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Comment by silvestrov | Hacker News Reader

> higher taxes on business

  Denmark + Norway: 22%
  Sweden: 21.4%
  Finland: 20%
  Germany: 15%
  Nederlands: 25%
  France: 25%
  USA: 21%  (but 35% until 2017).

So the tax argument does not hold, especially for the period before 2017.

Birth rates are also the same: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/total-fertility...

> the EU is not particularly excellent at any

Odd that there are so many EU countries at the list of most happy countries when EU is not good at anything:

https://www.cntraveler.com/gallery/the-10-happiest-countries...

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> Odd that there are so many EU countries at the list of most happy countries when EU is not good at anything

Putting words in my mouth. I never said the EU is not good at 'anything'. But it's not as good as America in terms of financing, innovation, or education.

One does not need great capital access, top-notch technology, or even the best education to be happy. You sad that european safety nets lead to the ability to 'take chances'. Typically, the result of this would be more innovation, which leads to more capital, which leads to better financing, which incentivizes education so that those with education can convince investors to invest in new innovation. However, the result you claim does not exist in Europe at the same level it exists in America.

Does the median american even benefit from these sorts of things? I would guess not at all, but I'm sure for the 1% the regulatory environment is extremely favorable. Someone working with their hands doesn't care much about national financial policy, since it has very little practical effect on their life vs. something like a national healthcare policy, which they would use regularly throughout their lives.

Perhaps not, but you're changing the goalposts. You said European style safety nets would spur individual innovation and risk taking. That was the only metric I was interested in. If you want to change the conversation to generic 'benefits' or happiness, by all means, go ahead, but that's not a conversation I'm personally interested in.

Maybe it does spur innovation and risk taking, but not the sorts of innovation that brings VCs to the room like a vulture to carrion.

The average American works 25 hours a week. The average German works 18 hours a week. That's another 7 hours you can spend with your children, 7 hours to spend learning an instrument, 7 hours working on art, 7 hours exercising or engaging in physical activity. To me, these are all cases of individual innovation and self improvement. Maybe you now have time after your job as a German to plan your business venture, and you have the time to properly plan for risk taking activities such as this. Due to the hours worked and the requirements that the social safety net be fulfilled by continued employment at certain employers that offer these benefits, it really does feel that most Americans are lacking opportunities to individually innovate or take risks that Europeans might not have issue with, since their social benefits are not tied to their employer and they overall work less hours and have more vacation time and longer parental leave periods.

The corporate tax might be nominally higher in the US, but the cost of doing business is definitely higher in Europe. When you have to pay 55% to the state if an employee has a salary above 100k, that will seriously hinder your ability to hire top talent, retain them, and motivate them (why work harder if it will go down the tax drain?)

It's not a tax drain though. It funds things like higher education and healthcare. Things that most Americans have to pay out of pocket if they want which entrenches the lack of class mobility in this country. Imo the european system is better.

> It funds things like higher education and healthcare

The US funds the healthcare above and beyond what any other country on Earth is doing. I think it's 50% higher than the next contender, per capita.

As for higher education, the US universities are doing much much better than their European counterparts. If you get a STEM degree, you're basically set for life in the US, pay your debts in no time and then enjoy a salary that can easily be 2 times higher than in Europe. In Europe you get a free education, which opens up the exciting opportunity to toil for 60k-80k (pre-tax) a year for the rest of your life. Take the tax out, and you're left with around 50% of that money.

The US universities are fine. The STEM graduates are fine. The problem is with all the non-marketable degrees for which students get into serious debt. I don't think we should subsidize those more, I think we should discourage students from attending useless degrees. If the government will pay for the degrees, then the government will also have a heavy hand in picking winners and losers in terms of classes, degrees, schools etc. This is how it's in Europe, and it shows, they are lacking performance.

e.g. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-unive...

To put it shortly: if everybody has X, then nobody has X.

Education and healthcare in the US do not lack funding. We don't need more money thrown at these nuanced and delicate problems.

Not every US STEM degree gets you a six figure job. STEM majors are some of the most awarded degrees in all colleges; there is a huge oversupply in the labor pool unless you are able to differentiate yourself which is not easy and usually requires post graduate education or nepotism. For the vast majority of STEM B.S. degrees, even a computer science degree in the midwest, you might be toiling for 60k-80k too. No one I knew who graduated in computer science in my undergrad has some glamorous bay area life today. Most ended up getting jobs in places like Nebraska or somewhere humid in the south writing terrible enterprise software and they complain to me how much it sucks. The bay area and that high income tech culture is a tiny little bubble, despite all the ink spilled over it.

I was talking about averages, you counter with a very specific example: midwest or southern states software devs.

I could counter with Italy, where you can call yourself lucky if you get 2000 Euros a month after taxes, as a senior dev. And it's not a particularly cheap country either.

I think it's more useful to look at averages, e.g. https://www.daxx.com/blog/development-trends/it-salaries-sof...

Keep in mind that the sums are usually before tax. Income taxes in the US for a 100k salary can be as low as 10%. Add 5% for healthcare and you end up with 85% in your pocket. In Europe, with the exception of Switzerland, they will take 45-55% of your money, especially above 60k; so from a 60k salary in Germany you take home 30k.

I would say 30k vs 85k is a lot to make up the difference for "free" college and "free" healthcare.

If you could choose free university and then 50 years of 30k income VS 200k in debts and then 50 years of 85k income, what would you choose?

But again, my point is that the US education and healthcare have enough funding even with the lower taxation. Funding is not a problem, US has more or similar funding than other developed nations: healthcare, education, welfare benefits.

> Most ended up getting jobs in places like Nebraska or somewhere humid in the south writing terrible enterprise software and they complain to me how much it sucks.

Hello, friend. No but seriously, if anyone has any good advice on how to escape this, I’m listening.

The main difference is not taxes, but how loose employment and business regulations in the US are vs. EU. In general, it is much easier to fire people in the US (https://smallbusiness.chron.com/compare-us-labor-laws-europe...)

Nobody in the US pays the full 21% after taking into accounts credits and write-offs.

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