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> They get to keep a greater portion of their income I always see this come up during discussions about how the US compares to other developed countries. I thi

> They get to keep a greater portion of their income I always see this come up during discussions about how the US compares to other developed countries. I think the mentality is slightly different in the EU. If you were raised knowing that your income was going to be taxed at 50% but you also got free healthcare, education, welfare assistance, etc., you’d probably learn to value those things over buying a bigger TV or whatever. The only reason we complain about how they have less disposable income is due to the fact that we spend so much of ours on healthcare and education so it looks like a scarce resource that we need to hoard.

nerdponx 8y ago
This is really what it comes down to. This is also where the basic argument to "tax the rich" comes from. For the price of a yacht, you could feed and house multiple families for a year in some cities.
- ergothus 8y ago
  I was once asked how much money I could sustainably spend every single day without explicitly trying to waste money. I settled on 10,000/day (I assume big ticket items like house/car would be absorbed by that effortlessly). Then I was asked to do the math on how long it would take to spend 1 billion - the minimum amount to qualify as a billionaire - at that rate. IIRC, ignoring interest and inflation, it worked out to 216 years. Now billionaires dont have a bill sitting around in liquid cash, this is just a thought experiment to try a grasp how much a billion is, but it is an effective one. (Also cool as a party trick, as people tend to always pick a power of ten, so based on their answer you can whip out 2161 years or 21.6 years or whatever)
drakonka 8y ago
This is how I feel. I'm taxed a lot, but I can see that money being used for things to benefit me and those around me. I appreciate that I don't have to worry about bike infrastructure, or healthcare, or education, or my coworkers being stressed out about taking time off after having a kid. If I had that money in-hand those are the same things I'd want to buy with it anyway (except then I'd have to worry about actually taking care of all the details myself whereas now I don't). At the same time I feel like I can afford what I need/want even if I take home less money than I would in parts of the US.
MatrixAlgebra 8y ago
The problem with free education is that as more people become educated, the signaling effect of education becomes diluted. So the Europeans are paying for something that decreases in real value the more that people have access to it. That's a self defeating policy, especially since it encourages people to remain in academia for significantly longer than they would otherwise, because hey, it's paid for by the taxpayer. Someone earning a second Master's degree in Russian literature is not a productive use of taxpayer money. In the US by contrast, people are able to make decisions for themselves about how to educate themselves because loans are widely available and are just a tax on their future income. If they want to pursue a high income career, they will take out a loan to cover educational expenses since it makes financial sense to do so. If their desired career is less lucrative, they will not take out more loans than absolutely necessary, freeing that money up to be put towards more profitable projects in the broader economy.
- saint_fiasco 8y ago
  > If their desired career are less lucrative, they will not take out more loans than absolutely necessary This is not in fact what is actually happening. Lots of people take out loans whey they are first starting college, when they are young, inexperienced and by definition uneducated. Few of them even try to calculate the expected value of college for their future income, and the ones who try don't have high quality information.
  - MatrixAlgebra 8y ago
    The information is available to them, they have no one to blame but themselves. It is not the duty of the taxpayer to fund poor decision making. That's one of the major philsophical differences between the US and Europe: people must take responsibility for themselves and their own lives.
    - deadmetheny 8y ago
      The problem with the 'personal responsibility' screed in regards to university in America is that more or less my entire generation was hoodwinked into going to college and doing anything and to totally not worry about the cost because loans are available and you'll never get a job that will amount to anything if you don't go to college. Ironically enough, a large portion of my high school class that's doing the best financially are the kids who didn't think they were smart enough for college that went into trade school or apprenticeships. When your parents, guidance counselors, and basically the entire system are yelling that you'll never do more than flip burgers if you don't rack up a lot of student debt going to school, and you're a young impressionable youth that trusts these people...well, I think you have to be somewhat willfully ignorant or just an obtuse asshole to blame those of us who took that advice and got burned.
analog31 8y ago
I'm not even sure that we really get to "keep" more of our income. We have to hoard more of our income to buffer ourselves against emergencies that can drive people into bankruptcy, such as medical care. We have to save for college if we have kids. We need to cover ourselves in old age. It's "our" money, but it isn't really ours to spend.

nerdponx 8y ago

This is really what it comes down to. This is also where the basic argument to "tax the rich" comes from. For the price of a yacht, you could feed and house multiple families for a year in some cities.

ergothus 8y ago
I was once asked how much money I could sustainably spend every single day without explicitly trying to waste money. I settled on 10,000/day (I assume big ticket items like house/car would be absorbed by that effortlessly). Then I was asked to do the math on how long it would take to spend 1 billion - the minimum amount to qualify as a billionaire - at that rate. IIRC, ignoring interest and inflation, it worked out to 216 years. Now billionaires dont have a bill sitting around in liquid cash, this is just a thought experiment to try a grasp how much a billion is, but it is an effective one. (Also cool as a party trick, as people tend to always pick a power of ten, so based on their answer you can whip out 2161 years or 21.6 years or whatever)

drakonka 8y ago

This is how I feel. I'm taxed a lot, but I can see that money being used for things to benefit me and those around me. I appreciate that I don't have to worry about bike infrastructure, or healthcare, or education, or my coworkers being stressed out about taking time off after having a kid. If I had that money in-hand those are the same things I'd want to buy with it anyway (except then I'd have to worry about actually taking care of all the details myself whereas now I don't). At the same time I feel like I can afford what I need/want even if I take home less money than I would in parts of the US.

MatrixAlgebra 8y ago

The problem with free education is that as more people become educated, the signaling effect of education becomes diluted. So the Europeans are paying for something that decreases in real value the more that people have access to it. That's a self defeating policy, especially since it encourages people to remain in academia for significantly longer than they would otherwise, because hey, it's paid for by the taxpayer. Someone earning a second Master's degree in Russian literature is not a productive use of taxpayer money. In the US by contrast, people are able to make decisions for themselves about how to educate themselves because loans are widely available and are just a tax on their future income. If they want to pursue a high income career, they will take out a loan to cover educational expenses since it makes financial sense to do so. If their desired career is less lucrative, they will not take out more loans than absolutely necessary, freeing that money up to be put towards more profitable projects in the broader economy.

saint_fiasco 8y ago
> If their desired career are less lucrative, they will not take out more loans than absolutely necessary This is not in fact what is actually happening. Lots of people take out loans whey they are first starting college, when they are young, inexperienced and by definition uneducated. Few of them even try to calculate the expected value of college for their future income, and the ones who try don't have high quality information.
- MatrixAlgebra 8y ago
  The information is available to them, they have no one to blame but themselves. It is not the duty of the taxpayer to fund poor decision making. That's one of the major philsophical differences between the US and Europe: people must take responsibility for themselves and their own lives.
  - deadmetheny 8y ago
    The problem with the 'personal responsibility' screed in regards to university in America is that more or less my entire generation was hoodwinked into going to college and doing anything and to totally not worry about the cost because loans are available and you'll never get a job that will amount to anything if you don't go to college. Ironically enough, a large portion of my high school class that's doing the best financially are the kids who didn't think they were smart enough for college that went into trade school or apprenticeships. When your parents, guidance counselors, and basically the entire system are yelling that you'll never do more than flip burgers if you don't rack up a lot of student debt going to school, and you're a young impressionable youth that trusts these people...well, I think you have to be somewhat willfully ignorant or just an obtuse asshole to blame those of us who took that advice and got burned.

analog31 8y ago

I'm not even sure that we really get to "keep" more of our income. We have to hoard more of our income to buffer ourselves against emergencies that can drive people into bankruptcy, such as medical care. We have to save for college if we have kids. We need to cover ourselves in old age. It's "our" money, but it isn't really ours to spend.