countries, especially in the Scandinavian ones it’s commonly understood and agreed upon that the stronger ones carry more of that burden. That may sound like communism to people from a country with a stronger “each for his own good” mindset, but pretty much all statistics point in the direction th…
What the parent is talking about is most likely the yearly tax you have to pay over your (already taxed) savings. E.g. here in The Netherlands you have to pay 4% tax a year over any savings over 25k euro. This includes anything like investments as well. The parent is considering that 4% the “rent” after you already paid 52% tax to “buy” it.
What you pay taxes on doesn’t matter. It’s the part of your income, assets, inheritance that the society decided you have to contribute to be part of it. Call it donation, rent, protection money or stick with a less loaded term and call it taxes.
Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
#29Yeah yeah yeah I have heard it all. When nordic corporations stop spreading corruption outside of their countries they can talk shit about other countries.
Besides not everyone would want social democracy. Believe me not everyone in Europe is happy about that either. Just because it can work in Finland it does not mean it can work anywhere else.
Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life
#30"Foreigners tend to view Nordic countries as "these socialist nanny states where everybody has a collectivist mindset," Partanen said. But "in fact a lot of these services really support everybody's independence."" I pay a ton of taxes in the U.S. I don't get how Finland warrants an accusation of a collectivist mindset, while America takes and redistributes just as much money. Is it because spending on defense, inste…
That's a good angle. We deify the military and then question whether the government can be trusted to build roads.
Whatever stupid military decisions the US has made, you are being quite flippant and ignoring one very important difference between the US and Finland and that is that the US is a superpower that maintains the geopolitical order with the help of its military. This includes the securing of maritime trade routes. Don't take that for granted. The US is heir to the British Empire and as such it is not a small Scandinavian country of less than 6 million people that, by the way, benefits, along with the rest of Europe, from the security provided by the American empire.