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No One Goes There Anymore

noonegoesthereanymore.blogspot.com

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Re: No One Goes There Anymore

#221

Post by vertex-four »

lettergram wrote: post #205
ido wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy it, due to first-hand & second-hand experiences of friends and relatives I have in the US. Let me give you one example: my friend(and at the time business partner)'s wife got cancer in the US. It was fairly "mundane"/common cancer that got treated and everything was alright at the end. He was working as a software developer (normal employee, not self-employed - our venture was a side project) with the afo…

If I had cancer in the US a $65k bill really isn’t bad. Consider in the US taxes are typically In Germany (if I recall) it’s closer to 50% taxes so $50k a year. Presumably you can expect cancer once or less, but effectively you only need ~4 years of income to make up for that $65k bill in the US. Not bad at all. Obviously that differs based on income, but you can a see how (for many people in the US) the system works…

Germany's average tax rate (according to the OECD) for a one-earner married couple with two children is 34.3%, while the same in the US is 18.8%. Taking these, the difference for your $100k/year example would be about 15k. You'd have about 80k in the US, and about 65k in Berlin.

Now to compare cost of living - let's say you wanted to compare Berlin vs SF, for similarly ridiculous housing markets. A quick search[0] suggests that living in Berlin costs nearly half as much - Berlin's $65k is more like a San Francisco $130k.

Now the downside is that you're not actually going to get paid as much in Berlin - maybe $68k as a senior software developer, as opposed to $135k-ish in SF. Plugging these numbers into a couple of actual quick tax calculators rather than using the averages, the Berliner makes about $41k, while the worker in San Francisco makes about $87k - although these are both without going through an accountant to massage the numbers. After our magic divider, that's a difference of about $2.5k.

Perhaps the US allows an accountant to massage the numbers more than Germany, but honestly, as someone currently in Germany, that doesn't pass the smell test.

So all in all, you wind up with $2.5k a year over the Berliner with which to cover everything that Germany's system does. And this is one of the best case scenarios - a high-salary tech worker with good benefits. For everyone else in the US, their quality of life and access to effective healthcare is likely to be significantly lower.

[0] https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

Re: No One Goes There Anymore

#222

Post by convolvatron »

Kye wrote: post #186
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at an international company where we frequently had employees from other countries visit the US for a while. Some even chose to relocate to the US. These were almost all technical people, raised on the Internet, social media, and discussions in comment sections. It was fascinating to see how bad they expected America to be according to Internet comments and news articles. Many of them were shocked to realize…

Visiting is not the same as living it. You can't see how bad it is until you see people around you struggle or fall all the way down because they were short $20 on bills one week and no one around them had money to lend.

and living it as a well-paid white collar employee is _alot_ different than living it as everyone else

Re: No One Goes There Anymore

#223

Post by ptx »

lettergram wrote: post #205
ido wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy it, due to first-hand & second-hand experiences of friends and relatives I have in the US. Let me give you one example: my friend(and at the time business partner)'s wife got cancer in the US. It was fairly "mundane"/common cancer that got treated and everything was alright at the end. He was working as a software developer (normal employee, not self-employed - our venture was a side project) with the afo…

If I had cancer in the US a $65k bill really isn’t bad. Consider in the US taxes are typically In Germany (if I recall) it’s closer to 50% taxes so $50k a year. Presumably you can expect cancer once or less, but effectively you only need ~4 years of income to make up for that $65k bill in the US. Not bad at all. Obviously that differs based on income, but you can a see how (for many people in the US) the system works…

Like the Hunger Games. For most people it works great, as long as your name isn't drawn.

Re: No One Goes There Anymore

#224

Post by recursive »

romwell wrote: post #76

It was surprising to see that it might still be difficult for you to get the word out. As far as I'm concerned, you're Doreen from Hackernews, Internet famous. Hope that you do get the word out. Hope things improve. And sorry for the condition that makes it all that much more difficult. Your perspective is valuable, and hope to read more from you.

For what it's worth, I've been visiting Hacker News on a nearly daily basis, on-again and off-again for a few years now. I don't recall hearing the name before.

Re: No One Goes There Anymore

#225

Post by newacct583 »

rayiner wrote: post #219
newacct583 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And again, why do you care about the taxation of the super wealthy so much? This is always the retreat: "OK, taxation is unfair, but you can't prove there's a problem so it doesn't really matter, does it?" I say: taxation is unfair, and we should make it fair instead of constantly trying to justify the fact that the very wealthy (who are, relative to US society, wealthier than they have ever been and getting steadi…

Most economists agree that taxing capital income lower is more efficient, and our capital gains rates are in line with those of Germany, Sweden, etc., so that all seems fine to me. I don’t want to be to the left of France or Italy on tax policy. That seems insane to me. Beyond that, taxes are just a means to an end. I accept that taxes are necessary for providing social services. So I find it extremely disingenuous t…

You keep misdirecting. Sure, our nominal capital gains policies are roughly in line with the rest of the world. But our overall tax fairness is not. So something doesn't match up, and the answer is the way our tax regime is enforced and regulated. Let's make that match Europe. Would you agree there?

> The motivation seems to be more focused on taking money away from certain people

I straight up told you what my motivation was, and it wasn't that.

Re: No One Goes There Anymore

#226

Post by DoreenMichele »

sradman wrote: post #132
ccktlmazeltov wrote: post #40

Genuine question: what is the point made in the post? I feel like I'm missing something.

“It’s too crowded”, the punchline to the Yogi Berra quote, is the point of the blog post. It is a sentiment that we can all now relate to due to COVID-19. Living with a genetic disorder that makes one susceptible to respiratory infections also reinforces the set of norms required to live with this virus in our society.

"I was social distancing before social distancing was cool, man."

Re: No One Goes There Anymore

#227

Post by DoreenMichele »

knorker wrote: post #173
Smaug123 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll quote Doreen from elsewhere in this thread: > I didn't get a diagnosis until my kids were like 11 and 14, I think. I didn't have to think about that aspect, in part because my first child was the result of failed birth control.

Ah, yeah that adds information (not in the article) to this case. But note that I have downvotes on my comment. I'm not surprised. I think I'm being respectful here, but people take as a personal attack when the choice to have biological children is in any way questioned. So this woman did not have that information available to her at the time. Like I said I know people that did.

Your first comment isn't exactly the most diplomatic framing, but I'm sorry you are getting a pile on about this.

This site of mine (below) has already been outed by someone in comments, so let me link you to a page that gives a little more detail about that aspect of my life:

https://atypicalcysticfibrosis.blogspot.com/p/atypical-cf-de...

Re: No One Goes There Anymore

#228

Post by BeatLeJuce »

ido wrote: post #207
lettergram wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had cancer in the US a $65k bill really isn’t bad. Consider in the US taxes are typically In Germany (if I recall) it’s closer to 50% taxes so $50k a year. Presumably you can expect cancer once or less, but effectively you only need ~4 years of income to make up for that $65k bill in the US. Not bad at all. Obviously that differs based on income, but you can a see how (for many people in the US) the system works…

Total income-related taxes+health insurance in California are IIRC similar or higher than Germany. Also in either case the taxes on $100k/year are way less than 50%. EDIT from what I can tell from very quick googling total taxes on $100k in California would be ~29% ( not including health insurance) where as in Germany they would be ~34% (on $100k = ~€92k, including health insurance). So I guess whatever's better in t…

After taxes, health care and Solidaritätszuschlag, your taxrate for 100k ist closer to 42% in Germany

Re: No One Goes There Anymore

#229

Post by ido »

ido wrote: post #207
lettergram wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had cancer in the US a $65k bill really isn’t bad. Consider in the US taxes are typically In Germany (if I recall) it’s closer to 50% taxes so $50k a year. Presumably you can expect cancer once or less, but effectively you only need ~4 years of income to make up for that $65k bill in the US. Not bad at all. Obviously that differs based on income, but you can a see how (for many people in the US) the system works…

Total income-related taxes+health insurance in California are IIRC similar or higher than Germany. Also in either case the taxes on $100k/year are way less than 50%. EDIT from what I can tell from very quick googling total taxes on $100k in California would be ~29% ( not including health insurance) where as in Germany they would be ~34% (on $100k = ~€92k, including health insurance). So I guess whatever's better in t…

My number for Germany comes from https://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/gehalt/gross_net_calcu... & includes Solidaritätszuschlag & health insurance.

But it depends on state and stuff like church taxes (optional, you can declare being atheist & pay none) plus other things like marital status, tax classes, which public health insurance you choose, etc.

And the end of the day you pay similar taxes on income in Germany as you do in a high-tax US states like California.

Re: No One Goes There Anymore

#230

Post by ido »

BeatLeJuce wrote: post #228
ido wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total income-related taxes+health insurance in California are IIRC similar or higher than Germany. Also in either case the taxes on $100k/year are way less than 50%. EDIT from what I can tell from very quick googling total taxes on $100k in California would be ~29% ( not including health insurance) where as in Germany they would be ~34% (on $100k = ~€92k, including health insurance). So I guess whatever's better in t…

After taxes, health care and Solidaritätszuschlag, your taxrate for 100k ist closer to 42% in Germany

Not sure what you put in to get that number (keep in mind that $100k is roughly €92k) but there are many possible variables that can change your tax rate. In my personal case it is significantly lower than the number I posted above.

I used mostly default values in the first online calculators I found for both California & Germany in the example in my original post.

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