And so both get what they want. Both are used to 'their' way of living. More freedom would scare Francois because it also means less governement in health care, child-support, rent-support, 3 years of unemployment checks, etc etc.
You could very well argue that freedom means absolutely no laws, absolutely no government, no public sector, period. You could also very well argue that freedom means being able to be confident that you have access to medical care, education, and child-support regardless of who you are, or your income level.
Freedom doesn't actually _mean_ anything anymore, it's just a political catch-phrase.
Can I rephrase your post and say "less government support would scare Francois..."?
Yet I felt I had much more freedom of choice in Norway: Becoming truly destitute in Norway is pretty much only possible if you refuse to apply for government support.
This, to me, meant I was free to make a lot of decisions without considering consequences that would put me at substantial risk in the UK, and much more so in the US. It is hard to describe the feeling. I've mentioned before, how I started my first company (an ISP) pretty much on a whim because we were dissatisfied with the available ISPs; we threw together a business plan, found an angel investor, found offices and moved into them (literally; three of us lived there for a while) in the span of a few months. During this time, not once did the potential consequences of failing enter my mind, for the simple reason that there'd pretty much not be any consequences: I'd be able to get government support if I needed it, and I'd "just" go back to my studies or find another job.
Not really needing to worry about healthcare, or housing, or whether or not you might starve, are important forms of freedom to me. I'd take that over a few percent lower taxes any day, and I'd argue that I get more freedom of choice from those benefits than what few percent more disposable income could buy me in other ways.
> About a third of his wages (and 20% of everything he buys) is used for the different types of government support.
If Francois makes enough to pay 1/3 of his wages in income taxes, he's earning enough that he'd pay roughly 1/3 of his wages in taxes in many pats of the US too. Sure, if Francois went to live in Utah, he'd be better off, tax wise. If he were to go to California, on the other hand, the difference would be minimal.
VAT makes up very little of the typical tax burden. I'm in the UK, and 20% VAT translates to about 4% of my gross wage, because most of my income does not go to products that are taxed at the 20% bracket (for starters, I pay tax with some of them; then I pay my mortgage, and so on; and food is zero-rated).
Tax differences are not as great as people tend to think. My tax burden in Norway was about 1-2 percentage points higher than in the UK. A salary giving me the same purchasing power in Silicon Valley, would cut my tax bill by about the same as my added costs for healthcare insurance, and certainly wouldn't cover my increased transport costs... I did the maths for this to excruciating detail because we were considering moving to the US at one point. There may be specific income levels where the differences are more pronounced due to differences in tax policies, and certainly some countries / states are more or less expensive (as I learned the other day: stay clear of Belgium... )
That strong welfare systems can provide more freedom of choice by removing a lot of concerns that you have to consider when those systems are not available.
I don't think you know what you're talking about.
In addition, 445 Billion dollars from the oil fund is in reserve for pensions.
Simply put, the Norway model is not repeatable unless you're have a natural resource reserve. One could argue that the US shale reserves should be used in similar fashion.
That is a pretty big industry. Crude petroleum and crude gas consists of over 50% of exports. A lot of economical activity leads to a lot of tax revenue. Imagine if this industry did not exist, that the petroleum simply did not exist to begin with - the people that work in this industry now would be working in other sectors and industries. (The real problem is to replace this industry with something else once the well dries up. But that is a problem brought by such a big oil industry, not a problem that exists in spite of it).
> In addition, 445 Billion dollars from the oil fund is in reserve for pensions.
I think the whole point of the fund(s) is for them to be pension funds. But it may vary how strictly they are ear marked.
Now you're undermining your original point of the oil sector subsidizing the budget. The whole point of the Pension Fund is so that the incumbent government can't go on a spending spree and leave the future generations in the mud.
I've made my point clearly - your insistence isn't backed up with any new information to the contrary.
It's easy to have a rich developed country with a high quality of life when you have a small population and lots of natural resources.
As I said in a response to someone else: Replace Norway with Denmark, or Sweden, or Germany, or France or any number of other European countries in my comment above, and the argument still stands.
Immigrating to the US has become harder over the years and "regulators" are against potentially disruptive technologies like Bitcoin while countries like Denmark are trying to embrace those kinds of technologies.
It remains to be seen if the USA can maintain its position going forward. In any case it's tough times ahead for many highly privileged economies. I'm from Austria and the disconnect between what used to be and the current realities is often huge. I guess the most important thing is to not get blinded by your own success, then you survive and possibly even thrive.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23og0b/danish_polit...
I was recently surprised to find that if I earned $80,000 in Australia, married to a partner who does not earn, and with two children, my effective tax rate would be ~ 15% (!), even if self-employed, once you factor in the Family Tax Assistance payment ($500/mo) and the government rebate for private health insurance purchase. That doesn't include other benefits I could receive such as child care rebate (50% of child-care costs up to $7,500 per child).
Compare to NYC, where as a self-employed person I pay 30-40% on $80k, with high property taxes on top! And I get no government assistance and certainly not healthcare.
This is astounding. And yet Americans think these countries are "socialist" and "high tax." Not true, US scores lower on economic freedom and higher on government size and tax as %GDP.
There are so many cool things about living in the US, but raising a family here just sounds absurdly stressful and expensive.
I have lived in every income spectrum up through my current one--from severe poverty to relative affluence. One of the most important observations I've made is how little "freedom of choice" there is the further down the socioeconomic ladder one goes in this country. It's just an empty phrase most often spouted by people who have never known anything other than a life of upper-middle-class or better living.
> ...by people who have never known anything other than a life of upper-middle-class or better living.
Is it? I would not know what you're talking about as I grew up during the '80 recession and my family was on welfare.
I am glad I was able to go to a university in part thanks to gouvernement student-aid in a not so expensive city.
Those services might well be worthwhile enough to warrant such coercion, but it's downright Orwellian to insist on the coercion being called 'freedom'.
I take a fair amount of offense at this statement. I am stating that, given that the word "freedom" is commonly being used not as a word, but as a political catch-phrase with multiple, often contradicting meanings, I prefer to clarify the usage, either by substituting it with another word, or defining carefully what one means by "freedom". Far from attempting to redefine "freedom", I am attempting to _totally ban its usage goddamn it_, since, as you have pointed out, its definition has been co-opted to mean something entirely alien to its original meaning.
Edit: To clarify, when I said ban, I was exaggerating. I am not supporting literally banning the word "freedom", nor sending anyone to the gulags. I simply would prefer if people were to choose other, more exact, less politically-charged words in the place of "freedom".
I find it downright comical that you call this Orwellian, given that George Orwell was a lifetime socialist.
The same argument actually applies to pretty much anything you care to call "freedom".
If you say freedom means no slavery, you have to coerce people not to keep slaves.
This is why the word "freedom" is so useless. There is no such thing as a system with no coercion. What people mean when they say freedom is "coercion is only used to enforce the balances I think are important".
As a privileged individual (middle class, white, male, above average IQ) I've always found the liberal point of view naturally alluring but ultimately it seems to be dishonest and unethical no matter how many ideological writings on anarcho-capitalist theory I keep reading. So again, while I like the ideas of extreme freedom (voluntaryism, etc) in the end it seems like it's just extreme ideology disconnected from reality and actually resulting in less freedom.
Can you elaborate on the first part? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
The point I was trying to make was essentially that it seems logical to me that a higher crime rate can be connected to substantial inequalities in terms of opportunities / wealth.
Yes, I think so too.
The phrase you quote is most associated with Louis Brandeis' conception of a right to privacy (it was his in-a-nutshell definition).
Privacy and freedom are not the same, obviously. And, there is nothing explicitly in the Constitution (or the Amendments) about privacy per se, which is why Brandeis had to write the article grappling with the issue.
[citation needed]
Oh, yeah, freedom bonus: As a US citizen I'm forced to pay taxes on my worldwide income even if I no longer live in the US. And if I want to get rid of this beacon of freedom, my US citizenship, I have to pay an "exit tax" on my assets. Freedom my ass.
Oh, you mean "more dependence upon private and corporate interests".
Or, "less democratic control over the services provided, instead left to whoever has money to influence the market to decide".
[added] I'm kidding (only slightly), because I took offense of Francois liking "less freedom". How about he has a different concept of freedom? That could be either equally valid, or less valid, or even more valid.
Basically, what you wrote, I understood as:
"I don't believe in democratic governance and voting, for me the government is some kind of enemy I want to see less of, and more wallet-voting".
Which if fine by me, but it should be stated more explicitly. Other people find wallet-voting mighty inneficient, and to me doesn't sound very different than "the rich get what they want".
Highly recommended: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q49NOyJ8fNA