Quick Google suggests healthcare costs for obese people are <50% higher than non-obese and the US has 15-30% more obesity than these countries. So maybe 15% at most of the 100% higher cost per capita of healthcare is obesity related. The killer for me for that hypothesis is that within the set of countries with normal healthcare costs, there’s huge variation in obesity (10% in France to 30%in ireland) with limited variation in cost.

Maybe the life expectancy side does have more to do with obesity?

“As usual with those sorts of memes, the numbers are completely wrong. European nations spend around 11-12% of GDP on healthcare vs about 17% for the US. So you’d likely pay significantly less (about 30% less)”

Dis you?

It must really suck to be a good hearted doctor in that system. When every incentive is to push unnecessary interventions and you must encounter patients that can’t or won’t accept your help because it would ruin them or their family financially.

Really USA, how does anyone pretend this is OK?

OK cool, well if “someone is wrong on this Internet” is more important to you than making a case for a better health are system (that I note you have spent 0 energy on) I think I’m done. Thanks for the entertainment of “$5k per person is 30% cheaper than $10k” though, that was a good one.

So when the meme was wrong about 5% vs 20% it was “outright lying” but when you were shown to be wrong about your 30% you just continue on your high horse. Cool beans.

Not a political issue for me anymore thank goodness. Lived in the US for a while but very glad that public health is available for everyone where I live now (as is literally everyone else I know).

I mean private healthcare is strictly worse for everyone except business owners (and doctors without morals I guess). So that’s my best guess at your motivation, but please correct me. Why?

“30% less” 😂 US GDP (it said % of pay, but let’s play your game) per capita is 1.5x or more European countries, so try at least 50% less. It’s a meme, it’s not meant to be accurate, but if you’re going to be a pedant at least be right.

Not to mention the lower cost is like 3rd on the list of reasons why public health care is amazing. Why you our here shilling for big business pal?

Yup. Betfair in the UK didn’t close or settle their 2020 market for months, even though the terms of the market were about who was declared winner on election night, and were long since met with 100% certainty. That was some very easy money.

Yup

Homeschooling: A comprehensive survey of the research, Robert Kunzman, Milton Gaither Other Education-the journal of educational alternatives 2 (1), 4-59, 2013

"A final consistent finding in the literature on academic achievement is that parental background matters very much in homeschooler achievement. Belfield (2005) found greater variance in SAT scores by family background among homeschoolers than among institutionally-schooled students. Boulter’s (1999) longitudinal sample of 110 students whose parents averaged only 13 years of education found a consistent pattern of gradual decline in achievement scores the longer a child remained homeschooled, a result she attributed to the relatively low levels of parent education in her sample. Medlin’s (1994) study of 36 homeschoolers found a significant relationship between mother’s educational level and child’s achievement score. Kunzman’s (2009a) qualitative study of several Christian homeschooling families found dramatic differences in instructional quality correlated with parent educational background. "

Absolutely. The othering is a symptom of this tribal politics-as-team-sport too. “They are bad because they are tanky/neolib/whatever”. Leads to lazy argument. Sure there are people who are dogmatic and rude, who you’ll probably end up blocking, but if we all gave each other a bit of grace the quality of discourse would surely improve.

Flamekebab! Gorkamorka on lemmy! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised there’s crossover but pleased to see these fellas again anyhow 😂

“it’s in the public interest” so all these articles will be freely available to the public. Right?.. Riiight?!

Your painting is gorgeous but I can’t help but mourn the loss of character from older death company kits.

Could at least have chosen something halal/kosher.

The capital gain is the profit, the collateralized lending is the transaction completed to realize that profit. It’s a logical extension of accepted understandings of those terms and easy to imagine coherent legislation to implement.

You don’t like the idea, that’s fine. But it’s simply not true to claim that it doesn’t make sense and you haven’t been able to articulate any inconsistency. Just saying “nuh uh that’s not profit” is pointless. We all know it doesn’t constitute realized gain in the existing system of laws, but OP and others are suggesting it would a be a sensible way to tax the extraordinary benefits that the ultra-wealthy take from their appreciated assets. It’s been explained to you politely and with sources, if you have nothing more serious to add to the conversation I’m done giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Relevant case law: “While it is true that economic gain is not always taxable as income, it is settled that the realization of gain need not be in cash derived from the sale of an asset” https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/309/461/

It is in fact true, and clearly then doesn’t mean that at all. We can and do control what constitutes a realization event, and borrowing is a pretty sensible candidate. I don’t know why you’re losing you mind over this fairly prosaic idea.

Precisely. The medium of value delivery is irrelevant, as soon as you extract value by borrowing against an asset you have completed a transaction and therefore is a point at which it could (/should though that’s the debate I guess) be taxed.

In both cases (payment in bitcoin or borrowing against stock) your remaining position could go to zero leaving you liable for tax you don’t have money to pay, but that’s on you to manage better.

Realization isn’t restricted to “unambiguous outcome with zero question to the providence or final outcome” even in the existing tax code, and what does “final” even mean.

It’s mostly an administrative convenience that we work with sale as the archetypal realization event. And collateralized borrowing is a very good candidate for realization as it inherently involves valuation.

Regarding losses, yeah you could then realized losses which could be used to offset gains from other sources, rolled forward into future tax years and so forth. That’s all a pretty normal part of wealth and tax planning for people with ample and complicated finances. They hire people to handle this, don’t worry about them.

Capital gains are applied against a cost basis, in the case of your homeowner, their purchase price. Unless the house appreciates in value there is 0 capital gain, even if you made the mortgage a realization event and for some reason implemented this with no residence exemption or tax brackets. It’s mad how this point has to be repeatedly explained through this thread.

I was talking about withholding, where I pay taxes that will never come due. On reflection maybe isn’t a perfect analogy.

You haven’t made a persuasive argument (or any argument really) against, you just keep insisting it’s a bad idea.

One thing that stands out is you keep referring to “money that may never exist”. That’s not how tax works. You are taxed on the basis of your income, which is often but not always monetary. This is both intuitive and consistent with existing tax code. If you don’t like it you have a much bigger problem than objecting to taxing unrealized cap gains.