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Topic: What do you guys think about these tax percentages? (Read 9293 times)
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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The Architect
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Why don't you Americans worry a bit more about what you are spending money on instead? Like here for example, is a price comparison of some pharmaceutical drugs in different countries: 
This graph will change in the next few years, because this is one of the major issues Trump has taken on for correction. I don't agree with everything he says and does, but this one I do. I pay insane insurance premiums so Europeans can have government subsidized health care. And why do I care? Because if I live simply and don't waste money, my wife can stay home with the kids. If my tax burden is high, then she has to neglect our children to pay taxes to give benefits to others. That's wrong. We eat well, we exercise, we work at it and we are healthy; why should we get another job to pay for others' bad lifestyle choices?
Globalism is good?
We Americans have corruption in our government, like everyone else in the world. The big worry for larger governments, like the EU or a global government, is that there is no check on their power. People falsely compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, as if you were some sort of madman intent on killing off political dissenters and racial subgroups. If he really were, then you would be glad that there is no global government for him to rule. Having multiple countries keeps human avarice in check. The day we have a global, unified government is the day that someone can exert their power unchecked.
Moving on, we have a heavily divided society here. Our elections are split along a nonsensical two-party line: factions within each group bitterly disagree, but are always lumped together. Our news reporting is comprised almost entirely of people who sympathize with one of those groups, and the world gets a distorted view of American opinion. Our politics aren't black and white just because we have two parties. Think about your own politics, and you'll realize that the reporting on American politics is silly.
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« Last Edit: February 07, 2017, 06:04:27 pm by The Architect »
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Zanthius
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This graph illustrates an important fact that most socialistic governments ignore: America underwrites your lifestyle. Your healthcare runs on American money and innovation, and you don't know it. The US provides the funding for all of it. Because European governments create artificial price ceilings, there is no money to develop new medicine and medical techniques. The US has a free market, and so the drug companies raise our costs to pay for research and innovations. Our insurance costs increase yearly because we are the only ones pulling our weight. You need to know this, and stop looking down your noses at the ones who find your lifestyle.
Actually, 2 of the 3 biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world are Swiss (Novartis and Roche). Pfizer (the second biggest) is American. In the United States (in particular), the pharmaceutical companies use a lot of money on commercials. In some European countries there are much stricter rules for pharmaceutical commercials, and pharmaceutical companies might therefore have a lower commercial expenditure in Europe. It is also better if medical professionals use meta studies to determine which drugs to give to their patients, rather than being influenced by commercials from the pharmaceutical companies. Commercialization of pharmaceutical opioids is a very sad story in the US:
Development of new pharmaceutical drugs is insanely expensive today, mostly because of requirements to clinical trials.
But since pharmaceutical companies often neglect to publish negative results, the public is nevertheless often mislead about the efficiency/safety of drugs. You can read more about this in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead-Patients/dp/0865478066/.
It would be much better if the government tested the efficiency/safety of drugs from our tax money, because the pharmaceutical companies cannot be trusted to do that themselves. That would also make it much cheaper for new developers to produce drugs.
I pay insane insurance premiums so Europeans can have government subsidized health care.
I think you actually pay much more to your doctors and people high up in Pfizer and Swiss pharmaceutical companies that already are filthy rich.
As a linux user, I have a more general critique of your reasoning. Bill Gates is one of the richest individuals in the world today, but I still think linux is a superior operational system. Has Bill Gates and all the people paying for windows somehow also contributed to the formation of Linux? Not so much. I think they have payed lots of money for Windows mostly to increase the development of Microsoft products and to make Bill Gates filthy rich. I might still have Linux, even if Bill Gates and Windows never existed. In a similar way, Europe might be able to sustain much of itself, even if the United States never existed. Innovation doesn't necessarily need to be overly capitalistic.
The only thing I might agree to, is that the United States has payed much more for NATO than Europe. But what does that help now that you have voted a Putin supporter to your president? I doubt that Angela Merkel and other European leaders trust American military aid in a hypothetical confrontation with Russia right now, and Angela Merkel has agreed that Germany will increase its military. One of the reasons why Germany hasn't developed a large military, is because the US and other European countries didn't want it to develop a large military after the second world war. Not necessarily because it didn't want to spend money on its military.
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« Last Edit: February 08, 2017, 12:21:13 am by Zanthius »
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Krulle
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*Hurghi*! Krulle is *spitting* again!
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Why don't you Americans worry a bit more about what you are spending money on instead? Like here for example, is a price comparison of some pharmaceutical drugs in different countries: This graph illustrates an important fact that most socialistic governments ignore: America underwrites your lifestyle. Your healthcare runs on American money and innovation, and you don't know it. The US provides the funding for all of it. Because European governments create artificial price ceilings, there is no money to develop new medicine and medical techniques. The US has a free market, and so the drug companies raise our costs to pay for research and innovations. Our insurance costs increase yearly because we are the only ones pulling our weight. You need to know this, and stop looking down your noses at the ones who find your lifestyle.
-in the US, the cost for litigation is such, that any pharmacy company needs piles of cash set aside in case anyone dies although he only used the recommended dose of the medication.
This does not exist in Europe.
- due to private insurance only, many medications are only available for very few people in the US. Despite the US being such a big market, many expensive drugs do get sold in the US only sporadically, whereas in Europe they are sold on a very regular basis. This scaling also makes Europe much cheaper for the drug maker, while still earning comparatively the same profits. (so instead of reducing health care, you should increase the US health care to compensate for this).
There are far more reasons. But if you find that the US is subsidizing European health markets (besides the US companies making tons of profits on the European market), then introduce a health care act that prohibits companies from selling drugs in the US at a higher price than G7 or G20 countries average.
(Also, the graph you cite is slanted. It uses in Europe only the public health care act prices, whereas many patients (like myself) have to pay a higher price, as I am privately insured and my medication does not fall under limitations of the German public health care medication price ceiling act. Yet, the price of my medication is only about 10% higher than for the public health care insured patients.)
And if you were subsidizing, that would mean the companies would make a loss in Europe. Why do they not stop selling here, then?
There are far more reasons than just the health care acts limiting prices. Actually, what most price ceiling acts do, is limiting the doctors to prescribing the active ingredient, so that the pharmacy can give you cheaper generic instead of the full-priced brand-name. To be able to compete, the brand-name drugs keep their prices within ranges of the generic makers (except in the first exclusive years).
That way, doctors can not prescribe drug XY, but they actually prescribe the active ingredient, and the marketing of the big pharmaceutics on the docs is lost. So they do not spend billions on marketing (millions are still spent, though).
(In very rare circumstances, docs can still prescribe the specific drug, but they need to give reasons. E.g. generic drug user often use cheaper filling stuff Z, where patient has shown allergic symptoms - but there needs to be a medical reason - the doc can loose his approbation if he provides no or a false reason.)
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