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It is not like taxes disappear into a black hole never to be seen. Most of that money comes back to you in the form of services Americans would have to pay for

It is not like taxes disappear into a black hole never to be seen. Most of that money comes back to you in the form of services Americans would have to pay for anyway. What matters is what the taxes give you. A lot of American taxes don’t give people much of anything. Maintaining the worlds largest prison population is expensive but what exactly does that give the Average American? Worlds largest military also sucks up tax dollars but don’t give any benefits back. Finnish taxes give you education, health care, child care, sick leave, vacation, job retraining, great public transport and many other thing directly improving your quality of life.

Devils-Avocado 6y ago
In Europe those services pay for a huge welfare and pension system, and healthcare which is mostly used by the elderly. Very little benefit will be received by a working-age expat.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  It’s not strictly about getting more out of the system than you particularly put in. On top of that no one knows if their the average or the one who’s going to need expensive life saving intervention. It levels out some of the randomness of the world for everyone, it largely removes one of the big causes of bankruptcy in the US which is medical debt.
- Teever 6y ago
  That's a great generalization about the entire continent of Europe but do you have any specific issues with how taxes in Finland are used?
- purerandomness 6y ago
  As a working-age expat, you might still have an ambulance called after an accident or a drug overdose after partying, having cancer surgery, a flu shot, a pregnancy or an IVF, all for free.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    They have ambulances in the US too. Also, isn't Finland a country where you pay health insurance? If that is free, a lot of things in the US suddenly are free as well.
    - purerandomness 6y ago
      > They have ambulances in the US too. We were talking about costs. In the US, calling an ambulance is not guaranteed to be free. OP claimed that as a young, healthy expat, you don't benefit from a system where your tax payments finance health care. I showed examples where a young, healthy expat directy benefits from this system, by having medical emergencies that would potentially bankrupt you in the US. Not sure I followed your point here.
    - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
      > Also, isn't Finland a country where you pay health insurance? Not really. You pay income taxes in general, and some portion of that funds the public healthcare system, but healthcare isn’t something you ever have to think about in particular.
    - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
      You don’t have to pay to use most roads in the USA, on a usage basis at least. The use of the word free but not really isn’t foreign to Americans.
      - whitexn--g28h 6y ago
        You absolutely pay for roads on a usage basis [1] unless you drive an electric car. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...
        ejolto 6y ago
        That's not paying for roads, that's paying for fuel. You would be paying those fuel taxes even if you were only driving on your own private roads.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  > In Europe those services pay for ... healthcare which is mostly used by the elderly. Finnish public healthcare encompasses things like regular dental visits that people of every age use. Also, those high taxes pay for world-class public libraries and child daycare which the broad public use, even expats in the IT sectors.
  - eru 6y ago
    Private dental visits shouldn't cost you more than a few hundred quid per year on average. (In a sane country.) So they would only justify perhaps about 0.1% higher taxes?
    - astura 6y ago
      For just routine cleanings, sure. If you need work done it can get real expensive.
      - disabled 6y ago
        Worst case scenario, you go abroad within the EU for that, and pay out of pocket. You just make sure to vet out the dentists well. Italians often go to Croatia for dental care. But, Poland has good cheap dental care too.
      - eru 6y ago
        Hence me saying 'on average'. In a sane country, you can use insurance to convert variable payments into average payments (plus a bit of overhead). Or, you just self-insure for dental, if you make a reasonable amount of money or have some savings. (It's much more feasible for dental where the realistic maximum amounts are still quite small, compared to cancer treatment or similar.)
        herbstein 6y ago
        > In a sane country, you can use insurance to convert variable payments into average payments Consider tax paid healthcare to be a public insurance plan that doesn't need to skim billion dollar profits from their "customers" then.
- sellyme 6y ago
  It also pays for education, and you don't need to look at the US for long to see why it's worth investing in having literate citizens.
  - indecisive_user 6y ago
    Is this supposed to be an insult to the US? The literacy rate is 99%, and a higher % of the population has a tertiary education than finland, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiar...
    - sellyme 6y ago
      >Is this supposed to be an insult to the US? Yes, but it's one I hope I'll one day no longer be able to use. > The literacy rate is 99% So, there's a decent chance you Googled "US literacy rate" and copy-pasted it from there. I would recommend clicking the actual article and reading through it, because Google's quote is... not exactly representative of what's contained within. If you didn't do that, you're probably citing this from the World Factbook, who use a definition of literacy broadly encapsulated by "is capable of reading". By that definition, if you can look at some words and then say them out loud, you're literate. Useful for developing countries or historical contexts, but not exactly meaningful in a modern society with many resources. These days most literacy studies look at actually understanding content, and being able to reason about it. This typically includes some level of numerical literacy (not necessarily mathematics, but e.g., being able to understand the difference between a million and a billion), as well as things identifying internally contradictory statements. By those standards, the United States does abysmally. It's worth noting here that the U.S. does disproportionately suffer in some studies that look specifically at literacy in a small number of official languages (English for the U.S., occasionally also including Spanish), rather than counting literacy in any language as sufficient. My comments here are in regards to the latter. > and a higher % of the population has a tertiary education than finland The people who choose to go to tertiary education in the United States (or indeed any other country) are not usually the people in desperate need of better education. The problem is predominantly in insufficient primary and secondary schooling, combined with a cultural attitude of anti-intellectualism that leads to many people thinking they never need to learn a thing once they exit the school system. Not a uniquely American phenomenon (Michael Gove's "the people have had enough of experts" quote being a particularly flagrant European example), but one that's uncomfortably persistent there. For example, it takes a very unintelligent person to be in the middle of a global pandemic, yet think that the opinion of a reality TV host is more important than the professional advice of a doctor. Those people exist everywhere, but they exist in astonishing concentrations in the United States. > I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. My point is that, as someone who lives in neither North America or Europe, if I had to pick a random adult citizen from the population of either the United States or Finland to make a rational decision for me, I'm picking Finland.
- spicyramen 6y ago
  Agree, as a Bay Area SWE, health-care is not a problem as many companies give you very good insurance, HSA, dental and vision for free or with family (wife + 1 kid) 1K per month.
  - crooked-v 6y ago
    'Bay Area SWE' is an outlier even for the tech industry.
  - kaitai 6y ago
    1K per month = not a problem! hahahahaha! Ok, for a (male or lesbian, since you specify 'wife') Bay Area SWE, you're right. But do look at that election map and notice the scores of people living in the rest of the US, in large part voting against their own health-care interests but still. In Missouri the median income is around $55k. Putting $12k of that into health insurance (not health care, but insurance) is pretty hefty.
    - martinald 6y ago
      You do realise that $55k even with $12k insurance taken off ($43k "effective' median) is higher than any EU state, apart from maybe Luxembourg. And taxes will be significantly higher in EU states than MI (even if you are paying healthcare privately), which will further tilt it?
      - distances 6y ago
        But the US citizen will have to save for retirement and kids' potential university education out of the remaining part, correct? For such a middle class person Europe is likely to be better / more stable economically. Single software engineer will surely have it financially much better in the US though.
- mattigames 6y ago
  Yeah, as an expat I would love living next to an elderly dying because he can't afford treatment and is waiting his gofundme to work out, I also would love being 5 times more likely to be a robbery victim[0] thanks to lack of social welfare and social support for people in economic struggles, I would also love to have at least a few more veterans begging for money in the streets, and don't get me started on how much I would love to live with a poorly-funded educated system that raises people that end up becoming anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers among many other colorful irrational believes. [0] https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Robberies https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Robber...
  - refurb 6y ago
    elderly dying because he can't afford treatment The US has universal Medical coverage for the elderly.
    - mattigames 6y ago
      Sure, that's great, now we just need the same for the rest: https://i.imgur.com/qRWoLg3.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qRWoLg3.jpg
- jen20 6y ago
  > Very little benefit will be received by a working-age expat. Speak for yourself: I've never paid a penny for healthcare in the UK, besides an effective tax rate lower than I now pay in the US and the occasional prescription charge where an OTC version of the relevant medicine was not available at lower cost.
- fulafel 6y ago
  In the big picture welfare pays for a society with decreased social strife. For a working age expat this means not having to harden yourself and your family against homeless people on the streets, be afraid of getting mugged, and having educated & skilled coworkers because free education doesn't waste the potential of the economically disadvantaged.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
siavosh 6y ago
I wish humanity didn't need a military but saying the world's largest military doesn't give anything back is a bit misleading. Some would argue the world's largest military enable the post WW2 order and with it the free trade that most of the world depends on. So in a very concrete way, the American tax payer subsidizes much of the world's economy. Now in a post cold war with the growing isolationist tendencies of Americans, this may require most of the world, namely western europe to start paying for their own physical security.
- xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
  I think the point is that you can choose to go live somewhere that is not the USA and you continue reap the benefits you describe, all the while paying a different countries taxes and personally benefitting much much more. If I was an American, I wouldn't want to be footing the bill for Global Security either.
  - siavosh 6y ago
    That's a valid strategy, akin to geo-politicial arbitrage. But with trends as they are arbitrages don't last forever.
    - geofft 6y ago
      Yes, but I won't last forever either. I have, if I try very hard, 40 years of useful employment left in me. It's possible that the Holy Karelian Empire will displace US hegemony in the next 40 years, but it's not that likely. It's also possible - and much more likely - that Finland will end up on the wrong side of the US and maybe be a site of a hot proxy war between the US and some upstart superpower within the next 40 years, but that also seems fairly unlikely. Forty years ago the world was not too different - the USSR and East Germany existed and China was not so strong, but the shape of the rest of it was otherwise broadly similar. There are very few countries that were prosperous and peaceful and lightly-armed in 1980 that are bad choices today.
  - fourstar 6y ago
    >If I was an American, I wouldn't want to be footing the bill for Global Security either. I think if you transact in dollars or any economy on Earth, you probably do.
klipt 6y ago
> Worlds largest military also sucks up tax dollars but don’t give any benefits back. It's easy to say a military is worthless until you actually need it. But, Finland was under Russian occupation for decades. I would guess plenty of Finns wished they had a better military then.
- pavlov 6y ago
  Which decades are you talking about? Finland was part of the Russian Empire between 1809 and 1917, but hasn’t been invaded since — although Stalin gave it a good shot.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    Finland was definitely invaded. While the Finns are often considered the victors in the Winter War because they managed to maintain their independence in spite of Stalin’s onslaught, they nonetheless lost a considerable slice of Karelia to the Soviet Union.
    - pavlov 6y ago
      Ok, but that’s very different from “decades under Russian occupation” claimed by the grandparent post.
  - Sharlin 6y ago
    Invaded twice, but not occupied. Indeed, I believe Helsinki and London were the only capitals of non-neutral European countries that were not occupied during the WW2.
    - eru 6y ago
      Moscow wasn't occupied either, was it?
      - Sharlin 6y ago
        Oops, of course. Good point!
eru 6y ago
You can have lower taxes (than in America) and excellent public services in Singapore. Eat your cake and have it, too. Very startup friendly as well and excellent food. The tropical weather takes a bit of getting used to, though. I much prefer gloomy European skies.
- paxys 6y ago
  And what if I want to smoke a joint or chew gum?
  - princeb 6y ago
    seriously don't come! the locals who really want to do those things have long moved out of the country. those who choose to remain here enthusiastically enforce the order of the country. caning and hanging continue to enjoy popular support.
    - eru 6y ago
      Well, caning is arguably a better solution than prisons. As for capital punishment: I'm not a fan. But have a look at the numbers on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapore#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapor...
  - trevyn 6y ago
    Or support Internet freedom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapo...
  - eru 6y ago
    Chewing gum itself is not illegal. Don't come, if you like to partake in recreational drugs. (Though plenty of expats usually just hop on a plane on the weekend and indulge in one of the surrounding countries. Drugs are no more legal there, but their governments are not as competent in enforcing their laws.)
- milchek 6y ago
drevil-v2 6y ago
The American military that you scoff at is what gives Europe it's freedom. It did against the Nazis, against the USSR and now does against Russia and China. I just have this to say to the folks who despise the era of American power and hegemony, you are absolutely going to love the Chinese one. Good luck buddy posting similar comments about them in that world order.
- justatdotin 6y ago
  I just have to say to the folks whose only defence of the american militarist empire is the threat of a chinese one, you are absolutely bankrupt.
nonfinn1039 6y ago
I keep hearing this myth about that US taxpayer dollars go mostly to the military. Sure it's a big ticket item, but half of it goes to social programs: 2019 (USD): - Health and Human Services: 1,215 Trillion(27%) - Social Security: 1,101 Trillion (25%) - Department of Defense: 658 Billion (14.7%) source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
- ianai 6y ago
  You can’t throw social security in there since that’s actually paid into from workers. Yes it’s a Ponzi scheme-government backed. That’s not the same thing as a money pit with no revenue incoming.
  - traek 6y ago
    They're all paid into by workers, taxes are taxes.
    - ianai 6y ago
      In order to withdraw from SS you must be eligible - including have had contributed to it in the past. The money is even accounted for separately from other government funds. The funds are supposed to go and have historically gone from contributor to beneficiary. It’s also not had funding problems until those funds got mishandled by past governments (congresses/presidents) and tapped for other things. First link from google: https://chomsky.info/20050601/ https://chomsky.info/20050601/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- curun1r 6y ago
  The DoD list item doesn't include the intelligence agencies, DHS, OCO, VA, defense share of debt servicing and other spending. A more honest number is $1.25 trillion [0]. [0] https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-25-trillion-national-security-state-budget/ https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-...
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Military is a big benefit and you can bet it helps Europe as well, especially countries bordering Russia between 1945 and the late 80s, including Finland. That said we (USA) are spending too much on it.
kebman 6y ago
> What matters is what the taxes give you. Indeed. Like less trust from the state in how you use your own money, and less power to decide over what to do with the money you've earned from your own hard work. Instead you are forced to trust that the government is better at allocating that money than a private company. You effectively get no choice in the matter either, except every fourth year. And that isn't even a real choice, because you're not choosing a better medical company, or a better insurance deal against joblessness when you vote. Instead you're hoping that more than 50% of the people who are eligible to vote in your country, will agree with you that the medical deal or accident insurance (and a whole swathe of other stuff, take it or leave it) offered by some politician that you like, is also liked by them. If not, then you're forced to take whatever the people—who do not have your own best interest at heart—wants instead, because they just happen to be in the majority. On top of that, you're supposed to celebrate it, and thank the guys who forced you to accept what you'd rather not have. That's what's known as a democracy, and somehow you're supposed to think that that is the pinnacle of "freedom"...

Devils-Avocado 6y ago

In Europe those services pay for a huge welfare and pension system, and healthcare which is mostly used by the elderly. Very little benefit will be received by a working-age expat.

rtkwe 6y ago
It’s not strictly about getting more out of the system than you particularly put in. On top of that no one knows if their the average or the one who’s going to need expensive life saving intervention. It levels out some of the randomness of the world for everyone, it largely removes one of the big causes of bankruptcy in the US which is medical debt.
Teever 6y ago
That's a great generalization about the entire continent of Europe but do you have any specific issues with how taxes in Finland are used?
purerandomness 6y ago
As a working-age expat, you might still have an ambulance called after an accident or a drug overdose after partying, having cancer surgery, a flu shot, a pregnancy or an IVF, all for free.
- emteycz 6y ago
  They have ambulances in the US too. Also, isn't Finland a country where you pay health insurance? If that is free, a lot of things in the US suddenly are free as well.
  - purerandomness 6y ago
    > They have ambulances in the US too. We were talking about costs. In the US, calling an ambulance is not guaranteed to be free. OP claimed that as a young, healthy expat, you don't benefit from a system where your tax payments finance health care. I showed examples where a young, healthy expat directy benefits from this system, by having medical emergencies that would potentially bankrupt you in the US. Not sure I followed your point here.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    > Also, isn't Finland a country where you pay health insurance? Not really. You pay income taxes in general, and some portion of that funds the public healthcare system, but healthcare isn’t something you ever have to think about in particular.
  - seanmcdirmid 6y ago
    You don’t have to pay to use most roads in the USA, on a usage basis at least. The use of the word free but not really isn’t foreign to Americans.
    - whitexn--g28h 6y ago
      You absolutely pay for roads on a usage basis [1] unless you drive an electric car. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_State...
      - ejolto 6y ago
        That's not paying for roads, that's paying for fuel. You would be paying those fuel taxes even if you were only driving on your own private roads.
Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> In Europe those services pay for ... healthcare which is mostly used by the elderly. Finnish public healthcare encompasses things like regular dental visits that people of every age use. Also, those high taxes pay for world-class public libraries and child daycare which the broad public use, even expats in the IT sectors.
- eru 6y ago
  Private dental visits shouldn't cost you more than a few hundred quid per year on average. (In a sane country.) So they would only justify perhaps about 0.1% higher taxes?
  - astura 6y ago
    For just routine cleanings, sure. If you need work done it can get real expensive.
    - disabled 6y ago
      Worst case scenario, you go abroad within the EU for that, and pay out of pocket. You just make sure to vet out the dentists well. Italians often go to Croatia for dental care. But, Poland has good cheap dental care too.
    - eru 6y ago
      Hence me saying 'on average'. In a sane country, you can use insurance to convert variable payments into average payments (plus a bit of overhead). Or, you just self-insure for dental, if you make a reasonable amount of money or have some savings. (It's much more feasible for dental where the realistic maximum amounts are still quite small, compared to cancer treatment or similar.)
      - herbstein 6y ago
        > In a sane country, you can use insurance to convert variable payments into average payments Consider tax paid healthcare to be a public insurance plan that doesn't need to skim billion dollar profits from their "customers" then.
sellyme 6y ago
It also pays for education, and you don't need to look at the US for long to see why it's worth investing in having literate citizens.
- indecisive_user 6y ago
  Is this supposed to be an insult to the US? The literacy rate is 99%, and a higher % of the population has a tertiary education than finland, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_education_attainment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiar...
  - sellyme 6y ago
    >Is this supposed to be an insult to the US? Yes, but it's one I hope I'll one day no longer be able to use. > The literacy rate is 99% So, there's a decent chance you Googled "US literacy rate" and copy-pasted it from there. I would recommend clicking the actual article and reading through it, because Google's quote is... not exactly representative of what's contained within. If you didn't do that, you're probably citing this from the World Factbook, who use a definition of literacy broadly encapsulated by "is capable of reading". By that definition, if you can look at some words and then say them out loud, you're literate. Useful for developing countries or historical contexts, but not exactly meaningful in a modern society with many resources. These days most literacy studies look at actually understanding content, and being able to reason about it. This typically includes some level of numerical literacy (not necessarily mathematics, but e.g., being able to understand the difference between a million and a billion), as well as things identifying internally contradictory statements. By those standards, the United States does abysmally. It's worth noting here that the U.S. does disproportionately suffer in some studies that look specifically at literacy in a small number of official languages (English for the U.S., occasionally also including Spanish), rather than counting literacy in any language as sufficient. My comments here are in regards to the latter. > and a higher % of the population has a tertiary education than finland The people who choose to go to tertiary education in the United States (or indeed any other country) are not usually the people in desperate need of better education. The problem is predominantly in insufficient primary and secondary schooling, combined with a cultural attitude of anti-intellectualism that leads to many people thinking they never need to learn a thing once they exit the school system. Not a uniquely American phenomenon (Michael Gove's "the people have had enough of experts" quote being a particularly flagrant European example), but one that's uncomfortably persistent there. For example, it takes a very unintelligent person to be in the middle of a global pandemic, yet think that the opinion of a reality TV host is more important than the professional advice of a doctor. Those people exist everywhere, but they exist in astonishing concentrations in the United States. > I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. My point is that, as someone who lives in neither North America or Europe, if I had to pick a random adult citizen from the population of either the United States or Finland to make a rational decision for me, I'm picking Finland.
spicyramen 6y ago
Agree, as a Bay Area SWE, health-care is not a problem as many companies give you very good insurance, HSA, dental and vision for free or with family (wife + 1 kid) 1K per month.
- crooked-v 6y ago
  'Bay Area SWE' is an outlier even for the tech industry.
- kaitai 6y ago
  1K per month = not a problem! hahahahaha! Ok, for a (male or lesbian, since you specify 'wife') Bay Area SWE, you're right. But do look at that election map and notice the scores of people living in the rest of the US, in large part voting against their own health-care interests but still. In Missouri the median income is around $55k. Putting $12k of that into health insurance (not health care, but insurance) is pretty hefty.
  - martinald 6y ago
    You do realise that $55k even with $12k insurance taken off ($43k "effective' median) is higher than any EU state, apart from maybe Luxembourg. And taxes will be significantly higher in EU states than MI (even if you are paying healthcare privately), which will further tilt it?
    - distances 6y ago
      But the US citizen will have to save for retirement and kids' potential university education out of the remaining part, correct? For such a middle class person Europe is likely to be better / more stable economically. Single software engineer will surely have it financially much better in the US though.
mattigames 6y ago
Yeah, as an expat I would love living next to an elderly dying because he can't afford treatment and is waiting his gofundme to work out, I also would love being 5 times more likely to be a robbery victim[0] thanks to lack of social welfare and social support for people in economic struggles, I would also love to have at least a few more veterans begging for money in the streets, and don't get me started on how much I would love to live with a poorly-funded educated system that raises people that end up becoming anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers among many other colorful irrational believes. [0] https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Robberies https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Robber...
- refurb 6y ago
  elderly dying because he can't afford treatment The US has universal Medical coverage for the elderly.
  - mattigames 6y ago
    Sure, that's great, now we just need the same for the rest: https://i.imgur.com/qRWoLg3.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qRWoLg3.jpg
jen20 6y ago
> Very little benefit will be received by a working-age expat. Speak for yourself: I've never paid a penny for healthcare in the UK, besides an effective tax rate lower than I now pay in the US and the occasional prescription charge where an OTC version of the relevant medicine was not available at lower cost.
fulafel 6y ago
In the big picture welfare pays for a society with decreased social strife. For a working age expat this means not having to harden yourself and your family against homeless people on the streets, be afraid of getting mugged, and having educated & skilled coworkers because free education doesn't waste the potential of the economically disadvantaged.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

siavosh 6y ago

I wish humanity didn't need a military but saying the world's largest military doesn't give anything back is a bit misleading. Some would argue the world's largest military enable the post WW2 order and with it the free trade that most of the world depends on. So in a very concrete way, the American tax payer subsidizes much of the world's economy. Now in a post cold war with the growing isolationist tendencies of Americans, this may require most of the world, namely western europe to start paying for their own physical security.

xyzzy_plugh 6y ago
I think the point is that you can choose to go live somewhere that is not the USA and you continue reap the benefits you describe, all the while paying a different countries taxes and personally benefitting much much more. If I was an American, I wouldn't want to be footing the bill for Global Security either.
- siavosh 6y ago
  That's a valid strategy, akin to geo-politicial arbitrage. But with trends as they are arbitrages don't last forever.
  - geofft 6y ago
    Yes, but I won't last forever either. I have, if I try very hard, 40 years of useful employment left in me. It's possible that the Holy Karelian Empire will displace US hegemony in the next 40 years, but it's not that likely. It's also possible - and much more likely - that Finland will end up on the wrong side of the US and maybe be a site of a hot proxy war between the US and some upstart superpower within the next 40 years, but that also seems fairly unlikely. Forty years ago the world was not too different - the USSR and East Germany existed and China was not so strong, but the shape of the rest of it was otherwise broadly similar. There are very few countries that were prosperous and peaceful and lightly-armed in 1980 that are bad choices today.
- fourstar 6y ago
  >If I was an American, I wouldn't want to be footing the bill for Global Security either. I think if you transact in dollars or any economy on Earth, you probably do.

klipt 6y ago

> Worlds largest military also sucks up tax dollars but don’t give any benefits back. It's easy to say a military is worthless until you actually need it. But, Finland was under Russian occupation for decades. I would guess plenty of Finns wished they had a better military then.

pavlov 6y ago
Which decades are you talking about? Finland was part of the Russian Empire between 1809 and 1917, but hasn’t been invaded since — although Stalin gave it a good shot.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Finland was definitely invaded. While the Finns are often considered the victors in the Winter War because they managed to maintain their independence in spite of Stalin’s onslaught, they nonetheless lost a considerable slice of Karelia to the Soviet Union.
  - pavlov 6y ago
    Ok, but that’s very different from “decades under Russian occupation” claimed by the grandparent post.
- Sharlin 6y ago
  Invaded twice, but not occupied. Indeed, I believe Helsinki and London were the only capitals of non-neutral European countries that were not occupied during the WW2.
  - eru 6y ago
    Moscow wasn't occupied either, was it?
    - Sharlin 6y ago
      Oops, of course. Good point!

eru 6y ago

You can have lower taxes (than in America) and excellent public services in Singapore. Eat your cake and have it, too. Very startup friendly as well and excellent food. The tropical weather takes a bit of getting used to, though. I much prefer gloomy European skies.

paxys 6y ago
And what if I want to smoke a joint or chew gum?
- princeb 6y ago
  seriously don't come! the locals who really want to do those things have long moved out of the country. those who choose to remain here enthusiastically enforce the order of the country. caning and hanging continue to enjoy popular support.
  - eru 6y ago
    Well, caning is arguably a better solution than prisons. As for capital punishment: I'm not a fan. But have a look at the numbers on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapore#Statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapor...
- trevyn 6y ago
  Or support Internet freedom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Singapo...
- eru 6y ago
  Chewing gum itself is not illegal. Don't come, if you like to partake in recreational drugs. (Though plenty of expats usually just hop on a plane on the weekend and indulge in one of the surrounding countries. Drugs are no more legal there, but their governments are not as competent in enforcing their laws.)
milchek 6y ago

drevil-v2 6y ago

The American military that you scoff at is what gives Europe it's freedom. It did against the Nazis, against the USSR and now does against Russia and China. I just have this to say to the folks who despise the era of American power and hegemony, you are absolutely going to love the Chinese one. Good luck buddy posting similar comments about them in that world order.

justatdotin 6y ago
I just have to say to the folks whose only defence of the american militarist empire is the threat of a chinese one, you are absolutely bankrupt.

nonfinn1039 6y ago

I keep hearing this myth about that US taxpayer dollars go mostly to the military. Sure it's a big ticket item, but half of it goes to social programs: 2019 (USD): - Health and Human Services: 1,215 Trillion(27%) - Social Security: 1,101 Trillion (25%) - Department of Defense: 658 Billion (14.7%) source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

ianai 6y ago
You can’t throw social security in there since that’s actually paid into from workers. Yes it’s a Ponzi scheme-government backed. That’s not the same thing as a money pit with no revenue incoming.
- traek 6y ago
  They're all paid into by workers, taxes are taxes.
  - ianai 6y ago
    In order to withdraw from SS you must be eligible - including have had contributed to it in the past. The money is even accounted for separately from other government funds. The funds are supposed to go and have historically gone from contributor to beneficiary. It’s also not had funding problems until those funds got mishandled by past governments (congresses/presidents) and tapped for other things. First link from google: https://chomsky.info/20050601/ https://chomsky.info/20050601/
deleted 6y ago
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curun1r 6y ago
The DoD list item doesn't include the intelligence agencies, DHS, OCO, VA, defense share of debt servicing and other spending. A more honest number is $1.25 trillion [0]. [0] https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-25-trillion-national-security-state-budget/ https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-...

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Military is a big benefit and you can bet it helps Europe as well, especially countries bordering Russia between 1945 and the late 80s, including Finland. That said we (USA) are spending too much on it.

kebman 6y ago

> What matters is what the taxes give you. Indeed. Like less trust from the state in how you use your own money, and less power to decide over what to do with the money you've earned from your own hard work. Instead you are forced to trust that the government is better at allocating that money than a private company. You effectively get no choice in the matter either, except every fourth year. And that isn't even a real choice, because you're not choosing a better medical company, or a better insurance deal against joblessness when you vote. Instead you're hoping that more than 50% of the people who are eligible to vote in your country, will agree with you that the medical deal or accident insurance (and a whole swathe of other stuff, take it or leave it) offered by some politician that you like, is also liked by them. If not, then you're forced to take whatever the people—who do not have your own best interest at heart—wants instead, because they just happen to be in the majority. On top of that, you're supposed to celebrate it, and thank the guys who forced you to accept what you'd rather not have. That's what's known as a democracy, and somehow you're supposed to think that that is the pinnacle of "freedom"...