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One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

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Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#381

Post by tejohnso »

sharkjacobs wrote: post #368
MarkusWandel wrote: post #350

This applies to where I live in Canada. The price skew may be even greater elsewhere. Good residential broadband now costs in the neighbourhood of $60/month; this will be essentially unlimited, to the point of being able to leave a 4K video stream playing as background entertainment. Good cellular service costs in the neighbourhood of $40/month and the amount of data you can use is going up gradually; currently I see…

> good cellular service costs in the neighbourhood of $40/month if you live in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, or Quebec. It's about double that in the rest of the Country.

I pay $25/mo in Ontario with Lucky. Never a dropped call, 1GB data (almost always on wireless anyway), unlimited canada wide calling, text.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#382

Post by MisterTea »

schwoll wrote: post #307
omginternets wrote: post #117

Just yesterday I was trying to sign up with Verizon for my new address. Fiber is not available in my building, so they offer "5G Home Internet" for $60-$80/mo, which is crazy expensive for what it is. I asked whether there were ADSL lines available, since these were recently available for as cheap as $15/mo. It seems this is no longer the case. Maybe there's a market here? EDIT: I am in the US, and I've just realized…

Ask them for a landline phone. They'll either have to run new copper or choose to install fiber. Once they run copper then get a DSL company to run through that. Generally they won't want to run copper and don't want competition so they'll go ahead and run fiber. In either case I believe the law they're constrained by is local ordinances giving them a region based monopoly for traditional landline access in exchange…

Will they still run copper? Out here on Long Island Verizon will not install new copper and existing cu lines are on 3rd party life support. Work had to replace a copper phone line for the fire alarm with an internet bridge and wireless backup after it went dead and the tech told us "We don't run new copper."

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#383

Post by emptysongglass »

adventured wrote: post #279
vkou wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, someone earning $155,000 USD (Equivalent to 125k GBP) will also be paying 6.2% in social security taxes, 1.45% in medicare taxes, and then another 6.2% in social security taxes (employer's portion)[1], and 1.45% in medicare taxes (employer's portion). Added to the rest of their marginal tax rate, they'd be seeing a rate of 22 + 15.3 = 37.3%. Of course, they won't actually get health insurance for it, which…

> All-in-all, Americans pay ~26% of their GDP in taxes. It's more like 35%-36%. The far more accurate picture is that the local + state + federal spending is going to be around $9.5 trillion in 2023. The IMF has the US at an estimated $26.8 trillion GDP for 2023. Beyond the federal government, the US has two other massive layers of government that spend well over $4 trillion each year. I fully understand the differen…

No it really depends on the state. Washington would get me much closer to 25 percent. Plus as a tech worker you're making at least double what your counterpart in Europe is making (especially considering the insanity of taxes here) so you need to factor in a lot more variables than what I see most commenters doing for total take home.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#384

Post by fsckboy »

Shaanie wrote: post #222
wskinner wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top marginal rate of 45% in the UK starts at £125,140. Compare that to the US, where the top marginal rate of 37% starts at $578,125. - Edited to correct incorrect US top rate.

Top marginal rate in Sweden, 50%~ starts at $59k and our VAT is 25%. So eh, UK doesn't seem so bad.

>our VAT is 25%

VAT is the biggest scam, it's just an income tax under another name. What is a company's income? revenue - costs

What is a company's value-add? revenue - costs

massive eye-roll.

I once asked a real(tm) economist what the difference was and he looked up and thought for a minute and said "payroll tax". Payroll tax is what the US calls social security tax (for retirement, unemployment and the like)

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#385

Post by epiccoleman »

ahallock wrote: post #210
jameshush wrote: post #153

Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn't believe it. I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopp…

It's gotten to the point that I cook at home because the quality does not match the price anymore. And I'm lazy and work a comfy tech job, so you know it's gotten bad. Paid over $8 today for a slice of cheese pizza (regular size, not jumbo) and a small drink--this is in Cleveland, OH It's ridiculous.

I wonder how this kind of thing will affect low-mid tier sit down chain restaurants (think Red Robin, Chili's, BJ's, etc).

Right now, to take my family to one of these restaurants for dinner would cost on the order of $100. At that price, I may as well just stomach the extra $30-50 and go get a nice meal at one of the local independent restaurants. The food and atmosphere will certainly be better.

My in-laws took us out for dinner last weekend at Red Robin and the bill after tip was about $140. (4 adults, 2 kids). That's seriously obscene for the quality of food at Red Robin, which isn't terrible but certainly not worth spending $140 for.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#386

Post by tomjakubowski »

streptomycin wrote: post #196
jameshush wrote: post #153

Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn't believe it. I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopp…

FWIW, in CA that order at Five Guys would be $55 ( https://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/five-guys-prices/ gives prices at (8.95*3+3.06*3+7.41*2)*1.0725), but I imagine people in CA are richer than people in the UK...

Costs vary quite a lot by location in California so averaging over the state is losing some information.

At my local Five Guys in LA, a cheeseburger is $11.79, compared to $9.84 on that site. Ten times out of ten I'd just go to In-N-Out.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#387

Post by jeremyjh »

CapstanRoller wrote: post #365
schwoll wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask them for a landline phone. They'll either have to run new copper or choose to install fiber. Once they run copper then get a DSL company to run through that. Generally they won't want to run copper and don't want competition so they'll go ahead and run fiber. In either case I believe the law they're constrained by is local ordinances giving them a region based monopoly for traditional landline access in exchange…

Won't they funnel you into a VoIP "landline" instead? That's what Comcast does around here. I think they ripped out the copper long ago.

They would run fiber to do that though. Hence GP's point that they will run SOMETHING.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#388

Post by EddieEngineers »

pb7 wrote: post #277
EddieEngineers wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five Guys has always been that price, but I agree with your point. As a Brit, the US is pretty crazy too though. I just saw a single broccoli for $7 at a grocery store in Palo Alto. On my $172k salary I pay $59k in taxes which is roughly $1k more than I'd pay in the UK but in the UK that includes national insurance while in the US I pay health insurance on top. So while taxes sound crazy in the UK it's not actually d…

>VAT is only 7.25% in California but then you have to add 15-20% in tips when you're out. I don't know about the rest of the UK because I haven't been but most non-casual places in London charge an automatic 12.5% service charge. It's the same thing.

I'd tip at a restaurant but not at a pub. If people ask for a tip on the card machine I, being British, feel obligated to tip meaning I have to tip at weird places. For example I recently tipped at a cigarette stand in a casino in Las Vegas where all they did was sell a packet. I've even seen images on Reddit of people getting asked for tips at self service stations!

Another thing I didn't talk about is annual leave. Annual leave in the US is usually rubbish compared to European countries.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#389

Post by retube »

jameshush wrote: post #153

Visiting family in the UK for the first time in about five years. Costs here are _way_ higher than I remember. I bought three hamburgers, three drinks, and two large pops at a burger shop here, the total was 48 GBP (about $60 USD). This was at Five Guys. I couldn't believe it. I visited my co-worker in the UK, and over some beers, he mentioned he's getting taxed at 48-50% on top of this. Also 20% VAT on regular shopp…

Five Guys lol. Well known for being outrageously expensive, despite looking like a cheap dive.

Re: One million cancel broadband as living costs rise

#390

Post by testemailfordg2 »

Just bought a cup of green tea in office(UK) today and realised the price has increased by ~43%....Even after a 10% employee discount.... Now ask yourselves does water+electricity+green tea import+paper cup+worker wages of the coffee shop increased collectively by 43% to justify this increase...
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