News France to introduce 75% income tax rate on earnings above 1 million euros

[Bacle2]

Well if we compare how a country allocates it's resources we can compare America to France. Economics is all about allocation of resources and whoever does the best job normally has the best economy. Even though our GDP growth is weak, we still have the most largest GDP in the world. So apparently we are allocating our resources fine. We have 6 of the top 10 universities in the world..

Source :http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world

With all that spending on education, 25 percent of GDP, doesn't have much a higher rank on the USA. France is ranked 20th and the USA is ranked 21st. So at 3 percent, we allocate our resources better. It might change if we actually compare dollar amounts per student per country, which I haven't done.

Source: http://nexuscanada.blogspot.com/2010/12/top-10-countries-has-best-education_30.html

So we have the best Higher learning system in the world but the 21st best school system.

Phew, I misread your name and I first thought it was "Widowmaker", so I was afraid of disagreeing with you :) .

Still, re the Higher Learning System being the best . First, I assume the ranking is among some 30-or-so 1st-world/rich countries, not worldwide. Secondly, I think that gap between 1st and 21st may be resolved by the fact that a good chunk of the people in universities , specially at the grad. level are foreigners, or at least foreign-born (meaning foreign-educated). If my experience is representative in any way, this seems to be the case outside of MBA's and general business degrees, i.e., with Math, Science degrees. I don't see how someone with a mediocre high school education can suddenly rise to a top-of-the-world level when attending University.

Something else to think about is the (alleged) correlation between income and happyness, which says that the increase of happyness with income shows a diminishing return beyond around $75,000:

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/09/07/the-perfect-salary-for-happiness-75000-a-year/

I selected this link, since it is from the WSJ, not likely to have been written by a socialist , nor by "some sort of hippie".

 

[phyzguy]

If the US cut its military, other countries would have to catch up the slack.

Irony in the military spending arguement: the US, being the richest country in the world, is providing extra services to the rest of the allies. Isn't that redistribution of wealth on an international scale? How's that working out for the US in the long-run? (this is also the case when it comes to nearly any international organization that the US is a member of as well: UN, NATO primarilly)

You imply that this money needs to be spent! What if we(and everybody else) had simply not spent the trillion dollars we have spent in Iraq and Afghanistan? Would the world really be a very different place? I think the answer is no. Most of that money was simply wasted. If we had spent that money on alternative energy here in the US, we would be energy independent today. That would make a difference.

 

[Windowmaker]

I believe both lists are in fact worldwide.

Foreigners being in the marketplace of Academia has more to do with "free market" capitalism than anything else. If their home countries had pristine universities, they would just stay there. They're great high schools in America, such as prep/charter schools that aren't considered in the American school system because they aren't government funding. I would like to see how private American schools compare to European public schools.

The income point is is interesting and is true to the fact that money doesn't buy happiness.

 

[Windowmaker]

You imply that this money needs to be spent! What if we(and everybody else) had simply not spent the trillion dollars we have spent in Iraq and Afghanistan? Would the world really be a very different place? I think the answer is no. Most of that money was simply wasted. If we had spent that money on alternative energy here in the US, we would be energy independent today. That would make a difference.

Like the half billion we wasted on sylandra? Or the countless others? Alternative Energy isn't as useful as it seems. It is the way of the future but in the far distant future. When you throw money at a problem, it doesn't fix it.

 

[Evo]

Please take time to reread the rules.

No opinions stated as fact.

No "facts" stated without proper citations.

Remain on topic. This is not about the US.

Any rules broken from this point forward will receive infractions

 

[Evo]

Since I cannot bring this thread back on topic, it's closed.



Update: French panel overturns 75 percent tax on ultrarich
http://news.yahoo.com/french-panel-overturns-75-percent-tax-ultrarich-104117363--finance.html