One monkey says to a group of other monkeys: "We all need to take one of the 5 bananas we individually have to pay for a 1.2 trillion banana fighter jet that doesnt work, and also to give bananas to people who aren't contributing any bananas at all"

One monkey from the group, who makes 4 of the 5 bananas, and doesn't want a 1.2 trillion banana fighter jet notices that all the people who are clamoring to take bananas aren't putting in any of the bananas themselves but are instead on the receiving end of the banana transfer, gets annoyed that they are basically having a meeting to take his bananas and give them to themselves. He gets upset by this"

Remember context. Full Context is important.

Naw that monkey runs the fighter jet manufacturing company, he's all for it and busy paying the lobbying monkeys to make sure the racket continues

Now now now Mr. Monkey, these fighter jets are for your protection! And the blanket banana surveillance we conduct on you and your community is also important so that we can collect a banana salary while protecting you from people that want to hurt you :)

The 4 of 5 Banana Monkey not only owns the Fighter Jet Company but also the Banana Plantation.

Remember context. Full Context is important.

And that monkey may actually be using the bananas it withholds from one group to do social good in a much more efficient manner for another group.

Not to condone tax evasion or fraud — I condemn illegal tax evasion — but there are many interesting dimensions to this.

I appreciate your response and POV :)

Why can we not assume that the doctor monkey is operating a private medical practice, his daughter is sent to a private monkey school, and they drove together in a privately produced car on privately maintained roads?

In the USA, I pay income taxes, and I still have to pay for all of these things above (fees, fines, tolls, surcharges, sales tax...)

That is called Starve the Beast and has been the strategy of the right for decades. It goes like this: Use a slight budget deficit as an excuse to immediately cut back on services and infrastructure investments. Never raise taxes. If there's no deficit, lower the taxes on the rich while promising 'dynamic effects' that will magically increase revenue for the government. Repeat until the services are so underfunded so that they are more or less useless. Use that as proof that the government is worthless and never can provide anything of value, so it is better to privatize what is left of it. So in the end the only thing you actually pay for with your taxes is wars overseas to keep the oilprice low and corporate welfare.

It's no wonder Americans are complaining about their taxes.

I pay 25% VAT (less on e.g. food) and about 30% income tax. For that I've got a free eduction (Ph.D), can commute to work with (mostly) very good public transportation. Currently my pregnant wife is getting weekly checkups free of charge. I look forward soon start working halv time sharing 390 days of paid parental leave with my wife.

Sometimes I think I don't pay enough taxes.

I cringe at your response. There's so much wrong in it. >>Use a slight budget deficit as an excuse to immediately cut back on services and infrastructure investments

A 'slight' deficit that's led to trillions in debt over a very short period of time.

>>government is worthless and never can provide anything of value

It is mostly worthless and hardly provides value(the worst part about this is is that a lot of times, I don't even have the option to opt out of these value-free services and pick something else that works)

>>Sometimes I think I don't pay enough taxes

Only a commie would say this.

We can assume the doctor monkey is paying for his kid's school, but it's possible that doctor monkey also benefits indirectly from the other monkeys' kids education as well.

All the roads you drive on are toll roads? Here in Oregon none are, and when I was back East only some highways were toll roads. Surface streets are nearly all paid for through taxes AFAIK.

I don't get the severe anti-tax stance some folks have. Yes I want my taxes spent efficiently, but I absolutely recognize that I gain benefits from paying them. Even when some of those taxes go to poor people. Without a peaceful society nobody will care that much about computers and the 'net ;).

I admit I'm a bit biased, because I get Welfare myself. That is, the gov't gives me a fair amount of money to offset the interest I pay to the bank for my mortgage. My effective income tax rate is less than 10% so I probably get quite a lot more welfare than any really poor family does. What a world we live in.

Thank you for your well-formulated points and civil response :)

Re: roads, I agree that not all roads are toll roads. The good news is that roads are relatively inexpensive to build and maintain (for example, the federal transportation budget is only 2.3% of total yearly spending, 28 billion dollars).

So, those who want to use roads, should be charged a fair price, and road companies should compete to lower costs where possible.

The argument that "if we don't pay taxes (which are ever increasing and are going towards services that are decreasing in quality), then everyone will go nuts and modern society will collapse!!!" is actually extortion and a clever diversion.

We all want cheaper, more effective services. We all want the poorest members of society to not be kicked when they are already down.

The issue is that world governments are run by an elite few people who funnel our taxes to their bank accounts through scams and poorly rendered services.

And when we figured out this scam and went public with the info, we were yelled at to keep paying our taxes ;)

> Re: roads, I agree that not all roads are toll roads. The good news is that roads are relatively inexpensive to build and maintain (for example, the federal transportation budget is only 2.3% of total yearly spending, 28 billion dollars).

Wow, so you have an extra half-billion or so just sitting around? ($28 billion x 0.023 = $460 million) How fortunate for you!

Beggin' your pardon, M'Lord, but the peasantry doesn't consist of multi-millionaires. And they need to use roads to live their lives in a modern, industrialized society.

So, no, you can keep your libertarian dystopia where everyone has to build their own roads, hire their own police forces, etc. Go build your own civilization, away from ours.

That sounds like forcing a service (that you might not want) down your throat, and accusing you of stealing if you refuse to pay. It would be surprisingly better to let monkeys pay for what they want to use, instead of making every monkey pay for what they won't ever use.

Everybody is a neoliberal until they have to pay for their own hospital bill.

I am an American and I pay for all of my medical care privately, without insurance :)

Ah, yes, the old "I have totally done this so far in my life and thus it is a model for all peoples" chestnut.

I have this vague memory of someone who was litigating about obamacare being unconstitutional for forcing people to have insurance and then defaulting on their sudden unexpected large hospital bill...

Realistically you've been lucky, and that's fine. You're against risk pooling because you feel that's not something you need. Self evidently the pooling is to cover the less fortunate. the "there but for the grace of god go I" situation. Maybe you think they're all scroungers and wastrels? Or that they don't deserve access to medical care just by virtue of existing and being ill.

It's a cultural thing tbh, but bemusing to me.

Man, I don't often wish life threatening or chronic diseases which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat on anyone. But I would pay to see the moment your smug tone changes to one of despair.

So if tomorrow you got a rare form of cancer that cost millions of dollars to treat, you plan to be euthanized?

You can't justify theft like that.

You must be fortunate not to have any preexisting conditions or to not need any medical procedures that, without insurance, can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars.

I appreciate your response :)

The real question is why are medical procedures so artificially expensive.

The only thing I would really need medical insurance for is a rare emergency procedure like an appendectomy. Information online says an appendectomy can cost anywhere from $1,500 to $150,000.

Why is there such a deviation? This is how insurance companies make their money.

When we consider that medical insurance in the USA is several hundred dollars per month, $1,500 out of pocket seems completely reasonable.

Oh, and another thing:

> The only thing I would really need medical insurance for is a rare emergency procedure like an appendectomy.

If you need an appendectomy, then you do not have time to fiddle around and comparison shop for medical insurance. If an appendix needs to come out, then it needs to come out ASAP (otherwise, the appendix could burst, causing sepsis). And there's no insurance provider on the planet that will take on a new customer and cover a procedure done before the customer's policy goes into effect.

Let me guess: you also think car insurance is a sham, and that you shouldn't be required to have it. And if, heaven forfend, you get into a car accident, you can just call up State Farm (or whoever) and get them to retroactively approve a claim for the accident. Am I right?

Sorry, my eyes can only roll so much...

And exactly how many people do you think have $1,500 laying around? (Hint: not many)

> And exactly how many people do you think have $1,500 laying around? (Hint: not many)

If you're paying $300/mo and are reasonably healthy (i.e. not going to the doctor regularly) then you'd save that up in now time. The real fix to all of this is to remove day-to-day care from health insurance and let it be just "insurance" (i.e. not healthcare). They have a bit of that with catastrophic plans but there are limitations on who can sign up for them (which I personally think is really stupid).

Five months is not "now [sic] time".

But personal responsibility! You are responsible for the things you aren't actually responsible for, like cancer or genetic diseases.

> That sounds like forcing a service (that you might not want) down your throat, and accusing you of stealing if you refuse to pay.

You can leave if you do not like it. Or you can vote for a different system.

"hey, I want to sleep in this room, but they say they don't let me until I pay, THEY FORCE ME TO PAY!!!"

That's totally different. Government vs Business. First one forces you to pay for things you don't asked for in the first place. The latter is optional, as no one has the right to force you buy their stuff/services.

I can't see my original reply, so I think something is wrong with HN.

Reality is more like:

2 out of 10 monkeys spend all their waking hours sacrificing and working so their children can have more than 1 banana and then give 15 out of the 20 bananas they earn to the group. The majority of monkeys in the group gives 0 bananas, but continue to say that the ones that do give the most aren't paying their fair share (and need to give even more). They then have many discussions on how they can force the other monkeys to give the rest of the group even more bananas, rather than putting energy into earning their own.

Reality is more like:

2 out of 10 monkeys spend all their waking hours sacrificing and working so their children can have more than 1 banana and then give 15 out of the 20 bananas they earn to the group.

The majority of monkeys in the group gives 0 bananas, but continue to say that the ones that do give the most aren't paying their fair share (and need to give even more).

They then have many discussions on how they can force the other monkeys to give the rest of the group even more bananas, rather than putting energy into earning their own.

Despite the exaggeration (2 out 10), this is actually an issue in the Nordic countries, so I do not understand the downvote.

In what way is that an issue in the Nordic countries?

2 out of 10 is really close in the US.