7 ms·

In Germany, it's not the social system per se but it's aoparent utter ineffectiveness. We're paying more and more every year but the state/public system seems t

In Germany, it's not the social system per se but it's aoparent utter ineffectiveness. We're paying more and more every year but the state/public system seems to fail everywhere and worse so than the year before. It's like the money is completely sucked up by some unproductive black hole. And no, it's not because of reduced taxation from rich to working class, or missing taxes on property or some other policy. These policies didn't change that much in the last decade or two. Yet throughout the last decade the state and social security systems had record income, record levels of employment and managed to run down pretty much every part of the public system from education, over healthcare to defense. The money just vanished. I am very much convinced that Germany as a whole doesn't have an income problem, but a spending problem.

M3L0NM4N 3y ago
That is, in my opinion, by far the strongest argument for lower taxes. The money we (the US) do spend in education/healthcare/infrastructure is already poorly utilized, why would we want to spend more and end up like that? To simplify it dramatically with an example, I'd rather pay $3 on the toll road and $50k for a surgery myself than pay $10 in taxes towards the road and $100k in taxes towards the healthcare system but receive both of them for "free". I understand the advantages of a social safety net, I do. But misappropriation of someone's hard-earned money is frustrating as well.
- mullingitover 3y ago
  Private companies can certainly hold their own when it comes to waste and incompetence. Government doesn’t have a monopoly on these things.
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    Companies certainly can be wasteful and incompetent. But at least they won't put you in prison if you decide not to buy their product.
  - M3L0NM4N 3y ago
    Agreed, but private companies also face competition (which incentivizes as little waste as possible) that the government does not.
    - mullingitover 3y ago
      Competition over the past couple decades is less and less of a factor for private companies, however[1]. [1] https://hbr.org/2018/03/is-lack-of-competition-strangling-the-u-s-economy https://hbr.org/2018/03/is-lack-of-competition-strangling-th...
      - nickpp 3y ago
        The harder it is to create a startup in an area, the less competition you’ll have there. Things like regulation and labor protection laws have the unfortunate side effect of discouraging founders to embark in the "startup adventure".
  - dantheman 3y ago
    Clearly you've never worked in the government.
    - mullingitover 3y ago
      No, but both my parents spent their careers working in the VA system, which routinely trounces private health care in measures of efficiency.
  - pfannkuchen 3y ago
    If they do that for long enough though they go out of business. There is not really an equivalent to going out of business in government, or at least the bar is much higher for it to happen (I.e. violent revolution).
    - mullingitover 3y ago
      > There is not really an equivalent to going out of business in government, or at least the bar is much higher for it to happen (I.e. violent revolution) There's absolutely an equivalent, publicly elected officials lose re-election campaigns all the time.
      - pfannkuchen 3y ago
        Is a failed government policy generally stopped and corrected by an electoral change in practice? In my experience this almost never happens. Whereas if a company goes under, whatever failed action it was taking just stops happening. Not equivalent IMO.
        prottog 3y ago
        Agreed. There is very rarely a sober look back on any government policy to see if it actually met the objectives it set out to achieve, and at what cost.
  - missedthecue 3y ago
    If a private company wastes too much, it eventually goes out of business. If a government entity wastes too much money, their budget is increased for the next fiscal year. There is no feedback loop to govern the waste.
- RangerScience 3y ago
  Having or not having the money to spend doesn't really seem to be a real factor in whether or not it's spent well. See: Everything you just talked about and cost-plus contracts. The US demonstrates both.
  - M3L0NM4N 3y ago
    I agree. Tax rates are a bit of a moot point when money printer go brrr.
- Animatronio 3y ago
  Yes, but suppose there's a "road company" you'd have to pay a toll to. Obviously they love profit margins and since they're a monopoly (they own the road) the toll would soon balloon to $20 then $35 then $100.
  - ghiculescu 3y ago
    Then don’t take the road. You can’t opt out of high taxes.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      And do what, fly?
      - carlmr 3y ago
        Let them eat cake!
        hef19898 3y ago
        While flying in the skys above the poor plebs in one those soon-to-come eVTOLs?
      - MichaelZuo 3y ago
        Every medium sized city, and above, in the mainland U.S. is serviced by multiple highways. I highly doubt either any future city government would allow all the highways to be converted to privately owned toll roads.
  - userabchn 3y ago
    I think landowners should declare a value for their property, that is used for taxation, but also allows anyone to immediately buy the land from you at that price. This would allow rival road companies to quickly purchase the land necessary to build an alternative road. Such wasteful duplication would rarely happen in practice, though, because the knowledge that they do not have a guaranteed monopoly, that another company can build an alternative road if they charge exorbitant fees, will keep the charge to use the road reasonable.
- Demoloto 3y ago
  You would never had the chance in the first place to earn this kind of money if it wouldn't be for the society. Roads, education, healthcare etc. Also other people work as hard as you do. And you know of course it's better for you obviously but only as long as you are part of that group. There is a reason why people do gofundmes after they can't work anymore. And the riots etc? Guess what social injustice increases either your life risk or the money you spend of protecting you.
  - M3L0NM4N 3y ago
    I just presented an argument for a specific case. I think you read a little too much into it.
- deeviant 3y ago
  So because the government is perceived to be bad at stuff, we should instead redistribute (an even greater part of) the wealth to rich people, because they do a really good job bring societal good with their piles of gold?
  - throwaway8582 3y ago
    Lowering taxes and allowing people to keep their own money qualifies as "redistribution" now?
    - Demoloto 3y ago
      Yes. Guess who is profiting from higher taxes? Poorer people. Who has most from low taxes? Rich. And yes I know I know hn also has plenty of fang people
- lesuorac 3y ago
  > I'd rather pay $3 on the toll road and $50k for a surgery myself than pay $10 in taxes towards the road and $100k in taxes towards the healthcare system but receive both of them for "free". That would be a nice scenario to choose to be in. However, the US _government_ pretty much spends more per-person than those countries with a social net [1]. So in reality, you're paying those taxes of those social countries and also getting to pay private insurance ontop of that. Although current taxes are lower than the social countries since the government's expenditures are debt financed but if the USG were to stop they'd have to raise taxes to pay it with revenue and then you'll be really wondering why you're paying the same in taxes as the EU and not getting EU benefits. [1]: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.GHED.PP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.GHED.PP.CD?most_...
  - M3L0NM4N 3y ago
    Healthcare is its own issue in the US, as I think the general populous is on average a good bit unhealthier than the average Norwegian, for example. I think it's a combination of poor health education (which also goes back to spending) and culture.
    - sharemywin 3y ago
      but it's all connected. - cities designed around cars - bad worker protection laws - corporate welfare first before human welfare - monopolies driving up prices.
      - missedthecue 3y ago
        US cities were based around cars in 1990. But today, the thinnest state (Colorado) is heavier on average than the fattest state in 1990 (Mississippi, also today's national leader) Walking is obviously better than not walking, but something other than cars is to blame for the ballooning of the American public. 75% of America is either overweight or obese right now. That alone puts you at risk for about a million health issues and diseases.
- davidw 3y ago
  The IRS recently got a significant amount of funding, and call times went down by a lot. There are certainly inefficiencies out there, and we should always be trying to root them out, but sometimes if you starve an organization of funding, it doesn't perform very well. Shocker!
- Invictus0 3y ago
  No libertarians in a bank run
- usefulcat 3y ago
  For a fair comparison of health care costs, you would need to know how much that $50K surgery would cost the German government. US health care costs are notoriously high.
- zamnos 3y ago
  As long as we're making up numbers though, I'd rather pay $3 for surgery and $3 for road taxes and then have the state pay me $50k in unemployment while I'm recovering from surgery. The reason we have to make people miserable is because of cries about inflation if we just give poor people money but it turns out greedy white collar crimial capitalists are really the root cause. If the last couple of years proved anything, it's that money is all made up. It doesn't mean anything, like points on HN or Reddit karma. You happen to be able to use money to trade for goods and services, but outside of that, it's a made up numbers game, like Monopoly.
- jasonlotito 3y ago
  Historically, we've had lower taxes for decades now. https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/ https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-bracke... So, you'd have to show that since, let's say 1940, the QoL of Americans has improved as a direct result of lower taxes. We should be able to look at things like salary, cost of living such as price of homes, education, and food all improving against inflation. So, unless you can do that, your argument for lower taxes is baseless and without merit. > But misappropriation of someone's hard-earned money is frustrating as well. Hard-earned money that is earned because of the society supported by the taxes that person pays. Without that society, you would not be earning the same amount. No hard-earned money is earned by an individual in the US.
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  Well, if you understood what we already spent on healthcare you'd know that we spend more per capita than everyone and we have an entire industry whose whole existence is siphoning off their cut of profit from every little transaction. So yeah, I'd rather have single payer healthcare, and we can just fire all of the leeches.
- vkou 3y ago
  > The money we (the US) do spend in education/healthcare/infrastructure is already poorly utilized, why would we want to spend more and end up like that? The whole point of a single-payer system is that you will spend less, by virtue of the government using its single-buyer negotiating power to push down prices. And also by virtue of firing all the useless parasites and middlemen that create, consume, and shuffle the mountains of paperwork that surround US health insurance, advertising, billing, etc. Unsurprisingly, these middle-men don't look kindly upon being eliminated, and have somehow convinced half the country that if it weren't for their heroic efforts, grandma would never get a cardiac shunt, and that the world would literally end if Medicare was actually allowed to negotiate drug prices.
helge9210 3y ago
> It's like the money is completely sucked up by some unproductive black hole. It feels like this is the main goal.
Demoloto 3y ago
I disagree and don't have this feeling. Do you actually have any sources for this?
christkv 3y ago
It would not surprise me if there has been an explosion of administration instead of actual people delivering services.
- helge9210 3y ago
  > people delivering services This is a misunderstanding. These people are not "delivering service". They are doing "governance and administration". And administration size on Germany is acting like a ratchet: growing sometimes, but never shrinking.
m0llusk 3y ago
[flagged]
- Demoloto 3y ago
  If you talk about Germany, you do know that the last akws only contributed 5%?
sharemywin 3y ago
The problem isn't spending it's the effectiveness of it. The last thing that you want to do is have the government cut spending because it doesn't get rid of the corruption it just cuts the stuff that helps people.
missedthecue 3y ago
There's this really bad logic that seems to govern social spending everywhere, and it states that if a program doesn't work very well, the problem is obviously inadequate funding so increase that. Over and over and over. The end result is this black hole you talk about, endlessly sucking up money. No one stops to ask why the program or government office doesn't do it's job well, the issue is funding!

M3L0NM4N 3y ago

That is, in my opinion, by far the strongest argument for lower taxes. The money we (the US) do spend in education/healthcare/infrastructure is already poorly utilized, why would we want to spend more and end up like that? To simplify it dramatically with an example, I'd rather pay $3 on the toll road and $50k for a surgery myself than pay $10 in taxes towards the road and $100k in taxes towards the healthcare system but receive both of them for "free". I understand the advantages of a social safety net, I do. But misappropriation of someone's hard-earned money is frustrating as well.

mullingitover 3y ago
Private companies can certainly hold their own when it comes to waste and incompetence. Government doesn’t have a monopoly on these things.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  Companies certainly can be wasteful and incompetent. But at least they won't put you in prison if you decide not to buy their product.
- M3L0NM4N 3y ago
  Agreed, but private companies also face competition (which incentivizes as little waste as possible) that the government does not.
  - mullingitover 3y ago
    Competition over the past couple decades is less and less of a factor for private companies, however[1]. [1] https://hbr.org/2018/03/is-lack-of-competition-strangling-the-u-s-economy https://hbr.org/2018/03/is-lack-of-competition-strangling-th...
    - nickpp 3y ago
      The harder it is to create a startup in an area, the less competition you’ll have there. Things like regulation and labor protection laws have the unfortunate side effect of discouraging founders to embark in the "startup adventure".
- dantheman 3y ago
  Clearly you've never worked in the government.
  - mullingitover 3y ago
    No, but both my parents spent their careers working in the VA system, which routinely trounces private health care in measures of efficiency.
- pfannkuchen 3y ago
  If they do that for long enough though they go out of business. There is not really an equivalent to going out of business in government, or at least the bar is much higher for it to happen (I.e. violent revolution).
  - mullingitover 3y ago
    > There is not really an equivalent to going out of business in government, or at least the bar is much higher for it to happen (I.e. violent revolution) There's absolutely an equivalent, publicly elected officials lose re-election campaigns all the time.
    - pfannkuchen 3y ago
      Is a failed government policy generally stopped and corrected by an electoral change in practice? In my experience this almost never happens. Whereas if a company goes under, whatever failed action it was taking just stops happening. Not equivalent IMO.
      - prottog 3y ago
        Agreed. There is very rarely a sober look back on any government policy to see if it actually met the objectives it set out to achieve, and at what cost.
- missedthecue 3y ago
  If a private company wastes too much, it eventually goes out of business. If a government entity wastes too much money, their budget is increased for the next fiscal year. There is no feedback loop to govern the waste.
RangerScience 3y ago
Having or not having the money to spend doesn't really seem to be a real factor in whether or not it's spent well. See: Everything you just talked about and cost-plus contracts. The US demonstrates both.
- M3L0NM4N 3y ago
  I agree. Tax rates are a bit of a moot point when money printer go brrr.
Animatronio 3y ago
Yes, but suppose there's a "road company" you'd have to pay a toll to. Obviously they love profit margins and since they're a monopoly (they own the road) the toll would soon balloon to $20 then $35 then $100.
- ghiculescu 3y ago
  Then don’t take the road. You can’t opt out of high taxes.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    And do what, fly?
    - carlmr 3y ago
      Let them eat cake!
      - hef19898 3y ago
        While flying in the skys above the poor plebs in one those soon-to-come eVTOLs?
    - MichaelZuo 3y ago
      Every medium sized city, and above, in the mainland U.S. is serviced by multiple highways. I highly doubt either any future city government would allow all the highways to be converted to privately owned toll roads.
- userabchn 3y ago
  I think landowners should declare a value for their property, that is used for taxation, but also allows anyone to immediately buy the land from you at that price. This would allow rival road companies to quickly purchase the land necessary to build an alternative road. Such wasteful duplication would rarely happen in practice, though, because the knowledge that they do not have a guaranteed monopoly, that another company can build an alternative road if they charge exorbitant fees, will keep the charge to use the road reasonable.
Demoloto 3y ago
You would never had the chance in the first place to earn this kind of money if it wouldn't be for the society. Roads, education, healthcare etc. Also other people work as hard as you do. And you know of course it's better for you obviously but only as long as you are part of that group. There is a reason why people do gofundmes after they can't work anymore. And the riots etc? Guess what social injustice increases either your life risk or the money you spend of protecting you.
- M3L0NM4N 3y ago
  I just presented an argument for a specific case. I think you read a little too much into it.
deeviant 3y ago
So because the government is perceived to be bad at stuff, we should instead redistribute (an even greater part of) the wealth to rich people, because they do a really good job bring societal good with their piles of gold?
- throwaway8582 3y ago
  Lowering taxes and allowing people to keep their own money qualifies as "redistribution" now?
  - Demoloto 3y ago
    Yes. Guess who is profiting from higher taxes? Poorer people. Who has most from low taxes? Rich. And yes I know I know hn also has plenty of fang people
lesuorac 3y ago
> I'd rather pay $3 on the toll road and $50k for a surgery myself than pay $10 in taxes towards the road and $100k in taxes towards the healthcare system but receive both of them for "free". That would be a nice scenario to choose to be in. However, the US _government_ pretty much spends more per-person than those countries with a social net [1]. So in reality, you're paying those taxes of those social countries and also getting to pay private insurance ontop of that. Although current taxes are lower than the social countries since the government's expenditures are debt financed but if the USG were to stop they'd have to raise taxes to pay it with revenue and then you'll be really wondering why you're paying the same in taxes as the EU and not getting EU benefits. [1]: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.GHED.PP.CD?most_recent_value_desc=true https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.GHED.PP.CD?most_...
- M3L0NM4N 3y ago
  Healthcare is its own issue in the US, as I think the general populous is on average a good bit unhealthier than the average Norwegian, for example. I think it's a combination of poor health education (which also goes back to spending) and culture.
  - sharemywin 3y ago
    but it's all connected. - cities designed around cars - bad worker protection laws - corporate welfare first before human welfare - monopolies driving up prices.
    - missedthecue 3y ago
      US cities were based around cars in 1990. But today, the thinnest state (Colorado) is heavier on average than the fattest state in 1990 (Mississippi, also today's national leader) Walking is obviously better than not walking, but something other than cars is to blame for the ballooning of the American public. 75% of America is either overweight or obese right now. That alone puts you at risk for about a million health issues and diseases.
davidw 3y ago
The IRS recently got a significant amount of funding, and call times went down by a lot. There are certainly inefficiencies out there, and we should always be trying to root them out, but sometimes if you starve an organization of funding, it doesn't perform very well. Shocker!
Invictus0 3y ago
No libertarians in a bank run
usefulcat 3y ago
For a fair comparison of health care costs, you would need to know how much that $50K surgery would cost the German government. US health care costs are notoriously high.
zamnos 3y ago
As long as we're making up numbers though, I'd rather pay $3 for surgery and $3 for road taxes and then have the state pay me $50k in unemployment while I'm recovering from surgery. The reason we have to make people miserable is because of cries about inflation if we just give poor people money but it turns out greedy white collar crimial capitalists are really the root cause. If the last couple of years proved anything, it's that money is all made up. It doesn't mean anything, like points on HN or Reddit karma. You happen to be able to use money to trade for goods and services, but outside of that, it's a made up numbers game, like Monopoly.
jasonlotito 3y ago
Historically, we've had lower taxes for decades now. https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/ https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-bracke... So, you'd have to show that since, let's say 1940, the QoL of Americans has improved as a direct result of lower taxes. We should be able to look at things like salary, cost of living such as price of homes, education, and food all improving against inflation. So, unless you can do that, your argument for lower taxes is baseless and without merit. > But misappropriation of someone's hard-earned money is frustrating as well. Hard-earned money that is earned because of the society supported by the taxes that person pays. Without that society, you would not be earning the same amount. No hard-earned money is earned by an individual in the US.
wing-_-nuts 3y ago
Well, if you understood what we already spent on healthcare you'd know that we spend more per capita than everyone and we have an entire industry whose whole existence is siphoning off their cut of profit from every little transaction. So yeah, I'd rather have single payer healthcare, and we can just fire all of the leeches.
vkou 3y ago
> The money we (the US) do spend in education/healthcare/infrastructure is already poorly utilized, why would we want to spend more and end up like that? The whole point of a single-payer system is that you will spend less, by virtue of the government using its single-buyer negotiating power to push down prices. And also by virtue of firing all the useless parasites and middlemen that create, consume, and shuffle the mountains of paperwork that surround US health insurance, advertising, billing, etc. Unsurprisingly, these middle-men don't look kindly upon being eliminated, and have somehow convinced half the country that if it weren't for their heroic efforts, grandma would never get a cardiac shunt, and that the world would literally end if Medicare was actually allowed to negotiate drug prices.

helge9210 3y ago

> It's like the money is completely sucked up by some unproductive black hole. It feels like this is the main goal.

Demoloto 3y ago

I disagree and don't have this feeling. Do you actually have any sources for this?

christkv 3y ago

It would not surprise me if there has been an explosion of administration instead of actual people delivering services.

helge9210 3y ago
> people delivering services This is a misunderstanding. These people are not "delivering service". They are doing "governance and administration". And administration size on Germany is acting like a ratchet: growing sometimes, but never shrinking.

m0llusk 3y ago

[flagged]

Demoloto 3y ago
If you talk about Germany, you do know that the last akws only contributed 5%?

sharemywin 3y ago

The problem isn't spending it's the effectiveness of it. The last thing that you want to do is have the government cut spending because it doesn't get rid of the corruption it just cuts the stuff that helps people.

missedthecue 3y ago

There's this really bad logic that seems to govern social spending everywhere, and it states that if a program doesn't work very well, the problem is obviously inadequate funding so increase that. Over and over and over. The end result is this black hole you talk about, endlessly sucking up money. No one stops to ask why the program or government office doesn't do it's job well, the issue is funding!