A post from /r/BuyFromEU got my blood boiling. I don’t have an account there any longer, so I have to vent here:
Personally, I am not buying into this idea that you should support a certain business just because it is based in your vicinity. I will buy the product that comes at the best price for the quality I desire. If it is Japanese or American or Chinese, so be it.
In my opinion, the BuyFromEU movement will fail unless the governments of EU countries make a serious attempt to understand the reasons why businesses struggle in the EU and address the structural issues preventing them from scaling up.
Essentially, it is the government’s job to fix the reasons why people weren’t buying from EU in the first place. Unless the government cuts down on regulations, unless they makes it easier for people to grow their wealth by working hard and not having to pay 50% of their paycheck in taxes, unless they make electricity and gas cheaper, unless they fix the housing shortages in all major cities of Western Europe - this movement will FAIL. Buying Paturain instead of Philadelphia cream cheese is never going to help your economy grow strong.
My choice to not buy Nike and buy Adidas instead will only help the top bosses at Adidas. I am going to still be taxed at 50% of my income, so I might as well buy the cheapest product. The government should give me a serious incentive to buy European, then I will.
The Reddit OP shows a perfect example of:
- Deflecting towards the government instead of taking personal responsibility
- Complaining about taxes and greedy cooperation, while only looking for a personal financial benefit
We as as Europeans must be willing to be uncomfortable again. We ARE the system. So to change the system, we are the ones that must change. Stop whining, start winning.
The “50% tax” makes me think it is.
Honest question, why? I’m not saying the guy doesn’t sound like an astroturfing attempt, but not because of those 50%. When I look at my payslip, I see that the money I get is 50% of the money I cost my employer. And that doesn’t include VAT I pay on everything.
But it also doesn’t include the benefits you gain from those taxes.
There’s your net income, and your disposable income at the end, after you paid for insurance, food, medicine, and all the other things you need to survive. Looking at the net income instead of the disposable one makes the US seem, very clearly, much better off.
However, as soon as you start looking into disposable income and a true, “net net” of how much money I can save and spend on god knows what, the US starts falling behind FAST.
As a result, most US Americans tend to cope using that nice big number and conveniently forget the real number at the end.
But do keep in mind this is general and doesn’t always hold true. As much as I may dislike the US right now, the US really is more like 50 tiny countries than one big one, so results vary depending on where you look. Especially along the Democrat-Republican divide.
I am pretty aware of what those taxes pay for. But it doesn’t change the fact that they do exist and they are high. Regardless - in my country, lots of people are always complaining about high taxes, so whenever I see someone mentioning them, it doesn’t imply that they’re American.
Because whenever someone pulls out a number like that, it’s always an American. I’ve even had some of them try to convince me it adds up to cca 50% like I don’t know my brutto. And there’s this “EU is a country” attitude to it.