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akuma587 on 10 March 2009
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Kasz216 said:
akuma587 said:
jv103 said:
What does taxation have to do with capitalism? -I was under the impression that socialism was socializing the actual industry and business (or the capital). I get the feeling that in countries with highers tax rates, apparently nobody gets anything done.

It really doesn't have that much to do with capitalism, though in general capitalism leads to less taxes and socialism to more taxes.  But citizens of socialistic countries have to spend a lot less on things like healthcare and retirement.

The question is... is this true?  Or do they generally pay more... just through taxes with lots of it wasted away through bueracracy.

If I pay 20 dollars in taxes a week and get 20 dollars of groceries a week i'm not actually being paid more.

Also another issue in favor of capitalism is it's basically what made Europe and America what it is today.

Ask just about any historian... the individualistic, capitalistic, crass and firecly independent "nature" of people was born in Europe in the Germanic Tribes... which led to the defeat of Rome and the Dark ages... yet said attitudes and nature eventually sprung Europe into the superpower it is today.  Suprassing other more traditional nations that had vast empires.

One could argue philosophically that socialism dulls this a bit, and possible at prolonging future breakthroughs which spurr the general quality of living higher.

Yes, it does cost more.  We spend a much higher percentage of our GDP on healthcare than any other country in the world and we aren't even ranked in the top 30 healthcare systems in the world:

 

And this is the World Health Organization's ranking of the world's healthcare systems:

1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America
38 Slovenia
39 Cuba
40 Brunei
41 New Zealand
42 Bahrain
43 Croatia
44 Qatar
45 Kuwait
46 Barbados
47 Thailand
48 Czech Republic
49 Malaysia
50 Poland

 



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson