Yes, Scandinavian countries are free market countries with a strong social safety net. I'm not sure why you are claiming that they practice the "exact opposite" of what Bernie Sanders wants. Bernie Sanders wanted to lower personal income taxes on the wealthy? News to me. While there may be differences in Sanders policies vs. Scandinavian…
Yes, Scandinavian countries are free market countries with a strong social safety net. I'm not sure why you are claiming that they practice the "exact opposite" of what Bernie Sanders wants. Bernie Sanders wanted to lower personal income taxes on the wealthy? News to me. While there may be differences in Sanders policies vs. Scandinavian policies (which differ between countries), "exact opposite" is not being truthful. He is for taxing the wealthy fairly and using this to fund a social safety net similar to Scandinavian countries. A social safety net that their citizens love for very good reason.
No, you are confusing "wealthy" with someone who makes barely over the average income. Denmark's income tax is 60% on 1.3x the average income (source below). So if average income is $50k, then it means anyone making $65k and over pays 60% in income tax. Also 25% sales tax on everything you buy - from eggs to everything.
Do you think Bernie has told people that he would like to tax 60% any household making $65k? And would you be okay with an extra 25% sales tax on eggs, milk and everything?
Do you think $65k is considered "wealthy"?
Do you think it's wise to pay 60% of your income for the rest of your life in taxes just to get university and health care? Or would it be wise to decide by yourself which insurance you want to pick? Or get it from your employer?
Btw, I am NOT saying US's current health care or education system is any good. I am saying Bernie doesn't tell the truth.
Search through his twitter history. I can point to 8 tweets where he was bashing millionaires and billionaires. Then suddenly he changed his tune to only bashing billionaires and not millionaires because he himself became a millionaire. Can such a person be trusted?
And how does one claim to provide a social safety net while doing a full 180 on their position on illegal immigration? Do you think Scandinavian countries allow illegal immigration? They are the most low population homogenized countries.
Norway also charges 78 percent tax on oil extraction because they have massive reserves. This also doesn't fit the whole environment friendly narrative.
Scandinavian countries are low population homogenized Monarchy's that found wealth through rich oil deposits.
> "Scandinavian countries tend to levy top personal income tax rates on (upper) middle-class earners, not just high-income taxpayers. For example, in Denmark the top statutory personal income tax rate of 55.9 percent applies to all income over 1.3 times the average income. From the American perspective, this means that all income over $65,000 (1.3 times the average U.S. income of about $50,000) would be taxed at 55.9 percent."
> "However, depending on the structure, a VAT can be a regressive tax because it falls more on those that consume a larger share of their income, which tend to be lower-income earners."
> "While Scandinavian countries raise a lot of revenue from individuals through the income tax, social security contributions, and the VAT, corporate income taxes—as in the United States—play a less significant role in terms of revenue. All Scandinavian countries’ corporate income tax rates are lower than the United States’ rate."
> " Norway is situated on large reserves of oil and charges companies a corporate income tax rate of 78 percent on extractive activities."
So in your previous post you said that Bernie wants to do the opposite of Scandinavian countries, now you are worried that he will do exactly what they do. Which do you believe? His tax proposals were nowhere near the rates you quote from Denmark. Your sales tax numbers are correct from Denmark (and too high and regressive, yes), but the personal income tax numbers are not that high. Also, you are paying in part for a medical system. So in the US you have to add in insurance and co pay costs etc. since you are still paying for medical. And factor in all the other stuff you "get" in Denmark that you don't in the US. (yay! we pay lower taxes but our infrastructure and medical system are s**t! Freedom!)
Also, the corporate tax rate is similar between the US and Scandinavian countries.
Taxes go to far more than just university and health care. People in Scandinavian countries are happy with their systems and proof that the social contract works. Providing basic health care through your employer is a dramatic failure...a bizarre idea...immoral and not cost effective.
The Tax Foundation is a right wing think tank for the wealthy by the wealthy. They are advocating for lower taxes for the rich and misrepresenting Bernie Sanders tax plan? Shocker.
The corporate tax rate became similar between the US and Scandinavian countries by Orange man. Before that, it was higher in US.
> Which do you believe?
You didn't answer my questions. Do you think $65k is considered "wealthy" and would you be okay with paying 60% tax on that plus 25% sales tax? Do you think Bernie's 180 flip on illegal immigration was honest? Do you think it's possible to have medicare for all with illegal immigration?
Bernie is a fraud because he says things which low info people want to hear (free stuff for lower income tax and high corporate tax) while the things he wants to achieve cannot be achieved using his ideas. That's why he's a fraud - he knows he can't achieve the things, so he gets people to vote for democrats and then bends over to the establishment - done it twice.
> "The Tax Foundation is a right wing think tank for the wealthy by the wealthy. They are advocating for lower taxes for the rich and misrepresenting Bernie Sanders tax plan? Shocker."
Okay now you are just doing the typical reddit convo instead of something I would expect on Greenwald's comment thread. I simply shared the first link which showed up on google. The article doesn't even mention anything about Bernie Sanders. It simply states what the tax rates are - these are numbers - not an opinion. You can find the same numbers anywhere you like. Nothing to do with right wing or left wing. Just because something doesn't agree with your view point doesn't mean it's some evil right wing site.
I don't have a horse in this game because I am from Canada (moving to US in future). Even the whole "Canadian health care is so much better" is a lie.
The main thing to remember is that any high tax ideas is stupid when everyone's already complaining about the massive bloated and corrupt government. Why would you want to give them even more power?
Health care through employment was part of ww2 and the price controls. Companies couldn’t use wages to compete for workers so they used increasingly complex and extravagant benefit packages instead.
Pre-ww2 health insurance was basically non-profit and run by doctors and hospitals so more customers could afford the payments.
Another great example of the problems with war time freedom grabs that never get reversed.
Correct. The genius of Bill Clinton was that he did the most difficult thing for a president to do about the American economy: He got out of its way. The urge to regulate eventually results in micromanagement where those who can, do, and those who can't, write the instructions.
Med school in Germany decades ago, in a psychiatry residency when family needs made us return to US. A year to study for the US Boards (in English, my mother tongue, but my first language for medicine is German) then trying to find a residency in my 40s, competing with people 24-30 for positions, meant I left medicine. I learned and practiced business instead.
Main driver of high cost is continuous improvement in diagnostic and therapeutic tools. The new one, then, provides 25% better information (MRI) than an X-Ray, at several thousand percent higher cost. Which one do you insist your doctor use on your kid? Thought so.
Drugs are the other problem. It takes $2-3B and twelve plus years to bring a new drug to market. The bulk of cost and time delay is imposed by FDA. The first time ever there was a reduction in that was when Trump spent enormous political capital to force cheaper and quicker approval process for generic drugs, chemically identical to the already-approved drug, but costing hundreds of millions and several years to get out to the market. That cost has to be recovered. The alternative is to stop improvement in therapeutics. Take your choice.
US does a huge part of the drug development, and the US pays for it through high drug prices. Every other market in the world gets cheaper drugs because cost is already recovered from US. If we try to equalize things, friends and foes alike appropriate the intellectual property and turn out pills for the cost of ingredient only, pennies. So, the rest of the world provides the profit, and if you make twenty cents on a pill it's profit. Market by country is estimated along with price sensitivity and price points are set. That explains $700 in US and $12 in Canada. We've tried getting Canada, India, China, Indonesia, the EU to agree to help pay for the development cost. They just steal it and turn out generics by the ton. ALL OF THEM.
Then they laugh at the US, we're stupid for paying high prices when their own countries only pay a low amount. I'd like nothing more than to pay a single price worldwide, but that would first entail raising prices in the countries laughing at us. When you sell something you stole, the cost of goods sold is near zero, you can charge whatever you like.
Another driver is the tort casino. It was the only thing that Obama said was off the table for discussion on ACA. The now-renamed American Trial Lawyers Association and its members contributed millions every election cycle to Democrats.
Ask your doctor which tests he's ordering because if he doesn't he's violating the terms of his malpractice insurance. The decision about whether to administer you a veeblefetzer test isn't made by you or your doctor, it's made by a spreadsheet balancing risk/reward. Most other countries deal with malpractice insurance quite differently, and suing because of a suboptimal outcome is not allowed. If the same practice were applied to trial lawyers, the lawyer for the losing side would be sued after every trial. Guaranteed.
I went through the list with my physician and gave him a written statement that I refused a whole laundry list of tests because they were there to protect the insurer, not me nor my doctor. I don't believe I have prostate cancer, but after age sixty there's little point in taking a PSA test. They're almost all slow-growing and you'll die of something else before it gets to be a problem.
A deadly combination of the ACA and Dodd-Frank forced massive consolidation in healthcare and destruction of the solo practitioner. Decisions are now made many levels removed from the doctor and patient. We need M4A like a root canal.
I'm getting off my soapbox and taking a blood pressure pill.
Are you suggesting these are flat taxes, or marginal tax rates? The US had higher marginal income tax rates under Eisenhower. In return, people in Scandinavia can count on high quality medical care for life, education from preschool through doctoral degrees, including law and medicine for all who qualify, environmental protection, wholesome food, law enforcement they don't need to mistrust or fear, and a decent life for the disabled.
The vicious circle we've developed instead forces me to be skeptical that our government and political class could achieve anything comparable, though we know that four years of state school tuition was something a kid could earn by working for one year at minimum wage and saving his money. This was true in a lot of places as recently as the 1980s.
The only thing our government can reliably produce is poverty, resentment, and violence at home, and refugees abroad. Extravagant lying has been added to the list.
It's flat tax. Everyone who makes 1.3x average income in Denmark gets taxed 60%.
"For example, in Denmark the top statutory personal income tax rate of 55.9 percent applies to all income over 1.3 times the average income. From the American perspective, this means that all income over $65,000 (1.3 times the average U.S. income of about $50,000) would be taxed at 55.9 percent. Norway and Sweden have similarly flat income tax systems. Norway’s top personal tax rate of 38.4 percent applies to all income over 1.6 times the average Norwegian income. Sweden’s top personal tax rate of 57.1 percent applies to all income over 1.5 times the average national income."
I just never understood why anyone who complains how the government is super corrupt, bloated and incompetent should have even more power to now run even more areas of ones life.
"They are the most low population homogenized countries." Sweden is a major exception to this. Several large city areas are dominated by recent immigrants who are not joining the Swedish people.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-immigration-crackdown-idUSKBN19Y0G8 "Tough measures against immigrants go against the grain for many in Sweden, a country of 10 million which once called itself “a humanitarian superpower” that generously welcomed migrants fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Africa."
Fair point however that's a very recent change. And to accommodate that change, their policies will change too. I would highly recommend watching the documentary Borderless regarding this.
If we want to be against racism and help minorities, we should be preventing our governments from going on regime change wars and bombing them to not create such crisis in the first place.
And the poor head to U.S.A., because they know 1) Bjorn Borg's and Stefan Edberg's (and ALL) wealth heads to our capital and labor markets, creating the omly thing that ACTUALLY helps the poor, a job and a chance to help themselves.
And 2) OUR safety net is the only true safety net: individual freedom.
Yes, Scandinavian countries are free market countries with a strong social safety net. I'm not sure why you are claiming that they practice the "exact opposite" of what Bernie Sanders wants. Bernie Sanders wanted to lower personal income taxes on the wealthy? News to me. While there may be differences in Sanders policies vs. Scandinavian policies (which differ between countries), "exact opposite" is not being truthful. He is for taxing the wealthy fairly and using this to fund a social safety net similar to Scandinavian countries. A social safety net that their citizens love for very good reason.
No, you are confusing "wealthy" with someone who makes barely over the average income. Denmark's income tax is 60% on 1.3x the average income (source below). So if average income is $50k, then it means anyone making $65k and over pays 60% in income tax. Also 25% sales tax on everything you buy - from eggs to everything.
Do you think Bernie has told people that he would like to tax 60% any household making $65k? And would you be okay with an extra 25% sales tax on eggs, milk and everything?
Do you think $65k is considered "wealthy"?
Do you think it's wise to pay 60% of your income for the rest of your life in taxes just to get university and health care? Or would it be wise to decide by yourself which insurance you want to pick? Or get it from your employer?
Btw, I am NOT saying US's current health care or education system is any good. I am saying Bernie doesn't tell the truth.
Search through his twitter history. I can point to 8 tweets where he was bashing millionaires and billionaires. Then suddenly he changed his tune to only bashing billionaires and not millionaires because he himself became a millionaire. Can such a person be trusted?
And how does one claim to provide a social safety net while doing a full 180 on their position on illegal immigration? Do you think Scandinavian countries allow illegal immigration? They are the most low population homogenized countries.
Norway also charges 78 percent tax on oil extraction because they have massive reserves. This also doesn't fit the whole environment friendly narrative.
Scandinavian countries are low population homogenized Monarchy's that found wealth through rich oil deposits.
https://taxfoundation.org/bernie-sanders-scandinavian-countries-taxes/
> "Scandinavian countries tend to levy top personal income tax rates on (upper) middle-class earners, not just high-income taxpayers. For example, in Denmark the top statutory personal income tax rate of 55.9 percent applies to all income over 1.3 times the average income. From the American perspective, this means that all income over $65,000 (1.3 times the average U.S. income of about $50,000) would be taxed at 55.9 percent."
> "However, depending on the structure, a VAT can be a regressive tax because it falls more on those that consume a larger share of their income, which tend to be lower-income earners."
> "While Scandinavian countries raise a lot of revenue from individuals through the income tax, social security contributions, and the VAT, corporate income taxes—as in the United States—play a less significant role in terms of revenue. All Scandinavian countries’ corporate income tax rates are lower than the United States’ rate."
> " Norway is situated on large reserves of oil and charges companies a corporate income tax rate of 78 percent on extractive activities."
So in your previous post you said that Bernie wants to do the opposite of Scandinavian countries, now you are worried that he will do exactly what they do. Which do you believe? His tax proposals were nowhere near the rates you quote from Denmark. Your sales tax numbers are correct from Denmark (and too high and regressive, yes), but the personal income tax numbers are not that high. Also, you are paying in part for a medical system. So in the US you have to add in insurance and co pay costs etc. since you are still paying for medical. And factor in all the other stuff you "get" in Denmark that you don't in the US. (yay! we pay lower taxes but our infrastructure and medical system are s**t! Freedom!)
Also, the corporate tax rate is similar between the US and Scandinavian countries.
Taxes go to far more than just university and health care. People in Scandinavian countries are happy with their systems and proof that the social contract works. Providing basic health care through your employer is a dramatic failure...a bizarre idea...immoral and not cost effective.
The Tax Foundation is a right wing think tank for the wealthy by the wealthy. They are advocating for lower taxes for the rich and misrepresenting Bernie Sanders tax plan? Shocker.
The corporate tax rate became similar between the US and Scandinavian countries by Orange man. Before that, it was higher in US.
> Which do you believe?
You didn't answer my questions. Do you think $65k is considered "wealthy" and would you be okay with paying 60% tax on that plus 25% sales tax? Do you think Bernie's 180 flip on illegal immigration was honest? Do you think it's possible to have medicare for all with illegal immigration?
Bernie is a fraud because he says things which low info people want to hear (free stuff for lower income tax and high corporate tax) while the things he wants to achieve cannot be achieved using his ideas. That's why he's a fraud - he knows he can't achieve the things, so he gets people to vote for democrats and then bends over to the establishment - done it twice.
> "The Tax Foundation is a right wing think tank for the wealthy by the wealthy. They are advocating for lower taxes for the rich and misrepresenting Bernie Sanders tax plan? Shocker."
Okay now you are just doing the typical reddit convo instead of something I would expect on Greenwald's comment thread. I simply shared the first link which showed up on google. The article doesn't even mention anything about Bernie Sanders. It simply states what the tax rates are - these are numbers - not an opinion. You can find the same numbers anywhere you like. Nothing to do with right wing or left wing. Just because something doesn't agree with your view point doesn't mean it's some evil right wing site.
I don't have a horse in this game because I am from Canada (moving to US in future). Even the whole "Canadian health care is so much better" is a lie.
The main thing to remember is that any high tax ideas is stupid when everyone's already complaining about the massive bloated and corrupt government. Why would you want to give them even more power?
Health care through employment was part of ww2 and the price controls. Companies couldn’t use wages to compete for workers so they used increasingly complex and extravagant benefit packages instead.
Pre-ww2 health insurance was basically non-profit and run by doctors and hospitals so more customers could afford the payments.
Another great example of the problems with war time freedom grabs that never get reversed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/upshot/the-real-reason-the-us-has-employer-sponsored-health-insurance.html
Correct. The genius of Bill Clinton was that he did the most difficult thing for a president to do about the American economy: He got out of its way. The urge to regulate eventually results in micromanagement where those who can, do, and those who can't, write the instructions.
Med school in Germany decades ago, in a psychiatry residency when family needs made us return to US. A year to study for the US Boards (in English, my mother tongue, but my first language for medicine is German) then trying to find a residency in my 40s, competing with people 24-30 for positions, meant I left medicine. I learned and practiced business instead.
Main driver of high cost is continuous improvement in diagnostic and therapeutic tools. The new one, then, provides 25% better information (MRI) than an X-Ray, at several thousand percent higher cost. Which one do you insist your doctor use on your kid? Thought so.
Drugs are the other problem. It takes $2-3B and twelve plus years to bring a new drug to market. The bulk of cost and time delay is imposed by FDA. The first time ever there was a reduction in that was when Trump spent enormous political capital to force cheaper and quicker approval process for generic drugs, chemically identical to the already-approved drug, but costing hundreds of millions and several years to get out to the market. That cost has to be recovered. The alternative is to stop improvement in therapeutics. Take your choice.
US does a huge part of the drug development, and the US pays for it through high drug prices. Every other market in the world gets cheaper drugs because cost is already recovered from US. If we try to equalize things, friends and foes alike appropriate the intellectual property and turn out pills for the cost of ingredient only, pennies. So, the rest of the world provides the profit, and if you make twenty cents on a pill it's profit. Market by country is estimated along with price sensitivity and price points are set. That explains $700 in US and $12 in Canada. We've tried getting Canada, India, China, Indonesia, the EU to agree to help pay for the development cost. They just steal it and turn out generics by the ton. ALL OF THEM.
Then they laugh at the US, we're stupid for paying high prices when their own countries only pay a low amount. I'd like nothing more than to pay a single price worldwide, but that would first entail raising prices in the countries laughing at us. When you sell something you stole, the cost of goods sold is near zero, you can charge whatever you like.
Another driver is the tort casino. It was the only thing that Obama said was off the table for discussion on ACA. The now-renamed American Trial Lawyers Association and its members contributed millions every election cycle to Democrats.
Ask your doctor which tests he's ordering because if he doesn't he's violating the terms of his malpractice insurance. The decision about whether to administer you a veeblefetzer test isn't made by you or your doctor, it's made by a spreadsheet balancing risk/reward. Most other countries deal with malpractice insurance quite differently, and suing because of a suboptimal outcome is not allowed. If the same practice were applied to trial lawyers, the lawyer for the losing side would be sued after every trial. Guaranteed.
I went through the list with my physician and gave him a written statement that I refused a whole laundry list of tests because they were there to protect the insurer, not me nor my doctor. I don't believe I have prostate cancer, but after age sixty there's little point in taking a PSA test. They're almost all slow-growing and you'll die of something else before it gets to be a problem.
A deadly combination of the ACA and Dodd-Frank forced massive consolidation in healthcare and destruction of the solo practitioner. Decisions are now made many levels removed from the doctor and patient. We need M4A like a root canal.
I'm getting off my soapbox and taking a blood pressure pill.
Hang on to that soapbox, mister, and get back on it asap.
And pass the pills!
So well said, M. Dave5017. The State sures does love war. Another reason the State is the enemy of the people.
Are you suggesting these are flat taxes, or marginal tax rates? The US had higher marginal income tax rates under Eisenhower. In return, people in Scandinavia can count on high quality medical care for life, education from preschool through doctoral degrees, including law and medicine for all who qualify, environmental protection, wholesome food, law enforcement they don't need to mistrust or fear, and a decent life for the disabled.
The vicious circle we've developed instead forces me to be skeptical that our government and political class could achieve anything comparable, though we know that four years of state school tuition was something a kid could earn by working for one year at minimum wage and saving his money. This was true in a lot of places as recently as the 1980s.
The only thing our government can reliably produce is poverty, resentment, and violence at home, and refugees abroad. Extravagant lying has been added to the list.
It's flat tax. Everyone who makes 1.3x average income in Denmark gets taxed 60%.
"For example, in Denmark the top statutory personal income tax rate of 55.9 percent applies to all income over 1.3 times the average income. From the American perspective, this means that all income over $65,000 (1.3 times the average U.S. income of about $50,000) would be taxed at 55.9 percent. Norway and Sweden have similarly flat income tax systems. Norway’s top personal tax rate of 38.4 percent applies to all income over 1.6 times the average Norwegian income. Sweden’s top personal tax rate of 57.1 percent applies to all income over 1.5 times the average national income."
I just never understood why anyone who complains how the government is super corrupt, bloated and incompetent should have even more power to now run even more areas of ones life.
Not a flat tax.
Nevermind.
Yes, and millions of Americans should have already emigrated to Scandinavia.
I thus refute your simpleton, black and white,Pollyanna-ish-ness.
"They are the most low population homogenized countries." Sweden is a major exception to this. Several large city areas are dominated by recent immigrants who are not joining the Swedish people.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/muslim-refugees-and-the-cost-of-sweden-s-kindness-1.912737
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-immigration-crackdown-idUSKBN19Y0G8 "Tough measures against immigrants go against the grain for many in Sweden, a country of 10 million which once called itself “a humanitarian superpower” that generously welcomed migrants fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Africa."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO9vBHZRBQ4
Fair point however that's a very recent change. And to accommodate that change, their policies will change too. I would highly recommend watching the documentary Borderless regarding this.
If we want to be against racism and help minorities, we should be preventing our governments from going on regime change wars and bombing them to not create such crisis in the first place.
Don't forget - as soon as a Swede makes it big, he moves to Monte Carlo. Ask Bjorn Borg or Stefan Edberg. So much for solidarity and the safety net.
And the poor head to U.S.A., because they know 1) Bjorn Borg's and Stefan Edberg's (and ALL) wealth heads to our capital and labor markets, creating the omly thing that ACTUALLY helps the poor, a job and a chance to help themselves.
And 2) OUR safety net is the only true safety net: individual freedom.