<story><title>German credit agency earns millions through unlawful customer manipulation</title><url>https://noyb.eu/en/german-credit-agency-earns-millions-through-unlawful-customer-manipulation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>formerly_proven</author><text>High taxes with no matching value behind them is undeniably a negative.</text></item><item><author>ciclotrone</author><text>I find it quite disturbing that high taxation is seen as a negative aspect of Europe. I lived in Italy, France and Germany, and I enjoyed public healthcare and education of very high standard at very affordable prices, and free in the limit that one cannot afford to pay for them.&lt;p&gt;As a relative of a person with a chronic disease I can tell you that on the one hand if we are not bankrupt it is because of public healthcare, and on the other I&amp;#x27;m proud of contributing through my taxes so that anybody in need can have the same treatment irrespective of their economic situation.</text></item><item><author>ArmandGrillet</author><text>Finally. Germany combines some of the worst aspects of the US (credit ranking, complicated abortion process, private healthcare if you want decent treatments) with the worst aspects of Europe (low digitalization, high taxation, recursive federalism: within the country and within the EU).&lt;p&gt;A country like the Netherlands has its own issues (mainly housing) but doesn&amp;#x27;t have the myriad of pain points you can find in Germany like Schufa, anti-customer contract rules, or public healthcare inaccessible despite paying more than 400€&amp;#x2F;month for it as a single individual.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Nextgrid</author><text>Yes, that&amp;#x27;s my problem with high taxation, as someone who got burnt by it by virtue of living and paying taxes in the UK.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t mind paying my fair share of tax if it means I get good value out of it, but the state of our healthcare here means that in practice the public healthcare system is no longer fit for purpose, so we are being forced to pay for a system that doesn&amp;#x27;t work and end up having to go private (and thus pay again) when we do need timely healthcare.&lt;p&gt;I am generally in favor of fair, progressive taxation to ensure everyone has a good social safety net, but the taxation should be fair (it&amp;#x27;s no longer the case in the UK, since tax brackets haven&amp;#x27;t been adjusted for inflation) and the services paid for by those taxes should provide good value.&lt;p&gt;The danger with services funded by taxes as opposed to a private enterprise operating in a free market is that private enterprises are bound by competitive pressure - if they are delivering terrible service and stuffing their pockets with the money, you are free not to do business with them and a potential competitor (that stuffs their pockets a little less) can come along and get your business instead.&lt;p&gt;With tax-funded services, this pressure doesn&amp;#x27;t exist, so there&amp;#x27;s no incentive for politicians (and everyone else in the value chain) to deliver good service, since people generally can&amp;#x27;t opt out of taxes. This means that even if a service is &lt;i&gt;currently&lt;/i&gt; good, there&amp;#x27;s no guarantee it will remain so since the pressure for it to remain isn&amp;#x27;t there. Thus, when you see high taxation, it&amp;#x27;s reasonable to be worried whether the service provided by those taxes is any good and whether it will remain so in the future.</text></comment>
<story><title>German credit agency earns millions through unlawful customer manipulation</title><url>https://noyb.eu/en/german-credit-agency-earns-millions-through-unlawful-customer-manipulation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>formerly_proven</author><text>High taxes with no matching value behind them is undeniably a negative.</text></item><item><author>ciclotrone</author><text>I find it quite disturbing that high taxation is seen as a negative aspect of Europe. I lived in Italy, France and Germany, and I enjoyed public healthcare and education of very high standard at very affordable prices, and free in the limit that one cannot afford to pay for them.&lt;p&gt;As a relative of a person with a chronic disease I can tell you that on the one hand if we are not bankrupt it is because of public healthcare, and on the other I&amp;#x27;m proud of contributing through my taxes so that anybody in need can have the same treatment irrespective of their economic situation.</text></item><item><author>ArmandGrillet</author><text>Finally. Germany combines some of the worst aspects of the US (credit ranking, complicated abortion process, private healthcare if you want decent treatments) with the worst aspects of Europe (low digitalization, high taxation, recursive federalism: within the country and within the EU).&lt;p&gt;A country like the Netherlands has its own issues (mainly housing) but doesn&amp;#x27;t have the myriad of pain points you can find in Germany like Schufa, anti-customer contract rules, or public healthcare inaccessible despite paying more than 400€&amp;#x2F;month for it as a single individual.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mcmcmc</author><text>Unless you want to get into the nitty gritty of economic policy analysis and measuring market externalities, value of public goods is pretty subjective. A healthy person might not see much value in public healthcare and a single adult with no kids might not care about education. Just because you don’t value something in the same way doesn’t mean it’s not highly valued by the people who voted on and implemented the policies.</text></comment>