More:
and from the 100k a year that you make....
you pay 25% sales tax on EVERY ****ing thing you buy....
so in essence, you only make 75.000
now.... gasoline has 90%, an expense that is around 3000, compared to the 500 that it COULD be
you pay an extra CAR tax
don't let em fool you
cus you DO pay sales tax too
but the car tax is usually 50-80% of the cars value
a Ford Mustang V6 costs 27.000 USD in the US
In Norway it costs 130.000 USD
a BMW that is cleaner, leaner, pollutes less and uses less gas pr mile can still cost more in taxes and fees because of the insane rules we have
and then you have toilet seat tax
no joke
there are 3000 people employed at the IRS who every year revise our extra tax system
it costs the government 400 MILLION USD a year to keep these people in service
they could've put a flat rate tax, fired the people, saved the people and the government a lot of money
but they don't
in essence
when you make 200k a year
in reality you make 20k
And I'm not sure what for
cus our roads are the worst in europe
Mercedes Benz said that the roads in Norway are so bad that they have 50% more wear and tear on their cars that are on norwegian roads compared to the rest of the world.
even africa has better roads
our schools are among the worst in the world
kids get asthma cus the buildings are so old
the public transportation is a joke
yet they force the eco taxes on us... with no viable option
and it's all made to serve the idiots in Oslo
they could afford a new opera house in oslo, cost? 1 billion dollars
new ski-jump arena in oslo, 300m
but you can't play hockey north of trondheim
it's ****ed up
and I'm sure it's ****ed up because the government has too much control
they finance the festivals
they finance music
they finance art
they finance everything
you can't do **** without them
and you sure as hell can't compete with then either
but nobody cares
as long as we win gold medals in the olympics people don't give a ****
we've got our oil so **** the rest
we're the richest country in the world
and the best
welcome to norway
This friend of yours can have no education. I jsut showed you a graph of the Norwegian tax level which has been constant, more or less since 1970 at 43- 44% of GDP.
Do you understand what that means?
That means that the sum of taxes of the total GDP is 44%. In USA it is 25% - but then you don't get all that public service included, - as 'free' health care, pensions, education for your kids through university etc.
Most music festivals are privately funded, but might get 10.000 $ support from a local government. not the state. The Norwegian Public Lottery (not the State, your friend does not seem to understand what is happening around him) is heavily subsidizing the Oslo Opera and other up street cultural events. So, the cheapest place to see & hear Placido Domingo is in Oslo. Air fair from NY included.
That means that the number of public employees are far less than some 60%. More like 38 - 40%
Statoil is a private company. It's stock can be bought on the NYSE. The Norwegian government do have a share or two. That's smart, isn't it? Our pension fund owns about 1,5% of all the publicly noted shares - in the world...
Everything is outsourced in the oil industry. But not only to American companies. We have negotiated the oil rights with other OECD nations and are obliged to also use their services.
Norway has come on top on several living standard studies made by The World Bank, UN and OECD. Together with Sweden, Finland, Denmark etc. High on this list is Cananda. USA is far down on the list.
How can this be?
But we do send patients to foreign hospitals!
The Swedes who have a public health care system like us have a very efficient bypass heart operation facility that is often used by us.
We even send Norwegian/Pakistani to Pakistani hospitals because they are specialists on certain inherited deceases which is typical among Pakistanis etc. Why we are not using US health facilities can only be that they are not competitive or don't have the expertise we seek.
That Norwegian roads are bad, that I can agree upon. Not very unlike the poor quality of - American roads. The problem that both Norwegians and Americans have to face is that we have to keep up a good infrastructure with a small - relatively speaking, population.
About your friend's education, again: you must urge him to get his school money back. 'The 3000 people working for our IRS' (the real figure will be more like 1000 - it's all computerized today) costs 400 million US$...? These figures are wildly exagerated. But we practically have a flat tax! Income below 12.000 $ is tax free, though. It's when you buy things you pay taxes over here.
If you have noticed, the US politicians are looking at increasing the VAT/sales tax in USA. Even the tiny 25% of GDP you pay in taxes are all too little. Much due to an all too expensive health care cost (and extravagant defence). With the US public dept running into figures impossible to pay back the only future I see for Americans are, read my lips:
Higher taxes!
With an interest of only 1,5% - 3% of GDP will go to serving this huge debt. Tell that to the daydreamers at the tea parties. It is only one way out of the US financial chaos: Pay more taxes!
Sure, there is a lot of complaints on poor building quality of many local schools and collages particularly here in Oslo where we have a conservative local government. I suspect that they let the schools run down so they (friends of the Conservative Party) can buy them cheap and sell them on again with a profit.
But collage is (practically) free here in Norway! How does that compare to USA? As long as you are qualified your education through university is free.
Compare!
Sure, there is many things that makes USA a pleasant place to live. But not when it comes to government, health care, law and order, education, pensions and other 'public' services that we take for granted.
What makes USA pleasant is the climate, the beautiful scenery and the nice people....
