Absolutely. Ol' GWB jumped the gun on that one. I never did understand the need to go beyond the CIA (External) and the FBI (Internal).I guess that makes the Patriot Act a socialist measure, does it?
Absolutely. Ol' GWB jumped the gun on that one. I never did understand the need to go beyond the CIA (External) and the FBI (Internal).
Not me, that's for damn sure!I'm guessing that would make GWB a socialist too. Who'da thunk?
My father is Russian and my mother was Romanian, and are both naturalized American citizens_This question is mainly aimed at people on here who claim to be socialists.
Have you ever lived in a socialist country? Do you have any personal experience with socialism?
I'm guessing that would make GWB a socialist too. Who'da thunk?
Different sources, different calculations. Tax Burden by Country - Country Ranks 2009 lists it at 47.5, but notice that "social security" is not included in that tax rate. If you add the 12% SS tax to income tax, you get total individual income tax rising to 59.5%. You are also leaving out the "solidarity surcharge".
On the bottom line, you still come out of it with more money than you would if you had to pay from your income for a private health insurance, private pensions, private education for your children and savings for periods of unemployment. I bet that most Americans have a much lower net income, when you consider all these necessary private savings.
That really depends on a lot of things including how well the goverment manages & invests the money it recieves, how cost effective & efficient its services are, how well the individual manages & invests his money, & how cost effective & efficient the services he pays for are.
I feel more comfortable with the German system.
I think comfortable is a very good choice of words there. I think one of the selling points, for a lot of people, of social health care is that it's comfortable. You know what you're paying, you know what you're getting. It's easy. It's a very comfortable system.
I can see the appeal to an individual. To be honest, whilst most of the political arguments, for & against often take a moral, or economic stance, I suspect comfort is probably a truer motivation for many on the social side of the argument (with other factors influencing too of course).
You do know that Communism is different from Socialism right?
You are probably right.
As for the German health insurance system, it's semi-private/semi-public: Unless you are entrepreneur, it is compulsory to have an insurance, but you can chose to either take a private insurance (which is rather expensive and covers various treatments the public insurance doesn't cover), or you get a public insurance by default, which covers only the basics.
Many Germans complain about this "two class medicine", as people with public insurance often get worse treatment and worse doctors, and are more often required to spend more for extra payment, than those people with a private insurance. On the other side, the people with a private insurance not only get "luxury treatment" by doctors, but are often running the risk of being talked into many nice extra treatments that are covered by the insurance, but aren't really medically necessary (lack of efficiency). Doctors can make more money with private patients than with public patients.
So the system here is far from perfect, but I think in international comparison, it's not bad after all.
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