So what? Who could possible argue that U.S. taxes of all kinds are less than in most other industrialized countries? When someone does manage to start a successful company here, obtain a higher wage job, accumulate some gains in their house or stocks, they keep more here and are able to pass more on to their kids without selling the underlying business/asset than in most other countries.
Right,
when someone does. But you were stating that there is more "equality of opportunity" in the U.S., and that is demonstrably false--again:
Richer parents can afford to send their children to better schools and colleges and can offer financial support for housing and other expenses. For these and a host of other reasons, where and to whom you are born is a significant determinant of life outcomes, especially in America. Miles Corak of the University of Ottawa reports that it is possible to predict nearly 50% of the variation in wages of sons in the United States by looking at the wages of their fathers a generation before. That compares to less than 20% in relatively egalitarian countries like Finland, Norway and Denmark. In America, more than half of sons born to fathers in the top decile of incomes fall no further than the eighth decile themselves, while only about half of those born to bottom decile father rise higher than the third decile.
(Bolding mine.)
If the subject is being able to keep more of your money then those other things are not being talked about at the moment.
You seem to want to trash anything and everything about the U.S. That's fine, go for it.
Except that's
not the subject I was addressing--as evidenced by the portions of your posts that I quoted--I was speaking specifically to "equality of opportunity.
With the other post (# 913) I was addressing the matter of "cost of living." It's hardly ever all that straightforward--the site you linked to was mostly addressing cost of
consumer goods and services, which is only one aspect of the cost of living.
And how am I "trashing anything and everything about the U.S.?" I'm mostly addressing things that I see as hugely problematic in the U.S., namely health care and education and opportunity. (In this thread, at least.)
As far as the topic of this thread goes... In all honesty, this COVID-19 thing isn't affecting me personally in the least. I'm not doing anything differently, and I don't--and won't likely, in the future--really need to, as these days I live out in the middle of nowhere.
But when tens, or possibly hundreds, of thousands are going to die, along with all the domestic violence, suicides, unemployment... it goes on. When all of that is almost
entirely the result of
a single "person's" idiocy, incompetence, and vindictiveness, how could I
not be angry?
