I'm OK with mask off to those fully vaccinated for 2 weeks (so the wearer get full protection) and governments and businesses figure out as much incentive to give to those vaccinated to bring up the herd community thing as much as possible. Nothing works better than free-stuff incentives.

Me, in Canada, living in its largest city, with infection rates at its most severe but vaccinations rate near the bottom of the barrel in the G7, I still couldn't get my 1st shot yet... vaccine hesitancy is such as cruel joke for too many in the world.

This is the dumbest video I've seen. These things aren't about giving "Free"stuff, It's about allocating the revenues back to the people who pay the taxes.

This money is already being taken from the populous in the form of Taxes, It's a matter where the money will be spent.

Currently that money goes to Huge Military contracts and paid to big corporations, and back room deals to Big Business.

Take the highest promise on that list, and it still barely scratches how much money is being funneled into these businesses already owned by the rich as they siphon off every penny they can to the already rich corporations.

When I still worked for Apple, I had a safety issue escalated to engineering over a Macbook Pro. The battery had apparently ruptured and began jetting flames out of the keyboard area. The owner tried to douse it with a cheapo fire extinguisher, one of the powder ones you can get from discount stores, but it only briefly went out.

Since it was still smoking, he was going to carry it outside but, as he opened the front door, the flames started coming back. He tossed it out onto the lawn, where it burnt a big chunk of grass.

I wish I had thought to keep the pictures; it had burnt his desk and destroyed his lawn. Apple legal went out and the guy later let me know via email that they had recompensed him for his desk, replaced the notebook, and paid to have his lawn re-turfed.

It wasn't funny at the time, but this video reminded me of it and now it is kind of hilarious. Still not as good as the kid who figured out how to game Apple's escalation system to get free stuff, but pretty damn funny.

Well, he wanted free stuff... now he has free infamy. Congrats!

If he's not already sponsored by DeWalt, they should send him some free stuff for this great video...

We have decided? When did we have this decision? Because it's pretty much an assumption that we all feel that we are better off if our neighbor's children go to college, etc. The road bit is a terrible example, because even if you don't own a car, you use the roads or some other part of transportation that road taxes aid with. I don't feel that I should have to pay for other people's fuckups and I am not the only one to feel that way, by far. If you smoke all your life and then don't have insurance when the cancer comes around, maybe you should have made some other life decisions. If you screw around and get someone pregnant, it isn't my family's responsibility to fix your mistake. If you feel differently, then we are probably going to continue to disagree on everything else.

The numbers are the average of gross monthly income, before taxes. They have less purchasing power because they have far more money removed towards their taxes and because they have a VAT. The local purchasing power is going to vary due to cost of living in each state being different. For instance, the cost of living where I live is much higher than the rest of the state, while the state overall cost of living is less than some other states, such as California.

I am not playing with numbers or inventing facts, just listing what information could be found by simple google searches. As far as the top 5 bottom 5 bit, I can tell you the average middle class family income in 2014 was 4250 US dollars a month gross. This is the average for the entire middle class, which while declining due to various factors is still larger than the upper and lower class in the country.

I am not outraged and indignant for them, I am defending the facts. The fact is that for all they have, they pay through the nose. The fact is that they have a CULTURAL idiosyncrasy that allows them to be happy with being perfectly equal with everyone else, it is the only way a system like this can make someone happy. Do you not grasp that there is almost no single way to get ahead in a society like Norway's? You have to be identical to everyone else. If your idea of happiness is going to a dead end job, working 40 hours, coming home and not being able to do much because you don't have discretionary income, paying for others to not work hard, etc, then by all means move to Norway. Just be careful if you do, because they really don't like paying for immigrants to have free stuff. In fact, they recently had someone get quite violent over it.

I was raised to believe that if you put more effort in that another person, you should be recognized for that effort and get ahead accordingly. Does this mean I agree with CEO salaries? I do not, but that is a different discussion. What I was not raised to believe in is that, if you simply put in the minimum effort, you should get a medal or trophy for just competing. That is bullshit and counter-intuitive to the way the world actually works. If that was actually possible, Darwin would have had a wildly different theory about natural selection.

They have less than half the debt for other reasons, many of which are due to the fact that they have an exportable national resource.

The 3 times wage is an assumption. Norway's average monthly salary is 4,451 Euros, equivalent to 5,056 US dollars. The average US salary is 3,640 US dollars per month. I have no idea where he got his numbers from, but these are factual and not anecdotal.

Their cost of living is ludicrous compared to ours, so you have to factor that in when you compare their slightly higher wages.

Consumer Prices in United States are 36.90% lower than in Norway

Consumer Prices Including Rent in United States are 34.18% lower than in Norway

Rent Prices in United States are 27.12% lower than in Norway

Restaurant Prices in United States are 52.31% lower than in Norway

Groceries Prices in United States are 25.87% lower than in Norway

Local Purchasing Power in United States is 14.29% higher than in Norway

Their system is also inherently unfair if you do not use the 'free' stuff. Don't have kids because you are responsible? Doesn't matter, you are paying for them. Don't get unemployed because you show up to work on time and do your job well, doesn't matter, you are paying for others. We do the same in the US, but it is far below the per capita level they pay.

What they don't get, and what some people here are obviously oblivious to as well, is that NOTHING is free. Someone pays, even if you don't. Their system simply nationalizes almost every single company and forces everyone to pay for everyone else, no matter what they do or how responsible they are. Also, note that they nationalized most companies, because a company in any type of free market system faced with draconian rules and corporate taxes like Norway's will simply cut their losses and offshore their work.

So, their system is only sustainable if the government owns the companies, everyone gives up most of their personal wealth, and they are lucky enough to have oil. Yeah, I am soooooo jealous of them.

The tax level in Norway has fluctuated between 40 and 45% of GDP since the 1970s. The relatively high tax level is a result of the large Norwegian welfare state.

You literally dwarf the US tax rate per person, almost by double the amount.

You have a VAT tax of 25%, among the highest in the world. My equivalent is sales tax, which is 8.25% on the dollar, and it should be 2.5% lower than that, but Austin is a super-left city that taxes extra to cover all their feel good plans.

To be clear, the average Norwegian household pays roughly $70,000 per year in tax. Including the state’s oil income, government tax revenue exceeds $100,000 per household.

Discretionary spending is kept to an extreme minimum, because you don't have much left after taxes. The cost of living and recreation in Norway is through the roof compared to other countries.

Workers come to the office, punch a clock, shuffle papers, and go home. There is no cultural drive to work hard and get promoted. Norway has created a system that makes it virtually impossible to pull ahead of your peers financially. In fact, culturally, there is a thing where you are NOT supposed to do better than someone else.

What major worldwide innovations or brands do we get out of Norway? None that I can think of offhand, but here is a list of some of their more important companies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_Norway.

So, you get taxed a ton, cost of living is incredibly high, there is no incentive to do better than anyone else, and in return you get to have free stuff like healthcare and education. Not that it matters really, because once you get out of school you get to become a worker bee drone. Unless of course you move to another country and get to achieve something there.

So, yeah, enjoy your hive mind country. As screwed up as mine is, at least there is a chance to become something if you work hard and invest correctly.

such a strawman. The only one saying "free stuff" is the right. tax cuts translate into less money taken in, ergo we lost money, ergo, they're not free.

gov't healthcare isn't free either, it's paid for by our taxes.

The difference is that tax cuts only benefit certain people. Healthcare benefits everyone. And the left is willing to increase taxes so we can, in fact, pay for nice things that benefit us all.

so just who is really fiscally responsible?

The Revolution is definitely coming and I'll be there day one.

You do mean, "The Revolution", that new open-world, sandbox video game coming out at the holidays?

Yeah, that looks totally bloody and realistic. Too bad it's a console exclusive. That's cool though because I just got my tablet PC and there's so many games and movies on there I spend like 6 hours a day just getting through the free stuff. It's like almost another full time job just getting through my entertainment library!!!!

Wait! Sometimes the government just gets me SOOO angry!

Holy cow! Speaking of, has anyone been watching shark week? What is up with Animal Planet and their fake Megalodon documentary? That channel used to be totally awesome for vegging out and watching educational programming.

Speaking of....MARIJUANA IS LEGAL IN MY STATE!!! Woohoooo! I can't believe it's taken this long for people to come to their senses...

Wait, what were we talking about? Recording stuff.

TOTALLY!!! My new cable DVR holds so many hours of HD recording it's insane! I've got, like, every CSI episode broadcast since March on there and still only 1/3 full.

....

Revolution maybe, public uprising in the US? ...never.

Two things i love, coffee (although ive changed to decaf) and free stuff.

telling you i am being sarcastic = no fun and little challenge for the reader. I don;t give away free stuff without a commitment.....

Oh christ yum yum yum yum.... your salt is delicious. Tastes like loser. MORE.

>> ^quantumushroom:

We're not a real Republic anymore, it's now a dictatorship where King Failure gets to decide if your business gets a waiver from his atrocious obamarxcare. If that's not a direct violation of the 14th Amendment (equal protection under the law) what is?
Also, in case you were unaware, the kenyan has authorized TSA agents to "assist police".
And Mitt is 100% right. Unfortunately for the White/Brown/Black entitlement class, the other 2/3rds of us aren't as happy about the Free Stuff Giveaway.
The stock market (down 1000 points) tells the real story apologists like Stink and libmedia won't.

>> ^quantumushroom:

We're not a real Republic anymore, it's now a dictatorship where King Failure gets to decide if your business gets a waiver from his atrocious obamarxcare. If that's not a direct violation of the 14th Amendment (equal protection under the law) what is?
Also, in case you were unaware, the kenyan has authorized TSA agents to "assist police".
And Mitt is 100% right. Unfortunately for the White/Brown/Black entitlement class, the other 2/3rds of us aren't as happy about the Free Stuff Giveaway.
The stock market (down 1000 points) tells the real story apologists like Stink and libmedia won't.


Yeah I'll bet you and your buddies talk all the time about how if you were in charge you'd take care of all those niggers and spics. Your party is just fucking racist man, it's done, time to move on and reform.

>> ^quantumushroom:

We're not a real Republic anymore, it's now a dictatorship where King Failure gets to decide if your business gets a waiver from his atrocious obamarxcare. If that's not a direct violation of the 14th Amendment (equal protection under the law) what is?
Also, in case you were unaware, the kenyan has authorized TSA agents to "assist police".
And Mitt is 100% right. Unfortunately for the White/Brown/Black entitlement class, the other 2/3rds of us aren't as happy about the Free Stuff Giveaway.
The stock market (down 1000 points) tells the real story apologists like Stink and libmedia won't.


Cry more newb. your tears sustain me. You and your party have officially become associated with the same group of people who yell gibberish at cars as they pass by or the crazy homeless people on the street with the cardboard signs that reads "the end is coming"