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Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

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31–40 of 72 posts

Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

#31
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

> You still own whatever you own

Not if you don't pay the rent.

> and can still sell it, destroy it, modify it, whatever

And when you sell it, you're basically selling a rental agreement.

> 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.

Call it whatever you want, I want to actually own my property, instead of having to pay for it on an ongoing basis on threat of deprivation. At the end of the day, the state is the owner, because they are the only ones who don't have to pay to keep it. We can chase our tails all day and nitpick about definitions, but in the purest sense, the government owns almost everything in Norway, if people stop paying the rent/tax/fee.

Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

#32
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are forgetting that in the US we also pay state and local income tax, state and local property tax, and State and local sales tax. Even if you rent you are paying property tax indirectly. There is also Social Security and Medicare taxes so pile on 12.6% for that as well. Once you figure in all those things the effective US tax rate is a lot higher than the federal income tax rates.

it's obviously higher but it's nowhere near an effective rate of 50% for a lot of US citizens

I figured it out as being pretty close between San Francisco and the UK, especially once you include healthcare costs on the US side.

Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

#33
That guy was born in Finland and it shows. He should know only people from the USA can criticize the anything American, due to the notion that America is "special", which is being spoon-fed since childhood to all citizens through movies, TV, politics, radio, etc.

Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Scandinavia…

Sure I'm being flippant, but not about the military, about the bizarre attitude that a government can effectively police the world but can't be trusted to do much of anything else.

Keep the Navy on the oceans, but damn it, keep the government out of my Medicare!

Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

#35
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effective tax rate in finland is around 50% https://tradingeconomics.com/finland/personal-income-tax-rat... and seems to come from a income tax rate that is similar to the US 25-31% but also includes retierment / social monies around 18+3%, so ends up effectively being 50-51. Also capitol gains is taxed at 30% for anything over 30k euros. I found this info with one google request, first 2 answers. So the tax rate is…

I think you are forgetting that in the US we also pay state and local income tax, state and local property tax, and State and local sales tax. Even if you rent you are paying property tax indirectly. There is also Social Security and Medicare taxes so pile on 12.6% for that as well. Once you figure in all those things the effective US tax rate is a lot higher than the federal income tax rates.

I live in Seattle, I pay no state tax. My property tax is $5k/year which is and additional 5% at 100k income, but I elected into that and we don't have property tax in the discussion, lets just assuming rental in both locations. Social security caps out iirc. There's still a 20% difference between the effective tax rates.

Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

#36
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's obviously higher but it's nowhere near an effective rate of 50% for a lot of US citizens

I figured it out as being pretty close between San Francisco and the UK, especially once you include healthcare costs on the US side.

numbers plz

Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Scandinavia…

Sure I'm being flippant, but not about the military, about the bizarre attitude that a government can effectively police the world but can't be trusted to do much of anything else. Keep the Navy on the oceans, but damn it, keep the government out of my Medicare!

This will sound like a backwards argument but you saw what happen when the navy wasn't paying attention to the exit to the gulf by somolia. One can look at it as moving the price for gas to other locations (aka the navy via taxes). I'm placing no positives or negatives on it just stating it. In reality the economy is a massive set of levers or to put it in CS terms it's optimizing in a very large number of dimensions. The solution space is massive and there are many local minima which are no where near the global minima. However people love to argue about specific levers and bike shed the discussion based on the small windows they have into it.

Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Scandinavia…

Including the destabilization of Middle East for at least the last 20 years, to secure/favor US interest?

The US is a superpower that maintains its geopolitical order with the help of its military. Like any dominating nation before it, no argument there. But please stop justifying all this with good intents or universal values. The US does what it does to improve the life of its citizens, period (or at least a subset of its citizens).

Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

#39
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Scandinavia…

Including the destabilization of Middle East for at least the last 20 years, to secure/favor US interest? The US is a superpower that maintains its geopolitical order with the help of its military. Like any dominating nation before it, no argument there. But please stop justifying all this with good intents or universal values. The US does what it does to improve the life of its citizens, period (or at least a subset…

[deleted]

Re: Finnish-born journalist: Americans make crucial mistake in how they look at life

#40
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

> You still own whatever you own Not if you don't pay the rent. > and can still sell it, destroy it, modify it, whatever And when you sell it, you're basically selling a rental agreement. > 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…

If your definition of ownership is that the state can take things from you because it has the monopoly on power there’s a very sad message I have for you: It’s basically everywhere like that. Try not paying the taxes due on land and housing property in the US and see what happens.
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