Do you know how taxes are structured in those countries? I think you would be a little hesitant to promote their system if you knew.
Hint: for the most part they have a flat tax rate (not graduated like we have in the US) and most people never see 45-50% of their income because that goes straight to the gubmint. Then there's a Value Added Tax on most goods purchased (except food) that ranges from 16-20%. So the Scandinavians are generally working for 6-7 months a year without any income. And again, they can't pick art history as a major if they are going to university on the government dime. If that's acceptable to you, then their system works. Most Americans wouldn't like that system.
There's a reason all the high-earning sportsball players from Yurp are residents of Monaco....
I’m retired now, but in my final year of working my hands-down best employee was a 22 y/o recently graduated with ridiculous major (Sustainable Development ???), closely followed by a 19 y/o HS grad with no plans for any further education. Both had fantastic work ethic and were a joy to work with. I think the kids are going to be alright.
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That's probably because we Americans don't like being happy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report
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Sort of. Wages have increased slightly but college costs are much higher (in inflation adjusted terms). So total loan amounts are much higher and it takes longer to pay them back. Which does increase income inequality - children of the wealthy don't have loans to pay back and can immediately start investing in a 401K, saving for a down payment, etc..
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Last edited by teledad; 05-02-2022 at 07:04 PM.
It is pretty close and for the extras you get in Canada I would prefer that system all day long but the the USA could no longer be the Worlds Cop.
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Never in U.S. history has the public chosen leadership this malevolent. The moral clarity of their decision is crystalline, particularly knowing how Trump will regard his slim margin as a “mandate” to do his worst. We’ve learned something about America that we didn’t know, or perhaps didn’t believe, and it’ll forever color our individual judgments of who and what we are.
You have to compare apples to apples. Add in your healthcare, daycare, higher ed, triple the parental leave you get, etc… then all of a sudden paying 50%+ in tax leaves the average person with more take-home pay and a better quality of life….
High earning folks are avoid taxes regardless. They aren’t worried about the state paying for daycare and education.
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So you think that people in European countries do worse financially than in the us?
I spend winters in France, and i researched the tax situation pretty carefully. It is very similar to the us. When you consider the health care.
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2021 revenue in hundreds of billions for select US health insurers.
United Health: 288
Cigna: 174
Aetna: 279
Plenty money is already baked into US healthcare, more per capita than any other country in the world, in fact. The system is just incentivized to make money first and provide healthcare second.
Different kind of happy...there's a reason we left Yurp. Didn't want the gubmint controlling our lives.
There's a different reason why those that can afford it come to the US and pay for their medical care.
I wonder why those that want a system like the social democratic countries in Yurp don't just move there. Probably because you want your cake and also want to eat it....
While it's true that I haven't lived in Yurp for more than 25 years, when I was there, only the top 50% could even own a car. No financing for homes or vehicles. You had to pay cash. How many people in this country can do that? I know you're going to argue that a better public transportation system would fix that but consider the geographical differences between Yurp (generally densely populated and relatively small) to the US. Outside of the densely populated areas on the 2 coasts, public transportation can't work here.
/threaddrift
oh fuck off with this yank dumbfuckery. The gubmint controls plenty of your life in this Jesus ridden shithole, you just like the way it controls you.
fucking hilarious in the student loan thread to argue the us is great because it finances your car you need to have to exist because we built our society around consumer consumption
What about all those in the US that have to go to Canada or Mexico to get drugs they can afford? Plenty of citizens in the US travel for surgery and procedures that they can’t afford here in the US.
And fuck that “why don’t you move to Europe” shit. I’m an American and it’s my right to advocate for a government and tax structure that I and others want.
So to the relative merits of forgiveness… Does it have social/economic benefit beyond just buying votes? Somebody said the juice isn’t worth the squeeze upthread, and that was interesting because the opposite seems a little true. While it isn’t perfectly targeted, perhaps, it’s a pretty easy squeeze. Notions of fairness notwithstanding, if our goal is to do some leveling and reduce the financial impact to those who could otherwise contribute positively to the economy, is that helpful? The rich don’t really benefit. $10K in forgiveness doesn’t do much for some doctor who has $300K in student loan debt and income potential of upwards of $300K/year. $10K in forgiveness does a lot for somebody who made it halfway through school before having to stop and work and is fighting to keep up with payments. The rich paid it off long ago.
To turn that around, there seems to be a lot more juice in addressing a tax structure that allows the ultra wealthy to pay an effective 15% tax rate than in blocking a measure that will have an immediate benefit for a few million people.
There are plenty of other structural issues to address, but tying it all together runs a real risk of letting great be the enemy of good. Unless it’s not actually good. I get arguments in re: inflation, but our best way to combat inflation can’t be to suppress benefits to those on the bottom.
focus.
Blue collar workers (who USED to be much of the Democrats base and still represents a large portion of America) and in a broader sense, the giant voting block that is "the underrepresented, the marginalized, and minorities" are gonna be saying "WTF?!"
Tread carefully, Dems. Don't overplay your hand on this one or your gonna piss off a LOT of your base.
I think the smarter move would be to approach it like Bunion already suggested (kill interest and forgive interest accumulated beyond principle). Then the midterm voting damage will be minimized and those who benefited from college should be stoked enough to be in at least a better position than they were before. Anything more is a greedy move on the part of those in society who were already getting the benefits received from a higher education.
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Hilarious how we start threads in padded that get moved to polyass then start another on the same topic with the idea that it won't go polyass on the first page. Might as well try to discuss abortion in the padded room again now..
Go that way really REALLY fast. If something gets in your way, TURN!
Yeah, I guess. I don’t think it’s been a particularly political discussion thus far, Montucky’s post aside. It’s stupid that we can’t discuss social programs and policy without it becoming a partisan hack fest, and I don’t think we should back ourselves into that corner.
focus.
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