Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[kandrathe]

If they give me 100.000 euro per day, and I have to give back 99% in taxes I am still very happy.....well that is if a loaf a bread doesn't cost 500 euro of course.

Do you know anyone who earns that much? If not, then your observation is pretty ludicrous. If you are worth 100,000 Euro per day, and only get paid 1000, then you'll eventually go to where you can get paid what you are worth. If you earn an average wage in the Netherlands, let's say 2,800 Euro per month (17.5 Euro per hour), then if the government takes 45% you'd be left with about $1540 (about $9.63 Euro per hour). So, is your time worth the higher wage, or not. Then a the highly taxed Netherlander, I'd ask myself, what is my return on my investment of about 1/2 my days labor. What it means is that you have about 1/2 the economic power you had before the government took its share away from you.

The amount of taxes based on income or possession is a much better standard. If you have people working at McDonalds, paying the same % of taxes as some top-end lawyer, I think you have a problem with liberty.

Actually, I wouldn't tax income at all. I would push all taxation back into product consumption. But, a flat tax is also fair. If every consumer of services pays the same ratio, then you have equal interest in keeping taxes as low as possible. The situation we have now in the US (maybe there as well), is that the lower half of the electorate pays very little, thus ensuring that any restructuring of taxation whereby that half pays more will be defeated. The minority of tax payers (the most productive) can do little against the majority who garner most of the benefits.

If it makes a huge difference where you were born you have a problem with liberty (not so many kids from the ghetto going to Harvard).

There is a problem with that too, but it is a matter exacerbated by socialism. How do we disrupt the cycle of multi-generational poor, when socialism pays them to stay in the ghetto? Everyone qualifies equally for financial aid, so if a student from the ghetto earns good grades, and does well on entrance exams, then why should they not go to Harvard (with adequate financial aid, and scholarships)?

If you are just fair, you must admit the liberties in Denmark are much greater than those in Minnesota.

Which liberties? I observe that the Scandinavian countries generally have more open markets, lower levels of business regulation, sound currencies, and honest governments. Their laissez-faire approach to non-fiscal policy is probably responsible for their relatively high prosperity. Really the only detractors for Denmark, in an economic freedom sense, are their high levels of taxation and government spending.

Ps. your comments about government controlled schools. I read in an article that dutch daycare centres are mainly owned by big companies......foreign investment vehicles take care of the babies and toddlers of common dutch people.....too me that is a far more scary thing than government owned schools.

Really, not very scary, as long as there are regulations on what constitutes proper care. Oh, and Madrasah are not child care. There was a case here recently where a women who ran an in home daycare was tossed in jail after a toddler strangled on a seat belt. She was in violation of the regulation on the number of infants she was taking care of at one time (her other worker, her mother, ran to the store to get some supplies for the daycare). I felt pity that she was sent to jail, but then, without consequences, the laws would be meaningless.