First off, when the original poster claims that "Yes the USA Labor is Cheaper, it is our TAXES that are so DAMNED expensive", I disagree that the "The poster is not saying that cost of living is not the problem", as you claim.
In the Northeast US, a worker will typically pay income tax not only to the federal government, but also to the city, county and state in which they live. Once they have received their paycheck, they will go and try to buy various things. However everything they buy has a sales tax levied by the city, county, and state. Over and above sales tax, there are special taxes for given goods like gasoline, tobacco products, vehicles, etc.
Agreed; however, many of these taxes also go to lower the cost of goods. Taxes that go towards making roads so I can get to the store to buy goods cheaper and they can be transported to the store cheaper reduce my total cost of goods. They also make it cheaper for employees to get to work and make finding/switching jobs an easier proposition due to the social safety net; both of which make the cost of working less for the employee and thus put downward on employment.
Ad infinitum - police, fire, the CDC - all of these reduce the risk, and therefore cost, of going out into the world and trying to earn a living. It is much too simplistic to say that taxes are inherently bad for the economy and every tax percentage can be tacked on to the cost of employment. And while lowering taxes might have a positive effect on employment, blaming our taxes for unemployment is disingenious and overly simplistic.
Not that everyone already hasn't roundly discredited this theory, but it's not taxes (whatever this "4 layers of 93% = 1200% mumbo jumbo is, I have no idea) that make US labor so expensive. While taxes play some part in it, the major difference is cost of living. This is why US companies outsource to countries such as India with a roughly comparable income tax to ours - 20 to 40 percent, depending on tax bracket. US companies still have to pay corporate taxes on any profits earned, so those taxes do not figure into the equation.
US labor is more expensive due to the cost of living. I would hardly take a job at the same wage Indian programmers are getting paid because I can't buy groceries as cheap as they can, or live in a house for as cheap.
You are correct in a change in economics in the world; 20 years ago outsourcing technical jobs would have been almost impossible because of the capital requirements to test and build products, the high cost of communication and goods transportation, lack of an educated workforce, and trade barriers. However, this might be bad for individuals (sadly, including me) but not for the country as a whole. Society is better off as a whole due to the basic economic theory of competitive advantage.
While "Free Trade" agreements do have serious problems - for example, labor is cheaper in India in part because US corporations don't have to worry about pesky things such as unemployment insurance, safety, environmental restrictsion,and a host of other workers' rights there - in principle they do benefit rather than harm to this country. Your complaint about the tax system is misplaced; the government's main culpability in this is helping guide the country to such a high standard of living that we have priced ourselves out of many labor markets.
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First off, when the original poster claims that "Yes the USA Labor is Cheaper, it is our TAXES that are so DAMNED expensive", I disagree that the "The poster is not saying that cost of living is not the problem", as you claim.
In the Northeast US, a worker will typically pay income tax not only to the federal government, but also to the city, county and state in which they live. Once they have received their paycheck, they will go and try to buy various things. However everything they buy has a sales tax levied by the city, county, and state. Over and above sales tax, there are special taxes for given goods like gasoline, tobacco products, vehicles, etc.
Agreed; however, many of these taxes also go to lower the cost of goods. Taxes that go towards making roads so I can get to the store to buy goods cheaper and they can be transported to the store cheaper reduce my total cost of goods. They also make it cheaper for employees to get to work and make finding/switching jobs an easier proposition due to the social safety net; both of which make the cost of working less for the employee and thus put downward on employment.
Ad infinitum - police, fire, the CDC - all of these reduce the risk, and therefore cost, of going out into the world and trying to earn a living. It is much too simplistic to say that taxes are inherently bad for the economy and every tax percentage can be tacked on to the cost of employment. And while lowering taxes might have a positive effect on employment, blaming our taxes for unemployment is disingenious and overly simplistic.
Not that everyone already hasn't roundly discredited this theory, but it's not taxes (whatever this "4 layers of 93% = 1200% mumbo jumbo is, I have no idea) that make US labor so expensive. While taxes play some part in it, the major difference is cost of living. This is why US companies outsource to countries such as India with a roughly comparable income tax to ours - 20 to 40 percent, depending on tax bracket. US companies still have to pay corporate taxes on any profits earned, so those taxes do not figure into the equation.
US labor is more expensive due to the cost of living. I would hardly take a job at the same wage Indian programmers are getting paid because I can't buy groceries as cheap as they can, or live in a house for as cheap.
You are correct in a change in economics in the world; 20 years ago outsourcing technical jobs would have been almost impossible because of the capital requirements to test and build products, the high cost of communication and goods transportation, lack of an educated workforce, and trade barriers. However, this might be bad for individuals (sadly, including me) but not for the country as a whole. Society is better off as a whole due to the basic economic theory of competitive advantage.
While "Free Trade" agreements do have serious problems - for example, labor is cheaper in India in part because US corporations don't have to worry about pesky things such as unemployment insurance, safety, environmental restrictsion,and a host of other workers' rights there - in principle they do benefit rather than harm to this country. Your complaint about the tax system is misplaced; the government's main culpability in this is helping guide the country to such a high standard of living that we have priced ourselves out of many labor markets.