[ninja3925]

If this figure is true, do you see the symbolism of it as I do? It's not 49%, where the individual will still work mostly for themselves but 51%, where the state owns the majority of the labor for each individual. I find this number chilling.

[tinco]

The figure is not true, it used to be 51% for income above a certain amount (I think 60000?) but now it's 49,50% for income above 68000. Even when it was 51%, you would have to make more than 500,000 for the total taxes to be exceed 50%.

Anyway, what's chilling about it? You're phrasing it in a very weird way, the state doesn't own labor. It is due taxes for its services rendered.

The Netherlands is ridiculously rich and the government takes very good care of its citizens. I think it's hard to imagine for Americans how much value we get from our government. Traveling from The Netherlands to the states. Even your richest cities have poor people hungry, suffering and distressed just camping around everywhere. I'm not saying we've got it perfect, but I'm pretty happy with the deal we got.

[yunohn]

The 500k figure is quite misleading. Sure that’s for 51%, but anything over 100k, it already exceeds 40%. That’s still a huge number.

There are tons of poor and hungry people in NL, and the gov is actively hostile to homelessness. There’s lots of municipal corruption, and central inefficiency. I know lots of Dutch citizens who are in student debt, and very few families who can afford to buy a home before 35.

It’s a fallacy that somehow this is the /the/ tax rate that can provide for citizens. There is no magic number, and we can always demand more efficiency.

[tinco]

To me it's simple. My tax as someone trying to get a startup to work is about 30%, it would be 22% in the US. That means I pay 8% extra to be largely abstracted from the harsh reality of the suffering of the unlucky and disadvantaged.

Check this video out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKo8Sv99MkM That's about Skid Row, it's how one of the US's richest cities deals with the disadvantaged.

Dutch citizens with student debt.. that's a joke right?

[yunohn]

To add on to my other comment -

Student debt:

https://nltimes.nl/2020/10/27/average-student-loan-eu700-per...

“An average loan of 700 euros per month means that study debts of 50,000 euros are no longer an exception. (…) It makes sense that students work more due to higher costs of room rent and tuition fees and less income thanks to the lack of the basic grant.”

Home ownership:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_ow...

The NL and USA differ in home ownership by ~4% (69 vs 65.3). That’s not statistically significant to be honest.

—-

There’s a lot of myths in Dutch society, and the majority of people are not aware of reality.

[tinco]

I have a student debt of over 40,000 euro. Because I have a job I pay 250 euros per month on it. My partner has a similar debt, but because she does not have a job she doesn't make any payments. Does it suck, yeah. Does it make us poor or hurt us in any significant way? No.

It's a joke, because student debt is a sign of wealth, not of poverty. My government invested almost 50,000 euro into giving me plenty of time and space to study. I was able to live as a student for 7 years, usually working less than 12 hours per week to supplement the loan. I leveraged that loan into getting an education is super valuable, if I wanted to I could take a job double my current salary and live very comfortably in Amsterdam.

Different story for my partner perhaps, but if she never makes income, after a certain amount of time her loan will be forgiven even without her ever making payments.

I don't know how home ownership is correlated to poverty. It's tied to wealth, sure, and it's a very bad thing that it's so low. But the average renting person in The Netherlands lives very comfortably, so not owning a home is not a strong indicator for poverty.

Homelessness, that's the indicator you're looking for. But you are right, it seems I am living in a bubble, because there's a severe problem with homelessness in The Netherlands right now. https://nltimes.nl/2020/02/17/homelessness-netherlands-doubl...

According to wikipedia there's more registered homeless people in The Netherlands than there are in the states, I don't know how to make sense of that because the scenes I saw in SF, Portland and SLC were unlike anything I've seen in any wealthy European country. It made me think of Hungary and Romania.

[jjeaff]

The reason it seems so bad in those particular cities is because they actually attract and retain homeless. One due to weather and two, as poor as the services are for the homeless in those cities, they are better than many other cities.

You wouldn't last long living on the streets of Fargo North Dakota.

[yunohn]

> abstracted from the harsh reality of the suffering of the unlucky and disadvantaged

> Dutch citizens with student debt.. that's a joke right?

To be brutally honest, both these statements lead me to believe that you live in a bubble within NL.

I personally know tons of Dutchies in both situations, and I have a feeling you might (unknowningly) as well. Might be worth expanding your social circle if not.

[pksebben]

> very few families who can afford to buy a home before 35

So, imagine knowing very few families who can afford to buy a home. Like, at all. So long as we're still comparing the Netherlands and the US, I don't think there's much of a contest.

That said, the central thrust of your comment holds true; always room for improvement.

[yunohn]

> I don't think there's much of a contest.

Now, this may surprise you, since you haven’t bothered to research it (1), but NL and USA differ in home ownership by ~4% (69 vs 65.3). That’s not statistically significant to be honest.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_home_owne...

[Hokusai]

> where the state owns the majority of the labor for each individual

I guess that it all depends what do you get back. To live in a well functioning society is worth a kingdom.

In many places your landlord owns more than half of your income, that could be more worrisome. At least I can vote for my representants in the government.

Finally, I pay over 50% on part of my salary in Sweden, with what I have left I have an awesome live and extra to save, so I will not complain.

[yunohn]

> In many places your landlord owns more than half of your income

My understanding of rent in both Sweden and the Netherlands, is that of any EU capital: easily 30-50% of your monthly income goes to landlords.

Could you clarify your view on this?

[Hokusai]

Meanwhile other markets were heavenly corrected around 2009-2015 after the housing crush Sweden came out quite unscratched. Low interest rates also have created an incentive to invest in housing for the average citizen. On the other side construction companies in Sweden are quite shy to build new housing as investment goes to other more profitable industries, Sweden is below EU average in construction. Finally Sweden population have grown more than the EU average.

So, the swedish housing availability is insufficient and prices reflect that. It is an imbalance that is difficult to solve short term. And probably also overpriced as the interest rates are low and predicted to be low.

[yunohn]

I read your comment twice, but I still don’t see any agreement about the high rents going to landlords in Sweden. Perhaps you bought a house a while ago, and have been insulated from this crisis. Either way, you can’t deny reality…

[laurencerowe]

Marginal tax rates in California also reach this level. Health insurance is not included.