Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[kandrathe]

First, they're EU citizens. That means they can go practically anywhere in Europe to live and work. Prefer the UK? Italy? Spain? Poland? Take your pick.

Which is probably worse, right? All the same taxes, with none of the benefits.

Second, nobody is forcing them to work, nor earn any given amount of income (which, by the by, is exactly what serfdom forces). If they want to be slackers and work at a cafe somewhere, getting by on as little as possible, that's their prerogative. If even that amount of tax is too much, then move elsewhere.

Right. The costs of most everything in Denmark are about triple what they are here in the US. Starvation is always an option, but I guess you only have to pay about 8% tax on the first 41000 DKK you earn.

Third, if they have sufficient wealth, they can live without working just fine. I'm not sure Denmark is exactly where you'd want to hold a gigantic bank account, but if you did, you wouldn't have to worry about income taxes.

If you have sufficient wealth, then no, you wouldn't be a semi-serf within the welfare state. So, no, there is not the same feudal land lord, per se., but the level of freedom and taxation is similiar, which is why I said semi-serf. Because the serf was required to work so many days of the week on the lords land, before he worked his own small parcel. Then, there was the Christmas goose.

If the standard you're holding countries up to is a place where you can live without working, that's crazy. There is no such place on this ball of rock, and there wouldn't be even if governments collected no taxes whatsoever. But the ways in which you can opt out of any particular tax (by moving, by not earning, by not spending) are much the same in Denmark as anywhere else. The only difference is the rate of collection, which is determined democratically by the elected representatives of the Danes. It's not going to get much less oppressive than that.

I'm not saying one should be able to live without earning, but to have the State take the majority of your earnings in income, and VAT is crazy as well. You have to remember that here in the US, the revolution began when we tossed the tea into the harbor AFTER Britain removed the taxes from all the other products, and that tax was only 1%. You want to talk crazy? Let's look at Latvia.

It astounds me that you're willing to stand behind that metaphoric mess - and pile on a half-dozen others while you're at it. It's now a bubbly smoke and mirrors train with an unclothed monarch. Or something.

A gravy train is a rail train, not a wagon train. The rest is garbled nonsense.

I was explaining my crazy metaphoric thinking. If you want to imagine railroad freight cars filled with gravy being driven over a cliff, then who am I to dispute it. "and if we tell you the name of the game boys, we call it ridin' the gravy train... "

I probably associate "Gravy Train" with Chuck Wagon, as they were both dog foods when I was a boy. So, mixing that in... We've made our bed, layed in it and now we'll need to eat our own dog food. We bought our meal ticket, a big old serving of Chuck Wagon, filled with gravy, going over the cliff, being driven by our naked emperor because he's distracted by the smoke, mirrors, and bubbles popping.

You can tell me to stop now...