(December 2, 2012 at 11:46 pm)Daniel Wrote: That doesn't mean anything. The cost of living in the USA is much lower. Pack of cigarettes cost $5 there, compared with $15 here (we have about the same percentage of smokers). Cost of petrol in Australia about $1.40-1.50/Litre. Cost of petrol in USA about $0.85. Interest rate in Australia 3.25%, interest rate in the USA 0.25%. Average property price in Australia ~$520,000, average property price in USA ~$185,000. Australia = higher taxes, USA = lower taxes. etc.
Except that taxes are not the reason for the cost of goods or anything else. You would need to have a tax rate 2.8x higher than ours in the US across all spectrums. Ours, on average, for the middle class, is around 30% or so...though it's hard to nail down the tax rate here. It's exceedingly complicated [and oftentimes seems like its implicit design was to keep rich people from paying a fucking thing...except then you realize that that only really started happening with the policy changes Reagan, the puppet of the corporate world who all Republicans venerate and who anyone with half a mid-brain loathes, implemented], but the general average is around 25% to 30%. What YOU are saying is that you guys are being taxed around 70% to 84%, if I extrapolate the differences in price to taxes [not very reliable...but then, it's pretty much the argument you're making, so if it sounds flawed, well, not my fault].
Something doesn't sound exactly correct there. Can YOU tell me what it is?
