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as soon as it is pointed out that in those countries, especially Switzerland, the less you make the higher the effective ta rate you pay, the promoters go silent.
I won't go silent. The effective minimum wage in those countries is ~$20/hr. They also get massive public benefits (college, healthcare, unemployment, pensions). They are much better off in spite of higher taxes, and their gini coefficient is much lower after taxes than it is in the US.
I have seen this argument over at the political board, the flip side that seem to always be forgotten is that the countries with the highest taxes AND most happiness ALSO have very regressive tax structures. One example always asked at the political board is why can't we have taxation/redistribution/social programs like Norway/Sweeden and Switzerland, as soon as it is pointed out that in those countries, especially Switzerland, the less you make the higher the effective ta rate you pay, the promoters go silent.
Europe has taken care to assure that the middle and working classes are paid well enough to be able to afford the taxes needed to pay for their own support programs. In the US, we have not done that. Here, the wealthy are now the only people who can afford to pay for the support programs needed by the middle and working classes, and they are unsurprisingly reluctant to do so.
There are some very solid indicators that show where we are in the current economic cycle. In this article https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/04/...orks-taxation/ we see that whenever Federal tax receipts reach the 18% divided by GDP, it becomes an unsustainable burden on the economy and is followed by recession. Retail sales and industrial production are also falling, as are commodities.
The other really telling economic indicator is debt. it is not only troubling that debt is rising to pre 2007 levels, but to look at what that debt is buying.
We are looking at some very sobering problems going forward with the most serious being the very real prospect that jobs will continue to diminish in the US due to the Trans Pacific Partnership which will expand on the offshoring of American jobs combined with automation which is still in its infancy and promises to eliminate jobs at a faster pace going forward.
If you liked the past 10 years then the future holds more of the same. More income and wealth disparity and less opportunity and lower living standards for the lower classes.
I won't go silent. The effective minimum wage in those countries is ~$20/hr. They also get massive public benefits (college, healthcare, unemployment, pensions). They are much better off in spite of higher taxes, and their gini coefficient is much lower after taxes than it is in the US.
How long will these social programs survive? Are they sustainable? They're clearly not in this country.
Do you think it's morally correct to take money from taxpayers and give it to people they don't know? Don't you think individuals can find better solutions?
What is "much better off?"
If everyone made $2/day, the GINI coefficient would be 0.
Yep. I was pulled into the credit card game when I was younger. When I decided to get straight I remember thinking I had to play mind games with myself (un-train my mind) to resist temptation that was purposely put in from of me to encourage me to buy things I really didn't need. I remember thinking, I'm not rich so why try to act like I am.
I'm happy to say I got out. Now I use the credit card game to benefit me. A nice long free airfare, free hotel vacation.
Children are bombarded with television commercials and unrealistic TV series but economists and educators can't suggest mandatory accounting in the schools.
My fear is that as we continue to add economically disenfranchised players into the U5 and U6 numbers, that eventually the gradient between the haves and have nots will reach Brazil or Venezuela levels, and at our magnitude of population, things could get real dicey in the streets. Our economic model however does not support a change from current pace.
As has been pointed out already, free trade agreements like the TPP and NAFTA/CAFTA continue to wage war against living wages and standards of living in this Country, for the benefit of multi national corporations not interested in trickling down the profits back to the proletariat. I've always held the belief that employment has more than just an economic value to the individual player. It is to me, along with labor participation rate, a crucial part of basic governance in society and there's examples everywhere of that being true (the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and the ensuing manufactured demand counter insurgency that has to be expended in order to stabilize, is one glaring example). Our American political leaders and corporate lackeys are playing a dangerous game of dismissing that assertion.
America is NOT better off being a nation of financial services and otherwise 60-90 million underpaid hospitality and food service workers, yet we keep going that way while the tech skills and top 50% healthcare population fights each other to the death for the remaining living wage jobs, while the U5 and U6 looks up at them as the enemy for having a job worth waking up in the morning for in the first place. A Class warfare dynamic that ultimately distracts from identifying, and which benefits, the culprits: the oligarchs at the top. It's a true tragedy.
So many on this tread talk about offshoring sending jobs overseas. How about the onshoring where companies from other counties are opening an average of over 1,000,000 good paying jobs per year in the U.S. On top of that foreign companies are paying higher wages than we are losing, and the taxes are coming into the U.S. treasury faster than they are leaving the country. This 1,000,000 or more per year job trend is expected to last for the next 10 years or more.
Proof of that, is that there are 10 foreign companies building a lot more cars in the U.S. than the two remaining foreign companies. In fact it is 11 foreign companies building cars in the U.S. since Obama sold off Chrysler overseas.
Foreign companies are building all kinds of things in the U.S. from autos, to electronics, to high speed rail road equipment such as engines, rail passenger cars, etc.
We export a lot of American made goods from foreign owned companies especially shipping to Europe, etc.
Lets look at what really goes on in this country, where the money is spent, and thus shows where the jobs are. This article is 4 years old, but it is not far from what we are doing today. Especially now that the trend is for American companies bringing jobs back to the U.S. A good example of this is Apple building their new laptop facility in Texas that will employ thousands of Americans.
So many on this tread talk about offshoring sending jobs overseas. How about the onshoring where companies from other counties are opening an average of over 1,000,000 good paying jobs per year in the U.S.
No need to wave your arms and talk about all the jobs we are getting. We have a huge trade deficit that started with globalization. Currently running ~$500B per year. How many jobs is that? If we say a decent job is $50k/yr, then that's 10M jobs.
What I find odd is that the Fed talks about raising rates.
We get a string of good news reports right up until the Fed meets.
Right before the Fed meets we get reports of decline and/or stagnation.
And then the Fed becomes undecided about raising rates.
This has gone on since Yellen took office.
We have been limping along (with the help of QE) for 7 years now.
Hearing "the economy is picking up steam and ready to take off" over and over means nothing to me anymore.
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