10 ms·

The saddest part of this statement is that the European rail system is MASSIVELY subsidized even at the price points that the person you responded to described

The saddest part of this statement is that the European rail system is MASSIVELY subsidized even at the price points that the person you responded to described as "paying out the nose", which of course is a somewhat subjective position for a European to say, because their already lower salaries are massively taxed and to pay for the subsidized rail systems the gleeful Americans can gush about being so cheap when they return to the USA and demand socialism. I'll take Austin's local light rail train as an example to illustrate what I mean. I once looked into the finances and financing sources to get the system stood up, and I worked out that it would be around a $30-$35 trip from one end in the middle of the city to the outskirts of Austin's Leander township if the actual cost of the system were paid for by the rider. It is immensely deceptive and rather dumb that these realities are simply ignored, especially by seemingly otherwise rather intelligent people that congregate here. At the very least, there should not only be the direct cost per ticket if it were not heavily subsidized by taxes of Europeans, which non-Europeans should have to pay, and the price that is subsidized that Europeans pay. It is really rather immensely immoral to ride on the train at a cost that is heavily subsidized by wildly immoral tax levels (e.g., 100% on gasoline, 20% on sales of goods, ~35% of income that is also 70% of what it is in places like the USA).

improbable22 7y ago
Indeed it's subsidised, IIRC "about half" is a decent ballpark figure. This is worth bearing in mind when people complain about Ryanair getting not-full-price landing spots, not paying road tax, or whatever. Tourists pay 25% VAT on everything, so it's not like they pay no taxes. I think literally having to prove residence (or citizenship? or tax-residence?) sounds like the sort of bureaucratic hell I'd rather not encounter at the ticket machine. But note that some countries find a way, e.g. Switzerland has 50% discount cards which are far too expensive to make sense for tourists, but make it cheaper for locals. City transport is a different game, and harder to calculate down to individual levels -- you need all those 10%-full 11pm trams so that people can get home, on some days.
smcl 7y ago
I'm curious what massive subsidies you're talking about, do you have numbers or examples of what upsets you in particular? I really don't think European public transport is the major force driving young Americans to the left. I hear a lot of young Americans who (quite rightly IMO) look at socialised healthcare in the EU and wonder why on earth they can't have it back home ... but that's a separate issue altogether
mikepurvis 7y ago
Air travel is massively subsidized too (airport construction, airline and manufacturer bailouts); as is highway travel (automaker bailouts, free trade supply chain, environmental externalities, health costs associated with driving and sprawl, plus gas taxes which cover only a small proportion of actual construction and maintenance costs). It's difficult to do a true apples to apples comparison, especially when highways are also justified in part as a national security asset. But it's a little much to clutch pearls about subsidies for rail ("immoral", really?) without acknowledging how subsidized the alternatives are as well.
- gruez 7y ago
  >free trade supply chain free trade is hardly a subsidy.
  - mikepurvis 7y ago
    That really depends on your perspective. A "conventional" subsidy can be understood as a reverse tax— instead of paying money into the general pot for the privilege of engaging in some harmful/productive/profitable activity, you are paid money out of the general pot as a benefit for engaging in some activity seen by the government as desirable or beneficial. Cutting taxes in any form is a subsidy relative to what went before, whether or not the end state is above, at, or below the zero point. More concretely, if an automaker previously bought widgets from a local supplier for $10, but now buys them from overseas for $8 because of free trade, that's effectively a $2-per-widget subsidy. You can argue that it's a market efficiency and that most of the benefits are passed to the end consumer anyway so whatever, but when you get far enough down that path, then there are no widgets being made locally any more, which is the real cost of having subsidized the import of them by cutting taxes to zero.
vidarh 7y ago
This is crazy misleading. According to OECD taxing wages 2019, only single tax payers on significantly above median salary pay more than 35% tax and social security contributions combined in Austria. This places Austria far in excess of the OECD average. Rather than being some low tax paradise, the US is around the OECD average in most categories. As for things like vat, they look far worse than they are when you realise a lot of goods are zero rated, and most people spend only a s portion of their income on good due VAT. Last I checked in the UK it adds ca 3 percentage points to my tax overall tax burden. I don't pay much more tax here than I would in any number of US states at my income level. When factoring in health insurance, it gets even closer. Having spent time both places, I'd pick European tax levels over 'US conditions' (a term frequently used to scare voters in many European countries) any day. As for being immoral: we've voted for these tax levels. Surveys in the UK often show us prepared to accept increases as long as they go to the right things, like the NHS. Feel free to enjoy our trains - I've never met a European that is as concerned with subsidising foreigners travelling on them as you are on our behalf.

improbable22 7y ago

Indeed it's subsidised, IIRC "about half" is a decent ballpark figure. This is worth bearing in mind when people complain about Ryanair getting not-full-price landing spots, not paying road tax, or whatever. Tourists pay 25% VAT on everything, so it's not like they pay no taxes. I think literally having to prove residence (or citizenship? or tax-residence?) sounds like the sort of bureaucratic hell I'd rather not encounter at the ticket machine. But note that some countries find a way, e.g. Switzerland has 50% discount cards which are far too expensive to make sense for tourists, but make it cheaper for locals. City transport is a different game, and harder to calculate down to individual levels -- you need all those 10%-full 11pm trams so that people can get home, on some days.

smcl 7y ago

I'm curious what massive subsidies you're talking about, do you have numbers or examples of what upsets you in particular? I really don't think European public transport is the major force driving young Americans to the left. I hear a lot of young Americans who (quite rightly IMO) look at socialised healthcare in the EU and wonder why on earth they can't have it back home ... but that's a separate issue altogether

mikepurvis 7y ago

Air travel is massively subsidized too (airport construction, airline and manufacturer bailouts); as is highway travel (automaker bailouts, free trade supply chain, environmental externalities, health costs associated with driving and sprawl, plus gas taxes which cover only a small proportion of actual construction and maintenance costs). It's difficult to do a true apples to apples comparison, especially when highways are also justified in part as a national security asset. But it's a little much to clutch pearls about subsidies for rail ("immoral", really?) without acknowledging how subsidized the alternatives are as well.

gruez 7y ago
>free trade supply chain free trade is hardly a subsidy.
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  That really depends on your perspective. A "conventional" subsidy can be understood as a reverse tax— instead of paying money into the general pot for the privilege of engaging in some harmful/productive/profitable activity, you are paid money out of the general pot as a benefit for engaging in some activity seen by the government as desirable or beneficial. Cutting taxes in any form is a subsidy relative to what went before, whether or not the end state is above, at, or below the zero point. More concretely, if an automaker previously bought widgets from a local supplier for $10, but now buys them from overseas for $8 because of free trade, that's effectively a $2-per-widget subsidy. You can argue that it's a market efficiency and that most of the benefits are passed to the end consumer anyway so whatever, but when you get far enough down that path, then there are no widgets being made locally any more, which is the real cost of having subsidized the import of them by cutting taxes to zero.

vidarh 7y ago

This is crazy misleading. According to OECD taxing wages 2019, only single tax payers on significantly above median salary pay more than 35% tax and social security contributions combined in Austria. This places Austria far in excess of the OECD average. Rather than being some low tax paradise, the US is around the OECD average in most categories. As for things like vat, they look far worse than they are when you realise a lot of goods are zero rated, and most people spend only a s portion of their income on good due VAT. Last I checked in the UK it adds ca 3 percentage points to my tax overall tax burden. I don't pay much more tax here than I would in any number of US states at my income level. When factoring in health insurance, it gets even closer. Having spent time both places, I'd pick European tax levels over 'US conditions' (a term frequently used to scare voters in many European countries) any day. As for being immoral: we've voted for these tax levels. Surveys in the UK often show us prepared to accept increases as long as they go to the right things, like the NHS. Feel free to enjoy our trains - I've never met a European that is as concerned with subsidising foreigners travelling on them as you are on our behalf.