Fix the filibuster NOW!

[Nitro Express]

So whole Oregon is just like a big Tax-Free shop :-)

We have tax on EVERYTHING. But people who live outside of EU can get a tax free form and get the tax back at the customs. But they only get about half back, the half is payed to the customs :D
I try to avoid and inform people about that, that is not my job to do. But if they ask, of course I'll give it to them. But us Europeans probably never get our tax money back if we shop outside of EU.
Chinese are obsessed. "Tah fee, tah fee, discount?". I also love when people from Norway get the wrong info and demand their tax free. Then you calmly have to explain that they are the exception. They don't get money back even if they are outside of the union :D

Socialist countries always have high tax rates. It's what pays for all the government sponsored services. When I was in Norway I couldn't believe how expensive food and other things were. Compared to the US it seemed like robbery. Our prices are way lower here. I had a crown come loose and needed to go see a dentist. When I asked how much the bill was going to be they said it was covered. I said by who and they said the government. I said I was not a Norwegian citizen and they said it didn't matter. They weren't set up to take payment. I found it very strange.

Oh the Chinese are the most capitalistic people on the planet. I don't know how they ever managed to become communist. I'm probably more capitalistic than the average American because of spending some of my childhood in Hong Kong. They treat money with respect. You better have your wits about you when you negotiate with the Chinese. They will get the upper hand on you. It was all about negotiating and deal making. I can deffinately see them asking for the discount and if they are main landers as we called them in Hong Kong, they will have a bit of attitude. LOL!

[envy_me]

I just looked it up and saw that your sales tax is 0-13%. Our is 25% :-/

[FORD]

I just looked it up and saw that your sales tax is 0-13%. Our is 25% :-/

Yeah, but you get decent roads, schools, and health care for that money, right?

And no high fructose corn poison in your food?

[Nitro Express]

So whole Oregon is just like a big Tax-Free shop :-)

We have tax on EVERYTHING. But people who live outside of EU can get a tax free form and get the tax back at the customs. But they only get about half back, the half is payed to the customs :D
I try to avoid and inform people about that, that is not my job to do. But if they ask, of course I'll give it to them. But us Europeans probably never get our tax money back if we shop outside of EU.
Chinese are obsessed. "Tah fee, tah fee, discount?". I also love when people from Norway get the wrong info and demand their tax free. Then you calmly have to explain that they are the exception. They don't get money back even if they are outside of the union :D

Norway stayed out of the EU because they have all the oil and gas resources. They also have the Norwegian Pension Fund that they invest some of their oil money into so the future Norwegains have something when the oil runs out. Nothing to be gained by joining the EU for them. I don't think the Euro or the Union are going to last anyways. It was just thrown together by some oligarchs to rob nations of their money. You just can't have a few people paying the way of the rest. It does not work.

[Nitro Express]

Yeah, but you get decent roads, schools, and health care for that money, right?

And no high fructose corn poison in your food?

If the money is managed well and if that's what the citizens want. But you have way less choice than here.

[envy_me]

Socialist countries always have high tax rates. It's what pays for all the government sponsored services. When I was in Norway I couldn't believe how expensive food and other things were. Compared to the US it seemed like robbery. Our prices are way lower here. I had a crown come loose and needed to go see a dentist. When I asked how much the bill was going to be they said it was covered. I said by who and they said the government. I said I was not a Norwegian citizen and they said it didn't matter. They weren't set up to take payment. I found it very strange.

Oh the Chinese are the most capitalistic people on the planet. I don't know how they ever managed to become communist. I'm probably more capitalistic than the average American because of spending some of my childhood in Hong Kong. They treat money with respect. You better have your wits about you when you negotiate with the Chinese. They will get the upper hand on you. It was all about negotiating and deal making. I can deffinately see them asking for the discount and if they are main landers as we called them in Hong Kong, they will have a bit of attitude. LOL!

Croatians are even more generous. I was there for a couple of months, visiting my grandparents, and needed medication. Here if you pay for meds up untill maybe 200 dollars, then it's free. But in Croatia they gave it to me for free. I didn't understand at all how it works. First of all their meds are really, really cheap. i just came in said give me this, this, that, etc, here's the money. And they wouldn't give me anything until i came back with my grandmothers ID. I have double citizenship, both swe and cro, but i don't reside there. And when I came back with my grandmothers ID, i got everything for free. I have no idea what happend, or how it works.
Can you get meds at all if you don't have relatives residing there?

[envy_me]

Norway stayed out of the EU because they have all the oil and gas resources. They also have the Norwegian Pension Fund that they invest some of their oil money into so the future Norwegains have something when the oil runs out. Nothing to be gained by joining the EU for them. I don't think the Euro or the Union are going to last anyways. It was just thrown together by some oligarchs to rob nations of their money anyways. You just can't have a few people paying the way of the rest. It does not work.

I really don't like EU either, but it's good to have a counterweight to USA. Same with euro, I don't want it, but i'm glad it exists.

[envy_me]

Yeah, but you get decent roads, schools, and health care for that money, right?

And no high fructose corn poison in your food?

I am really not satisfied with health system here at all. Waiting period for an appointment is astronomical. Doctors are lazy and not good. In Croatia it's much better. Those doctors work for real. Here it's just fika that gets done...

[Nitro Express]

Croatians are even more generous. I was there for a couple of months, visiting my grandparents, and needed medication. Here if you pay for meds up untill maybe 200 dollars, then it's free. But in Croatia they gave it to me for free. I didn't understand at all how it works. First of all their meds are really, really cheap. i just came in said give me this, this, that, etc, here's the money. And they wouldn't give me anything until i came back with my grandmothers ID. I have double citizenship, both swe and cro, but i don't reside there. And when I came back with my grandmothers ID, i got everything for free. I have no idea what happend, or how it works.
Can you get meds at all if you don't have relatives residing there?

Here it's up to the doctor or dentist how generous they are going to be. Some might give someone who needs it free care. Some might barter. I know one doctor who accepted a desk made by a patient because the patient was cash poor. The government just stays out of it or used to. My doctor is cash only but his rates are way cheaper because he doesn't have to put up with all the over head.

[Nitro Express]

I am really not satisfied with health system here at all. Waiting period for an appointment is astronomical. Doctors are lazy and not good. In Croatia it's much better. Those doctors work for real. Here it's just fika that gets done...

That's the norm for socialized medicine anywhere. Providing the care is actually cheap and for the most part, 85% of the population are healthy. It's in providing the insurance and drugs where the money is, not the healthcare and that's really where the corruption lies along with frivolous law suits. We had great healthcare in the states and for the most part is was affordable until prices skyrocketed the last two decade due to lawyers and insurance companies and drug companies buying politicians.

Most the doctors I know went into medicine because that is where their interest was and for the most part, they want to help people. You don't go into family practice to get rich. Most those doctors are middle class. You don't make money in medicine until you become a specialist.

[envy_me]

Croatia is even more socialist, but their system is totally different. It's efficiant and fast. I honestly think it has to do with the mentality of people. in that certain country.

[kwame k]

Ridiculous!

Yeah, right......because the military industrial complex hasn't made enough in the last decade and they couldn't squeak by on a measly 500 billion a year

[kwame k]

Here's a good article about the breakdown of our Defense Budget a few are a stretch but pretty good none the less...........

............In fact, with projected cuts added in, the national security budget in fiscal 2013 will be nearly $1 trillion—a staggering enough sum that it’s worth taking a walk through the maze of the national security budget to see just where that money’s lodged.

If you’ve heard a number for how much the United States spends on the military, it’s probably in the neighborhood of $530 billion. That’s the Pentagon’s base budget for fiscal 2013, and represents a 2.5 percent cut from 2012. But that $530 billion is merely the beginning of what the United States spends on national security. Let’s dig a little deeper.

The Pentagon’s base budget doesn’t include war funding, which in recent years has been well over $100 billion. With US troops withdrawn from Iraq and troop levels falling in Afghanistan, you might think that war funding would be plummeting as well. In fact, it will drop to a mere $88 billion in fiscal 2013. By way of comparison, the federal government will spend around $64 billion on education that same year.

Add in war funding, and our national security total jumps to $618 billion. And we’re still just getting started.

The US military maintains an arsenal of nuclear weapons. You might assume that we’ve already accounted for nukes in the Pentagon’s $530 billion base budget. But you’d be wrong. Funding for nuclear weapons falls under the Department of Energy (DOE), so it’s a number you rarely hear. In fiscal 2013, we’ll be spending $11.5 billion on weapons and related programs at the DOE. And disposal of nuclear waste is expensive, so add another $6.4 billion for weapons cleanup.

Now, we’re at $636 billion and counting.

How about homeland security? We’ve got to figure that in, too. There’s the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which will run taxpayers $35.5 billion for its national security activities in fiscal 2013. But there’s funding for homeland security squirreled away in just about every other federal agency as well. Think, for example, about programs to secure the food supply, funded through the US Department of Agriculture. So add another $13.5 billion for homeland security at federal agencies other than DHS.

That brings our total to $685 billion.

Then there’s the international affairs budget, another obscure corner of the federal budget that just happens to be jammed with national security funds. For fiscal 2013, $8 billion in additional war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan is hidden away there. There’s also $14 billion for what’s called “international security assistance”—that’s part of the weapons and training Washington offers foreign militaries around the world. Plus there’s $2 billion for “peacekeeping operations,” money US taxpayers send overseas to help fund military operations handled by international organizations and our allies.

That brings our national security total up to $709 billion.

We can’t forget the cost of caring for our nation’s veterans, including those wounded in our recent wars. That’s an important as well as hefty share of national security funding. In 2013, veterans programs will cost the federal government $138 billion.

That brings us to $847 billion—and we’re not done yet.

Taxpayers also fund pensions and other retirement benefits for non-veteran military retirees, which will cost $55 billion next year. And then there are the retirement costs for civilians who worked at the Department of Defense and now draw pensions and benefits. The federal government doesn’t publish a number on this, but based on the share of the federal workforce employed at the Pentagon, we can estimate that its civilian retirees will cost taxpayers around $21 billion in 2013.

By now, we’ve made it to $923 billion—and we’re finally almost done.

Just one more thing to add in, a miscellaneous defense account that’s separate from the defense base budget. It’s called “defense-related activities,” and it’s got $8 billion in it for 2013.

That brings our grand total to an astonishing $931 billion.

And this will turn out to be a conservative figure. We won’t spend less than that, but among other things, it doesn’t include the interest we’re paying on money we borrowed to fund past military operations; nor does it include portions of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that are dedicated to national security. And we don’t know if this number captures the entire intelligence budget or not, because parts of intelligence funding are classified.

For now, however, that whopping $931 billion for fiscal year 2013 will have to do. If our national security budget were its own economy, it would be the nineteenth largest in the world, roughly the size of Australia’s. Meanwhile, the country with the next largest military budget, China, spends a mere pittance by comparison. The most recent estimate puts China’s military funding at around $136 billion.

Or think of it this way: National security accounts for one quarter of every dollar the federal government is projected to spend in 2013. And if you pull trust funds for programs like Social Security out of the equation, that figure rises to more than one third of every dollar in the projected 2013 federal budget.

Yet the House recently passed legislation to spare the defense budget from cuts, arguing that the automatic spending reductions scheduled for January 2013 would compromise national security. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has said such automatic cuts, which would total around $55 billion in 2013, would be “disastrous” for the defense budget. To avoid them, the House would instead pull money from the National School Lunch Program, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, Medicaid, food stamps and programs like the Social Services Block Grant, which funds Meals on Wheels, among other initiatives.

Yet it wouldn’t be difficult to find savings in that $931 billion. There’s plenty of low-hanging fruit, starting with various costly weapons systems left over from the Cold War, like the Virginia class submarine, the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, the missile defense program and the most expensive weapons system on the planet, the F-35 jet fighter. Cutting back or cancelling some of these programs would save billions of dollars annually.

In fact, Congress could find much deeper savings, but it would require fundamentally redefining national security in this country. On this issue, the American public is already several steps ahead of Washington. Americans overwhelmingly think that national security funding should be cut—deeply.

If lawmakers don’t pay closer attention to their constituents, we already know the alternative: pulling school-lunch funding.

Chris Hellman and Mattea Kramer May 22, 2012

Link

[Nitro Express]

Croatia is even more socialist, but their system is totally different. It's efficiant and fast. I honestly think it has to do with the mentality of people. in that certain country.

Usually where the people have had it easy for awhile they get a bit complacent and lazy. Sometimes a bit of fire on your ass is a good thing. Croatia has had more recent rough times than Sweden has. I've been checking out pictures of Croatian beaches. Very blue water.

[Nitro Express]

The US has morphed into an entertainment and war economy. We export entertainment, war, and weapons. Oh and we export recycled cardboard. So really these wars are nothing more than creating a market for our products. So until we can somehow turn the war industry into a consumer manufacturing industry, nothing really is going to change. The thing is we are running out of countries to pummel. Eisenhower was dead on right when he gave that warning about the Military Industrial Complex.