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Randarkman posted:I think you're painting an overly rosy picture here and even if you are European, painting this broad picture of what "Europe" is is gonna end up being extremely inaccurate and misleading. Which part of my post do you think is extremely inaccurate or misleading? European cities are unarguably on average far more walkable, and have far better public transport, than American cities. I don't think thats really up for debate, there are plenty of studies out there on that. Car ownership rates are also very much not really a debatable point. Its far, far less common for poor people in Europe to have cars than poor people in America, the stats on that are very clear. Relatedly, given its the map thread: 
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Jan 19, 2023 00:28
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I may not be understanding the situation correctly, but isn't the gas price/food price relationship on the logistics end of things? Europeans still have to transport products to stores using gas, don't they? Seems like rising gas prices hits vulnerable individuals hard (even in Europe) while being a minor inconvenience to everyone else. I'm sure if they got bad enough it'd give a boost to renewables/electric vehicles, but it seems like a lot of people with no choice in the matter would have to seriously suffer first, given how we've set our society up. I could be completely wrong though and would be happy for folks to explain how things actually are if these assumptions aren't correct.
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Jan 19, 2023 00:36
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Blut posted:Which part of my post do you think is extremely inaccurate or misleading? That not everyone lives in those extremely walkable cities (that map seems mostly intended for tourism purposes, though your general assertion is likely correct) that even within those cities there are areas that are much less walkable, and that public transport is far from excellent or reliably available in Europe as a general rule. Hell you'll find many places, not even truly rural areas, just outside whatever qualifies as a big cities, where public transportation has become worse not better. And this is not a really representative example, but it is an example from a very wealthy European country, Norway.
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Jan 19, 2023 00:38
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Randarkman posted:How is VAT complicated? Maybe for the business that has to pay account for it and transfer it to the state, but you, the guy in store? The stuff you buy just costs more than it would have without the VAT. As far as I can tell, VAT is set up to work out exactly the same as a simple sales tax paid entirely by the end consumer... but for some reason it's implemented as this gigantic web of government payments and refunds, involving every company that's ever touched any component of the final product. (Or do I have something screamingly wrong here?)
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Jan 19, 2023 00:41
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Powered Descent posted:As far as I can tell, VAT is set up to work out exactly the same as a simple sales tax paid entirely by the end consumer... but for some reason it's implemented as this gigantic web of government payments and refunds, involving every company that's ever touched any component of the final product. Oh, you might be right about that yeah. It's probably a complicated chain from the retailer to various suppliers up to the top. Though yeah, the people actually paying it, not just transferring it, just pay a bit more when shopping.
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Jan 19, 2023 00:45
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Blut posted:You need to stop assuming everywhere is the US. For a huge percentage of the European population owning a car is a choice, not a necessity. Most countries here have approx half the car ownership rate of the US, we actually have functioning public transport and walkable/cyclable cities. Most very poor people don't own cars. For the limited number of rural poor who do own and require a car its entirely possible to use the tax revenue from petrol taxes to give them economic supports. I'm well aware that European car ownership is lower than in America. My point is that all attempts to modify behavior by assessing a tax on that behavior just establish a threshold for engaging in that behavior that is a class-based threshold, and which is inherently both regressive and moralizing. These kinds of taxes are basically sumptuary laws, and like the medieval sumptuary laws they assume that permitting behavior X among the lower classes is worse than permitting it among the higher classes, and the unspoken assumption is that people of higher classes are better able to make good decisions that are socially acceptable, while people of lower classes need to be managed and controlled. It's an incredibly right-wing approach to social policy, and is usually just a way to pretend to seek social improvement while still pursuing austerity (because vice taxes and user fees are cheaper than investments in social policy like education, housing, and transit).
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Jan 19, 2023 02:57
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I don't understand VAT. I've tried to read about it and I just can't understand what the words are saying. How does it work as a consumer? Tell me some basics.
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Jan 19, 2023 03:39
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I don't understand VAT. I've tried to read about it and I just can't understand what the words are saying. How does it work as a consumer? Tell me some basics. You pay the price on the label, that's it.
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Jan 19, 2023 03:45
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Somehow I find this 26 page PDF of what is and is not subject to Pennsylvania's 6% sales tax more intelligible than the entire concept of VAT https://www.revenue.pa.gov/FormsandPublications/FormsforBusinesses/SUT/Documents/rev-717.pdf Face masks, ice, and toilet paper are untaxed but prom dresses, paper towels, and melatonin supplements are.
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Jan 19, 2023 03:48
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SimonSays posted:You pay the price on the label, that's it. Yeah but do you do something after paying the price on the label? I've heard you do
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Jan 19, 2023 03:48
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:I don't understand VAT. I've tried to read about it and I just can't understand what the words are saying. How does it work as a consumer? Tell me some basics. Invisibly. You just pay the price listed and that's it. Sometimes you see that VAT is going up or down for things, which will make them a bit cheaper or more expensive, but when you actually buy something you don't think about it.
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Jan 19, 2023 03:50
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Randarkman posted:I think you're painting an overly rosy picture here and even if you are European, painting this broad picture of what "Europe" is is gonna end up being extremely inaccurate and misleading. It's a proud SA tradition that Euro Goons post overly rosy descriptions that paint all of Europe as a wealthy exurb of Monte Carlo as run by the world's most enlightened gay socialists, and that all Amerigoons post the worst possible description of the US as a dilapidated Walmart outside of Skunkpoon Mississippi as run by the evangelical Taliban.
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Jan 19, 2023 04:03
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A gas tax on its own can only really discourage people from owning/using a car in areas where it is a superfluous luxury. Despite how so many cities are overflowing with pedestrian conveniences and how heavily urbanized Europe is, there's still a number of jobs and areas where you need a car or having access to a car makes things much easier, and in that case you'll just absorb whatever tax into your cost of living or necessary expenses. Aside from the regressive nature of sales tax, my main issue with it is that it's not included in the sticker price in most stores, allowing stores to reap the relative benefit of prices that seem lower and punishing anybody who tries to keep track of how much they're spending in a store before they get to the checkout by making it more complicated. I guess nice to hear that Europe gets around that at least.
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Jan 19, 2023 04:08
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Safety Biscuits posted:Invisibly. You just pay the price listed and that's it. Sometimes you see that VAT is going up or down for things, which will make them a bit cheaper or more expensive, but when you actually buy something you don't think about it. Yes, but why does the merchant from many manufacturing steps ago (let's say they smelted the iron that eventually ended up in the screws that were used to hold together your cellphone) have to pay a percentage on their b2b sale price if they're only going to get that same amount back once the next buyer sells it on? Why are they even involved at all in what works out to be an end-user tax? Who is keeping track of all this intricate detail? What even counts as the same "item" in the many steps of manufacturing? (If I buy plant food and use it to grow tomatoes that I then sell, is that still the same item? How do I work out the value that was added to the plant food when it became tomatoes? And do I do the same thing for the light bulbs that I use in the grow-lights above the plants?) e: To be perfectly clear, I'm not coming in with any preconceived political ideas here; I've literally never looked into how VAT works until today. I'm percectly willing to accept that my few minutes of googling have led me astray and that this isn't how any of this works at all, if that's the case. This is just my initial reaction as an American taking a first look at the outside world: holy poo poo this VAT poo poo is overcomplicated. Powered Descent fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Jan 19, 2023 |
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Jan 19, 2023 04:16
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Anecdote on how Australia's GST (goods and services tax - VAT) works: As a consumer I don't think about it, I pay the price on the label. My receipt will show that some/most/all of the items had GST included in the price, which is 10% on top of the non-GST price. E.g. a $11 item was $10 + $1 GST. Again, as a consumer this doesn't matter. As a business owner, I collect the GST in my sales, and anything I buy I pay the GST on. Every three months I do a BAS - business activity statement. I tell the tax office how much GST I've collected from customers. I tell the tax office how much GST I've paid as a consumer to other businesses. They subtract the GST I paid from the GST I owe, and issue me a refund or a bill. It's far more complicated to read than to do. The intent is that GST only applies once, at the final sale. "Essential items" such as fresh food and medical items are exempt from GST.
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Jan 19, 2023 04:24
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Grape posted:the worst possible description of the US as a dilapidated Walmart outside of Skunkpoon Mississippi as run by the evangelical Taliban. That's the flattering description of the US.
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Jan 19, 2023 04:34
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Powered Descent posted:As far as I can tell, VAT is set up to work out exactly the same as a simple sales tax paid entirely by the end consumer... but for some reason it's implemented as this gigantic web of government payments and refunds, involving every company that's ever touched any component of the final product. It doesn’t come out exactly right due to a concept called “tax pyramiding” that happens with US sales tax laws, but that’s basically the concept. VAT systems have built-in incentives where the business community helps ensure that the taxes are paid. If your business makes a purchase from a non-registered business, you’re paying the full amount of the VAT, so you’re incentivized to buy from registered businesses. Because the tax is collected at every stage, the amount that any individual business pays is much lower, and any points of failure in the tax collection process have lower consequences. The US system puts a lot of responsibility on Bob’s Diner to pay all of the sales taxes due but little responsibility on Sysco, a company which you would expect to be much more reliable.
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Jan 19, 2023 04:53
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Powered Descent posted:Yes, but why does the merchant from many manufacturing steps ago (let's say they smelted the iron that eventually ended up in the screws that were used to hold together your cellphone) have to pay a percentage on their b2b sale price if they're only going to get that same amount back once the next buyer sells it on? Why are they even involved at all in what works out to be an end-user tax? Who is keeping track of all this intricate detail? What even counts as the same "item" in the many steps of manufacturing? (If I buy plant food and use it to grow tomatoes that I then sell, is that still the same item? How do I work out the value that was added to the plant food when it became tomatoes? And do I do the same thing for the light bulbs that I use in the grow-lights above the plants?) Forgive me for replying to the question Teriyaki Hairpiece asked; I should have known to answer a question someone else hadn't posted yet. A rookie mistake, really.
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Jan 19, 2023 05:10
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Yeah, VAT is mostly an enforcement tool. Its goal is to make it so that you can't dodge most tax by having the end customer pay cash under the table. It does that by dumping complexity onto businesses in the middle of the supply chain, but they can generally deal with that better than an end customer/they don't have any alternatives For maps related to the earlier part of this thread that surprised me, apparently Europe generally taxes cigarettes more than the US, they've just failed at reducing smoking in comparison for other reasons     
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Jan 19, 2023 05:17
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Look, the game in America is about finding ways not to pay tax. That's why the wealthiest pay the least. Everyone has to commute to work so gas taxes are most punishing on the poor, who have the longest distance to drive between gainful employment and affordable housing. Gas taxes aren't a deterrent when you're taking your private jet for a hundred mile flight for lunch.
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Jan 19, 2023 06:41
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Obviously the gas/car tax should be be based on income with the percentage multiplying every income bracket
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Jan 19, 2023 08:22
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Hell yeah now we're cooking with gas.
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Jan 19, 2023 08:41
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Blut posted:Which part of my post do you think is extremely inaccurate or misleading? Weird list. Outside of the old town, which is basically just tourism infrastructure, Tallinn is kind of a shithole with six lane roads everywhere and an incredible amount of cars considering the population
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Jan 19, 2023 09:14
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Edinburgh is walkable but it's built on a series of hills so the city is about 47% really steep 19th century stairs
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Jan 19, 2023 09:18
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Powered Descent posted:This is just my initial reaction as an American taking a first look at the outside world: holy poo poo this VAT poo poo is overcomplicated.  It's so easy everyone else can do it. You buy stuff, you pay the tax. If you are a consumers, that's it. If you are a business, you claim the taxes you've paid on inputs as business expenses against the taxes you paid on sales and are refunded the overlap.
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Jan 19, 2023 09:45
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Grape posted:It's a proud SA tradition that Euro Goons post overly rosy descriptions that paint all of Europe as a wealthy exurb of Monte Carlo as run by the world's most enlightened gay socialists, and that all Amerigoons post the worst possible description of the US as a dilapidated Walmart outside of Skunkpoon Mississippi as run by the evangelical Taliban. I would guess most SA posters in Europe are also well educated big city or big city suburb people, since knowing about SA required being on the internet in like the 1999-2010 era when it was relevant, and also speaking English fluently during that period. So it’s going to skew towards Nordics/Dutch/Germans/British Islers, people from big cities, and away from like, rural Italians and Poles, few of whom spoke English or even had realistic internet access in 2005. I mean tbh I don’t know what it is like to be rural in any country but Switzerland, but for Switzerland it is basically a wealthy exurb of Monte Carlo in terms of efficiency of public transport, even if I wanted to go between the two most remote mountain villages in the country. But yeah Europe isn’t Switzerland for public transport. There are wonderful exceptions to the big city and/or N/Western European experience like A Sweaty Fatbeard who gives (gave?) firsthand accounts of what it is like to be a complete degenerate horrifically addicted to benzodiazepines while living in Croatia. I hope he’s still alive, speaking of.
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Jan 19, 2023 09:47
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Eiba posted:I may not be understanding the situation correctly, but isn't the gas price/food price relationship on the logistics end of things? Europeans still have to transport products to stores using gas, don't they? Lorries don't run on petrol.
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Jan 19, 2023 10:35
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Ras Het posted:Weird list. Outside of the old town, which is basically just tourism infrastructure, Tallinn is kind of a shithole with six lane roads everywhere and an incredible amount of cars considering the population The measure of "time to walk between top 5 attractions" seems a questionable proxy for "walkable", given it's focused on tourists and dependent on what the top 5 attractions are. Like yes you can see a bunch of stuff in Edinburgh's old town without much walking, but if you want to go see the inexplicably popular HMS Britannia docked on the coast that's another 3 miles, maybe take a bus
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Jan 19, 2023 10:54
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FreudianSlippers posted:Edinburgh is walkable but it's built on a series of hills so the city is about 47% really steep 19th century stairs I wish that I could make a joke Edinburgh having the world’s longest stairs, the punchline being that I’m talking about Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, capital of Tristan da Cunha. Unfortunately I had misremembered my British Atlantic territories. Those stairs are found in Jamestown, St Helena. 
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Jan 19, 2023 11:06
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^^^^ The lack of switchbacks on that staircase sketches me out. The staircase from Fira Port to Fira is probably about as high, but it has the decency to break it up as switchbacks. Maybe it's purely psychological since stairs are stairs even if they're bending left and right. 588 steps for Fira Port, 699 for St Helena, apparently. The steps in St Helena's staircase look way higher too.3D Megadoodoo posted:Lorries don't run on petrol. "Gas" is a typical American English word used ambiguously for natural gas, diesel, and petrol ("gasoline"). Within the context of moving trucks, it could be ambiguous between "diesel" and "petrol", like you would colloquially say you're going to "get some gas" when you go to refill your diesel truck. Saladman fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Jan 19, 2023 |
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Jan 19, 2023 11:14
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Saladman posted:^^^^ The lack of switchbacks on that staircase sketches me out. The staircase from Fira Port to Fira is probably about as high, but it has the decency to break it up as switchbacks. Maybe it's purely psychological since stairs are stairs even if they're bending left and right. 588 steps for Fira Port, 699 for St Helena, apparently. The steps in St Helena's staircase look way higher too. Oh OK thats really hosed up  but also  was that diesel fuel is actually more expensive than petrol now.
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Jan 19, 2023 11:55
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Oh OK thats really hosed up Isn't diesel always more expensive than petrol, per liter? It takes more effort to refine, and in my limited experience with renting diesels IIRC the price tends to be slightly higher than the cheapest petrol. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_dcus_nus_a.htm shows at least that in the USA it's always like 20% more. I also don't get the first emoji, what is that representing?
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Jan 19, 2023 12:31
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Saladman posted:Isn't diesel always more expensive than petrol, per liter? It takes more effort to refine, and in my limited experience with renting diesels IIRC the price tends to be slightly higher than the cheapest petrol. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_dcus_nus_a.htm shows at least that in the USA it's always like 20% more. "death 2 america"
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Jan 19, 2023 12:35
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Saladman posted:Isn't diesel always more expensive than petrol, per liter? It used to be way cheaper than petrol here. Fuel isn't expensive because it's expensive to make, it's expensive because it's highly taxed.
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Jan 19, 2023 13:11
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Lmao. VAT is too regressive and complicated *dies in a tent on the street from preventable illness* I also hate that a V8 would be too expensive to fuel here but it does have some benefits
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Jan 19, 2023 14:07
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Is that projection paid by the car lobbyists? My projection is that by 2050 west Europes yearly car travel distance is halved by 2050, not doubled. Source: my rear end.
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Jan 19, 2023 14:46
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Issaries posted:Is that projection paid by the car lobbyists? Yeah I don't know about the projection but it was the only map I could find (for the map thread) that had passenger-km for NA and Europe together.
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Jan 19, 2023 14:50
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2050... are they going to be amphibious cars?
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Jan 19, 2023 14:50
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You get diesel at gas stations, often even at the same pumps for gasoline, so it makes sense to lump it in as the same basic thing. It's just another flammable liquid. It seems weirder to differentiate diesel from "petrol", since they both come from the same liquid extracted from rocks, just refined differently. There's also "white gas" which is another different formulation from long ago and still used in some camping equipment. Saladman posted:^^^^ The lack of switchbacks on that staircase sketches me out. The staircase from Fira Port to Fira is probably about as high, but it has the decency to break it up as switchbacks. Maybe it's purely psychological since stairs are stairs even if they're bending left and right. 588 steps for Fira Port, 699 for St Helena, apparently. The steps in St Helena's staircase look way higher too. What you want switchbacks for is is so that if somebody falls, they won't tumble all the way down to the bottom and be dead.  Apparently though, the stairs were originally part of a little railway, which those don't like taking a lot of turns. Just the wooden bits rotted away and the mechanical stuff was removed, so all that's left is a structure not really intended for human use.
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Jan 19, 2023 17:01
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SlothfulCobra posted:Apparently though, the stairs were originally part of a little railway, which those don't like taking a lot of turns. Just the wooden bits rotted away and the mechanical stuff was removed, so all that's left is a structure not really intended for human use. I like to imagine they made napoleon climb up the stairs to go to the bathroom
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