>>Walter,
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>>>This is exactly the error you make, the Tax myth. Yes, we pay a lot of taxes *if* we earn a lot.
>>As more things are taxed especially, I guess that even those not already subsidized others pay more taxes (VAT, Oil/Energy taxes, destilled alcohol, tobacco, salt, champagne, wine...). Where comes that money from ? Taxes are a way of legalized extortion IMNSHO.
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>>>Gas prices are much higher than in the US, but if you look at the percentage it rose last year (15%), it is not as high as in the US.
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>>Come on, that "measure" only means that the taxes did not rise as much as the oil price. Kinda telling a girl raped three times this year and twice last year that she is better off than the one raped twice this year and once last year, as the percentage of the rise was less...
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>Really? we are already used to high gas prices. We have adjusted out living to it. The rise of gas prices aren't doing us as much as in the US. First of all, because the US was used to very low gas prices, but now the big cars are getting dumped because driving a V6 200hp truck is getting too expensive to many american. Many of us are taking the train or bus or are getting reimbursed from our employers. We can declare 27 cents per kilometer to deduct from our income tax. Really those sky high gas prices does not hurt as much as the it does to the average america: Our society already has found its way to deal with those.

You found the way by being a small percentage of the total area of the US. Makes it a lot easier to get from point A to point B, and a lot easier and cheaper to build mass transit capability between those points.

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>>> Poor people arround here are doing much and much better than poor people in the US.
>>They are not actively "doing", they get a bigger share of extorted money for keeping quite and doing nothing. One of the first things asked for by politicians in the last few weeks are special energy tarifs for the poor - setting room temperature to less than 22 degrees C (which is one example of too many rules over here) will keep the energy cost low.
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>>While the US system has quite a few warts, the systems here do as well. I was astonished at the base level "favors" can be bought in the US (at least as documented by court room reporting), but here we have our scandals and government bungling as well. Just look at the twisting the "no" from the irish forced the other governments into: the vote of a population is said to be null and void (as most of the other nations fatefied the treaty after cutting the population out of the voting process)... Ludicrous.
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>Sometimes a government has to make impopular decisions for the good of the country. You can't always rely on the citizens to vote what is good for them. If that were the case, the EU and euro would not even exist. Sure we have our scandals, that was not what I implied though. The two party system that has legal ties into the corporate world is asking for problems IMO.
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>Walter,