> What does that even mean? What's the difference between paying for something or having the cost fall on ones shoulder's? The difference is that you get it ei

> What does that even mean? What's the difference between paying for something or having the cost fall on ones shoulder's? The difference is that you get it either way and only really pay the cost back if you make over a certain amount of money. And there's absolutely nothing stopping you from never paying back that "fair share". You can just decide that taking long walks in nature beats making more money (and thus, paying more taxes). Not a problem for you, but the government can't exactly slap a VAT on that to pay for all the public services you consume. > The difference in salaries between the Bay Area and Europe is really big, although I don't think it holds for most of the rest of the US. Not just "Europe" - we're not comparing SF compensation with rural Bulgaria here - we're talking about European cities with the highest salaries (and highest COL, on average).