Well, they are saying they bring home $11k, not $17k a month, not sure where you got that number. With $11k of income, spending $5k on mortgage is less appealing. Especially if you consider a risk of layoff.

Still not Europe or Asia, innit?

Yeah… And the second source cited in article, VChK-OGPU “outlet” is an anonymous channel in Telegram, that published information from “an anonymous source”. Doesn’t sound trustworthy.

That’s what I love Lemmy for - a new perspective (and down votes, of course). Thanks for the link, it’s an interesting read. I also looked up details on their taxation system and it’s not that crazy, especially on business side. If someone wants it, here is the link to the article which compares Nordic countries tax system to US: https://taxfoundation.org/blog/scandinavian-social-programs-taxes-2023/

It seems that my opinion about lack of innovation was caused by me not knowing or hearing about big names of Nordic companies. No Scandinavian Apples or Googles around.

But as much as I enjoyed this conversation, I feel we have ventured way too far from Tim Walz…

I’m not saying you cannot have both. I’m saying that US and Nordic countries are like on opposing poles of economical systems spectrum. And in my opinion the better options are somewhere in the middle.

Yeah, CEO salaries are often outrageous. Wealth taxes should be implemented to curb that, and not just high bracket income taxes.

I stand corrected on this one.

Nah, Nordic model is not a good choice. It’s all fine to drill some oil, collect a lot of taxes and give that money away to people as welfare, while enjoying innovations produced by evil liberal capitalists.

I can’t think of anything advanced after Nokia that is built in Scandinavian countries. No cars (Saab is dead, Volvo is sold to Chinese), no microelectronics, no innovative drugs. To be fair, they have IKEA and LEGO, but this is not what makes humanity progress.

I feel there is a lot of options on the left spectrum that is less radical but still beneficial for broad population. Think France or Germany as an example.

The header is misleading. Read the article and the details of that research. To make it work they propose to add 3.75% sales tax on everything except necessities, wealth tax for >$1mil net worth, tax capital gains as ordinary income, and keep existing Medicare paycheck tax same and employers contributions but slightly smaller.

It might be fairer system, and it will be more humane system for lower middle income folks who cannot afford health insurance and don’t qualify for Medicaid.

But it’s a lot of new taxes. They say that for top 20% earners the net healthcare cost will be higher. And all the lobbying from insurance business… i just don’t see this could pass.

Why don’t you read the article? The proposed system still has employer payments, but promises reduction of these payments which should give a good boost for businesses.

Not sure if this applicable in Canada, but in US you can take a loan backed by home equity. It’s called HELOC and is independent from your mortgage - it will not change interest rates. The rates on HELOC are higher than current mortgage rates, but lower than credit card rates. The available amount depends on how much equity you have in your house.

Oh, sorry, I’ve assumed that you are in US since you posted an article about FTC.

I don’t know if there is a similar service in Europe. I think you could get a virtual card linked to a crypto wallet, but this obviously comes with downsides

There is Privacy.com that gives you virtual cards to use for purchases. Money go from your bank account to them. Destination is visible on payment description still, but it may fool bank’s algorithm. Or you can get paid plan from Privacy.com and mask destination completely.

Government: Only criminals use cash and crypto! Privacy advocates: Actually, this is not true… Government: makes cash and crypto illegal what do you say now, punks?

For a less than you pay for a cup of coffee, you can evaporate 10 or even 50 people!

The guy looks suspiciously like Sean Austin (Sam from Lord of the Rings)

Natural teeth roots promote bone regeneration around them, while implants don’t. Therefore bone loss with age is worse around implants

No, I didn’t say that. It depends on your risk model. If you are an average Joe don’t worry that services are charging your credit card. If you are hiding from government then better use less online services, and if you must then find ones that accept crypto

TLDR: “privacy” services can’t be bothered and you shouldn’t too if you are not doing illegal stuff.

These “privacy-oriented” services are businesses that need to earn money, not scare away potential clients and avoid legal issues. Accepting cash or crypto is a risk for legal and accounting reasons. They just don’t think it’s worth it.

Now, to link a particular activity on a particular service with you via your payment is not a trivial task. Government can do it, but it really matters if you think you are or will be targeted by it. Data miners can correlate bank payment with an account at a service provider only if both bank and service provider sell or leak data, which is less likely if you are using a privacy a oriented service.

Yay, I can get some targeted ads about data center hardware!

People’s Breeding Dungeon