It turns out that the happiest people in the world live in countries where there are high taxes and high rates of atheism. I'm guessing people love living where their taxes pay for their health care, their kid's college, and it pays for a strong social safety net. Since they don't have to worry about working so hard to pay for life necessities, they have no need to become slaves to out dated Bronze age religions.
So once again, it shows you how wrong conservatives and libertarians are. People do not mind paying taxes as long as they get something tangible for their money, like health care, college educations, unemployment insurance, etc. And notice that some of the world's most successful corporations come from those countries as well, corporations like Nokia, Bang & Olufsen, Lego, Heineken, Vodaphone, and Royal Dutch Shell. Also the unemployment rate in Finland and Denmark routinely hovers around 2%. So the line that business can't survive or thrive in highly taxed countries is nonsense.
If we would just make the rich and big business pay their fair share of taxes we wouldn't have to pay much more to get all the things that other, more civilized, countries have.
12 comments:
Canadians, once again, are betwixt and between. We love our social safety net but we envy your lower taxes. Maybe if we had more cool Euro-designed stuff we would be happier.
Our taxes are not really low, if you're in the lower, working, and middle class that is. People in those economic classes here in the USA pay a much higher percentage of their incomes in taxes than wealthy people in this country do. And I define having wealthy as one person making more than $100,000.
As a citizen of such a socialist hellhole I am happy to pay for my share for all the perks I get and the stress I avoid. And its funny how less we complain about taxes her in Canada than people in the US do. With all you pay you should demand more for it but you don't. We expect those things we fund to be there for us and they are. Its a mindset that you really need to shift to. The lack of universal health care, I believe it keeping you from being a truly great nation. I am sorry for those who always seem to obstruct your progress as a country.
Oh and by 'hellhole' I mean all season paradise.
What they said.
amen, monkey.
Canadians want it both ways: bitch like crazy about high prices here and
bitch like crazy about our public health care system.
Many Canadians don't know how good they got it.
I lived in Norway, number 9, and if I could convince my hubby we would move there now!
Honestly, do Americans really believe the rugged individualist crap?
I guess enough of us do.....
I hate to sound selfish and whiny, but it will be just my luck to have my procedures done, struggle to pay them off -- and then have universal health care pass.
I'll still be happy to see the day.
GT - We hardly bitch at all! We just grumble a little to ourselves, but mostly we're smug and self-satisfied if a little envious of how cool and glitzy the US is sometimes and how awesome and sophisticated some parts of Europe are and how classy and smart people from England sound.
Amen to that! We'd have a lot more people working happy little jobs if we didn't have to worry about health care benefits. We'd have a lot more small business owners instead of crappy chain stores. My coworker and I were just talking about how much BETTER our society would be with universal healthcare. Maybe we should start protesting like the teabaggers.
I agree with all the above. So "ditto."
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