VAT Coming to U.S.?

What a narcissistic way to describe the last few thousand years of human progress! Government's role is to maintain the works necessary for a civilized society. If you don't like it, move to Somolia or rural Pakistan.

That's the system you invariably get when you reduce all politics down to the terms defined by a single party (or two parties that have the same views on the stuff that actually matters).

The problem with the situation in the US, is if you're rich and you're name isn't Warren Buffet, there's a good chance that you either scammed other people out of their money, or you inherited your fortune. Odds are, if you have a job and you're an American, you're not rich by any stretch of the imagination.

To say that Americans should selflessly pay taxes and expect no return on investment is preposterous. We have a government, it's supposed to serve us: Why tell it that it can't do the one thing it exists to do?

Kids are something of a luxury item. We're not hurting for population in this country, and it costs around $800,000 per kid over 18 years to raise them in the US these days (more over longer if you want to pay for their college). If you thought kids were going to be cheap, or that having kids is critical for the continued population of this country when you had them, you're either bad at math or don't do any fact checking before making life-changing decisions. Either way, I have a hard time mustering sympathy for US parents.

Depends on the province... BC Health has a somewhat regressive pricing plan, but even then, the maximum bill you'll ever be asked to pay for yourself (assuming you weren't stupid enough to opt for private insurance) is around CAN$50/year.



Nope; gallon of milk here in Salem, Oregon is US$1.99 (a few cents cheaper if you have the dairy's milkman deliver it to you directly). It's about 70 cents cheaper in the Vancouver Metro area after exchange rate.

Canada's food purity and quality standards make us Americans look like they eat a diet of elusively of garbage and chemical waste: None of this trans-fat vegetable fryer oil substitute (fried food actually tastes good as a result, they figure you're a grown person, you're responsible for your own diet), none of this high-fructose corn syrup (banned by law), and you don't have to go shopping around for someplace that carries milk free of funky hormones: It's the norm.



On the other hand, you could still be saddled with several lifetimes worth of debt because your child had a birth defect that racked up a multi-million dollar medical bill before dying before making it to Kindergarten, as I saw more than one family go through when I worked at a hospital. It's not like going to Air Care or the state DEQ for an emissions check on your car: you pay whether or not you wind up healthy in the end.



I'm an American, and I find it frustrating that my fellow Americans are so hellbent on ensuring our own government is an expensive, ineffectual boondoggle serving to perpetuate it's own existence, instead of serving to perpetuate it's constituent's existence.

Not as much as you would like to believe. The US Department of Health estimates as much as 70% of your healthcare dollar goes to advertising and promotion of pharmeceuticals and health insurance, as well as to pay high-end wages to corporate executives. Most of the remainder goes to the hospital and the doctors and specialists that worked on you, with the tiny fraction that's left going to research and development.

Imagine what we could do with that that same healthcare dollar if we weren't flushing most of it down some golden toilet on Maddison Avenue.

And if you can't afford to make the trip to the hospital, money to pay for the trip will be provided. Can't beat that!

Most major surgeries performed in the US could have been prevented by health maintenance, though. The two aren't as unrelated as you imply.

Oregon's DMV is fast and efficient. Even on busy days where screwups who shouldn't be on the road are arguing with the staff to renew their privelage to drive a motorized juggernaut, I'm in and out in 30 minutes without making an appointment.



Not a government entity. It's a government-owned corporation, like Amtrak and NASA, and intentionally crippled to be unsuccessful, much like Amtrak and NASA. It's not analogous. And anybody who has dealt with UPS or any other private courier larger than a one-man operation has experienced the exact same runaround as the Postal Service, but in a much less useful location (can't pick up next year's tax forms or get a passport at the UPS Store or FedEx Kinkos).

Are you getting public health and private insurance mixed up? Private insurance will just say that it's medically un-necessary for you to have aspirin and a bedpan until you take 'em to court. Even getting a covered prescription paid for is an uphill battle with Blue Cross/Blue Shield or Kaiser Permanente, from my experience.

Only if you're selfish enough to think that you can become independently wealthy without the help of other people.

My thoughts exactly. I've been looking for my next presidential write-in candidate for 2012. Tag, you're it!

im not claiming they are unrelated. health maintenance is something that is being interjected into my statement, not something i am introducing myself.
i am merely saying that, all other things being equal, if i suddenly learned i required highly skilled surgery and had the option of an american hospital or australian public healthcare, i would opt for the american hospital, no doubt at all.

Same as the UK where private and public healthcare happily co-exist. The advantages of private is to recieve treatment earlier (queue jump) and one can select hospitals that the policy covers, which tend to be slightly better....but the poor & needy do ok with the Public care system. The wait times have been coming down in recent times.

How do you mute people on the forums?

Who do you want to mute-lol

Click on the Name...select "View Public Profile"....look to the right "Add to Ignore List"

Hehe... thanks for that. Was just my instant reaction to a whole page of posts by one person

Just for the record, I should like to say that food is zero rated for VAT in the UK - and so are Children's clothes (nice if you can fit into teenage-size shoes) and also books are zero rated. Some parts of the UK, such as the Channel Islands and the Isle of Mann do not have VAT at all.

You are absolutely correct though - it is the so-called "middle clases" who are struggling and bear the heavy tax burden. The very poor and the very rich are benefiting from the tax regime in the UK.

Some european countries make it even more complex, Netherlands has 3 levels, 0% for food energy etc. 6% for services like painting your house and 19% for luxery items.

Also you never pay VAT twice, if a company pays VAT on something they can deduct it from their own VAT payments but most of the time they pay no VAT on products they buy to sell on or use in their own products, because my estate company is VAT registered for instance I do not pay the VAT to LL, L$ sales are not taxed with VAT and the Lindex sales can be seen as income from outside the EU so are also VAT exempt, in otherwords a company has plenty of ways to avoid VAT while a costumer is stuck with it.
Yep midle class gets hit the hardest.

I pray it doesn't get pulled off. I live in another sales-tax free state - FL.

I don't understand post office hate, they've always done their job for me. Plus if someone finds your wallet and drops it in a mailbox, it'll get mailed back to the address on your ID. Nice gesture I think!

Ouch, sounds like Australia is having a hard time of it. Like any system, public health is only as good as the people running it.

It does make me wonder how any country decides who gets promoted to management positions. I think many of us have had the experience of working somewhere incompetent managers threw accountability out the window so their own incompetency wouldn't be seen (sadly, my alma mater was a place like that).

The goal would be to have public health system run by competent people with accountability.

re: the Post Office. It was a frigging joke! Lighten up.

Dnali for president!

I can give you two first-hand examples.

I was amongst the first group hired by TSA (Transportation Security Administration - now under the Department of Homeland Security) at our city's airport. It wasn't something I particularly wanted to do, but I was seeking my next "adventure in working" and my father said it was a good way to get my foot into a federal gov't position and then transfer when I had enough time in plus "with your education and experience, you'll be promoted in no time."

HA!

I could go on for hours about the situation there but my two examples:

1. With the government taking over airport security, the private contract companies were not at all happy, to say the least. TSA offered positions to the former contract employees who could pass the testing involved. Either many could not or decided to seek employment elsewhere as in my two years of working with TSA, I don't recall meeting anyone from the contract company...except one. I don't know what her "in" or "angle" was, but she failed the TSA exam THREE TIMES, and was "promoted" to an executive position, I think number 2 or 3 from the top person at our airport.

That was frightening.

2. Ah, promotions. Remember the "education/experience" thing? There were security screeners (me), then leads, then managers, etc. The qualifications be a manager, as stated on the TSA website at the time, included something like a minimum of 5 years *in a managerial position*.

At the time I was working there, some of my co-workers included recently-retired executives who were returning to work due to losing money in the stock market and others with some impressive credentials who were there for various reasons as I was. Invariably the most-unlikely people were promoted, but the most flagrant one was a 19-year-old guy whose ONLY prior job had been in a fast-food restaurant and not as a manager. This "promotion" really caused a lot of outrage in the rank & file. Finally, it was discovered that this young man's father had donated quite a bit financially to the campaign of a local congressman.