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Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

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Re: Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

#121

Post by droopyEyelids »

robomartin wrote: post #44
cronin101 wrote: post #6

This is such a non-story, mainly driven by the fact that home ownership in Nordic countries is ubiquitous (80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling) combined with the high medium incomes resulting in those houses being quite expensive. I’d really recommend not trying to draw any deeper conclusions from this data. Edit: by “own” I mean “have a non-paid off mortgage”, the tax on net wealth here actually disincentiv…

> 80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling I see your clarification. Question: In Norway, if you pay-off your mortgage, do you still owe annual taxes on your property? If so, how much? What happens if you don't pay property taxes? One of the things that has always bothered me about home "ownership" is that, from my perspective, at least in the US, you never really own your home. You can pay off your mortgage, of…

Property and ownership are defined by people, in laws- they are not mathematical concepts that have some sort of natural consistency.

Re: Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

#122

Post by droopyEyelids »

yakubin wrote: post #119
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're benefiting so much, why are they poor? Clearly wealthier people are getting more benefit.

> Clearly wealthier people are getting more benefit. No. Their wealth doesn’t come from government provided services.

The government defines how wealth works, what property is, and how people relate to and may benefit from it.

Re: Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

#123

Post by swexbe »

robomartin wrote: post #104
B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you own your property it should mean ... that you pay for the necessary law enforcement, justice, defense, etc. Why do you expect those to be free?

Typically a good idea to read the entire post before commenting. I did not say anything about anything having to be free. Since you brought it up. No, they are not free. We have to pay for them. My point is that I should be able to own my paid-off home. The government should not be able to take my property away because of taxes. Payment for the services you mention should have no connection to home ownership. Everyon…

What do you think would happen to the value of your home if the government, say, shut down the public road connecting it to the rest of society? What about the public water/electricity infrastructure?

If you don't own property, you might still benefit from these services. But they don't affect your net worth.

Re: Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

#124

Post by refurb »

cronin101 wrote: post #6

This is such a non-story, mainly driven by the fact that home ownership in Nordic countries is ubiquitous (80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling) combined with the high medium incomes resulting in those houses being quite expensive. I’d really recommend not trying to draw any deeper conclusions from this data. Edit: by “own” I mean “have a non-paid off mortgage”, the tax on net wealth here actually disincentiv…

> 80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling

You have to be careful with that statistic. It's not that 80% of Norwegians own their own home, it's that 80% live in a home that is owned someone in the household. So if you have a single parent, who owns a home, with 3 adult children living in one house, that statistic would say those 4 people have a 100% rate of homeownership. All countries measure it this way.

For example, Singapore has a rate of 91%. However, adults tend to live with their parents until they get married. They'd love to move out before that, but rents are sky high in Singapore, so people tend to just live with their parents. It's also pretty common to have multi-generation households.

Re: Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

#125

Post by refurb »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #86
robomartin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling I see your clarification. Question: In Norway, if you pay-off your mortgage, do you still owe annual taxes on your property? If so, how much? What happens if you don't pay property taxes? One of the things that has always bothered me about home "ownership" is that, from my perspective, at least in the US, you never really own your home. You can pay off your mortgage, of…

> If you own your property it should mean ... that you pay for the necessary law enforcement, justice, defense, etc. Why do you expect those to be free?

That's a non-sequitur.

Just because things need to be paid for doesn't mean it has to be through a property tax.

Re: Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

#126

Post by refurb »

whitemary wrote: post #59
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #42

It's my understanding that the northern European countries have very low immigration rates which means that their existing (mostly native) population is entirely responsible for their economic growth. That population grows old and fewer and fewer young people are available to contribute to the state-funded "welfare" to support their parents retired lifestyles. So the debt accrues and the country eventually becomes a…

Your theory fails because northern European countries have significantly higher fertility rates than the US. See: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/total-fertility... > Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is a more direct measure of the level of fertility than the crude birth rate, since it refers to births per woman.

If you're worried about population decline, it's birth rate you want to look at, not TFR.

Re: Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

#127

Post by yakubin »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #122
yakubin wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Clearly wealthier people are getting more benefit. No. Their wealth doesn’t come from government provided services.

The government defines how wealth works, what property is, and how people relate to and may benefit from it.

That’s settled by law, not by the actions of the current government. If you want to pin down the source of how the wealthy can retain their wealth, that would be the courts and broader law enforcement. So going this way the wealthy would contribute more to the justice system, while they wouldn’t pay as much for public education, health services, and social welfare? Doesn’t seem like something anyone would want.

Re: Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

#128

Post by vegardx »

refurb wrote: post #124
cronin101 wrote: post #6

This is such a non-story, mainly driven by the fact that home ownership in Nordic countries is ubiquitous (80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling) combined with the high medium incomes resulting in those houses being quite expensive. I’d really recommend not trying to draw any deeper conclusions from this data. Edit: by “own” I mean “have a non-paid off mortgage”, the tax on net wealth here actually disincentiv…

> 80% of Norwegians OWN their primary dwelling You have to be careful with that statistic. It's not that 80% of Norwegians own their own home, it's that 80% live in a home that is owned someone in the household. So if you have a single parent, who owns a home, with 3 adult children living in one house, that statistic would say those 4 people have a 100% rate of homeownership. All countries measure it this way. For ex…

If that's the case then I'd assume that the "real" number would be significantly higher, given that Northern europeans leave their parental home at very young age, compared to most of the world.

I could only find updated statistics from the EU[0], so there's no data on Norway, but if memory serves me right, Norway has even lower age than Sweden.

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Re: Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

#129

Post by yucky »

rafael09ed wrote: post #112
yucky wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does someone below the poverty level qualify for more government assistance than a middle class person?

Does a middle class person have more choices in how they want to live their life?

I didn't say being poor was better, this was in response to who uses more government services. And I'm not event stating it as a problem, I think poor people use more services because they need more services. But I thought it was important enough to correct the claim that they don't use more services.

Re: Why northern Europe is so indebted (2021)

#130

Post by vegardx »

robomartin wrote: post #105
sohtym wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden technically has a property tax, but it is a maximum of ~900€ a year.

That seems like an affordable (and possibly equally-shared) way to contribute to the running costs of a society. What happens if you don't pay this? Can they take your home away and sell it? They can do that in the US, BTW.

They can.

But I don't really see how that could happen if you didn't also have a mortgage. You would easily be able to finance this, unless your property was also pretty much worthless. And if it was practically worthless you'd either not pay any property tax at all, due to deductibles, or pay basically nothing.

In Norway property tax (where applicable, it's up to local government) is measured as a percentage of the taxable value of primary residence. Usually 0,2 per mille or around that. The taxable value is less than the property value. It's a progressive scheme, everything below 10MNOK is measured as 25% of property value (marked value-ish), and 75% for everything over 10MNOK. For secondary houses the taxable value is set to the property value.

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