US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland • Hacker News Board

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#191

Post by kgwgk » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 9:55 AM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #123

rayiner wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s also consistent with the pattern. 75% of Americans have either employer paid insurance or Medicare. For those people, premiums and out of pocket costs are on average less than the extra taxes they’d pay in Europe for health insurance: https://www.assembly.ca.gov/sites/assembly.ca.gov/files/Arch... (page 18, showing 5.2% of household income spent on premiums and out of pocket costs). (Note that France doesn’t h…

Sorry, but this is completely factually incorrect. France pays 1100 Euro per year per capita for healthcare. Private insurance is a tiny cost of average 30 Euro and reimburses you for damages. Does not pay for healthcare. Entirely different kind of insurance. In US, a single copay with health insurance can take triple this, most common ones are few hundred USD, baseline insurance is still expensive. However, yearly i…

France’s healthcare spending is 11.5% of GDP, 4000 euros per capita annually.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#192

Post by DanBC » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 10:02 AM UTC

adev_ wrote: post #170

adev_ wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over a career, the value of tuition free college for the average American comes nowhere near the extra taxes and lower income they’d have in France That's so bullshit. What matter is of course not the difference between tuitions fees than taxes. What's matter is that everybody, even the ones that can't afford the tuitions fees can access university. Which you can in France, which you can not in Europe. I am the liv…

My Apologies for my early morning grumpy post, without re-reading. Here is the more fixed one : > Over a career, the value of tuition free college for the average American comes nowhere near the extra taxes and lower income they’d have in France That is so bullshit. What matter is not, of course, the difference of cost between tuition fees and taxes. What matter is that everybody, even the ones that can not afford th…

> My Apologies for my early morning grumpy post

You're responding to someone who consistently misrepresents the facts about healthcare and healthcare spending in different countries, so a level of grumpiness is somewhat expected.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#193

Post by mantap » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 10:15 AM UTC

nwellnhof wrote: post #180

jlangenauer wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, you have to pay income tax on income you could theoretically receive? I'm fascinated to know what possible justification there is for this? (Genuine, not rhetorical question.)

It's simply a fairer way of taxation. Suppose that you own a house that you rent out and live in another house for rent. Then you obviously have to pay taxes on rental income. If you live in a house that you own, you don't have to pay taxes in most countries, although your financial situation is basically the same.

It makes sense as a way of taxing a secondary residence, but for a primary residence it makes no sense. What if you are old, or disabled, or unemployed? Are you forced to sell your house to pay this tax?

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#194

Post by mettamage » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 10:18 AM UTC

quentindemetz wrote: post #182

jlangenauer wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, you have to pay income tax on income you could theoretically receive? I'm fascinated to know what possible justification there is for this? (Genuine, not rhetorical question.)

It’s the same in the Netherlands. Instead of counting how much you earn from your capital, the tax administration estimates that you earn about 5% and taxes you on that (about 30% iirc). But hey, if you make above their estimation, you don’t pay extra. But if you don’t invest, you still pay... I really like how simple it makes the tax calculation (at least when you know how to value your assets).

It has changed in NL. It used to be 1.2% (it used to be 30% of 4%, I believe, but it was a bit before my time) on the value of all your assets (so what you said), but now they have a progressive system because the assumption that you make 4% on your investments has changed, the 30% stayed the same. Their assumption changed to: if you have less money you have relatively more money on the bank.

The actual calculation is a mix from all the brackets. E.g. if you have 1 million euro, then 71.650 is taxed at 0.58%, the bulk at 1.33% and a bit at 1.68%.

The progression goes as follows (I'm too into this apparently, forgive me):

----- BRACKET 1 -----

Until € 71.650

You save: 67% @ ROI of 0.13%

You invest: 33% @ ROI of 5.6%

Average ROI: 1.935%

Taxed: 1.935 * .3 = 0.5805%

----- BRACKET 2 -----

from € 71.651 until € 989.736

You save: 21% @ ROI of 0.13%

You invest: 79% @ ROI of 5.6%

Average ROI: 4.451%

Taxed: 4.451 * .3 = 1.3353%

----- BRACKET 3 -----

From € 989.737 to infinity and beyond

You save: 0% @ ROI of 0.13%

You invest: 100% @ ROI of 5.6%

Average ROI: 1.935%

Taxed: 5.6 * .3 = 1.68%

Source (Google Translate works relatively well): https://www.belastingdienst.nl/wps/wcm/connect/bldcontentnl/...

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#195

Post by yabadabadoes » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 10:18 AM UTC

TuringNYC wrote: post #135

jcheng wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you take out a loan, it doesn't decrease your net worth, right? If I'm worth $X, then I take out a $1MM loan, at that moment I'm still worth approximately $X (because the $1MM the bank gave me and $1MM I owe the bank cancel each other out). So I'd rank them as: - Billionaire - Home owner - Minimum wage earner - Neurosurgeon

I appreciate how your ranked Neurosurgeon at the bottom -- because under the typical system, future earnings are not NPV'd, so in the case of Neurosurgeon, you only see the liability but don't account for the extraordinary earnings potential.

I think a neurosurgeon is uniquely qualified to understand the dangers of putting all your baskets in one egg. But more seriously, I think its pretty wrong for a tax system to tax on future perceived value whenever there is an option to tax based on consumption and use (i.e. living in the home and working with the educated brain.)

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#196

Post by Hitton » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 10:37 AM UTC

RichardHeart wrote: post #148

Misleading stat is misleading. Page 47 of the source ( https://www.allianz.com/content/dam/onemarketing/azcom/Allia... ) : "By average net financial assets, the USA are the richest country in the world, not least thanks to the strong dollar. But if we drew up our rankings of the world’s richest countries based on median values, they would look different. The US would slide by a whopping 12 ranks from the top spot to…

Just for convenience:

Ranked by average:

1. USA

2. Switzerland

3. Singapore

4. Taiwan

5. Netherlands

6. Japan

7. Sweden

8. Belgium

9. New Zealand

10. Denmark

11. Canada

12. UK

13. Israel

14. Australia

15. France

16. Austria

17. Italy

18. Germany

19. Ireland

20. South Korea

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#197

Post by Hitton » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 10:42 AM UTC

RichardHeart wrote: post #148

Misleading stat is misleading. Page 47 of the source ( https://www.allianz.com/content/dam/onemarketing/azcom/Allia... ) : "By average net financial assets, the USA are the richest country in the world, not least thanks to the strong dollar. But if we drew up our rankings of the world’s richest countries based on median values, they would look different. The US would slide by a whopping 12 ranks from the top spot to…

I haven't checked the data, it really shows the difference between countries who have wealthy elite and countries which have wealthy citizens.

By median:

1. Switzerland

2. Japan

3. Netherlands

4. Belgium

5. Taiwan

6. Singapore

7. New Zealand

8. Australia

9. Canada

10. Italy

11. Israel

12. Sweden

13. USA

14. France

15. Ireland

16. UK

17. Austria

18. South Korea

19. Spain

20. Germany

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#198

Post by leni536 » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 10:57 AM UTC

abiro wrote: post #164

throwaway9d0291 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An important detail here is that in Switzerland it's somewhat normal to simply never pay back your mortgage, so many people will keep around a bunch of debt because it doesn't make financial sense to eliminate it. When you get a mortgage it's usually broken into two amounts: an amount that you have to pay back (~30% if I remember right) and an amount that you don't (the rest). You can simply pay back the first amount…

It’s mainly for tax reasons: “If you are a homeowner in Switzerland, you have to pay income tax on what is known as its ‘rental value’. The rental value theoretically represents what you as owner would receive if you rented the property to someone else, i.e. what that tenant would pay you in rent. At the same time, you can deduct mortgage interest payments and other costs for the upkeep of the property from your taxa…

Don't you own the house even if there is mortgage on it?

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#199

Post by KaoruAoiShiho » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 11:01 AM UTC

adev_ wrote: post #119

rayiner wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s also consistent with the pattern. 75% of Americans have either employer paid insurance or Medicare. For those people, premiums and out of pocket costs are on average less than the extra taxes they’d pay in Europe for health insurance: https://www.assembly.ca.gov/sites/assembly.ca.gov/files/Arch... (page 18, showing 5.2% of household income spent on premiums and out of pocket costs). (Note that France doesn’t h…

> Over a career, the value of tuition free college for the average American comes nowhere near the extra taxes and lower income they’d have in France That's so bullshit. What matter is of course not the difference between tuitions fees than taxes. What's matter is that everybody, even the ones that can't afford the tuitions fees can access university. Which you can in France, which you can not in Europe. I am the liv…

In practice almost nobody pays the sticker price for US unis. I would guarantee that you would be able to go to your choice of uni. Financial aid, scholarships, and loans are very very generous. A lot of the talk around the price of education is politics.

Re: US takes 'richest nation on earth' crown from Switzerland

#200

Post by amelius » Fri, Sep 20, 2019, 11:10 AM UTC

Can we talk about medians, not averages, please?

This page provides some nice insights:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...

For example: The US has a median/mean ratio of 15%, which is very low (ranked with the bottom 10 of countries), where Egypt, Kazakhstan and Ukraine are at the bottom.