America's Tax Burden To Rise

I prefer a nice healthy mix, I see no reason to socialize most businesses, but there's a few essential ones that should be.

Healthcare
prisons (yeah I want privatized prisons to go away)
infrastructure: roads/power/water/cell (yeah, even cell).

Eventually I'd like to see basic housing for all, but I don't think we're quite at the technological level for it, and at the same time we'd have to figure out a way to handle all the boredom from people not having to work for a living.

But me and my pipe dreams.

I suppose if those are the only two options and no other factors are at play in either scenario then sure.

I completely agree, just pointing out the glaring shortcomings of a privatization happy nation that still pays as much or more in taxes than many much more socialized countries and gets less for it.

Then what's your means of sustaining your economic system, or are you jumping straight to the Star Trek future?

Basic housing doesn't mean a single family dwelling or even an apartment, it could be as simple as hostel style group housing. Costs could be partially recouped by requiring some small form of community service for staying there and dialing back tax dollars spent on many of those services. Half-way houses and group homes often work that way privately, no reason a publicly funded program couldn't work.

The transition is really the trick.

I'm of the conviction that a socialist/capitalist mix is sustainable and the best way to get people what they need while maximizing freedoms.

I'm not out for the total destruction of our private industry, however I'd like to punch a big hole in several of the industries.

I'd personally like to see us steer back away from a throw-away culture and back to "build it to last" in where when things break, they don't just replace them but actually fix them.

But that's started to get into an entire different subject that I could probably go on for hours about. Let me just say this about it: I'm getting into designing electronics myself, and I'll be building electronics that are quality and that will last and can be repaired, and I plan to market them to be encouraged to be repaired/recycled instead of thrown away. That's what I plan on doing, and I'll try to be doing my part in it.

I was going a step further in my thoughts and thinking of basic housing = single family dwelling, to promote the family unit as a whole (regardless of what makes up that family unit). But that would be a better way to start.

Just like "they" want it.

I meant the part about people not having to work. Obviously not everyone will decide to sit at home and play the bongos all day no matter what system you have, but you're going to have to do something to make sure you keep enough workers to feed, clothe, house, and medicate everyone.

It would require a lot of automation and investment, but it is theoretically possible, though I don't see it being practical anytime soon.

Basically this^

We're in a transitional phase, it's already becoming severely apparent that we can't sustain the jobs needed to have everyone working at living wages (especially since some companies don't want to pay people properly, even if it's a low-skill job, if they're such low-skill then it should be automated and eliminated).

It's either we need to create more work for the uneducated masses, properly educate the masses, or change entirely to a model to where people don't have to work for a living (like you said there will always be people who want to work, who want to better themselves, and it should be modeled to encourage that.)

There is a bunch of problems with a society where people wouldn't have to work for a living, and those should be be started to be worked on, before we fully get there, not after.

Or there's another option that people don't want to think about: our population is just too high, and we need to get off this rock.

Let me put some thought into this for a minute. You touched on a key issue here.

There was something about a gradual change to a service industry, like customer service, etc. I'm trying to find.

Sweet TV.

All the articles I can find are from 2010 so here's one at random, they all pretty much say the same thing:

And it goes on to each sector.
Full Article

Have to agree with this. There are more options available than "you're either royally screwed, or just commonly screwed" when it comes to this. As it stands currently in the U.S., a large portion of our tax dollars are being wasted. We are lining the pockets of corrupt politicians taking advantage of the partisan crap. Instead of actually using our tax dollars for things which will progress the country, it's going into the accounts of corrupt politicians.

Put my tax dollars towards paving old dirt roads, or a new playground for kids at a local school. Put it towards training cops on understanding the constitution so they don't blatantly disregard it. Put it towards rebuilding an abandoned part of the city where druggies and prostitutes hang out. Put it towards something that is actually beneficial instead of making fat cats even fatter. It's amazing how other countries can handle using tax dollars for something beneficial while the U.S. likes to just use the money to give raises to city officials who don't deserve it.


If our tax dollars actually went to something tangible that we could see and improved our areas, I doubt people would have as much of a problem.

As someone else already stated, it'll never change with the way the government is currently run. Why would politicians agree to not rob citizens blind when it's legal for then to do so? Any up and coming politician who even suggests a reform is blackballed by their own party since it will cut those people's income.

I don't see you how you consider the model we're discussing as "being screwed" but I guess you want to see it that way, so go ahead and continue doing so.

Read what Camiie said, and what he was referring to on the first page, especially regarding the healthcare. Our tax dollars are used for things like healthcare, yet it isn't actually free. Paying for something, then having to pay for it a second time? That seems like a reason to state we are getting screwed. Paying twice for something and all.

Which isn't the model we were discussing...

So we weren't discussing American taxes, then? My bad.

Not entirely, we moved beyond that some time ago...

I was quoting and commenting on something from the first page...

Edit: added ellipses for greater impact since that's apparently the passive aggressive way to get your point across.

It was from this page, do I really need to screenshot it to show you?

Just to please you though, we moved past that part on the first page.

I like my ellipses, kiss my butt.

I quoted someone from the first page and agreed with them. Why is it hard to understand I wasn't following this thread to make sure the topic hadn't veered off the path? I never said you guys didn't move beyond that. I simply said I was responding to something prior to the topic moving on to other things. Hence the whole quote button contraption being used.

You quoted the second post on the 2nd page...

It had already moved on to other things.

You're going to have a real hard time trying to convince me that the conversation that I was having wasn't already on another point when you quoted somebody who quoted me (on the 2nd page) after it had already gotten to that point, when I'm the one who was half of the conversation.

It's just not going to happen, as it isn't true.

My apologies, I quoted Camiie's post on this second page, not the first.

My point still stands. I was addressing one specific post in the thread, agreeing with it, and I was giving my own opinion.

The post was discussing the 60% versus 30%, which is what I was commenting on and which YOU posted on the first page.

I'm so sorry that I decided to address something you had moved on from. Actually, scratch that, I'll use your line of reasoning:
You can kiss my butt.

What you don't understand is by the time I made that post we had already moved beyond just talking about American taxes, it was kind of the entire point of the post.

You were agreeing with something that didn't make sense in the first place, nor did your rant to go along with it. That was my point.

It would make sense if we had been talking solely about "we're in America we have these two option, and we're kinda *** on both" but that's not what we were talking about, we were discussing how other countries have higher tax rates, and higher pay rates and have an arguably better society overall for it.

I'm not saying we should copy them verbatim, but we should at least give their system a fair look, and see what things we can take, and what parts we'd prefer to leave off, and try to improve our society for the better as a whole.

I realize that everyone may not want to improve our society, and just like to stick there fingers in their ears and pretend nothing bad happens, and then *** when people try to do things and offer no help themselves but just try to be in the way. I also realize that as the way things stand a lot of certain individuals stand to make great profits from abusing the system and the people, and they don't want things to change for that purpose, and they often influence the above mentioned group/groups.

tl;dr try to keep up.

What are you even trying to *** at this point? Lol.

I responded to a post I agreed with. Maybe the convo had moved on from the original premise of American taxes. I don't know, and at this point, don't care. I was responding to what one person said, that you aren't involved in. What is with your constant *** about how the conversation moved beyond my comment? Freaking ignore it if that's the case. Despite what you seem to think, I don't post for Jetackuu's pleasure, and I'd wager most of this forum doesn't post for that reason, either.

While Denmark has the highest tax rate in the world, caps at 59.9% this is a graduated tax system. Meaning as you go up in salary throughout the year, higher percent of income is taken.

We pay the highest tax for some of our income but in total we paid 42% in income tax. Up from previous year by 4%~ from how we claimed different tax breaks.

As to nothing that comes from Denmark, lol
Maersk, Lego, Arla, Vestas, Novo Nordisk, Carlsberg are world renowned companies in their fields. DK is also ranked as one of the best countries for start-up businesses. Iirc top 5 but I haven't looked in awhile.

Edit: can't remember how this works in US but any income you receive from the state in DK (e.g. Student stipend) is taxed at the same rates.