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German government comes out against Chat Control

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Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#481

Post by NonHyloMorph »

brazukadev wrote: post #413
selfmodruntime wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By your own definitions the USA isn't a capitalist economy due to regulations and their social welfare policies. If that's where you stand then any further discussion is going to be pointless. Those are not my definitions. > It's a straightforward logical inference. Your definition of capitalism excludes every capitalist economy that has ever existed No. A social market economy is capitalism with rules and safety n…

> A social market economy is capitalism with rules and safety nets, like strong labor protections, healthcare, and pensions, to make sure people are protected from big hardships so it is not socialism, the whole point of this discussion.

You are way too into polar opposites here. Try thinking difference beyond/before that.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#482

Post by selfmodruntime »

KPGv2 wrote: post #471
selfmodruntime wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, correct me if I'm wrong - but according to this random website I found in 5 seconds of googling: I will, because you are! Unfortunately, it's really easy because the German government applies a simple slight of hand. They call it a "gross employer contribution", which increases this band of income tax beyond the 45% you pay after the GEC. [1] It works like this: As your employer is paying your wage, amount X,…

> They call it a "gross employer contribution" It feels disingenuous to me to see "someone else pays tax, so that counts as a tax on me" leveled as a serious argument. Maybe it's just my cold pragmatism speaking, but if your employer suddenly didn't have to pay that tax, I don't think they would bump your salary up. Americans make this same argument (they call it "trickle down economics"). So far, it doesn't seem to…

> It feels disingenuous to me to see "someone else pays tax, so that counts as a tax on me" leveled as a serious argument.

They don't pay tax. They pay half of the social insurance fee for their employer. Of course that half is part of the wage you're being paid.

> Maybe it's just my cold pragmatism speaking, but if your employer suddenly didn't have to pay that tax, I don't think they would bump your salary up.

I could certainly use that range to negotiate my salary.

> Americans make this same argument (they call it "trickle down economics"). So far, it doesn't seem to have worked out for them.

None of this has anything to do with trickle down economics. The trick is that if social insurance payments go up, which they do a lot, my employer is charged automatically and I no longer have that room for negotiating a raise.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#483

Post by selfmodruntime »

gambiting wrote: post #427
alexey-salmin wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about Germany, but in France for 100k gross salary, the employer social contributions will be around 40k, the employee social contributions another 20.5k, then 15.5k income tax. In the end 140k that employer pays result in less than 64k take-home salary. The real tax rate is around 54%. So, I can't verify what OP says about Germany but I can easily believe it. You can see chatgpt calculations here (and t…

Right, but I've never met anyone who looks at it this way - this part: "the employer social contributions will be around 40k" Is not your salary. This is what the employer has to pay to keep you. So even in your example your tax on your earnings is around 35%. The fact that the employer has to pay another 40k to keep you employed is......well, shocking, but I wouldn't say that's a tax rate on your earnings - for the…

> Is not your salary.

It IS your salary. If the employer didn't pay it, YOU would have to pay it anyway. If you are a freelancer, you will have to pay that employers share anyway.

It's the cost of social security systems, and someone has to pay it: You. With your work hours and salary.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#484

Post by zahlman »

brazukadev wrote: post #412
selfmodruntime wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What percentage of German companies are owned and managed by its workers? This sentence does not apply because "social market economy" does not imply that companies should be owned by their workes. > What percentage are owned by capitalists, generating private profits? This sentence does not apply because a "social market economy" does not forbid the generation of profits. Profits are to be shared with the populace…

> This sentence does not apply because a "social market economy" does not forbid the generation of profits. Profits are to be shared with the populace to pay for social policies, which is happening. Sure. But that is as socialist as it was the National Socialist German Workers Party.

The continued reference to "socialism" here is a strawman. The discussion started with pembrook's complaint https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45512714 and then had selfmodruntime explaining how the system works starting with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45513552 . At no point did either person describe the system as "socialism". selfmodruntime was even explicit in referring to "'Social market economy'... a regulated market economic model [,] designed to sit exactly in the middle between laissez faire capitalism and socialism". But interlocutors continually insisted on dragging it back to "socialism" simply because selfmodruntime denied that it was "capitalism", applying a false dichotomy.

What you, mfru and dns_snek did here is not respectful, open-minded discourse and I'm amazed that selfmodruntime put up with it that long.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#485

Post by selfmodruntime »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #442
gambiting wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but I've never met anyone who looks at it this way - this part: "the employer social contributions will be around 40k" Is not your salary. This is what the employer has to pay to keep you. So even in your example your tax on your earnings is around 35%. The fact that the employer has to pay another 40k to keep you employed is......well, shocking, but I wouldn't say that's a tax rate on your earnings - for the…

> Right, but I've never met anyone who looks at it this way - this part: "the employer social contributions will be around 40k". Is not your salary. I don't know, maybe you should speak more to people about this. Literally everyone who I discussed it with (like dozens of people) see it in the same way: * There's the money your employer spends to pay your salary * There's the money you take home * Everything in betwee…

> Believe it or not, but for multi-national companies job offers in France are smaller for this very reason: you have a fixed budget to hire an employee, you subtract the "employers contributions" and calculate the gross salary you can offer in various countries where you have legal entities.

This! It's hard for me how some people can't see this.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#486

Post by KPGv2 »

brazukadev wrote: post #413
selfmodruntime wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By your own definitions the USA isn't a capitalist economy due to regulations and their social welfare policies. If that's where you stand then any further discussion is going to be pointless. Those are not my definitions. > It's a straightforward logical inference. Your definition of capitalism excludes every capitalist economy that has ever existed No. A social market economy is capitalism with rules and safety n…

> A social market economy is capitalism with rules and safety nets, like strong labor protections, healthcare, and pensions, to make sure people are protected from big hardships so it is not socialism, the whole point of this discussion.

@selfmodruntime Arguing that the existence of regulations makes an economy non-capitalist is something I've only ever seen extreme left and extreme right-wing people make. Everyone else recognizes "capitalism is a system based on private ownership, wage labor, and private capital accumulation" as a fundamental truth, including, like, all experts in this field. Ultimately, you're making a No True Scotsman argument.

Germany's market is an example of welfare capitalism, which is a type of capitalism.

What you're writing reminds me very much of "the USA isn't a democracy, it's a republic!" (as if a republic isn't a type of democracy called "representative democracy")

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#487

Post by gambiting »

selfmodruntime wrote: post #483
gambiting wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but I've never met anyone who looks at it this way - this part: "the employer social contributions will be around 40k" Is not your salary. This is what the employer has to pay to keep you. So even in your example your tax on your earnings is around 35%. The fact that the employer has to pay another 40k to keep you employed is......well, shocking, but I wouldn't say that's a tax rate on your earnings - for the…

> Is not your salary. It IS your salary. If the employer didn't pay it, YOU would have to pay it anyway. If you are a freelancer, you will have to pay that employers share anyway. It's the cost of social security systems, and someone has to pay it: You. With your work hours and salary.

>>It IS your salary. If the employer didn't pay it, YOU would have to pay it anyway.

So if the government reduced the share that the employers pay down to zero tomorrow, would you then go to your partner/family/friends and say "hey, I just got a paycut at work" ?

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#488

Post by selfmodruntime »

gambiting wrote: post #411
selfmodruntime wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it adds up to almost 50% of your wage . People who make millions of dollars (freelancers, company shareholders, etc) pay capital gains taxes of 25%. High earning people have capital, not a wage, either by way of company shares or asset payouts. They pay a tiny bit more tax and no social obligations You forget that the 42% band kicks in at 68000 (up until 280k) not 10k from the median wage. You pay this with 1.2%…

>> People who make millions of dollars (freelancers, company shareholders, etc) pay capital gains taxes of 25%. High earning people have capital, not a wage, either by way of company shares or asset payouts. They pay a tiny bit more tax and no social obligations Yes, obviously - it works the same way here. You just said that "anywhere in Germany" you will pay 50% of your income in taxes, so I'm asking if your average…

> You just said that "anywhere in Germany" you will pay 50% of your income in taxes, so I'm asking if your average worker actually pays that

I earn about 60k (the government pays me, so you can look this up) and that is my effective rate of tax.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#489

Post by jll29 »

Citizens' ignorance is a larger danger than government action today, because politicians are sensitive to citizens' (=voters') behaviors.

Most people think they have nothing to hide and because "I'm not a terrorist they can watch me".

They really did not learn from their parent's generation (Gestapo, Stasi).

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#490

Post by selfmodruntime »

onli wrote: post #409
jaapz wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CO2 emissions are also still caused by it, and would grow when mining for nuclear material got harder by continued usage. Not nearly even in the same ballpark as setting fossil fuels on fire, or do you have any sources that show otherwise?

The low figure of CO2 usage often cited is based on an estimation you can read at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1530-9290... . I don't remember it giving a clear estimate on how much it rises, but that is understandable, as already the current estimate is not a reliable figure. But it's the wrong comparison. Nuclear energy is not to be replaced with fossil energy, but with renewables. So that "ad…

> Nuclear energy is not to be replaced with fossil energy, but with renewables. So that "advantage" is completely irrelevant.

This is exactly what Germany did tho.

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