They charge ridiculously high prices. But they can get away with it because Japan's roads make poor competition (there's not room for any more).
In many ways it's the other way around: the US has a massively subsidized road network that makes rail uncompetitive. But it's also simply that land is so much cheaper in the US that there's less need to use it efficiently.
Pretty sure paying off our debts,educating our kids and fixing the bridges that might collapse at any moment should come before a federally funded train that won't benefit more than 1% of the population.
Yes, we are discussing putting a maglev from St. Louis to Boise, Idaho because someone wanted to show you why it wouldn't work in the U.S. I bet if we thought about it for another second, we'd come up with more suitable places.
To be clear, I never really thought Boise->MO was realistic. Real options still wouldn't benefit more than a small portion of the country, unless we're going to build a high-speed rail network along side the highway system. Then you're talking hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Ok, you go get right on that. I'll help you build that MagLev in our imagination. You are asking something that cannot be changed without drastic measures. You are asking American to not be the thing it is, a war mongering nation that has never not been at war or agitating and instigating or preparing for a war or conflict of some sort. We live in a war based economy with an insurmountable amount of support for exactly that in the voting populace.
>and also remember Berlin's system is essentially new and was rebuilt after reunification so you are looking at a modern system.
After the reunification, they only had to reconnect the lines that were separated by the wall. Only a few places needed some extensive work. You probably meant WW2 where most lines were destroyed. Note that Berlin was also one of the first cities in the world to have a metro system.
>No one is keeping you from remaining in Germany, are they? I can guarantee you they will approve your work permit and you can become a resident and eventual citizen.
No, they didn't simply have to connect some disconnected lines. Not only did the eastern infrastructure, have to largely be rebuilt from the ground up, but even the western part was outdated and old and reunification meant that billions were spent on upgrading infrastructure.
Upgrading and maintaining a transport infrastructure is necessary for big cities regardless of the wall circumstances. You don't think London, Paris and other big metropolitan cities in Europe spend billions on upgrading and maintaining their public transport infrastructure? I don't see Berlin having a completely automated metro like the DLR in London, or NFC cards like pretty much any other metro in Europe.
He's exaggerating. Or is just making silly assumptions.
I don't know about Germany, but when I was considering moving from the UK to California, the total tax difference I was looking at was 1-2 percentage points at my (high) salary level. Even compared to Norway which hardly has the reputation as a low tax country, my then salary and consumption would only lead to 3-4 percentage point more tax. This was when I included the amount of VAT I'd pay on average (even the 25% VAT on most goods and services in Norway contribute surprisingly little, as of course for starters this is on your net income, and secondly peoples largest expenses tends to be things like rent or mortgage payments etc., so the amount of your salary that actually goes on stuff taxed at the max VAT rates in Europe ends up fairly small).
Even compared with Belgium (which has one of the highest all-in tax rates in the world - well above Germany as far as I remember) California taxes would be well above half more most people.
The US in general isn't nearly as low-tax as some people would like to believe. I seem to remember that e.g. in OECD rankings the US comes pretty close to the top in the worldwide rankings and middle of the road when looking at developed countries.
Of course, if you cherry-pick tax brackets and assume a state with no state income tax, and suitably low sales taxes and lack of other local taxes in the US I'm sure you can find somewhere really cheap, though most of them will likely be places few people wants to live.
Either you are full of BS or have plain no idea what you are talking about. Did you ever look at your pay or earnings statements? I know what they are in both the USA, France, Germany, and the UK and I can assure you that income taxes for middle class income earners is significantly lower in the US on average.
> I know what they are in both the USA, France, Germany, and the UK and I can assure you that income taxes for middle class income earners is significantly lower in the US on average.
For France and Germany you are right, but that was not something I disputed. I specifically pointed out that I did not know the specifics of Germany, but disputed the claim that German taxes are twice those of California.
Yes, I've looked at my earnings statements. In detail. And no, my tax burdens have not been all that different.
I can't speak to your experience, as it obviously depends on what tax brackets you end up in and what deductions you get, and for the US it depends massively on where in the US you live. Specifically to the argument at hand, tax levels in California are amongst the highest in the US, which also makes them amongst the highest in the world, given that the US average places the US as a whole amongst the highest taxation countries in the world.
As for the averages, Germany and France near the very top world wide.
According to the OECD numbers for 2014, they're 3rd and 5th in highest tax burden respectively. But even then, Germany ends up at slightly below 50%, and the US as a whole slightly above 30% when combining income tax, employer and employee social security contributions.
Given that California tax rates are far above US average, with both a payroll tax and being one of only 3 states as far as I can tell that have state income taxes that goes beyond 10%, I can safely stand by my statement that the claim that it was an exaggeration to claim that German taxes are twice California taxes without even bothering to dig up the actual averages for California.
In terms of the UK, fully loaded taxes are actually lower than the US average according to the OECD (US was for 2014 ranked as having the 24th highest taxes in the world, UK 26th; and since I mentioned Norway: 21st)
