We aint doin' so good in the rat race

[DMac]

Partanen, who returned to Finland with her American husband and year-old daughter in search of a “more sane” family life, said their time in the U.S. was defined by anxiety. “It takes immense energy to find the right day care, find the right school, find the right doctor, then figure out the right insurance plan and how you’re going to pay for everything, as it’s so expensive.

Don't blame her one bit, think there's a ton of truth in this article. Am glad to be on the down side of life in the good ol' USofA. Wouldn't trade my time for the future for all the tea in China.
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/why-peop ... 17891.html

[seriously?]

There is no rat race in Finland. You have 5.5 million white people mostly Finnish in a country (130,000 sq. miles) which approaches the size of California. You have 8.6 million people living in NYC in 302 sq. miles.

The tax rate in Finland is 50%. Who do you think is going to buy into that in this country?

Aside, in Germany, if you get a speeding ticket, the fine is based upon a percentage of your salary. No negotiation.

[DMac]

So we should be willing to sacrifice contentment, peacefulness, less stress, and a better balanced life for the money (that's why we're so stressed out). Got it.
So the guy in Germany making less money pays less for a speeding ticket than the guy making more money. You unhappy with that if you're the guy making less money? The guy making more money hurt much by that? You know the price when you're speeding too, right?
I'd bet there are quite a number of people who would sacrifice 50% of their income for good heath coverage (what percent of their income are they paying now...especially if they need to use that health insurance they have...deductibles, office visits, insulin, etc?), schools, simpler life, etc.
Guess we can find a number or reasons we can't do any of that, be nice if we tried to find some reasons we could, wouldn't it?

[admin]

Question: I assume in Germany the average German understands why the billionaire pays a higher speeding fine than the poor German. I.e. This isn't such a difficult concept. I.e. This being the case, why are people in the US still arguing that the rich should pay x dollars instead of % dollars. E.g. "The rich pay $4 billion in taxes!" eventhough that $4B is a smaller percentage of income than a middle class american.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Question: I assume in Germany the average German understands why the billionaire pays a higher speeding fine than the poor German. I.e. This isn't such a difficult concept. I.e. This being the case, why are people in the US still arguing that the rich should pay x dollars instead of % dollars. E.g. "The rich pay $4 billion in taxes!" eventhough that $4B is a smaller percentage of income than a middle class american.

Peasants have been brainwashed.

[youthathletics]

Interesting, because their suicide rate is quite close to ours. When you can be disciplined to not allow money to control your thoughts and emotions, serve others regardless of your financial status, you will often find joy. You could see how that couple was searching for less competition (keeping up with the jones') in order to find some peace.

It is a daily struggle for many.

[richard]

If I were to add what I have spent in my lifetime on health insurance and education to the taxes, fed, state local, property, sales, hidden, etc I've paid it would certainly add up to a tax rate of over 50% of my income. But then I'm just a working, lower middle class, schmuck. So in hindsight that 50% looks O K to me. But for people making over a certain dollar amount it might not.

[jhu72]

That "certain amount" is growing every year and more and more people would be much better off taking the % of income deal.

[HooDat]

This is a country of dreamers. Americans of every color, sex, heritage and ilk believe that they are going to be the next billionaire. And the politicians use that against them every single day.

There are a lot of ways to "check out" of the rat race. One, I guess, is to move to Finland. The land of homogeneity and easy living.

Another is to stop worrying so much about what the "Jones's" are buying and live within your means and at peace with your decisions. (ftr I suck at that).

But all of this is avoiding the real issue here: some people don't want to grow up. They want the government to take care of them, and if they can avoid taking responsibility for their lives they are willing to give up their freedom.

Those are not the values we were taught growing up, but they are becoming the values that are currently being taught - which is why the click-bait of the craziness going on at our colleges is so effective. Older folks can't get their head around the concept.

[DMac]

HooDat wrote
But all of this is avoiding the real issue here: some people don't want to grow up. They want the government to take care of them, and if they can avoid taking responsibility for their lives they are willing to give up their freedom.

Am not so sure about that, Hoo. Some people, yes, some people not so much. Young couple 25-27 years old, combined student loan debt $40-60-80+K, 1-2 kids. How much freedom does that couple have? Probably have more freedom giving up 50% of your income if you're one of the average/a bit above average income earners.
What freedoms would the couple who moved to Finland give up? Much more relaxed attitude about nudity and the most saunas per capita there too.
Pretty country.

[ggait]

Funny thing is, the good old days of the 50s were (at least as viewed through today's lens) close to full monty socialism:

Income inequality was much much less. State university tuition was close to free. Unions were strong. Union membership was high. Many jobs provided close to lifetime employment, even if you had low skills and education. Only one paycheck needed to maintain the family.

Those jobs typically provided guaranteed pensions for retirement. Free health care while working. Followed up by free post-retirement health care. Social security and Medicare were just a bonus. And the tax rates and tax burden (under GOP Eisenhower) for rich folk were way higher than today.

My blue collar, working class, HS diploma, union guy, WWII vet father pretty much lived in a workers paradise beyond what any pinko Commies could dream of.

If you went full AOC/Pocahontas (which I don't support), you still wouldn't come close to what my dad (who of course became a Reagan Democrat in his later years) got. 1950s USA was probably just as plush (maybe more plush) than 2018 Scandinavia. Our kids will never ever have it so good as their grandparents had it.

Interesting...

[Typical Lax Dad]

Funny thing is, the good old days of the 50s were (at least as viewed through today's lens) close to full monty socialism:

Income inequality was much much less. State university tuition was close to free. Unions were strong. Union membership was high. Many jobs provided close to lifetime employment, even if you had low skills and education. Only one paycheck needed to maintain the family.

Those jobs typically provided guaranteed pensions for retirement. Free health care while working. Followed up by free post-retirement health care. Social security and Medicare were just a bonus. And the tax rates and tax burden (under GOP Eisenhower) for rich folk were way higher than today.

My blue collar, working class, HS diploma, union guy, WWII vet father pretty much lived in a workers paradise beyond what any pinko Commies could dream of.

If you went full AOC/Pocahontas (which I don't support), you still wouldn't come close to what my dad (who of course became a Reagan Democrat in his later years) got. 1950s USA was probably just as plush (maybe more plush) than 2018 Scandinavia. Our kids will never ever have it so good as their grandparents had it.

Interesting...

Absolutely....the peasants have been brainwashed. Fighting the fight for the Gentry. Who knew.

[CU77]

+1 on gg's post. So few understand what it would take to bring those conditions back in these days of race-to-the-bottom global capitalism.

We can start by taxing capital gains the same as labor.

[holmes435]

Simple budgeting and living within your means. Right.

I run a family of 4.

Housing in the area for a 3 bedroom house or apartment buying or renting is going to land you at $2000 after taxes, insurance and utilities at a minimum.

Health insurance? If you've got part-time jobs, or your employer doesn't offer insurance? Or like us, you're running one or two small businesses with a few dozen employees? Minimum health insurance on the marketplace here is about $1400 for a family of four in optimal health.

Decent daycare (not top of the line) and/or a nanny runs $2000 / month for two kids.

Food, gas/public transportation, and other true needs gives you $70,000 or so net income for a family of four to feel barely comfortable here. So two people making $50k or one person making $100k just to feel like you're lower middle class. Throw in retirement savings, college savings, life insurance, saving for big purchases like cars or a car payment, and more adds on tens of thousands of dollars.

[tech37]

My blue collar, working class, HS diploma, union guy, WWII vet father pretty much lived in a workers paradise beyond what any pinko Commies could dream of.

My dad, grandson of German immigrants, grew up in a college and steel town where he went, not only to high school, but college too. He used to say, he "walked to college each day." He received his engineering degree and stepped out into the booming post-war steel industry. We moved a couple times but he ended up working for the same co for 45 years...that's unheard of these days.

[DMac]

How odd, a German with an engineering mind.
My dad retired from the Army, drew that retirement pay (pretty sure it was 50% of what he was making as an E-9) from day one, then went to work for the post office and retired from there ( a real socialist, eh, a fan?).
My immigrant German mom (war bride) never worked...I better add outside of the house. With a father who lived through The Great Depression (born in '19) and survived a lot of time spent on the battlefield in Patton's outfit in WW II, and a mom whose teenage years included many nights in bomb shelters in Stuttgart (born in '26), there was no tolerance for complaining about what you didn't have or a keeping up with the Joneses mentality.
Mom ran a tight ship, excellent cook and baker, got three squares a day and lived in a pretty tidy house. The old man was the king of the castle who preached integrity, respect, and appreciation....really didn't want to do a lot lot of whining or cross the line with him.
As noted, I wouldn't trade those days to be a kid growing up in this country for all the tea in China. Was a much simpler and better life, and nope our grand kids will never experience that kind of life in the rat race that is today's world. I really wouldn't blame anyone for moving to Finland and living a simpler, less stressful life where family and security is much higher on the priority list.

[dislaxxic]

...where family and security is much higher on the priority list.

MONEY!

How did the priority list get so effed up??

..

[HooDat]

HooDat wrote
But all of this is avoiding the real issue here: some people don't want to grow up. They want the government to take care of them, and if they can avoid taking responsibility for their lives they are willing to give up their freedom.

Am not so sure about that, Hoo. Some people, yes, some people not so much. Young couple 25-27 years old, combined student loan debt $40-60-80+K, 1-2 kids. How much freedom does that couple have? Probably have more freedom giving up 50% of your income if you're one of the average/a bit above average income earners.
What freedoms would the couple who moved to Finland give up? Much more relaxed attitude about nudity and the most saunas per capita there too.
Pretty country.

Some good points in there. But I think the bigger picture is more complicated than either of our posts acknowledge. My main point was there are two different cultures at work driving the overall governing framework.

More to the point though - what I was trying to say is that the inherent optimism of your average Joe in the US has been used against us by the 0.01% to convince us to go against our own best interest in the (most likely delusional) belief that we will be a billionaire some day. The bit about growing up was a bit of a tangent - but I will stand by the point that when you outsource your decision-making you give up some degree of freedom.

[HooDat]

+1 on gg's post. So few understand what it would take to bring those conditions back in these days of race-to-the-bottom global capitalism.

We can start by taxing capital gains the same as labor.

you are preaching to the choir on this point. I am an ardent opponent of corporatism/globalism. And to ggait's point about the 50's - the only thing bringing that math back is a world war or plague that wipes out the vast majority of infrastructure and working age citizens.

Don't get me started on this topic:

Those jobs typically provided guaranteed pensions for retirement.

Fixed pensions are nothing other than corproate (or gov) debt!. A pension is nothing more than employers borrowing pay from the workers with the promise to pay it back later. Our government does it now: underpays relative to market, with the promise to "pay it back" over time in the form of a pension. We will never know if it was a tenable "transaction" because the corporate raiders and "shareholder value" warriors decimated the equation when they determined that globalist corporations could not balance honoring their pension liabilities and paying their CEO's $10mmm per year..... Guess who came out on top of that decision? It was clearly obvious that the CEOs had to be protected from the greedy lazy workers....

I run a family of 4.

Count me in for 7, I have five kids. Three of them are out of college. I have had a far better than average career - and I will either need to come across a windfall or work until I am 70 to recover from the cost of education and housing for my family. I wouldn't trade it for the world. But my real point was there is a difference between can't and won't in terms of living in the "rat race". We choose to take on tuition debt, we choose to live in cities in the race for higher salaries. There is more to the equation than just money was all I was trying to say. Moving to Finland is simply one way to make that quality of life decision - and probably a good one if part of the family has citizenship - not all of us have that option.

[a fan]

5? 5 kids?

Alright. You're my new hero. How in the hell did you raise five kids? It's all I can do to raise one with my wife.

You're taking performance enhancing drugs, is that it?