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>I don’t know what it is about Europeans on American websites telling us how great it is to have 1/3 less PPP and higher taxes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li

>I don’t know what it is about Europeans on American websites telling us how great it is to have 1/3 less PPP and higher taxes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe... I don't mean to be rude but please look at that above link and understand how poor you as a citizen of USA are. It's frustrating to come from a country thats ~3X as wealthy as the USA in terms of median wealth (i'm Australian) and see the idea that higher taxes are an issue. The higher taxes are on the very wealthy. Median wealth captures this. The USA fucked up somewhere along the way and taxed the poor (those <1million a year) and this is why you are posting what you are posting. More taxes are ok if they are on the rich.

bitcharmer 6y ago
Not only that: > what it is about Europeans on American websites telling us... There's this strong sentiment among Americans that I see on social media so often these days that the Internet is somehow an American thing and we need to watch our mouths or get off their lawn.
refurb 6y ago
These figures are influenced by real estate prices, equity market prices, exchange rates, liabilities, debts, adult percentage of the population, human resources, *natural resources* and capital and technological advancements, which may create new assets or render others worthless in the future. Sorry dude, but my country’s vast stores of natural resources don’t exactly help me afford my mortgage payment next month. That list certainly doesn’t reflect the average person’s disposable wealth. I’ve lived in two of the countries that rank “higher” than the US and in no way is the average person more wealthy. Not even close. In fact I’d say the average person in one of those countries has about half the disposable wealth of the average American.
- AnotherGoodName 6y ago
  You can argue about prices in Sydney all you want but i moved from Sydney to the USA and the situation isn't any better. In fact it's a lot worse. House prices in California are just as crazy. The wealth discrepency is also more obvious. Shanty towns under bridges worse. Like the 10 or so tents you see in Sydney's hyde park don't compare to the 3 miles in San Francisco of tents. Obviously there's benefits if you're in tech to being in the USA as that's where the market is but other than that it's far worse. The insane taxation system in the USA is not helping here either. There's an obvious need for the USA to look to countries like Australia and adopt our methods of governance but the assumption that the USA is best is unfortunately preventing this change.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Who said anything about high housing costs? What I meant was my country’s vast wealth in the form of natural resources hardly helps me pay for my day to day expenses. What matters is my income and my personal, disposable wealth. Which your ranking is not measuring. That’s why you have bizarre numbers like the average Australian having 3x the wealth of Americans.
    - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
      It also doesn't measure resources. The median wealth is the assets at disposal for the average citizen. eg. if they sold their homes, cars etc. Australia has 3x the wealth which isn't bizzarre. It's new and hard to grasp for a lot of people since this has only happened since 2008. But the USA has fallen. It's fallen a lot. The typical US citizen is far far poorer than people from many other countries. This is an objective fact. It's also obvious to anyone who see's the USA in its current state. Things are bad. They need to change.
      - refurb 6y ago
        Read your link and what I quoted. It does measure natural resources and a bunch of other “wealth” that goes far beyond personal, disposable wealth. You basically referenced a link you didn’t read. And like I said, when you look at the ranking it doesn’t make sense unless they did include things beyond personal wealth. You really think the average Spaniard is wealthier than the average Norweagean?
        ericmay 6y ago
        Agree completely. I think these numbers look more realistic as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... Sorry for the "downvotes are the disagree button" that you are experiencing for raising good and interesting discussion points, and frankly calling out misleading numbers that were posted. I didn't know that the average German was worse off and poorer than the average person from Greece (I guess finally the wealth transfer from Germany to Greece is being reflected in the numbers! - kidding, kind of).
ericmay 6y ago
“Look at this link to see how poor you are” What am I reading? No wonder the OP is frustrated. Rightfully so. Just because the median citizen is “only” in the top 25 countries in the world, doesn’t mean that what the OP said is incorrect. It’s also difficult to do proper comparisons. Notice anything out of the ordinary in that list? Check out the population of the countries. Of course Australians are wealthy, they live on a continent nearly the size of the US with the population of L.A. county. That’s a lot of resources to go around for a small number of people. I echo the OP in the constant anti-American sentiment I find on the internet being frustrating. “Your healthcare sucks, your taxes suck, look at how poor you are because of this chart”. A lot of that doesn’t even reflect reality for many people. Let’s talk about healthcare. My experience in healthcare is I schedule an appointment at the university medical center, get extremely high quality care, and that’s that. I pay $0 for co-pays, or for medicine. Other people with health insurance can do that too. Obviously we have a healthcare problem in the U.S., which is why even to my own personal detriment I support UHC, but the experience people have in the U.S. varies widely. The U.S. government is responsible for like 70% of U.S. healthcare expenditures. Ask yourself, why does the U.S. make citizens file taxes if they live abroad? I wonder if it has anything to do with people becoming massively wealthy and then conveniently living in another nearby country so they don’t have to pay taxes? Or maybe someone works at a company and that company can just relocate them somewhere cheap so they can avoid taxes? I’m not sure, but I hear a lot of “people in America need to pay taxes” but then they also get mad when the government makes people living in other countries pay income taxes. Why should it matter if you live in Japan as an American? You’re still a citizen. If you don’t want to pay taxes then give up your citizenship. How are we supposed to pay for healthcare for example if we allow lots of people to exempt themselves? And the U.S. exempts the first $108,000 of that income. What’s the big deal? That you have to report it? How can we fight corruption if we don’t even make people report their income?
iso1210 6y ago
Australia's tax burden is 27.8% of GDP USA's tax burden is 27.1% of GDP Not an enormous difference.
- AnotherGoodName 6y ago
  The tax brackets are the point i'm making. Australia literally has 0% for the lowest bracket whereas the USA starts at 10% even on the lowest wage earners. The difference is made up for in the higher brackets. This boosts median wealth for a nation whilst it doesn't affect the average wealth per person. Having the median wealth higher so that there's a functioning middle class is a good thing.
  - iso1210 6y ago
    Aus median wage AUD89,000, tax on that seems to be $20,472.00 - 23%, plus $1780 medicare US median wage USD49,764, Fed + CA tax is $9,611.02 - 19% Median wage in Australia is far higher than in America seems more important than the tax rate at the 50th percentile
1996 6y ago
> The USA fucked up somewhere along the way and taxed the poor (those <1million a year) and this is why you are posting what you are posting. More taxes are ok if they are on the rich Speak for yourself! I prefer not to be taxed, so I'd rather have the poor taxed than the rich.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

bitcharmer 6y ago

Not only that: > what it is about Europeans on American websites telling us... There's this strong sentiment among Americans that I see on social media so often these days that the Internet is somehow an American thing and we need to watch our mouths or get off their lawn.

refurb 6y ago

These figures are influenced by real estate prices, equity market prices, exchange rates, liabilities, debts, adult percentage of the population, human resources, *natural resources* and capital and technological advancements, which may create new assets or render others worthless in the future. Sorry dude, but my country’s vast stores of natural resources don’t exactly help me afford my mortgage payment next month. That list certainly doesn’t reflect the average person’s disposable wealth. I’ve lived in two of the countries that rank “higher” than the US and in no way is the average person more wealthy. Not even close. In fact I’d say the average person in one of those countries has about half the disposable wealth of the average American.

AnotherGoodName 6y ago
You can argue about prices in Sydney all you want but i moved from Sydney to the USA and the situation isn't any better. In fact it's a lot worse. House prices in California are just as crazy. The wealth discrepency is also more obvious. Shanty towns under bridges worse. Like the 10 or so tents you see in Sydney's hyde park don't compare to the 3 miles in San Francisco of tents. Obviously there's benefits if you're in tech to being in the USA as that's where the market is but other than that it's far worse. The insane taxation system in the USA is not helping here either. There's an obvious need for the USA to look to countries like Australia and adopt our methods of governance but the assumption that the USA is best is unfortunately preventing this change.
- refurb 6y ago
  Who said anything about high housing costs? What I meant was my country’s vast wealth in the form of natural resources hardly helps me pay for my day to day expenses. What matters is my income and my personal, disposable wealth. Which your ranking is not measuring. That’s why you have bizarre numbers like the average Australian having 3x the wealth of Americans.
  - AnotherGoodName 6y ago
    It also doesn't measure resources. The median wealth is the assets at disposal for the average citizen. eg. if they sold their homes, cars etc. Australia has 3x the wealth which isn't bizzarre. It's new and hard to grasp for a lot of people since this has only happened since 2008. But the USA has fallen. It's fallen a lot. The typical US citizen is far far poorer than people from many other countries. This is an objective fact. It's also obvious to anyone who see's the USA in its current state. Things are bad. They need to change.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Read your link and what I quoted. It does measure natural resources and a bunch of other “wealth” that goes far beyond personal, disposable wealth. You basically referenced a link you didn’t read. And like I said, when you look at the ranking it doesn’t make sense unless they did include things beyond personal wealth. You really think the average Spaniard is wealthier than the average Norweagean?
      - ericmay 6y ago
        Agree completely. I think these numbers look more realistic as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... Sorry for the "downvotes are the disagree button" that you are experiencing for raising good and interesting discussion points, and frankly calling out misleading numbers that were posted. I didn't know that the average German was worse off and poorer than the average person from Greece (I guess finally the wealth transfer from Germany to Greece is being reflected in the numbers! - kidding, kind of).

ericmay 6y ago

“Look at this link to see how poor you are” What am I reading? No wonder the OP is frustrated. Rightfully so. Just because the median citizen is “only” in the top 25 countries in the world, doesn’t mean that what the OP said is incorrect. It’s also difficult to do proper comparisons. Notice anything out of the ordinary in that list? Check out the population of the countries. Of course Australians are wealthy, they live on a continent nearly the size of the US with the population of L.A. county. That’s a lot of resources to go around for a small number of people. I echo the OP in the constant anti-American sentiment I find on the internet being frustrating. “Your healthcare sucks, your taxes suck, look at how poor you are because of this chart”. A lot of that doesn’t even reflect reality for many people. Let’s talk about healthcare. My experience in healthcare is I schedule an appointment at the university medical center, get extremely high quality care, and that’s that. I pay $0 for co-pays, or for medicine. Other people with health insurance can do that too. Obviously we have a healthcare problem in the U.S., which is why even to my own personal detriment I support UHC, but the experience people have in the U.S. varies widely. The U.S. government is responsible for like 70% of U.S. healthcare expenditures. Ask yourself, why does the U.S. make citizens file taxes if they live abroad? I wonder if it has anything to do with people becoming massively wealthy and then conveniently living in another nearby country so they don’t have to pay taxes? Or maybe someone works at a company and that company can just relocate them somewhere cheap so they can avoid taxes? I’m not sure, but I hear a lot of “people in America need to pay taxes” but then they also get mad when the government makes people living in other countries pay income taxes. Why should it matter if you live in Japan as an American? You’re still a citizen. If you don’t want to pay taxes then give up your citizenship. How are we supposed to pay for healthcare for example if we allow lots of people to exempt themselves? And the U.S. exempts the first $108,000 of that income. What’s the big deal? That you have to report it? How can we fight corruption if we don’t even make people report their income?

iso1210 6y ago

Australia's tax burden is 27.8% of GDP USA's tax burden is 27.1% of GDP Not an enormous difference.

AnotherGoodName 6y ago
The tax brackets are the point i'm making. Australia literally has 0% for the lowest bracket whereas the USA starts at 10% even on the lowest wage earners. The difference is made up for in the higher brackets. This boosts median wealth for a nation whilst it doesn't affect the average wealth per person. Having the median wealth higher so that there's a functioning middle class is a good thing.
- iso1210 6y ago
  Aus median wage AUD89,000, tax on that seems to be $20,472.00 - 23%, plus $1780 medicare US median wage USD49,764, Fed + CA tax is $9,611.02 - 19% Median wage in Australia is far higher than in America seems more important than the tax rate at the 50th percentile

1996 6y ago

> The USA fucked up somewhere along the way and taxed the poor (those <1million a year) and this is why you are posting what you are posting. More taxes are ok if they are on the rich Speak for yourself! I prefer not to be taxed, so I'd rather have the poor taxed than the rich.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]