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Taxes (pg. 2)
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| Lilith |
Fairly much rubbish.
However, there is the Mercer Survey which covers a fairly wide variety of living standards.
Calgary gets #1 on the Eco scale!
lol
Guess being environmentally friendly just means you have to put up with nature sticking its foot in your arse whenever it wants :stongue: |
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| trancypantzzz |
| Do you even know where your tax money is going in the first place? |
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| Chimney |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
What an utter pile of meaningless shyte.
I honestly don't know where to begin apart from to say I implore anyone reading your post to just skip it. |
I'm gladly waiting for your explanation.
EDIT: In Sweden, people earning over 55.000 euros per year pay up to 70% taxes :stongue: |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Chimney
I'm gladly waiting for your explanation.
Trust me, the health care is a joke
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Stats from the official commonwealth health care comparison.
3rd highest life expectancy. Lowest infant mortality rate. Second most amount of physicians per 1000 people. Second most amount of Nurses per 1000 people. Third lowest Per capita expenditure on health care. LOWEST % of government revenue spent on health care. HIGHEST % of health costs paid by government.
If that's a joke then I'm not laughing. They are at least in the top three health care system in the world and it actually costs you less than most places in the world.
Don't you work in the industry?
| quote: | Originally posted by Chimney
EDIT: In Sweden, people earning over 55.000 euros per year pay up to 70% taxes :stongue:
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Maximum income tax rate is 59%, which is very close to many other 1st world countries maximum tax rates including the USA, UK and the Netherlands.....but somehow people still manage to get rich in all these countries. Go figure. |
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| Chimney |
If that's a joke then I'm not laughing. They are at least in the top three health care system in the world and it actually costs you less than most places in the world.
Don't you work in the industry?
First of all, is that there is a law that prohibits the doctors from seeing too many patients a day. In between them, there is a requirement for a minimum of half an hour so that the patient can have the "proper" treatment.
Second of all, surgery is performed only once a week as opposed to other European countries where it is practiced up to 3-4 days a week.
Yes, the health-care is good in terms of treatment towards the patients that do receive it. However many people with serious symptoms are sent home. There has been a huge scandal a couple of months ago due to the fact that an old man died of heart attack, being sent home by a doctor earlier that day. Many doctors choose to wait for improvements. Why?
Because in order to see a specialist, one needs pappr from a regular doctor, and each clinic has a certain budget that must not be passed. I could give you several examples of mistakes that I have witnessed from other people within the system.
The point about free health-care is correct. Won't argue with you there.
Maybe they manage to get rich, but not by working. I will gladly link you to the source that says taxes for people with high income go to about 70%. However the article is in Swedish. |
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| Theresa |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lilith
Fairly much rubbish.
However, there is the Mercer Survey which covers a fairly wide variety of living standards.
Calgary gets #1 on the Eco scale!
lol
Guess being environmentally friendly just means you have to put up with nature sticking its foot in your arse whenever it wants :stongue: |
I find that really surprising. I wonder if it has something to do with our size. We're a massive city - even larger than Toronto in terms of area, but we have 1,100,000 people, much less than Toronto. We don't even have a recycling pick up program in place. I am interested to know how they calculate their stats. |
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| Theresa |
| I am amazed that more people haven't contributed to this thread. I know there are a lot politically opinionated people on these boards who like to argue and even more so, people who love to tell me I am wrong. WTF? |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Chimney
First of all, is that there is a law that prohibits the doctors from seeing too many patients a day. In between them, there is a requirement for a minimum of half an hour so that the patient can have the "proper" treatment.
Second of all, surgery is performed only once a week as opposed to other European countries where it is practiced up to 3-4 days a week.
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I have no idea why you think these are negative things in healthcare.
If you look at the UK, they could desperately do wioth measures like this - I can't tell you the amount of times I've waited hours in a doctors surgery (with an appointment) only to see some overworked GP on the verge of a nervous breakdown who doesn't even glance up from the prescription pad for the 3 minutes I'm with them.
Honestly these are not bad points imo and are indicators of a well managed healthcare system.
| quote: | Originally posted by Chimney
Yes, the health-care is good in terms of treatment towards the patients that do receive it. However many people with serious symptoms are sent home. There has been a huge scandal a couple of months ago due to the fact that an old man died of heart attack, being sent home by a doctor earlier that day.
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I think you don't know how bad it really is elsewhere. I could bring up hundreds of stories from other 1st world countries that where this sort of thing is sadly common place. I'll give you an example. My grandma went in to hospital with a fractured ankle and 10 days later she died. Basically, neglect and a series of misdiagnosis.
The fact that this makes such big news as a scandal shows it isn't common place and is ironically a testament to the overall standard of their healthcare system.
| quote: | Originally posted by Chimney
The point about free health-care is correct. Won't argue with you there.
Maybe they manage to get rich, but not by working. I will gladly link you to the source that says taxes for people with high income go to about 70%. However the article is in Swedish. |
While it may be true, it's still not that much more than the published figures for a lot of their immediate European neighbors. You're also forgetting, the richer you are, the better you get at not paying taxes, and that's true for any developed capitalist society. Yes, some may have to pay more than others but often in the countries where you pay more in taxes, the infastructure is better and your standard of living is generally higher.
I just get the feeling that either you or the GF don't really know how good you've got it in Sweden. I have a lot of Swedish friends who came to the states and are looking forward to going back to a better standard of living. They won't ing shut up about it :whip: |
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| Igaryok |
| quote: | Originally posted by Chimney
However much of the tax money go to people on well-fare, illegal refugees and gypsies that come into the country and are paid to live in the hotel (I'm not even joking).
Sweden/Denmark are countries where high-educated people with high income have to give all their money so that others can live well. Not only that but such people are very undervalued by society. There have been statistics where it has been proved that it is impossible to become wealthy off working. |
Sounds like something that's happening in U.S. |
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| wienerschnitzel |
| quote: | Originally posted by Theresa
So... I live in Calgary where the city relies heavily on chinooks to melt away the snow. As such, the city does not allocate enough money for snow removal of all streets. Only the major streets are plowed... the rest are left with 3 feet of snow, and if you can't get around, oh well. The chinook will eventually take care of it.
This last week we got dumped with a whole lot of snow. Of course this brought up the plowing issues that people bitch and complain about, and our new mayor declined to up the budget for plowing. This naturally incited rage out of the Calgarians.
So this is when I ride in on my high horse and start getting pissed off and self-righteous.
People are always whining and complaining about how public services and programs are not good enough. There aren't enough doctors or teachers, the wait times are too long, the quality of teaching is dropping, the streets aren't plowed BLAH BLAH BLAH. I want all of these things just as much as the next guy, and I too want them to be of high quality. I seem to differ from many others however, in that I realize these things cost money. I know that the people providing the services are not going to work for free. I also know that the money to pay these people doesn't materialize out of thin air.
Our city has a huge deficit. We have a huge transit project in the works that is being put on hold because we simply can't afford to complete it. We are in debt.
With that being said, it is no wonder the mayor said he wouldn't put more money toward snow removal. There simply isn't any money to do it.
So how do we fix this problem (and many of the problems across all of Canada, and probably America)? Well maybe I am wrong, and perhaps there are better ways to do it, but the way I see it, we need to make cuts and sacrifices, and we need to up taxes.
Now don't get me wrong. I am a poor ass student. I have -$40,000. Paying money for anything at this point is no fun and so of course, I don't love the idea of taxes. On the other hand, I like having the health care system we have, I like having the roads paved and maintained, I like students to have teachers etc. etc.
What boggles my mind is this concept by people that everything around them should be perfect for them, but should require no effort, and no contribution on their part. People freak the hell out when tax hikes are even muttered. It makes political positions incredibly difficult as these people are faced with their balance books going in the red, no money to spend on necessities and extras people oh-so-love, and the demanding masses kicking and screaming that they want it anyway.
Seriously, this whole thing just frusterates me to no end.
So... tell me why I am wrong, or how this could be fixed in a different way. I am genuinely interested to know, especially from those of you who are so anti-tax what your perspective is. I also want to cover the whole deficit thing, not just health care etc. Yes, we could introduce privatized health care, but that doesn't fix all the deficit issues. I also realize that there is a lot of irresponsible spending, which arguably needs to be clamped down on. Again, it wouldn't fix all of the deficit issues.
Discuss. *cue flaming*
c0r version - if you want things, you have to pay for it. |
for once i ing agree with you! :stongue:
but it's not just calgary that relies on chinooks.. medicine hat and alot of alberta does too. Our snow removal is a hot topic here too and under constant criticism. i agree, you CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING! the attitude here is that "i want all the best service and maintenance but DON"T YOU ING TAX ME FOR IT!!" You can't rely on the government to do everything for you. It's canada, it snows EVERY YEAR.. LOTS SOMETIMES. Get used to it. Buy winter tires, shovel your walks, wear winter clothes/boots and move on with your life. We have a shovel and cat litter (for traction) in the back of our rav incase i get stuck. I also carry a tow rope. Yesterday while picking up rowan from school i pulled over and pushed a lady in a minivan out of a snowbank. I should also add that medicine hat has the lowest taxes in alberta. If they want more snow removal, double the amount of tax we pay on that service and i bet city hall will make it happen.:gsmile: |
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| Theresa |
| quote: | Originally posted by wienerschnitzel
for once i ing agree with you! :stongue:
but it's not just calgary that relies on chinooks.. medicine hat and alot of alberta does too. Our snow removal is a hot topic here too and under constant criticism. i agree, you CAN'T HAVE EVERYTHING! the attitude here is that "i want all the best service and maintenance but DON"T YOU ING TAX ME FOR IT!!" You can't rely on the government to do everything for you. It's canada, it snows EVERY YEAR.. LOTS SOMETIMES. Get used to it. Buy winter tires, shovel your walks, wear winter clothes/boots and move on with your life. We have a shovel and cat litter (for traction) in the back of our rav incase i get stuck. I also carry a tow rope. Yesterday while picking up rowan from school i pulled over and pushed a lady in a minivan out of a snowbank. I should also add that medicine hat has the lowest taxes in alberta. If they want more snow removal, double the amount of tax we pay on that service and i bet city hall will make it happen.:gsmile: |
I think this applies to all of Canada. We bitch and bitch and bitch about our health care system (which is a world better than many of the alternatives to begin with), but when there is a suggestion to hike taxes to help pay for it, people bricks. I would rather be taxed an extra 2% or something if it means that I wont have to wait 4 hours to see a doctor.
Teachers have 40 students in their classrooms, and special needs kids are getting dick all, so parents whine and complain when their child doesn't get the much needed attention, but flip the hell out when someone suggests we up taxes to help improve the schools.
There are so many examples where people want want want, but start crying and screaming when they are asked to give and contribute to what they want.
It makes me want to punch people in the face. |
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| Moongoose |
| quote: | Originally posted by Theresa
I am amazed that more people haven't contributed to this thread. I know there are a lot politically opinionated people on these boards who like to argue and even more so, people who love to tell me I am wrong. WTF? |
Its not really a secret in how it would end if more politically opinionated people would contribute here now is it. One side would argue that if you want services you have to pay for them, the other that the government shoudnt offer those services in the first place but that it should be left to the private sector, lots of bitching, moaning and calling each other names and in the end we would get nowhere...you know just like if this was a real government :D |
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