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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (2733)	11/5/2007 11:22:43 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

There are quite a few problems with that article. 1 - It mis-categorizes Hayek's points. Hayek attacked socialism as the road to serfdom. He didn't pick out some personal income tax rate and say "this rate is ideal. 2 - Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. are decidedly not laissez-faire countries. 3 - The Scandinavian countries are small in terms of population. Also they are far from being the only examples of higher taxed countries. Sach's is cherry picking his examples. 4 - Even with the cherry picking, the data doesn't support Sach's conclusion. The US and Ireland are wealthier than almost all of the Scandinavian countries (by per capita PPP GDP). Canada is wealthier than Sweden. In recent years Ireland has performed better than the Scandinavian countries. 5 - To the extent that the Scandinavian countries have had economic success, one major reason, is one that Scah's points out but doesn't make much of - "Tax rates on capital are relatively low." Low taxes on capital is something Hayek would have been very likely to support. Its hardly evidence that Hayek was wrong, or that high tax rates are a good thing. For more see If Sweden was a U.S. state, how rich would it be? Message 24021325

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (2733)	11/5/2007 12:12:06 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 42652

"they spend lavishly on research and development and higher education. All of them, but especially Sweden and Finland, have taken to the sweeping revolution in information and communications technology and leveraged it to gain global competitiveness. Sweden now spends nearly 4 percent of GDP on R&D, the highest ratio in the world today. On average, the Nordic nations spend 3 percent of GDP on R&D, compared with around 2 percent in the English-speaking nations." In the US R & D is discouraged through tax policy. When people take distortions out of context it does not lend credibility to their arguments. So because Nordic countries have more sane policies on deduction of R&D expenses we are supposed to believe that it makes the rest of their tax policies correct? I choose to maintain healthy skepticism.