One monkey from the group, which just came back in his car from the doctor monkey with his daughter that goes to the local monkey school: "I refuse to give up my bananas!".
Remember context. Full context is important.
One monkey from the group, who makes 4 of the 5 bananas, and doesn't want a 1.2 trillion banana fighter jet notices that all the people who are clamoring to take bananas aren't putting in any of the bananas themselves but are instead on the receiving end of the banana transfer, gets annoyed that they are basically having a meeting to take his bananas and give them to themselves. He gets upset by this"
Remember context. Full Context is important.
Remember context. Full Context is important.
Not to condone tax evasion or fraud — I condemn illegal tax evasion — but there are many interesting dimensions to this.
Why can we not assume that the doctor monkey is operating a private medical practice, his daughter is sent to a private monkey school, and they drove together in a privately produced car on privately maintained roads?
In the USA, I pay income taxes, and I still have to pay for all of these things above (fees, fines, tolls, surcharges, sales tax...)
All the roads you drive on are toll roads? Here in Oregon none are, and when I was back East only some highways were toll roads. Surface streets are nearly all paid for through taxes AFAIK.
I don't get the severe anti-tax stance some folks have. Yes I want my taxes spent efficiently, but I absolutely recognize that I gain benefits from paying them. Even when some of those taxes go to poor people. Without a peaceful society nobody will care that much about computers and the 'net ;).
I admit I'm a bit biased, because I get Welfare myself. That is, the gov't gives me a fair amount of money to offset the interest I pay to the bank for my mortgage. My effective income tax rate is less than 10% so I probably get quite a lot more welfare than any really poor family does. What a world we live in.
Re: roads, I agree that not all roads are toll roads. The good news is that roads are relatively inexpensive to build and maintain (for example, the federal transportation budget is only 2.3% of total yearly spending, 28 billion dollars).
So, those who want to use roads, should be charged a fair price, and road companies should compete to lower costs where possible.
The argument that "if we don't pay taxes (which are ever increasing and are going towards services that are decreasing in quality), then everyone will go nuts and modern society will collapse!!!" is actually extortion and a clever diversion.
We all want cheaper, more effective services. We all want the poorest members of society to not be kicked when they are already down.
The issue is that world governments are run by an elite few people who funnel our taxes to their bank accounts through scams and poorly rendered services.
And when we figured out this scam and went public with the info, we were yelled at to keep paying our taxes ;)
Wow, so you have an extra half-billion or so just sitting around? ($28 billion x 0.023 = $460 million) How fortunate for you!
Beggin' your pardon, M'Lord, but the peasantry doesn't consist of multi-millionaires. And they need to use roads to live their lives in a modern, industrialized society.
So, no, you can keep your libertarian dystopia where everyone has to build their own roads, hire their own police forces, etc. Go build your own civilization, away from ours.
It's no wonder Americans are complaining about their taxes.
I pay 25% VAT (less on e.g. food) and about 30% income tax. For that I've got a free eduction (Ph.D), can commute to work with (mostly) very good public transportation. Currently my pregnant wife is getting weekly checkups free of charge. I look forward soon start working halv time sharing 390 days of paid parental leave with my wife.
Sometimes I think I don't pay enough taxes.
A 'slight' deficit that's led to trillions in debt over a very short period of time.
>>government is worthless and never can provide anything of value
It is mostly worthless and hardly provides value(the worst part about this is is that a lot of times, I don't even have the option to opt out of these value-free services and pick something else that works)
>>Sometimes I think I don't pay enough taxes
Only a commie would say this.
The real question is why are medical procedures so artificially expensive.
The only thing I would really need medical insurance for is a rare emergency procedure like an appendectomy. Information online says an appendectomy can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $150,000.
Why is there such a deviation? This is how insurance companies make their money.
When we consider that medical insurance in the USA is several hundred dollars per month, $1,500 out of pocket seems completely reasonable.
If you're paying $300/mo and are reasonably healthy (i.e. not going to the doctor regularly) then you'd save that up in now time. The real fix to all of this is to remove day-to-day care from health insurance and let it be just "insurance" (i.e. not healthcare). They have a bit of that with catastrophic plans but there are limitations on who can sign up for them (which I personally think is really stupid).
> The only thing I would really need medical insurance for is a rare emergency procedure like an appendectomy.
If you need an appendectomy, then you do not have time to fiddle around and comparison shop for medical insurance. If an appendix needs to come out, then it needs to come out ASAP (otherwise, the appendix could burst, causing sepsis). And there's no insurance provider on the planet that will take on a new customer and cover a procedure done before the customer's policy goes into effect.
Let me guess: you also think car insurance is a sham, and that you shouldn't be required to have it. And if, heaven forfend, you get into a car accident, you can just call up State Farm (or whoever) and get them to retroactively approve a claim for the accident. Am I right?
Sorry, my eyes can only roll so much...
I have this vague memory of someone who was litigating about obamacare being unconstitutional for forcing people to have insurance and then defaulting on their sudden unexpected large hospital bill...
Realistically you've been lucky, and that's fine. You're against risk pooling because you feel that's not something you need. Self evidently the pooling is to cover the less fortunate. the "there but for the grace of god go I" situation. Maybe you think they're all scroungers and wastrels? Or that they don't deserve access to medical care just by virtue of existing and being ill.
It's a cultural thing tbh, but bemusing to me.
You can leave if you do not like it. Or you can vote for a different system.
"hey, I want to sleep in this room, but they say they don't let me until I pay, THEY FORCE ME TO PAY!!!"
Reality is more like:
2 out of 10 monkeys spend all their waking hours sacrificing and working so their children can have more than 1 banana and then give 15 out of the 20 bananas they earn to the group. The majority of monkeys in the group gives 0 bananas, but continue to say that the ones that do give the most aren't paying their fair share (and need to give even more). They then have many discussions on how they can force the other monkeys to give the rest of the group even more bananas, rather than putting energy into earning their own.
2 out of 10 monkeys spend all their waking hours sacrificing and working so their children can have more than 1 banana and then give 15 out of the 20 bananas they earn to the group.
The majority of monkeys in the group gives 0 bananas, but continue to say that the ones that do give the most aren't paying their fair share (and need to give even more).
They then have many discussions on how they can force the other monkeys to give the rest of the group even more bananas, rather than putting energy into earning their own.