You do realize that pure capitalist interests will never consider the long game right. Obama is quite middle-of-the-road. No body is perfect - not in theis day and age but I'd much rather vote for someone that wants fuel efficient vehicles and energy independence. Someone who cares about the other 47%. Mind you, I'm moving to Sweden for a job opportunity next year and am NOT excited about paying the high taxes. Unless of course, I happen to get sick or my wife has a baby or something.
Welcome! Also, the taxes aren't as bad as one might think. Well, in reality it all depends on how you frame it, but if your annual salary is $48k your yearly tax would be something in the range of $10-11k. That said, taxes become more progressive at higher income levels with various state taxes kicking in.
But like stated, there are different ways of framing it. For example, the standard VAT is 25%. Also, hidden from plain view in the wage statement is the "employers fee". Due to its origin, these fees are essentially "renounced wages".
So, if we redo the same calculation, a visible annual salary of $48k means that the total cost of employment (from the employers perspective) is something like $63k. So, what you get after taxes is (given these numbers) something like 60% of what the employeer actually pays.
To complicate, 70% of the employers fees go more or less directly towards financing your various social insurances (unemployment, retirement etc.), while 30% are essentially plain taxes.
That said: its not as bad as one might think.
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I hate this entitlement mentality. You get paid for your work, period. It's your job to decide if you want to bring/buy water/refreshments/food. When you work for someone that doesn't mean that they provide for your every d*mn want and need. If Apple was refusing to provide lunch breaks, that would be a whole different story.
Your reasoning is flawed. Yes, you get paid for your work. But who decides what is an acceptable pay? Hardly just one party. That said, the worker making demands for X isn't acting anymore entitled than the employeer trying to cut back on Y. And no, refusing to provide lunch breaks would - law aside - be the exact same thing. Part from the fact that people need nutrition to function properly (making lunch breaks in the interest of the employer), a proper lunch break was too considered an "entitlement" in its day. Just like the 8h workday, the 5 day week and what not*.
* yes, i am aware of the fact that France has moved beyond the 8h workday.
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I've taken the time to write this out clearly an impersonally, so please make an honest effort to understand this:
You have things completely backwards. It is the efforts of businesses that afford the society its wealth and prosperity. Society (government) did not create the iPhone. Apple created the iPhone. Government did not create roads and utilities from nothing. They were built using wealth that businesses created at their own risk.
Your socialist way of thinking is also outright wrong in assuming that we are in a zero-sum situation. There is an infinite of wealth and prosperity that can be created. One person's success does not mean another's failure. On the contrary, every success creates new opportunities that can in turn become new successes.
Socialism has been tried many times, and it has always failed without exception. The only reason we are even able to have this conversation is because thousands of people across hundreds of companies were incentivized to take risks in exchange for earning greater wealth in a capitalist system. Look around you, at all the technologies and resources that would have been completely unimaginable just a century or two ago. It all came from capitalism. The right to take risks. The right to earn. The right to personal property. The right to succeed. The right to fail. Without these, we would have come no further in the previous two centuries than we had in the two millennia prior. That is not to say that capitalism should exist without regulation - some regulations must be put into place in order to prevent situations like monopolies or price fixing. The reason is that those situations undermine one of the main concepts of capitalism, which is the creation of better products through competition. Properly maintained, capitalism can eventually provide for every material need of man. Again, look at the unbelievable improvement in the quality of life it has brought us in just a few generations.
Where would Apple be without the internet? Without public education? Without infrastructure? Where would your capitalists be without enforced property rights? Legitimacy? Your analysis is extremely superficial, bordering on ignorant.
The only thing worse than a capitalist as a naive capitalist.
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Marx wrote what he wanted to. Can you give any example anywhere of a society where property (money, real estate, companies, items, intellectual property) was taken from those who had owned it before and given to the state to divvy part of it up for the benefit of the people, other than at the point of a gun? Oh, maybe not a literal physical gun point at the prior owner, laws passed/decreed and enforced by police/army who will use guns if you say no, that is my property not yours and you can't have it.
Can you give an example of a capitalist society, where private property was upheld by anything other the very same gun? And given the context of the thread, i will end this post by quoting Rosseau:
The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. ”
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754
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Macchiato2009,
Quit your damn whining. Bring your own lunch and water and shut up. If you hate your job so much, QUIT.
There's no gun pointed to your head and say go work.
Europeans have the highest paid salaries in the world (average worker) and they still goddam strike. Especially the french.\
I wonder how many 3rd world educated citizens would jump at the opportunity to work in a apple store.
It is BECAUSE we "still goddam strike" that we still have the highest paid salaries in the world. Think first, whine later.
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The European Socialist model is on its way out. People are waking up. Government itself is the initiation of force to get us to obey laws. Taxes are the first example. Government can do to others, without punishment, what we could never do to our neighbors. They can lie, murder, and steal. They create enemies and use fear to control. They put people on their payroll to turn against those who question their power. Once we recognize this, we can finally recognize the chains and the boundaries of our cages.
As George Carlin once said, "It's a big ***** club, and you're not in it."
There is a reason the US became the most advanced and wealthy country in the world in 200 years. The lack of regulation, small size of government, and protection of our feedoms. Our central bank didn't even come into being until 1913, the same year the income tax was created.
Think about the technology we have. Televisions, cell phones, computers, semiconductors... they are not directly regulated by our government. They are cheap and everyone has them. The Internet remains vastly unregulated and continues to evolve at an exponential rate, driven by competition and innovation.
Unfortunately that time is coming to an end as we have turned our back on our founding principles. Now those at the very top are slowly transferring our great wealth away from the middle class and they are powerless to prevent it. In fact they cheer it. Most people do as their liberties are slowly stripped away. Once they do realize it is too late.
First, the technology you have (and listed) are directly regulated by your government. Second, the internet would perhaps not be if it hadn't been for state sponsored research (e.g., ARPA and CERN).
Also, if anything i would actually rather say that the european socialist model is on its way back in.
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That's not how fractional reserve banking works. Banks don't lend out the money they already have. Rather, they create it with loans (debt). The loan is a promise to pay the actual money (fiat) in the future, which they never do. 95% of the money in the economy is bank credit with no currency backing it.
The result of all this lending is a constant expansion of money supply, which dilutes the value of existing currency. The bank credit then has to keep growing, otherwise there won't be enough money for people to earn to pay back the principal + interest. The amount of money that must exist in the future to pay back the principal plus interest therefore continues ballooning, which is why we have national debts in the trillions and no end in sight.
It's a giant ponzi scheme.
I owe you 100. Debt increases by 1 per day. Total amount of money in system is 100. Can i ever repay the debt? Yes. Hint: money can circulate. Point? The "zeitgeist"-reasoning is somewhat flawed. That said, i would happily own a bank!
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LOL, the reason why the European states can spend more money on their internal services is because the good old USA has its military might and back protecting western Europe (NATO). Talk about leeches, how much do you think Germany / Scandinavia / Western Europe spends on its military. Probably a tiny drop.
In addition, healthcare is not FREE, its TAXED. The Danish income tax maxes at 69 PERCENT with a VAT of 25%. Cars are taxed at I believe 100%+. LOL, talk about getting ****ed over. I rather pay for my own insurance than pay tens of thousands more taxes every year.
No thanks.
Imagine we we pulled out all our troops, little Denmark and Sweden will come begging for daddy after Russia says **** it screws them over. Russia already has europe by the balls with its natural gas.
Please pull all your troops. I'd rather be occupied by Russia for a lifetime than face ignorant American comments all day on the interwebs!
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Why do you think Greece is bankrupt? In the long run this socialist model doesn't work. Sounds great, but doesn't work long term.
Yeah, lets just ignore Scandinavia/Nordic countries and cherry-pick Greece. While we are at it, lets ignore how Greece problems came to be, and focus on them being "socialist" instead. Why look for real explanations, really?
P.S.
America's debt is larger than Greece'. So much for capitalism, right?
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I don't support US military policing. I want us out of there. Let you guys deal with your own problems. I could care less. My taxes should be to defend America, not have bases around the world.
No offense, if Russia sent its army, little Denmark would be run over in less than week. Let's be realistic. Your army is less than 26,000 men. And most of those are not active duty. Russia has over 1,000,000 active duty alone. This is all theoretical of course, but still Russia is more likely to **** with you guys if America just left. They already own your ass in Natural gas / resources.
Dude I remember paying $6 USD one way on a bus to Copenhagen. Beers were $10. Crappiest food was $8-10. Restaurant meals run over $30. I mean you are talking about a real expensive cost of living there. I spent way too much money in Europe when I studied there.
So you make $60k a year wich translates to $38400 actual cash... factor in your high rent, then your 25% sales tax (LOL). Add up your taxes and you can see your stuff is not "FREE", you pay more than what I paid for my health insurance / tuition. (or your parents did).
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
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US a 3rd world country. LOL. At least we care about immigration instead of letting them get run over by illegals who DONT SHARE A BORDER WITH YOU. How does France have so many non-french now these days.
French citizens have their apartments due to the HISTORY with their families. In italy, guys don't leave their house until they get MARRIED. Talk about lack of independence.
1) Denmark isn't dependent on Russian gas.
2) Russia has few incentives to invade Denmark; peace is more profitable than war.
3) French has had "so many non-french" for hundreds of years. Why do America have so many blacks?
4) In many respects, America is a "3rd world country". I like your roads, though. Beer too, for that matter.
