4 ms·

You will be paying for the education in the form of very high taxes for all your life, regardless of if you studied or if the quality was good or even useful (s

by seec 1y ago

You will be paying for the education in the form of very high taxes for all your life, regardless of if you studied or if the quality was good or even useful (something extremely debatable, outside of some key selective universities). I am always amazed at the quickness of some Americans with socialist sensibilities view EUs governments/systems as some panacea when they are doing pretty bad in many relevant metrics. The EUs benefit is being able to rely on centuries old infrastructure/history/culture but the modern governance is completely fucked up and largely the complete inverse of what allowed it to get there. At least in the US if you think your chances are better without a degree or that they are overpriced you can try your luck without having to pay for it your whole life. You decide. In the EU, you have no choice and chances are the money will be used inefficiently for useless studies. And this is exactly what is happening.

seanmcdirmid 1y ago
Germany’s overall tax burden (38%) isn’t much higher than the USA (25%), and it includes healthcare and better education opportunities. Germany is also the best about getting people into the trades if they don’t go to university. You can easily leave your job because your health insurance isn’t married to your employment. At any rate, most Germans aren’t envious of the American system and hardly any of them think it’s generally better. Trump is lying to you about the EU, you actually have many more choices there than you do in the USA. I really don’t get who falls for that kind of propaganda at this point, but I guess someone does.
- seec 1y ago
  Germany is definitely one of the least bad in the EU for sure. There are, however, many reasons they can get away with that and a lot of it has to do with the economic manipulations they make at the EU level. Germany does not play fair and has imposed many things to benefits itself at the expense of its (supposed) "partners". It's a bit convenient, when talking about the EU, to choose the one country that has favorable statistics because it's using its power to force laws that benefit itself. If you make an evaluation around the average, the conclusion is much worse and it wasn't even that good to begin with. With energy price probably never recovering and its industry failing I wouldn't count on Germany being able to outperform its neighbors for much longer. They'll have to create all kinds of bureaucratic bullshit jobs and raise the tax rate just like their neighbors. I never listen to Trump; I can't even stand listening to him talk because he is such a carricature. You just have a bias because of media propaganda, you seem to believe that if someone believes in freedom and personal choices, he has to be some sort of Trump supporter. So, I don't know what he is supposed to be lying about but if you believe that people have more choices in the heavily regulated bureaucratic EU you have a serious problem with reality distortion. I don't know where you pulled your numbers from but even if we accept them as is, there is a 13% difference. Which means you have influence via choices on 13% more of the value you create. And that's if we accept the very low figure for Germany which is completely wrong (it's around 50%). I don't even want to go into the psychology of your condescending remark, but you are the one failing for the propaganda of politicians. They have created more problems than anything else in the last 30-40 years but you argue that we should give them even more. Also, for your information having the "right" to "free" healthcare is not at all the same as having access to healthcare. In France, with its insane taxation regimen, there are now what they call "medical desert", places/regions where it's extremely complicated to find doctors (especially specialists) because they are not very attractive and healtcare professional don't want to come live here (no point when the price is regulated, they make same amount anywhere else). So the (often) poor people living there have "free" heathcare in theory but cannot really access it ever, so they usually don't get to fix their problems. The more fortunate (richer) can use their purchasing power to travel far and get care in some big city. There was a doctor who explained that some of his patient even take a plane to make it viable. It was an example around dentistry; meanwhile in my medium sized town, you cannot get an appointment under 6 months and that is if you find one dentist willing to take you at all. I never had any issues with my tooths but when my widsom tooths started hurting and needed an extraction, I had to call a special urgency number on sunday just to get a prescription for a spot at an hospital 50km away from where I live. I had to wait 4 month between the time tooth started hurting the operation could take place. But I guess it's fine, it was "free". Curiously this is not what I observe when I need to pay the minimum for self-employment, which conveniently you have to pay regardless of if you made any money but will also increase proportionally if you make more money. I'll stop there because it's is infinite. If there is someone falling for propaganda, it's rather you. And let's be clear, I'm not some hardcore libertarian, I believe government is important and many of it's service are essentials (especially around infrastructure). But there are many things that are preferable to let indivuals choose. This is what create a virtous loop, allowing the best behaviors to thrive and perdure. The EU has gone in the other direction and just like the soviet union it will implode one day or another and that's that.

by seec 1y ago

seanmcdirmid 1y ago

Germany’s overall tax burden (38%) isn’t much higher than the USA (25%), and it includes healthcare and better education opportunities. Germany is also the best about getting people into the trades if they don’t go to university. You can easily leave your job because your health insurance isn’t married to your employment. At any rate, most Germans aren’t envious of the American system and hardly any of them think it’s generally better. Trump is lying to you about the EU, you actually have many more choices there than you do in the USA. I really don’t get who falls for that kind of propaganda at this point, but I guess someone does.

seec 1y ago
Germany is definitely one of the least bad in the EU for sure. There are, however, many reasons they can get away with that and a lot of it has to do with the economic manipulations they make at the EU level. Germany does not play fair and has imposed many things to benefits itself at the expense of its (supposed) "partners". It's a bit convenient, when talking about the EU, to choose the one country that has favorable statistics because it's using its power to force laws that benefit itself. If you make an evaluation around the average, the conclusion is much worse and it wasn't even that good to begin with. With energy price probably never recovering and its industry failing I wouldn't count on Germany being able to outperform its neighbors for much longer. They'll have to create all kinds of bureaucratic bullshit jobs and raise the tax rate just like their neighbors. I never listen to Trump; I can't even stand listening to him talk because he is such a carricature. You just have a bias because of media propaganda, you seem to believe that if someone believes in freedom and personal choices, he has to be some sort of Trump supporter. So, I don't know what he is supposed to be lying about but if you believe that people have more choices in the heavily regulated bureaucratic EU you have a serious problem with reality distortion. I don't know where you pulled your numbers from but even if we accept them as is, there is a 13% difference. Which means you have influence via choices on 13% more of the value you create. And that's if we accept the very low figure for Germany which is completely wrong (it's around 50%). I don't even want to go into the psychology of your condescending remark, but you are the one failing for the propaganda of politicians. They have created more problems than anything else in the last 30-40 years but you argue that we should give them even more. Also, for your information having the "right" to "free" healthcare is not at all the same as having access to healthcare. In France, with its insane taxation regimen, there are now what they call "medical desert", places/regions where it's extremely complicated to find doctors (especially specialists) because they are not very attractive and healtcare professional don't want to come live here (no point when the price is regulated, they make same amount anywhere else). So the (often) poor people living there have "free" heathcare in theory but cannot really access it ever, so they usually don't get to fix their problems. The more fortunate (richer) can use their purchasing power to travel far and get care in some big city. There was a doctor who explained that some of his patient even take a plane to make it viable. It was an example around dentistry; meanwhile in my medium sized town, you cannot get an appointment under 6 months and that is if you find one dentist willing to take you at all. I never had any issues with my tooths but when my widsom tooths started hurting and needed an extraction, I had to call a special urgency number on sunday just to get a prescription for a spot at an hospital 50km away from where I live. I had to wait 4 month between the time tooth started hurting the operation could take place. But I guess it's fine, it was "free". Curiously this is not what I observe when I need to pay the minimum for self-employment, which conveniently you have to pay regardless of if you made any money but will also increase proportionally if you make more money. I'll stop there because it's is infinite. If there is someone falling for propaganda, it's rather you. And let's be clear, I'm not some hardcore libertarian, I believe government is important and many of it's service are essentials (especially around infrastructure). But there are many things that are preferable to let indivuals choose. This is what create a virtous loop, allowing the best behaviors to thrive and perdure. The EU has gone in the other direction and just like the soviet union it will implode one day or another and that's that.