You wish

Your numbers are after tax but I wouldn’t necessarily assume people are paying over 50% of their income in taxes.

Eh, to be fair that’s not so unlikely. Here in Italy I pay about 33% of my income in taxes directly from my salary, as in I don’t ever receive that money, then you’ve got 22% VAT on most purchases excluding food which is 4-5% and energy at 10%.

Energy doesn’t include fuel taxes, which are about 30-40% taxes I think (it’s complex)… Of course if you own a car you are also forced to pay a yearly circulation tax, depending on the engine power and other things, might go from 150€ to… well, a lot, but let’s say 600€ if we exclude extreme cases. And you’re obligated to have insurance as well, that’s another complex cost to calculate and it carries its own taxes. And bi-yearly (2 years) mandatory maintenance and emissions check, that’s not much but it’s still mostly taxes IIRC.

Then there’s lots of small things, public broadcasting fee for our state television, 90€, local taxes for specific reasons, let’s there’s something in your local environment that requires constant upkeep, if you smoke, tobacco costs are mostly taxes (1 packet of cigarettes is 5€).

Do public services count as taxes? Like schools, trash disposal, etc?

If you add it all up I think it can get to 50%.

What about the opposite, “smart kid but doesn’t study”? Turns out not everyone is compatible with the educational environment.

Can you imagine dealing with that sort of HR? Fuck.

A torta salata, a pie

It’s a pie

then it’s a misused term because 1% of 8 billion is 80 million

Then it’s not the 1%

This joke in various meme formats keeps coming back and it’s very frustrating

Right, some more discrimination is exactly what we need to fix things.

Devil’s advocate but if it’s implemented chip-side like they do with GPS, custom chips can circumvent that.

But yeah, the explanation’s probably simpler.

I’m sure you can find an exception but please let’s not fly off to nitpick land.

And no, they don’t accept SEPA, although terms vary by country, and if they do they require a safety deposit that can go from a few hundred euros to the thousands, not exactly practical.

You’re in a thread

It’s 80 million people, across the whole world. Not THAT likely.
More than 1% chance since we’re on the internet after all, but still not that likely.

Being a traveling whatever and having to pay out of pocket for your transportation not only isn’t common, a lot of the time it’s illegal.

who said I did?

You’re comming up with more and more contrived scenarios that are based on more and more improbable sets of circumstances that only work if you saw Europe on TV and imagined that it’s like America but people talk in funny way.

Idk, I relied my experience, but whatever, you’re right, I don’t know exactly what you’re trying to prove, all I’m saying is that renting a car without a VISA/MasterCard is difficult, but whatever, you guys seem to have taken it as a matter of honour to prove me wrong, when actually recognising issues we have in the EU due to our dependency on the US seems way more productive to me, but yeah I’m tired of arguing with… you.

Shit americans say, I swear.

Do you see the TLD on my instance?

long fucking tirade about whatever

look I like arguing just as much as the next person - no wait I don’t! I don’t even know why I’m arguing about this about people who don’t want to listen, so whatever man, keep living in your fantasy land you’re lucky enough to live in, I hope you never have to come out here with the dirties.

Yeah, you just confirmed what I said:
Europcar: vague statement about countries, again WITH deposit.
AVIS: in the link it says mini car or van with debit AND deposit, otherwise credit.
Hertz: super vague, still asks for a deposit.

Look I’m tired of arguing, it seems that you’ve got that Reddit issue where you think you know more about something than those who regularly deal with that, so I’ll tell you you’re right, please go away.

looks like a legion, not a deck

imagine would would happen if this money went to the workers instead

imagine if they used it develop poor countries

Linux is too mainstream nowadays, I’m moving to FreeBSD

If you had clarified that initially you wouldn’t be getting downvoted to hell.

ugh, the children got here too