OK

OK

(Just to let you know, I realised I wanted to say more and have substantially edited my post. You may want to re-read it.)

OK.

It is not, by the way, false to say that employee deductions are subtracted from wages and that employer deductions are subtracted from profits, that is true both de facto and de jure.

It is false to say that reducing employer taxes increases employee wages, that isn’t how the world works. It just increases profits and reduces the amount the government spends on things such as public transport, cycling infrastructure, roads, railways, hospitals, schools, social care, those sorts of things.

If you’re self employed, you may well look at the entirety of the money coming in and consider it potential wages, want to pay all of that to yourself, but deduct any costs you are obliged to and in that sense there’s no real difference between a cost and a salary reduction, but that’s because you’re self employed, it’s really not how most employers work.

Usually, employers have zero desire to give all the money to the employees or to maximise wages, in fact, probably a majority of large employers prefer to minimise wages.

I’m not unhappy at my place of employment, I’m mildly unhappy that ceos and shareholders extract the vast majority of the profits from the efforts of workers and want governments to increase taxes and share wealth more equitably.

You seem unhappy with your country. What steps have you taken to emigrate to the USA?

I didn’t think I was shouting loudly at all. I’m no more shouting about socialised healthcare than you’re shouting about low taxes.

They look at the budget: we want to spend X on this employee.

Lol. That is not how budget meetings work. That isn’t even how salary negotiations work.

You persist in believing that if costs reduce, wages rise, but this is not how businesses operate. When costs decrease, profits rise, executive bonuses rise, but it’s really rare that employee pay rises as a result, and as I keep telling you, it’s hopelessly naive to think that a massive tax cut for businesses would result in a massive pay rise for employees.

On the other hand, socialised healthcare is about half the cost as privatised healthcare is in the USA. You save on your taxes, but then you pay twice as much to health insurance companies who then refuse to treat you anyway. It’s really, really, really bad value for money and horrendously expensive.

But your idea that companies pay people more when they pay less taxes is hopelessly naive. If you cut employer contributions in Belgium, the people who would get the spare money would be the shareholders and the ceos.

Famously McDonald’s and the pile pay their employees far, far less in America than in Scandinavia, but the burgers are very very similar in price.

If you reduce costs for employers, wages do not go up. There is zero wage inflationary pressure from increased profits. How can you not know this?

You foolishly seem to believe that wages are held down by taxes! No! Wages are held down by ceos and shareholders!

When I see the job with my skills where the ceo doesn’t take most of the money I earn, I’ll be sure to apply and look up my old comments to tell you that you were right, but I would still want socialised healthcare because it’s much cheaper and has better health outcomes and I won’t have to remortgage the house if my Mum needs expensive treatment.

Did I ever say 5%? In Belgium it turns out it’s 13% of your paycheck flat payment and then it’s free. Sounds like a massive, massive win. We should do like them for healthcare.

Why rather pay twice for healthcare when you can pay once, it doesn’t matter what illness you get, and no one has to remortgage their house to keep their relative alive?

That’s exactly the point I’m trying to communicate.

Really?! Weird.

Americans grossly underestimate the costs of the system

Whilst paying roughly twice as much as people in other wealthy nations.

I’m not actually Johnny. I’m David, and I don’t speak French or Walloon or Frisian or Flemish well enough to live in Belgium. It’s just how most shareholder or private equity owned companies in the USA are run.

I actually think that the solution isn’t so much a change of career for me, but an increase in the taxes on the shareholders and chief executives to find better health care, better education, better social care, better care for veterans, better infrastructure etc etc etc, so that we all benefit from the profits rather than just the already wealthy folks.

So no, I don’t get cross with the government for taking the shareholders’ money, I get cross with the shareholders for taking my money. I think that’s far more rational.

Congratulations. You must live somewhere with good public transport or good cycling infrastructure or really near your workplace.

But I think it’s hopelessly naive to think that if you reduced taxes on companies pay for ordinary workers would go up, or that they would get anywhere even slightly enough to pay for the sort of healthcare available for free in countries with socialised healthcare.

Like I said, Americans spend roughly twice as much on healthcare as other wealthy countries and their health outcomes are worse than most of them. Who knew that maximising shareholder income wasn’t the best motivator for good, well priced healthcare?

Lol.

Johnny made 400 apples for the company, who gave him 100, the government took 13 and he got 87. The government also took 27 of the 250 apples (left after rent, heating, lighting cleaning and maintenance costs) that the company had wanted to keep for the executive pay and shareholders. They complained bitterly about how expensive it was and lied to Johnny that they would definitely have given him all of those 27 apples, honestly, definitely, if only the nasty government hadn’t stolen them for a bunch of very undeserving sick people and elderly people who were just making Johnny poorer.

Last year, when Johnny made 30 more apples than usual, he got a one apple bonus, the chief executive got a 10 apple bonus and the shareholders got the other 19.

It really sounds like you have no idea what the difference is between employee contributions and employer contributions.

Answer me this. If you get a company car for free, do you complain that your salary was reduced?

If Johnny has 100 apples and the Belgian government gives 13 of them to some folk in hospital or care homes and Johnny doesn’t ever spend a penny on health care, how many apples does he have, and what does it matter to Johnny if his employer who has tens of thousands of apples has to give some of them to the folks in hospital instead of to the shareholders?

If Jimmy has 150 apples and the US government takes 20 of them and he gives 50 of them to his health insurer to pay down debt and then has to remortgage his house to pay for his Mum’s cancer treatment, how much better off do you think Jimmy really is?

“The United States has the world’s highest per capita health care costs—about double those of other wealthy nations”

Tell me you don’t understand taxation without telling me you don’t understand taxation.

Readers added the following context:

Untrue.

It’s 13%.

It covers both heath care and social care (old people’s homes and help for elderly or disabled).

Nah, zendesk should absolutely have recognised that gaining unauthorised read access to support ticket email chains is a massive security issue. Firstly “support email chains” accounts for proportionately nearly all the data zendesk is handling, so a vulnerability there is core to the product, not at all peripheral, and secondly, who on earth is working in tech today that doesn’t know that your email is they key to all your online accounts?

Zendesk here were blatantly either stupid or in denial and treated a bug reporter as a low life enemy instead of an asset. The kid did right by any plausible moral viewpoint.

That was a great read, thank you for posting it here.

You’re so full of shit.

The fascists winning doesn’t trouble you at all, though, which is weird for a leftist, no? I smell republicans in disguise.