[bru]

Indeed! But then you get great health insurance, good public infrastructure and services, free top-notch education, etc.

Basically if you're without any dependent, you may not see it as worth it, but once you have a family it really starts paying off.

[adventured]

People making the kind of money being discussed here, such that you trigger higher bracket income taxes, have great health insurance in the US as well. Further, decent jobs in the US almost always include health insurance compensation above the salary. I have a brother that works in a pretty normal job earning $42,000 per year (not an outsized salary in the US), he pays $27 per month for his health insurance through his employer, and it's a nice plan. That isn't unusual in the US, health insurance compensation is almost universally ignored in salary comparisons (while the inverse isn't true, the tax based health coverage in other nations is always noted as a perk that should be considered with salaries).

The education system you're referring to is not free at all. The very substantial income taxes in France pay for it.

[esw]

>he pays $27 per month for his health insurance through his employer, and it's a nice plan.

This is really an outlier. The US average for employee premiums is $104/month for individuals and $392/month for families.

[umanwizard]

That might be an outlier relative to the whole population, but is it one relative to good tech jobs?

I pay $0 for health insurance, for example, and what I get is perfectly good.

[esw]

The context seems to have been lost in the shuffle. Here's what I was responding to:

>I have a brother that works in a pretty normal job earning $42,000 per year (not an outsized salary in the US), he pays $27 per month for his health insurance through his employer, and it's a nice plan. That isn't unusual in the US

My point is that most people in 'pretty normal jobs' pay considerably more for healthcare.

[hayd]

Plans differ wildly in copay/oom etc. So $0 isn't what you end up paying if you actually need to use your health plan.

[adventured]

Show me the US median instead of the average. The average will usually be substantially tilted higher by extreme examples at the top end. I'd be willing to bet the median is closer to $60-$70. That's not expensive.

[closeparen]

For even entry-level tech jobs in the Bay Area, it is quite high. I pay $5.

[jjawssd]

US average? Anyway, all my coworkers pay 30 per person 60 per family on a popular health plan from a major insurance company.

[bru]

> The education system you're referring to is not free at all. The very substantial income taxes in France pay for it.

That's like my whole point… You'll effectively get less money than in the US, but you're subsidising a fraternal economy which you enjoy too.

[fra]

adventured: what you're missing here is that having other people get free education and healthcare is a benefit to you.

Lots of evidence to support that, delightfully summarized in "The Spirit Level" by Wilkinson and Pickett, among others.

[Joky]

I believe education is "free" till the end of high-school in the US the same way it is in France, the difference starts with College/University. (France has a really nice pre-K system though!)

[adventured]

Here's the same exact same free education logic applied to the US system:

US universities are free. The money you don't pay in taxes covers the cost.

What evidence would you hold up to suggest the French fraternal economy system is the one to mimic? As opposed to Sweden, Germany, or the UK, which have all produced superior results the last few decades with different approaches from that of France.

[wott]

> As opposed to Sweden, Germany, or the UK, which have all produced superior results the last few decades with different approaches from that of France.

What???

[adventured]

Sweden, Germany and the UK have approached economic growth far differently than what France has, and have produced superior results to that of France. The question was, why would the "French fraternal" system be worthy of being copied given its weak results?

See for example: Sweden's economic deregulation and lowering of taxes, which prompted their significant economic boom.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0803/international-invest-...

[bru]

I'm sorry but I believe most of that is FUD, which some prominents economists have been calling out, e.g. this short Krugman piece: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/about-that-frenc... The sad thing is that this FUD itself has a impact, and is therefore self-fulfilling to some extent.

"Superior results" are, to be fair, quite debatable:

- UK got an edge via fiscal dumping, hurting its neighbours. This is also what Ireland is doing now, which really gives "good results", but is hurting all other EU countries (Luxembourg some the same, some other countries as well).

- Germany has a lower unemployment rate, but with way more precarious working conditions for many workers.

- I really don't know about Sweden so I won't speak about it, but I'm going to read the piece you linked, it looks interesting.

I could also say that France has superior results, if you look at other metrics:

- productivity per hour: the USA is #1 with a very very small edge over Germany and France, both #2. The UK, Japan are far behind

- Gini coefficient! This one is very dear to me. We're doing pretty well, and our evolution over 10 years has been better than most of our neighbours[1]

I believe that the biggest problem we're facing nowadays (and have been facing for a couple decades) is that increased globalisation allows companies to go "shopping" for their fiscal system, and put countries in competition. This creates a drive to get lower tax rates than your neighbours, which is a bad spiral and in the end deeply hurts countries (however, if you happen to disagree with that, then I'm afraid we have fundamentally different world view, and I don't really have the energy or will to debate if further, sorry). Ireland is a prime example of this.

> why would the "French fraternal" system be worthy of being copied given its weak results?

My goal is not for it to be copied a bit everywhere but, really, for it to be considered with fairness, and not just shunned and mocked because of propaganda and preconceptions.

I actually have a in mind couple great pieces I'd like to share on those topics; unfortunately they're in French. I'll look a bit around for potential translations.

1: some data: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language...

[wott]

You say pure bullshit, as in all your messages in this thread. Almost all European countries share the same principles about education and universities, and their funding, that's what is was about.

You obviously don't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about, but you don't care, you keep talking and talking, the only thing that matters it to end with "Murica is better than anything else".

[wott]

> he pays $27 per month for his health insurance

That's not even close to cover the same things.