What matters is what the taxes give you. A lot of American taxes don’t give people much of anything. Maintaining the worlds largest prison population is expensive but what exactly does that give the Average American? Worlds largest military also sucks up tax dollars but don’t give any benefits back. Finnish taxes give you education, health care, child care, sick leave, vacation, job retraining, great public transport and many other thing directly improving your quality of life.
Now in a post cold war with the growing isolationist tendencies of Americans, this may require most of the world, namely western europe to start paying for their own physical security.
If I was an American, I wouldn't want to be footing the bill for Global Security either.
I think if you transact in dollars or any economy on Earth, you probably do.
It is way too generous towards the USA to describe its military as "Global Security". The U.S. military main job overseas consists in defending north-american economic interests by military means. If this implies overthrowing democratic governments or supporting dictatorships, or the inverse, so be it. It is more a like a mafia (that protects the economic interests of the people who support them) than a police force (that is supposed to protect everybody).
There is a deep and nuanced conversation to be had here, though I will say fourstar already made one important point very succinctly. [1]
I will point out that it has been the position of the American people since WWII that we are happy to foot the bill for global security. So while you might not feel that way, Americans feel differently. I'll give a bit of background on how that came to be.
While Hitler was cutting through Europe there was a extensive internal debate in the US whether just focusing on defending the Pacific would be sufficient. During the time leading up the Battle of Britain, we decided the US view of security needed to be global-- if Hitler overran Britain the threat was just too large. It would turn out that the Brits won one of the most significant military victories in history [2], but prior that fact emerging American policy had come to the firm conclusion that we had to defend east as well as west. The Brits handled it, but it was tough to know that at the time.
Since WWII we have not really reevaluated this policy. Some in the US believe it is time to do so and the current election will decide much of this. But in the last 10 years we have witnessed the biggest land grab in Europe since World War II [3], so now might not be the time to dissolve the world order.
This may be more detail than you were expecting, but I hope you found it interesting. The world is a much more fragile place that I wish and at the end of the day we all need to chip in for global security.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25004863
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain#Aftermath
[3] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/03/17/c...
Note I didn't say the whole DoD budget is a waste, but a huge portion of it is only justified by politics cosplaying defense.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightni...
The classic reference is Steve Blank's "Secret History of Silicon Valley": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo
SpaceX is the direct result of a South African who studied in Canada and came to the US because that's what he wanted to do. The idea that the US "military ecosystem" could claim "direct" responsibility for what Elon has achieved is an insult to him.
I thought nukes and MAD did that.
- Health and Human Services: 1,215 Trillion(27%)
- Social Security: 1,101 Trillion (25%)
- Department of Defense: 658 Billion (14.7%)
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
[0] https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-...
You want to roll in the entire Department of Energy budget?
You want to roll in the entire Department of Homeland Security budget? So airport security is now defense spending?
You want to roll in the entire USAID budget?
I mean, if you're going to do this, do it for other countries as well. Then the US spending won't seem all that out of line.
Very startup friendly as well and excellent food.
The tropical weather takes a bit of getting used to, though. I much prefer gloomy European skies.
Have to agree on the tropical weather front. As someone who has lived in Australia close to my whole life you would expect I'd be used to heat, but it's the humidity that kills me. Australian heat is like being on a frying pan, Singapore heat is like being in an oven.
Expats can still rent HDB. Just can't buy subsidized HDB.
If you have kids here and want to use the local schools, I would suggest getting PR or citizenship perhaps.
I've paid out of pocket for medical expenses recently. Wasn't that bad overall, and all fairly transparent up front. But am back on company provided insurance now. With gold plated insurance, my raw medical costs are sure to go up, since I don't care about keeping them low anymore.
(We are looking for someone to take over our lease by the way, as we are moving into a bigger place.)
In the last few years I usually paid out of pocket for any medical treatments.
In many ways it's very different though - while the taxes are lower, its generally much more expensive, especially if you have kids. Singapore is a very dense, packed, hot city - you get a bit of island fever and are not so close to nature. Helsinki is literally the opposite. Singapore and Helsinki are both very, very safe, but I find Singapore has more extreme ends of wealth distribution (very badly paid migrant workers).
Both are super functional though, with good universities, and both great options for running a company/working in tech. I would happily live in either city.
(There's more to say about income distribution in Singapore, but having migrant workers, even if badly paid, is a plus in my book.
If Singaporean immigration was more open, they would have even more low paid foreigners. Making the situation look worse, but be better purely in terms of global equality.)
With kids: I think it's mostly expensive if you are an expat and go the expat route with everything. If you go more local and earn a decent amount of money, the amount you save in taxes should more than make up for some extra costs.
(There's also a breakeven point for expats with kids at private international school, but it's obviously much higher.)
You have a really open mind if two such different cities are your favourites! In my view, Helsinky is a really nice place, but Singapore is a scary, hellish dystopia.
the locals who really want to do those things have long moved out of the country. those who choose to remain here enthusiastically enforce the order of the country. caning and hanging continue to enjoy popular support.
Don't come, if you like to partake in recreational drugs.
(Though plenty of expats usually just hop on a plane on the weekend and indulge in one of the surrounding countries. Drugs are no more legal there, but their governments are not as competent in enforcing their laws.)
Couldn't assuming that any individual black person has low income or is part of an "underclass" be considered racist, in the sense of making judgements about individuals based on their skin color?
It's easy to say a military is worthless until you actually need it. But, Finland was under Russian occupation for decades. I would guess plenty of Finns wished they had a better military then.
You don't think it possible the US military could be any smaller and still defend its nation? Invading Iraq hasn't really had any fruitful outcomes, but absorbed more than a trillion of dollars of tax payer funds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Aftermat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
Finnish public healthcare encompasses things like regular dental visits that people of every age use.
Also, those high taxes pay for world-class public libraries and child daycare which the broad public use, even expats in the IT sectors.
So they would only justify perhaps about 0.1% higher taxes?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiar...
It could have been phrased in a much more engaging tone rather than an attempt to "score points".
Speak for yourself: I've never paid a penny for healthcare in the UK, besides an effective tax rate lower than I now pay in the US and the occasional prescription charge where an OTC version of the relevant medicine was not available at lower cost.
Ok, for a (male or lesbian, since you specify 'wife') Bay Area SWE, you're right. But do look at that election map and notice the scores of people living in the rest of the US, in large part voting against their own health-care interests but still. In Missouri the median income is around $55k. Putting $12k of that into health insurance (not health care, but insurance) is pretty hefty.
[0] https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Robber...
The US has universal Medical coverage for the elderly.
I just have this to say to the folks who despise the era of American power and hegemony, you are absolutely going to love the Chinese one. Good luck buddy posting similar comments about them in that world order.
Indeed. Like less trust from the state in how you use your own money, and less power to decide over what to do with the money you've earned from your own hard work. Instead you are forced to trust that the government is better at allocating that money than a private company.
You effectively get no choice in the matter either, except every fourth year. And that isn't even a real choice, because you're not choosing a better medical company, or a better insurance deal against joblessness when you vote. Instead you're hoping that more than 50% of the people who are eligible to vote in your country, will agree with you that the medical deal or accident insurance (and a whole swathe of other stuff, take it or leave it) offered by some politician that you like, is also liked by them. If not, then you're forced to take whatever the people—who do not have your own best interest at heart—wants instead, because they just happen to be in the majority. On top of that, you're supposed to celebrate it, and thank the guys who forced you to accept what you'd rather not have. That's what's known as a democracy, and somehow you're supposed to think that that is the pinnacle of "freedom"...
