this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (15 children)

I'm an American who has been living in Turkey for many years.

In Turkey, the political leaders in both sides of the aisle tell you not to pay income tax or property tax or payroll tax or any of the normal things Americans complain about. What is the result? An iPhone costs more than $3k. A ford focus that costs about $20k new in the US is over $50k in Turkey. EVERY package you receive is opened by the post office and inspected to see how much they can tax you. If you leave Turkey and want to bring the things you bought with you, you are taxed an exit fee.. You can potentially be charged three or four times for the same item.

Whenever I hear Americans bitching about taxes it drives me insane. They have no idea what they're asking for. The government needs money to function and they are going to get it one way or another..

[–] Kecessa 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

Not only does the government needs money, services centralized in the hands of the government end up costing less because they have a monopoly and they don't run them for a profit! Over here road insurance is private only for the vehicle, our insurance as today users (you know, the stuff that costs a fortune to insure because breaking both legs costs more to the system than whatever car you're driving) costs peanuts in comparison to places where it's the private sector that controls it (if I lived across the border from where I am my registration + insurance cost would be double what it is now).

[–] SneakyThunder -4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

services centralized in the hands of the government end up costing less because they have a monopoly

Where I live privately owned utility companies provide much cheaper services than govt. Also govt is very bad at providing them consistently (if people outside of big city lose electricity for example, they have to go and block nearest highway, otherwise govt just ignores their complaints)

I guess monopoly might be beneficial for some period of time but ultimately it's bad, both in private and public sector.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where I live privately owned utility companies provide much cheaper services than govt

where is that?

[–] SneakyThunder 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

seems like rather exceptional circumstances at the moment, no?

[–] SneakyThunder 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Everything I described happened even before full scale invasion

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

how much heavy lifting is the phrase "full scale" doing in this sentence? when did this actually start?

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