61–70 of 291 posts
Norway is a very special case. A small country with lots of oil, fish, and a small population (just 5.2 million). They would have to go really wrong to be poor.
Norway's model has worked very well, and they also had lucky timing Vis a Vis capital markets. But, it's a rare success.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry if I wasn't clear, I'm not talking about zero-sum (which should be similar everywhere), I'm talking about Universities becoming easier in USA much faster than in Europe. Example: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/01/same-p...
How do European professors and universities avoid grade inflation? Are their incentives very different?
A more political reason is because University prestige depends partly on the knowledge of the graduading students. So if someone said they studied in X and they had no idea what they were talking about it'd give quite a bad image for the university. It's not rare to see some students crying at the exam review but it mostly doesn't work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think their parents got mortgages which they were paying off all their factory drone lives, not bought these houses.
Counterpoint, to take a loan you have to trust the system to both do right by you, and not collapse from under you. It might be difficult now to trust those two things.
Just walk away from the property and there you go. The worse the collapse the easier that is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [1] oddly enough I have never discussed this with british people Over recent decades tuition fees have been rising, but they've been covered by a special loan. Paying back this loan is taken out of your pay cheque (via PAYE) based on how much you earn. If you don't pay it back within a certain number of years it gets wiped. Before the last major increase it was viewed by most of my peers (I graduated in 2013) as re…
Thanks! Seems like a step between the US system and the Spanish system. What happens if you lose your job for example for a couple of months? Do you have to pay as a normal loan or is it more like taxes where you only pay relative to your earnings?
In effect, more successful English graduates subsidise everybody else (because it is supposed to be revenue neutral). And specifically English, because only English students pay the full £9,250 per year. (Scottish students pay nothing, Welsh and Northern Irish a reduced amount).
The English subsidise the "United" Kingdom but are discriminated against when it comes to social provision paid out of general taxation. Unlike Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland we do not have a Parliament for England looking after England's interests. Instead we are ruled by the Union Parliament which includes MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland whose remit and interest is their own respective nations, not England, but who get to vote on legislation that affects England without England having the equivalent ability to interfere in the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish Parliaments.
> Aarnes’ hourly pay starts at 164 Norwegian kroner (around $20), increasing for weekend and evening shifts. After taxes (which are comparatively high in Scandinavia) he’s left with around 14,000 kroner ($1700) a month, of which he sets aside half for rent, travel and bills and uses the rest for “whatever else” he likes. The likely reason why he can earn this much with a supermarket job is because everyone else has m…
If true, that’s a question of priorities, not resources.
As a Spaniard who has discussed this in lenght with many other Europeans[1], it really seems like the US is the main country with the University debt issue. I also really believe that "score inflation" is a big issue mainly in the US. If everyone can finish University, then having a university title becomes pointless! [2] In Spain, Germany, France, Italy, etc if you get a degree in STEM it means you put a lot of effo…
> [1] oddly enough I have never discussed this with british people Over recent decades tuition fees have been rising, but they've been covered by a special loan. Paying back this loan is taken out of your pay cheque (via PAYE) based on how much you earn. If you don't pay it back within a certain number of years it gets wiped. Before the last major increase it was viewed by most of my peers (I graduated in 2013) as re…
If you think of it as a kind of extra income tax that only applies to those who benefited from a bigger chunk of the education system, then inability to ever pay it off doesn't seem so terrifying.
But once you look at it that way, it becomes very difficult to argue (in non-libertarian ways), why those who got the same benefits without the loan (rich parents) or somehow lucked into high earnings without the education (usually some form of exceptional talent) should be exempt from that tax. In the end, a more progressive income tax would be the same, just without those exceptions.
While not as bad off as the US, we are still seeing similar trends. They still can't afford to buy apartments until their 30s if they have good jobs, while their parents bought houses at the age of 20 working as factory drones.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think so mainly because of the near total lack of societal support of bringing them up to be educated, responsible adults with opportunities. If you want to have them, fine. But then, you better be prepared to be able to pay for health care, child care and college. Without maternal / paternal leave, having kids also puts their parents at a financial and career disadvantage to non-parents, so they are indeed a luxur…
https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm US might be doing it wrong, but it does spend a lot of money on children
For instance, 35 million children get health insurance from the government:
https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/program-information/medica...
That's close to ½ of the kids in the country.
I'm seriously impressed: See the national debt of Norway (34.33% of GDP) - this is insanely low for developed countries. For comparison: US - 107.40%, Germany - 61.51% https://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/norway https://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/unitedstates https://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/germany - - - Another important measurement is the Gini coefficient [1] which shows us if the wea…
VAT here is a whopping 25%. Personal income tax rates border 55%. Corporate profits tax ranges from 28% to as high as 78%
Moreover revenues from Equinor also help.
I'm seriously impressed: See the national debt of Norway (34.33% of GDP) - this is insanely low for developed countries. For comparison: US - 107.40%, Germany - 61.51% https://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/norway https://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/unitedstates https://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/germany - - - Another important measurement is the Gini coefficient [1] which shows us if the wea…
Did your sources distinguish Norway's Gini coefficient before and after taxes? My impression is that marginal taxation here is massive, since we have a sales tax of 25% (consumption tax, effectively), high taxes on luxury goods (cars especially), wealth tax of 0.85% of net worth every year and capital gains tax of 30% with no exemption for long-term holdings. The marginal tax rate on income is 46% IIRC, but your empl…
In Germany we also get heavily taxed although I don't think it's that drastic: 19% consumption tax, 25% + 5.5% on capital gains, a marginal tax rate that linearly increases up to 42% for high-earners [2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...