We pay microtransactions on life

and they're not even factoring in how for profit prisons are literal slave labour camps.

Yeah the cruelty is definitely the point for far too many. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that so many people don’t actually give a shit about the area they live in being a nice, human conducive place. Littering, gated communities, pollution, NIMBY bullshit… I could go on forever.

I know a lot of poor people who would absolutely back this measure bc their favorite politician said so

Most of them are too poor to be in a tax bracket that would "pay for it"

Well, last statement a lot of antitax are also antiwar. Ron Paul attracted some people because of his antiwar, anti intervention, and freedom regarding drugs platform.

I think that basic form of libertarian is attractive to many if you don't look too closely at what it actually entails and if you only care about yourself and maybe people you know/family.

I generally think of it as childish selfishness we're expected to grow out of once we learn some basic society facts.

I will say, I have been pretty shocked to watch for president repeatedly blow up his own son’s cocaine supply. He must have switched suppliers

The idea that your taxes "go to pay" for something is where a lot of people miss the mark.

Taxes are a means of wealth redistribution. Nothing more. The government literally prints money. They don't need your money.

Every bomb we drop is a school that didn't get didn't get funding. Not because you were taxed too little or too much. But because the same people that benefit from the wealth redistribution of the tax system also use that wealth redistribution to fund the Imperialism that they benefit from.

At some points in history, fire departments were privatized. It wasn't a great plan. Fire tends to spread.

I get what you're saying but I want to make a point around this. There is a lot of cynical framing around many issues that I feel like it leads to a sense of acceptance. There is ZERO reason social security can't be funded. The idea that this is a thing to worry about is just a narrative setup by those that want to kill it.

Social security fully funds itself through paystubs. It is self sustainable. The issue is with the cap. A cap that has been adjusted to average wages since the 1970s. The last of which was increased to $147k in 2022.

The issue is not with social security. The issue is with average wages declining while the wealth of the country is concentrated with the wealthy (who do not even earn a traditional wage).

The cap just needs adjustment to account for this. Something that has happened before and quite frankly the cap just should not exist.

The "cap" here means that if I make $147k in a year I pay about $10k in social security. If I make $1,000,000 a year I pay the exact same amount of $10k because the tax stops being considered past that amount. It's an inverse progressive tax.

Social security keeps old people from dying in the streets. Anyone with a brain should selfishly want to fund that. I don't want to live in a world where I see even more old people dying in the streets. I don't care if they "made bad life decisions". It's for me. I don't want to walk around and see that.

TLDR: don't let this narrative be a thing. Social security has no reason to not be paid other than a neoliberal narrative that says we can't adjust a social safety net during a time in which it's needed the most. Don't passively accept this framing. Be outraged. Don't be accepting.

It's probably about right if you're antivax /s

Yeah, the NL basically has the US system, except there is only one "network" all providers must be in, premiums are like 150 EUR and there are no other fees like copays or maximums.

There isn't a human on this planet that isn't weak to propaganda.

If your goal is to lead the race (for best quality of life), then 1st place is the goal. 1st place doesn't slow down or they won't be 1st for long. If a utopia is the finish line, but not for another half marathon, then focus on the next mile and/or the next position in the race. That's how progress is made.

With the free market and a well designed tax system, we can exploit greed, let the ghouls work for us.

I mean as a matter of fact it is better than the American system, but the rise of far right parties like the AFD in germany is terrifying. I mean what system do you recommend and could it be implemented in Europe?

Note how I said ideology, not party, I an not a super fan of how the current social democratic party has been handling things

The "fee" is using a private tax preparation service. In theory skippable, but it's just a pain to do.

Once upon a time, maybe forgivable, private sector embracing useful technology before the government was ready, but now the government actively resists making it easier to file taxes, and coincidentally the tax prep companies give a lot of money to politicians....

Why not include it with thw taxes?

With Americans, the answer is always some private entity mixed in the middle that will make money out of it.

well what did you expect

me with my business: selling uncharged, possibly unchargeable batteries

"dISCOUNT?"

Here in Sweden you generally don't even need help. Naturally there are people with disabilities, or complex financial situations, but that's not most people. For me personally, filing taxes means I log on to the tax office's website, skim through the details to make sure there's no egregious clerical error, and then I click a button to sign off on it. It takes about 5 minutes a year.

If you deal in stocks or buy/sell property a lot it might get a bit more complicated. I think my roomie had deductions because of how much they drives for work, so that added like 5 minutes for supplementary information.

I'm convinced the U.S. makes it complicated for predatory reasons.

libraries have books in them, they are afraid they will catch the woke virus...

But libraries are cOmMuNiSm!

Canada

How else would we double tap our neighbors outside our own territory?

a society is either 100% capitalist or 100% socialist.

This is never true in the real world, everything is a spectrum. Do you think there are any countries that are 100% socialist in today's world? If yes, then I highly doubt it's actually true, if not, I suppose you count them as "100% capitalist", which is a classic "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

And then the spectrum not linear either, on the "capitalist" side of the spectrum you have capitalism and fascism, each controlling the working class through different means; and on the "socialist" side you have various ways in which the working class controls (or is told that they control) the means of production; everything from anarchism to councilism to syndicalism to leninism to maoism to stalinism, and a million varieties in between.

I do agree with your other point, though, universal healthcare is almost entirely unrelated to actual socialism/communism, it just turns out to be a (very beneficial) consequence of redistributing power to the working class.

Finally a correct comment

You know how abuse produces abusers that perpetuate that abuse? That but on a national level.

Hey we may be dumb, and we may be exposed to constant propaganda, but...

What was the third thing you said?

this is so underrated. even smart people can do stupid things. but that's only half of the story... second half is culture (and here even european countries are not much better). in real life it is almost always worth more to look strong than to be smart. changing your opinion does not make you look strong - it makes the "other" person look like they've won an argument and that makes you look both weak (you didn't stand your ground) and stupid (you didn't know better). this is both entirely nonsense and perfectly understandable due to the culture (deeper level than propaganda). so nobody who makes it somewhere wants to do it. they will rather invent opposing false story and bend over backwards trying to defend it than concede a point to their percieved opponents... which brings us - here.

The "tax" part is what you pay above what the cost of a Product or Service would be if there wasn't a Monopoly, Cartel or legal structure forcing you to acquire that product or service.

The actual cost of making and/or providing that Product or Service (plus a bit of profit to incentivise somebody to actual do it) is the part that serves that purpose (and thus can be said to be "earmarked for a specific purpose"), anything above that is just money you are forced to put in the pocked of somebody for holding a dominant market position due to natural or artificial market barriers and/or even having bough politicians to tilt that market in their favor, killing the viability of alternative products or services or even legally forcing you to acquire that product or service.

That "above natural cost" part of what people are forced to pay for essentials like housing is not earmarked for anything (since it does not go into the costs of the other side to provide you that Product or Service or the profit margin needed to incentivise somebody to do it), plus unlike taxes payed to the Public it will never come back and provide you with any benefit and even in a Democratic system you have no control whatsoever over what it is used for unlike one's traditional taxes where theoritically (the more trully Democratic a nation is, the more it is so in practice) one has some influence in how it gets uses through the vote.

But sure, you can call the part that is used to actually pay the costs of the Products and Services plus a fair profit margin, to be a deduction if you want (personally I just think of it as natural cost of living). Personally I see that part as totally fair, so not at all an unfair burden, whilst more broadly politically I actually favor a system were life's essentials are take care of for all from the common pot which is the taxes paid to the public, in this specific point I'm restricting myself to a pure Trade logic.

Roughly, Socialism is a way to reach the state of perfect Equality of Outcomes called Communism, which requires an Revolution of The Proletariat where the Means of Production are siezed - so, an autocratic stage - to get there, and said stage is where all the so-called "Communist" countries are stuck - there is no nation in the World were everybody had the same, and there never was.

Social-Democracy is about how to get as much Equality as possible with the expectation that Equality Of Outcomes (in other words, Communism) is an impossible utopia because people are different, have different capabilities and have different levels of wanting to have things, and to do so without going through autocracy but rather using Democratic means.

So Social-Democracy aims for Equality Of Opportunity rather than Equality Of Outcomes (i.e. everybody gets the same chances rather than everybody has the same things), has things like higher taxation for people with higher incomes, wealth taxes and higher inheritance taxes (basically, the idea that those who can most afford it pay the most) to try and flatten wealth inequality and instead of seizing the means of production in the whole Economy, has a mixed system were in areas deemed essential for life or to provide equality of opportunities the state provides for peoples' needs (so for example, Public Education including University level, with a meritocratic selection processes) whilst in areas not deemed so (say, the manufacture and sale of soap) there's a Capitalist market system though with strong regulation and oversight for things deemed important for people's quality of life (for example, to stop Environmental damage).

Of course, even the most effective Social-Democratic systems have been highly subverted and undermined by the push in the Neoliberal Era for "Free Markets", "Low Regulation" and other such ideas designed to put the Power Of Money above the Power Of The Vote (by making the structures controlled by the vote de facto have less power over most of that which affects people's lives, than those controlled by Money).

That doesn't mean that Social-Democracy in its original form is a bad idea, it means that even in so-called Social-Democrat countries what they have is a system were Capitalism is currently dominant (having taken over a lot of "essential for life" domains which should still be controlled by the State, and nullified regulatory oversight in many areas that although not essential are important for people's quality of life), though still less so than in nations were when Neoliberalism started spreading Social-Democracy was weaker or even non-existent.

Further, Neoliberalism spread faster and deeper in places were Corruption was higher since it mostly works by buying politicians to sell Public companies, change the Laws to remove State participation in and oversight of important areas of the Economy and to weaken Regulatory oversight both by weakening the actual Regulatory Authorities directly and by making the fines for breaking regulations be smaller than the profits of doing so.

All this is why, for example, the US is way more fucked up than Denmark.

The caveat obviously being that things aren't as bad yet. We're headed there.

It's not everything, but it's at least something.

Hopefully buddy is doing well, whatever his name is, and wherever he is now.

a jelly-filled doughnut,

Oh, like a berliner?

the government owning and controlling industries and services

Are you trying to define communism here? Because it's not exactly that either. And socialism is absolutely not that.