You guys share the tax burden across the whole population. The debate here in the US is more about WHO has to pay the tax burden. The current ruling party wants to shift even more of the burden onto the "rich" (which really means the working and small businesses) while a larger and larger share of the population pays nothing (while asking for more and more free benefits).

Our income tax is a bit complicated to explain but it works more or less like this:

- first you have an income tax free rate of about € 6000, people who earn that (or less) pay no income tax
- lets say you earn € 100.000 then you'd pay 37% tax over the first 19.000, 41.95% over 19.000 to 33.000 and 42% over 33.000 to 56.000, above the 56.000 to the 100.000 you pay 52%

So in fact the rich are paying more then the poor, not unlike what Obama is suggesting I think.

Out of curiosity, what do you believe caused the sovereign debt issues in nations like Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain?

Coming as you do from one of the economically "sound" economies in Europe, I would be interested in your view of the EU bailout of those countries.

We have nearly half of the country paying ZERO federal taxes, and Obama is suggesting that we raise taxes even more on the half that is paying the tax burden. I don't think your system is quite that lopsided, is it?

I am talking specifically about Greece here.

If an American company would have cooked their books, to get a better credit rating at Moody's or another bond rating agencies...

The Feds would have been all over them and if it would have been a smaller company (they don't really prosecute large companies!!!) the responsible officers, or one or a few fall guys would be in prison for fraud!

That's what Greece did in order to join the EU and become Euro "worthy"...

Greece should have never been part of the EU, until they were actually qualified with an economic strength to participate.

When US companies (AIG and such) started to fuck up domestically, it also affected their global business interests... e.g. in Europe, where they did the same type of regulatory circumvention of insurance of securities by calling it
"credit default swaps"...

Too big to fail fucked us all!

So, when the crap hit the fan... Europe was pulled into the malstrom as well and especially weak economies, such as Greece just couldn't make it, because, as I said earlier... they lied and committed fraud and the result is a heavy burden on the rest of the EU and especially Germany.

Yes... but to say that they pay no tax or to even say they don't pay their fair share is silly. To even say that it is lopsided is a bit silly when you look at total tax as a percentage of income.

The poor pay payroll tax, state income tax, gas tax, sales tax, real estate tax....
If you look at the total tax that citizens pay in the U.S. it is a much flatter taxing system than you would guess from the squealing that certain individuals and interest groups do.

As a percentage of income the poor and middle class don't pay all that different a percentage than the wealthy do.



Are the wealthy really paying "Too Much"

Not at all true.

Are you sure???
If you are a 1%er you may pay less than your not quite as wealthy neighbor.

See the chart above

Ok.... I'll revise that.
If you are making more than $50,000 a year you pay about the same percent as the Multi Millionaires

I'm talking about federal taxes. Almost half of Americans pay none at all (and no, having some withheld then returned at the end of the year doesn't count).

Yes, their taxes are high, but they GET something for their money.
The roads are paved, medical bills are taken care of (there's nothing to whine pathetically about for generations), the trains are always sparkling clean and they run on time, there's no garbage on the streets that make (at least the richest and most touristed area of New York look like a filthy, impoverished, cesspool of a third world country where everyday, garbage is piled so high, that you can't see over the stinking, rat infested mass) ... they don't have cellphone dropouts (again, as though we're a third world country).

As far as "socialism", what do you call the Social Security system, free police and fire departments -- unemployment payments, medicaid and Food Stamps for the poor, subsidized agriculture (and a subsidized extremely lucrative military-industrial complex), free schools, failing industry bailouts, failed bank bailouts ... et cetera, et cetera?

If you are only looking at federal taxes your are missing much of the picture.
Would you try to balance your checkbook using only the utility bills?

If you want to also talk about consumption based taxes (such as sales, fuel, telecommunications, taxes for air travel, property taxes, liquor, tobacco, soda, tanning salons, estate, gift taxes, licensing fees, etc., etc., etc.) then it all depends on where you live and how much of these sorts of things one uses, and we will get nowhere.

You can do it the easy way,
Or you can do it the right way.
Looking at the big picture is the right way to do it.


looking at the big picture the wealthy (particularly the wealthiest) are not paying too much,
and in reality are probably are not paying enough.

And the fact that we on average are paying the lowest overall taxes as a percentage of our income in 50 years indicates that we are in fact paying less than we should.
Unless the plan is to kick it down the road to our "kids".

Hmzz that's a bit complicated because Ireland's problems are totally different from Spains or Greeces.
Greece for example got into the Euro by flattering the books were in fact their economy was in no way qualified to be in the Eurozone,when that came out the Greece economy collapsed.

Spain is a totally different story, their banks had a lot of investments in dubious derivates, they already had a high unemployment rate and the national debt was already high so when the recession kicked in they were hit twice as hard, the unemployment rate there is at about 23% at the moment I think.

Ireland's government just went ballistic in spending money and they are paying the price for that now and Italy suffered from its corruption, the idiot that's called Berlusconi and pensionfunds with no cash in the balance at all.

But basically it all comes down to the same thing, their governments spended way to much money without taking care of the increase of the national debt and that combined with a failing banksystem, corruption and growing unemployment rates put them all in a lot of trouble. (in my humble opinion)

You also don't live in a country that is 4,800km across with cities spread out everywhere that makes it impractical to have good mass transportation systems serving everyone. Gas prices has high as you pay would have a HUGE impact on the cost of goods in our country since shipping costs would triple or quadruple. You also don't have 330 million people. Hell, you only have half the population of California and 10% of the area!

Population of the Eurozone (2012):    332,839,084


EDIT: I found something interesting as well...

Prison Population per 100,000

USA :      724
Germany:  94

I was looking for a an overview of the prison population in the Eurozone, but found only a break down per country.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/u … 2page1.stm

Yes, I know but the OP was about the Netherlands not the Eurozone.

If you want to discuss the entire Eurozone then let's start with Greece.

I explained Greece already, see further up!

You explained why they were allowed to join the EU. You didn't explain why such a socialist country has so much debt and so many problems.

I agree with you that the prison population in the US is MUCH too high. That's partly due to the impact of prison guard unions pushing longer sentences and strict sentencing guidelines such as Three Strikes as well as the failed war on drugs.

Thank you for the insight. And, yes, you are ABSOLUTELY correct, the direct causes were all different.

Do you think the Eurozone is going to survive? Do you think the people of countries like the Netherlands and Germany and the other "sound" members of the EU will continue to bailout the failed economies of Greece, Spain, Portugal and the others?

Also, I am curious. ____IF_____ the US banks had not had their collapse, do you think the Eurozone problems would have been avoided, or just delayed?

Which CLEARLY explains why Geitner (representing the Pres and Dems) came to thew table with tax increases and spending INCREASES...lol...like fish in a barrel...

oh oh! and then the same thing with what the regulators are doing to prop up these failing economies


if any of these were companies they would have been shut down for being a ponzi scheme! hahaha can you believe the EU was considering offering a new product called Eurobonds! (not to be confused with eurobonds)

SO MUCH FAIL HAHAHA

Yeah because the US to Netherlands is clearly an apples to apples comparison...only difference is scale?...
Netherlands:
Miles of public roads = 135,500 km
Square km of landmass = 33,900 km
population density of whole country = 477 people per sq km....on of the most dense populations on the planet.
% population over 65 yo = 14%
with an 11.3 birth rate per 1,000
Very homogeneous with an 81.7 % dutch population

US =
miles of roads 2,750,000 MILES
landmass = 9,162,000 square km
population density = 34 people per square km..pretty damn sparse...except the major cities
% population over 65 = 13.3 %...wow, we finally have SOMETHING in common
birth rate = 13.9 per 1,000...means we have a boatload more kids...which means schools, day-cares, medical services...diapers(trash) etc...on a GRAND scale
with a remarkably diverse population despite what the news tells you

In other words, a little bitty country with a handful of people who are very homogeneous and happy to hand over their money...yet you are in debt, same as us.
It would seem that your higher taxes have FAILED you.
With a military of 52,000?!...did I read that right?...
yeah, apples to apples?....lol

Since I don't live in the Netherlands, there is no point in my complaining about YOUR taxes.  But if you want my sympathy, you've earned it.

Will the Eurozone survive? I honestly don't know, money doesn't grow on trees so there is a limit to the support that the solvable countries can give to the weaker countries.
Most economics are in agreement that the only way that Greece can survive is to write of their debt on a huge scale because the intrest on those debts alone is unmanagable.
If the same is going to apply to Spain, Portugal and Italy there is no way that the stronger countries can sustain that kind of a write off so then it will collapse for sure.

About your second question, I think the recession was unavoidable with an unregulated and out of control banking system.
People are just people and if you give them incentives enough with big bonusses, loopholes in the laws etc etc they will sooner or later tend to break or bend the rules to their advantage.
And ofcourse its not just the banks, it's on every level, down to the consumer who should have known better to purchase a morgage that he couldn't afford.

Everyone of us is susceptible to incentives, it's the size that differs but if you make the sausage big enough that is put in front of your mouth we all will eat it and that is just what happened on a global scale.

Thank you (but i'm still very happy living in The Netherlands)

Hmzz I honestly don't see how our higher taxes have failed us when we are in way better shape on all fronts then the USA but please enlighten me:)

Olof Wessels wrote:
Thank you (but i'm still very happy living in The Netherlands)

You mentioned earlier in the thread (I think it was you ) that you were surprised at our "conservative" reaction to the injection of a little socialism into our side of things.

Maybe, if you read this article, published this morning in the New York Times, you will see where our some of our attitudes come from.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/world … ve.html?hp

Now, I know France is NOT the Netherlands, and I know Dutch laws and programs are NOT the same as those in France.

But, France is the second largest economy in the EU, and is supposed to be one of the backbone nations supporting the weaker economies. When we read the kind of statistics quoted in the article, with high unemployment among the young, educated, well trained folks, with the high number of temporary jobs, or internships, with the high number of folks who have stopped even looking for jobs... the socialist answers that have been used to create the system doesnt look very appealing to us.

from the article:

" Ms. Forriez, 23, is part of a growing problem in France and other low-growth countries of Europe — the young and educated unemployed, who go from one internship to another, one short-term contract to another, but who cannot find a permanent job that gets them on the path to the taxpaying, property-owning French ideal that seemed the norm for decades.

This is a “floating generation,” made worse by the euro crisis, and its plight is widely seen as a failure of the system: an elitist educational tradition that does not integrate graduates into the work force, a rigid labor market that is hard to enter, and a tax system that makes it expensive for companies to hire full-time employees and both difficult and expensive to lay them off.

The result, analysts and officials agree, is a new and growing sector of educated unemployed, whose lives are delayed and whose inability to find good jobs damages tax receipts, pension programs and the property market. There are no separate figures kept for them, but when added to the large number of unemployed young people who have little education or training, there is a growing sense that France and other countries in Western Europe risk losing a generation, further damaging prospects for sustainable economic growth. "


When we get descriptions like that about the conditions in France, how would you expect us to react to the concept of using the same system of govt here? Why would we want a system that has so obviously failed to provide for its citizens?

Again, I understand you are speaking of the policies of the Netherlands, and I am posting about the policies of France. But the entire EU, including the Netherlands  has had a "socialist" leaning approach to government since the end of WWII, and the results just dont look all that much better than the mess we are in here.....

Oh do elaborate.

You honestly think that there is no end to the amount of oil, iron ore, uranium, fresh water, sustainable fish populations or the amount of food that we can produce??

You said it's a fact...on what do you base that statement on?

Well based on the fact that nothing is never ending so why should there be an exception for natural resources?
I'm not a believer in doomsday or a prepper for any of such things but I strongly believe that the upcoming generations will have some daunting challenges ahead of them in tackling overpopulation and the burdon that brings on our global resources.

Ah, ok.  So no real facts. 

Daunting challenges, maybe.  I don't see a shortage of anything right now.  Who knows what will happen in the future. 

Next time try making a statement with concrete evidence to back you up, not just an assumption that fish are going to disappear, etc.

I'm not a scientist, biologist or geologist but I do believe that 1 + 1 = 2
and overpopulation + a fixed size of the planet we are living on (and therefore a limited size to natural resources) is going to be a challenge for sure.
Saying it does not excist now doesn't make the given limitations go away.

Olof Wessels wrote:

Thank you (but i'm still very happy living in The Netherlands)

And I'm quite happy living here. And I hope to some day visit your fine nation.  Even if it's too expensive.

We are HUGE, cumbersome, disorganized, ideologically divergent, ethnically,racially,religiously,culturally diverse as hell. We DESIGNED our federal govt to be slow and cumbersome (Yours is just that way by accident). We have HUGE bills that you don't due to both our square miles and our mouths to feed, we HAD a space program for 50 yrs, we won two world wars, lost a few smaller ones, and have been fighting several lately, we have to deal with natural disasters on a regular basis(flood, fire, hurricane ) that you really don't face, again due to our spacial size. Our coastline alone requires a Coast Guard that is about the size of your entire military...
with all those advances over us, you should have money in the bank and sit around drinking sweet tea all day.

So do you think that Ireland, Spain, Portugal, etc. all cooked their books as well?