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Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

bbc.com

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Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#271

Post by pkaye »

darawk wrote: post #252
paublyrne wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparison sake, sales tax, gas tax and so on would not be considered under tax by someone living in Europe in that sort of calculation. People would mean income and social tax.

That's not a Europe/US thing. Most Americans wouldn't count them either. However, they're both wrong to not count them. They absolutely count.

Some Americans don't even count the FICA taxes (social security/medicare contributions) as taxes. That way they can claim that the poor don't pay any taxes.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#272

Post by arcticbull »

y4mi wrote: post #264
throwaway_law wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>One reason some are opposed to going to a government paid system is the fact that we spend so much on that where if the costs were simply doubled it'd be a rediculous expense. Or maybe people would realize a County like Germany is able to cover the entire County (2x as many people as Medicare) while spending half the Medicare budget. Then, questions of waste and fraud might pop up, which no one involved wants to hap…

Germany's healthcare is very efficient, but definitely very conservative in the treatments. Issues are often just ignored until they go away. It usually works fine though, so it's not necessarily bad.

Excess care and excess testing are not always correlated with better health outcomes. Doing more isn't always better.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#273

Post by arcticbull »

darawk wrote: post #262
arcticbull wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're fundamentally different, one is a progressive tax designed to support a civil society (income tax) and the other is a regressive usage-based tax designed to dis-incentivize behavior such as smoking, drinking and using gas/private automobiles. One's a benefit driver, the other is designed a penalty or market force.

Ok, but they are both taxes, yes? And they both diminish your effective income. So, when calculating the relative tax burden between countries, they both count.

They do both diminish your income, but only if you insist on doing things society doesn't want you to do. Driving is optional, smoking is optional, drinking is optional. You can opt out by changing your lifestyle to be healthier and more sustainable -- in which case you'd not pay that tax in either country. Income tax isn't optional.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#274

Post by davidivadavid »

jamesb93 wrote: post #251
davidivadavid wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those comparisons aren't very enlightening if you don't compare the quality of services provided.

Does it really matter how much better it is when you can go immediately bankrupt from a simple procedure? I imagine there is immense pressure and loss of wealth by simple virtue that people probably don't maintain good health but go in when it gets bad enough that going bankrupt is worse than dying or being violently ill with no end in sight.

You're muddying several issues here. I'm simply stating that the value of a healthcare system in terms of outcomes must be compared to how much it costs. What you're talking about is how the system is financed, which is a different issue.

For example, as a French citizen, I would expect that if we're in the top 5 in terms of spending (regardless of whether it's done privately or publicly), we should have a system that's in the top 5 in terms of outcomes.

I wasn't in any way trying to suggest the US healthcare system is the "best" or whatever, just pointing out that pure cost comparisons are meaningless.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#275

Post by darawk »

arcticbull wrote: post #273
darawk wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but they are both taxes, yes? And they both diminish your effective income. So, when calculating the relative tax burden between countries, they both count.

They do both diminish your income, but only if you insist on doing things society doesn't want you to do. Driving is optional, smoking is optional, drinking is optional. You can opt out by changing your lifestyle to be healthier and more sustainable -- in which case you'd not pay that tax in either country. Income tax isn't optional.

Sure, but you either are or are not willing to make those changes, and you presumably already have made them to the extent that you're willing. Whatever burden ends up being imposed based on your consumption habits simply is what it is.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#277

Post by davidivadavid »

arcticbull wrote: post #269
davidivadavid wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those comparisons aren't very enlightening if you don't compare the quality of services provided.

Luckily for you the OECD [1] and WHO [2] did just that and the results are awful for America, performing markedly worse than systems that cost one third as much. [1] https://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/Health-at-a-Glance-2017-Ke... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_rank...

Great, that's exactly what I was talking about.

I'm not sure what warrants that tone, when I was simply stating something obvious (you can't judge a healthcare system by its cost if you don't look at the outcomes).

Thank you for contributing more valuable data/information.

It's interesting to see that the WHO methodology also got criticized. This points to the complexity of actually picking the right metrics/outcomes you want to optimize for.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#278

Post by throthrothis »

pergadad wrote: post #223
helpPeople wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How bad is it? I pay more than 50 percent of my income in various taxes in the United States. Before anyone asks, federal income, Medicare, Medicaid, social security, state income, state sales tax, local property tax, and lesser- luxury and gas tax.

If you pay taxes abroad the US will still haunt you to show that you paid - and if it's lower than you would have paid back home claim the difference. Many American expats in Europe that have acquired the right for local nationality give up their nationality for that reason.

Why are white people expats when the rest of us are immigrants ?

" Defined that way, you should expect that any person going to work outside of his or her country for a period of time would be an expat, regardless of his skin colour or country. But that is not the case in reality; expat is a term reserved exclusively for western white people going to work abroad.

Africans are immigrants. Arabs are immigrants. Asians are immigrants. However, Europeans are expats because they can’t be at the same level as other ethnicities. They are superior. Immigrants is a term set aside for ‘inferior races’. "

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals...

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#279

Post by Zenst »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #144
Zenst wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://home.kpmg/xx/en/home/insights/2011/12/poland-income-... "An individual is defined as resident of Poland, if at least one below-mentioned condition is fulfilled: the individual has closer personal or economic relations with Poland (center of vital interests) or The individual stays on the territory of Poland longer than 183 days in a given fiscal year." So if you have somebody working abroad, paying tax abroad…

Not anymore. For about 10 years.

Yes, which is odd as only a few months ago was talking to a Polish electrician who was complaining about it, and had a friends over the years go on about it. So there are many conversations I wish I could time travel and go, really?

Sorry for my confusions, though all did have families back home, so may of been a factor or some tax aspect perhaps as I didn't delve. Though did recall reading an article upon the bbc (though had no luck finding it), but that may of been over 10 years ago knowing me at times.

Re: Bulgaria is the world’s fastest-shrinking country

#280

Post by jtx22 »

haidut wrote: post #219

Nothing but LIES and PROPAGANDA! BBC is unfortunately on par with the National Enquirer (NE) when it comes to bias and reliability. And I have repeatedly observed that the NE is actually really good in reporting true upcoming issues at least in the celebrity world. First and foremost, as the BBC "article" states, Latvia and Lithuania are potentially worse than Bulgaria. Not that being second to last in terms of popul…

Indeed. The MSM is a cancer everywhere.
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