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And 60'ish % in taxes to pay for the unemployed and unemployable...

I live in Sweden and planning to move out as soon as possible..... Why the heck stay in a place that has nice weather for 2½ month's per year and drains you of your hard-earned money when the benefits you get for paying taxes is continuously being degraded.

If we would have a bit more sun during the winter to reduce the depression-rates... https://www.theatlantic.com/he...

Or having a good healthcare system for the amount of taxes we pay..
https://www.thelocal.se/201501...

Or being a cheap country to live in...
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of...

Housing-costs going up every year:
https://www.thelocal.se/201610...
https://www.globalpropertyguid... ... In the city where i live the queue time to get a rental apartment is around 15 years for the central part of the city... and 10 years in the suburbs....

This story is probably the actual reason Kenya buys this shit. GDP is listed as $1,800, but that's adjusted for purchasing power. If you take Kenya's actual per capita GDP and buy shit in Nairobi you'll have $1,800 worth of stuff. But there's very little cash in Kenya, so actual GDP is about $880. You can't buy good bomb-detectors in Nairobi, so the actual GDP is more relevant. Even that numbers high, because most of Kenya's GDP is subsistence agriculture, not cash; and it's really hard to turn produce from that kind of agriculture into government equipment. Unless you think the Soviet strategy of taking food from people, using it to buy Ford Tractors, and then ensuring only the politically unreliable starve is a good idea.

Which means Kenya doesn't have the money to buy an expensive bomb kit and equip the entire Army with it. It does have the money to buy a fake detector, give to a 20-year NCO who knows all the signs of a car transporting bombs, and then use the fake-kit as the justification for his blatant tribal profiling.

or Eastern Europe where the cost of living is a fraction of yours.

You know, things have changed in East Europe during last decades. Electricity 0.14 EUR/kWh here vs. 0.15$/kWh in USA. Gas 1.4 EUR/l vs 1$/l in USA (caused mostly by taxes but that doesn't matter). Chicken meat 2 EUR/kg vs 2$/kg in USA. House property 1300EUR/m2 in Slovakia vs 200$/m2 in USA.

Perhaps I've picked wrong sources or wrong goods. I challenge you to provide your numbers and I'll tell you the prices here (where the average income is less than 800EUR/month). I'm damn sure, that cost of living here is NOT a fraction of cost of living in US.

or Eastern Europe where the cost of living is a fraction of yours.

You know, things have changed in East Europe during last decades. Electricity 0.14 EUR/kWh here vs. 0.15$/kWh in USA. Gas 1.4 EUR/l vs 1$/l in USA (caused mostly by taxes but that doesn't matter). Chicken meat 2 EUR/kg vs 2$/kg in USA. House property 1300EUR/m2 in Slovakia vs 200$/m2 in USA.

Perhaps I've picked wrong sources or wrong goods. I challenge you to provide your numbers and I'll tell you the prices here (where the average income is less than 800EUR/month). I'm damn sure, that cost of living here is NOT a fraction of cost of living in US.

How are wages not an issue when the wages they're earning are not commensurate to the amount of work they are doing and ultimately afford them a shitty life? According to these figures average urban apartment is $1063.82 for a 112.64 sq. m. apartment. Average Foxconn worker is earning $527 a month. Seems like a Foxconn worker could afford to live in a 50 sq. m. apartment if he spent over 50% of his income on rent, leaving less than $250 for food, utilities, and to support a family.

If they were making more, do you think they'd be living in tiny dormitories with 6 other people? If they were making more, perhaps they could actually save some money and move, maybe afford a better life? No, instead they're living in a form of indentured servitude, where they're never making just enough to live but not enough to live comfortably, and certainly not enough to ever afford to quit, and of course that's the way Foxconn wants it. And you seem to be okay with this?

Where do you think "the rich" are going to go to avoid taxes?

How about Monaco?

GDP Per capita:
Dominican Republic: $5,122
The Bahamas: $22,156
Puerto Rico: $17,691
Jamaica: $5,335
Haiti: $791
here and here

Cuban GDP per capita: $9,700
Actually, better than Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, which surprised me, but nowhere near Puerto Rico and The Bahamas.

Did you purposefully ignore the "First Nations" part of my comment about Canada because it made it easier to ridicule me, or because it's convenient to ignore the state of the poor in the US or Canada when arguing against socialism.

I think I covered that when I said:

Sure, there may be some homeless guy freezing to death in Nova Scotia that would be better served starving on a warm beach near Havana, but comparing the absolute economic bottom of one society to the middle class of another isn't really fair. After all, the president of Haiti lives better than the homeless transvestite in Los Angeles, but I wouldn't exactly say that the standard of living in Haiti is better than that of the US.

Did you ignore my "Cuban's are starving part"? I can't really find any particular number that will measure "standard of living", but being able to eat should figure pretty high in that formula. Sure, every country is going to have someone starving for whatever reason, but the problem is not universal to every citizen as it was in Cuba.

I think you misread me.

0% income tax is good for individuals. If you can afford to live there.

http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/Monaco/Living-There
Note the residency requirements - deposit about $100,000 in a local bank.

Hmmm, I was going to tear you an new one crying BS on high taxes & unemployment (the US & EU have essentially the same unemployment)...then I saw why everyone wants to claim residence in Monaco.

http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/Monaco/Taxes-and-Costs

Personal income tax: 0%.

Actually - isn't the going tax rate in Sweden 50%? Looks like you're dead on to me.

I'd take $500K. It's not necessarily F.U. money, but it's buy-a-house money. Anyway, if I understand correctly, Swedish capital gains tax for property is around 30%. It looks like business sales are more like 28% (source). More like $756K (after penalties, etc) - still nothing to scoff at.

Anyway, without really understanding their operations and investments; I'd say that other than the possible prison sentence, those guys made out pretty well.

Statements like yours only highlight your ignorance and your obvious lack of knowledge of the world beyond your borders.

Feel free to look up "Fuel Tax" in Wikipedia for a decent summary.

They will be even more shocked when they come to realize that all of these price increases are simply a symptom of America's slip from "world superpowe" to " average wealthy western nation". Fuel and consumer products have cost this much in Europe for decades. The EU is doing just fine dealing with $5+ for a gallon of gas, and they aren't strip mining the Alps. But we can expect to have European sized cars and European sized houses at the european $3000 per sq ft not the US $125 per sq ft.

Why should we live that way? Sure, you say that they are "getting along just fine" and then you point out how much better we have it over here. Why would we drop our standards of living to shit just because the EU does it?

This has hit the general public in a way they never really ever imagined before, and they are shocked.

They will be even more shocked when they come to realize that all of these price increases are simply a symptom of America's slip from "world superpowe" to " average wealthy western nation". Fuel and consumer products have cost this much in Europe for decades. The EU is doing just fine dealing with $5+ for a gallon of gas, and they aren't strip mining the Alps. But we can expect to have European sized cars and European sized houses at the european $3000 per sq ft not the US $125 per sq ft.