Refuse collector salary – $ 47,810 – Tax – $7,410
A Refuse Collector pays more tax than Elon Musk!!
Public Services, Privatisation and Taxes
This is quite simple really.
Public Services
This is simple.
We need public services like Water, Education, Health, Police, Courts, Defence, Social Services, Councils and local issues – roads and infrastructure.
We have to pay for these things because they are necessary for the country to run. The question is how to provide excellent services for the minimum costs?
The obvious cheapest way is to centralise, organise and gain economy of cost and a fully integrated system.
The downside is there is a possibility of inefficiency because of lack of drive and poor quality because of complacency. The answer is quality management.
Privatisation
This puts the services out to tender to private companies. They don’t exist to provide a service. They exist to make a profit. They provide a service and bung on a charge so their shareholders and managers get a good return.
The only way this can make any sense is if the efficiency is so much greater that the exorbitant salaries for managers and gross handouts to shareholders.
In practice managers and shareholders get very rich, prices go up and up and we pay! (Just look at medical costs in the USA! and water companies in the UK!)
Tax
Tax pays for the public services. If you don’t pay enough tax you get lousy public services – (USA low tax – lousy health care, lousy social, lousy work conditions, lousy education Denmark – high tax – great social care, education, health and great pay and conditions.)
I know which I prefer!!
Taxation – the Con Trick!
Who likes paying taxes?? Nobody right?
The right carry out a complete con-trick. The propaganda is that taxation is robbery. That people deserve to keep more of their own money.
Sounds reasonable until you dig into it.
Where do these taxes go?
Well there’s schools, health, defence and policing. Then there are local taxes for refuse collection, potholes, etc.
Pay low taxes and you get poor quality services. That’s why American State schools are terrible and healthcare for the poor is either poor or non-existent. Then there are the police – armed and dangerous – low quality personnel poorly trained.
Pay high taxes and you get quality service – great education, free quality healthcare, good policing and good defence. You have great public amenities – libraries, youth services, municipal swimming pools, play areas, cycle paths, support for elderly.
I’m a UK citizen. What we get is good – good schools, free quality healthcare, pensions good policing, good defence and good local facilities (though the Tories have done a huge amount of damage).
When I taught in the USA – the education was appalling (both in the secondary school I taught in and my elder son’s primary school). I was using materials for my seventeen-year-olds that I would use for twelve-year-olds in England. The health system was terrible. We had free family health care and that was used up with one instance with just one of my children. If something else had happened we would have been in real trouble. Policing was poor and crime levels incredibly high – big drug problems, guns, violence and racism. I had a gun pulled on me in class and witnessed guns used on two other occasions. Social system was appalling. In the richest country in the world there were people sleeping under flyovers, panhandling on the streets and living in a terrible state. There was an old lady in her late eighties having to work in a supermarket because she did not have a pension.
My daughter worked in the States for a number of years on UK conditions – she received far more holidays, shorter hours and hugely more maternity leave than her US counterparts. She was paid more as well!
I went to Denmark. The standard of living was far higher, medical care first-rate, schools brilliant, cycle tracks, play areas, library swimming pools, dentists, doctors, youth services, low crime, good policing.
The UK is good but Denmark was better. If I spoke the language and had my family there I’d be there like a shot.
Low tax = poor standard of life.
High tax = high standard of life.
Who doesn’t want high taxes? The rich don’t want high taxes. It means they have to pay more into the community and, as they usually pay for quality education, health and policing privately (in order to gain an advantage over everybody else) they kick up rough.
The UK has a big inequality problem – an elite who are profiteers exploiting everyone else – the masses who are exploited and the needy who are starved.
In the USA it’s all that on steroids with very poor services for everyone apart from the wealthy.
In Denmark there is less inequality and a much higher standard of living for ordinary people.
I know where I’d prefer to be!
One caveat – there has to be a high level of transparency and scrutiny with full accountability, to ensure money is spent wisely.
The Rich want low taxes. The poor suffer.
Why the rich should pay more taxes.
As teachers I and my son spend our time developing skills, imparting knowledge, giving direction, encouragement and self-esteem to my students.
As a nurse my son saves lives regularly and makes people better.
There are millions of support staff in the social services, police, fire service, refuse workers, sewage workers, road sweepers, dentists, construction workers, road maintenance, telephone servicers, doctors, and thousands of other roles – whose function is not to create wealth but to support those who do. Without them the country does not function.
No creator of wealth can function on their own. They require the support of the rest of society – whether that be directly or indirectly.
Society provides the infrastructure that is required for wealth creators to operate.
I changed lives for the better. The millions like me who work in society are indirectly responsible for all the creation of wealth. It’s called teamwork.
To use an analogy from soccer – it is not just the striker who scores the goal, neither is it just his teammates on the field, nor just the manager, physio and coaches, nor the groundsmen, ticket sellers and security or the atmosphere generated by the fans – it is the sum total of all of them – every last one.
By suggesting that the wealth creators are more important and deserve to keep all their wealth you downgrade the value of the bulk of people in society who might not directly create wealth but provide the whole means for its creation.
The wealth creators need to pay, through taxes, for the support structure on which they depend – that is the society they are part of.
That is why tax evasion is despicable. It is an abuse of all the people that directly and indirectly supported them.