Random Thoughts

Yesterday while I was at work I had this random thought about how up until recently Germany had the 2nd or 3rd most powerful economy in the world, and while that was true they lived in a mostly socialistic system whereby they had high income taxes to pay for the various social services and healthcare they all enjoy. Like a bolt of freakin' lightening (!) I just saw something that completely tripped me up: I wouldn't give a damn WHERE you live, high taxes means that you just don't have a lot of spare money to put into anything else. Right? Of course that's right! And because of higher taxation one would imagine that it's relatively harder to buy a home, at least until you're a bit older and have had a longer amount of time to save for a home.

So, you're most likely going to be in your 30's, and your late 30's at that, when you finally get to buying a home, and then you're straight LOCKED into your job because without that you will shortly be on your behind and on the streets, so like a good worker you shush it the hell up and do as you're bloody well told. (grin) I mean, you can't just up and tell your employer you've had enough of they bs because you really need that job until retirement because, lo and behold, just about the time you pay your house off it's retirement time, and you will now get to collect on your various social services and whatnots.

Under a system like this, where you get taxed out the back end and have to focus primarily on job and home, you have to ask yourself something: Where are the small business folks at? I'll tell you what happens. People inherit a business, or they inherit a house from kin folk and then, instead of saving for a house, they work until they save enough money to start a business, and if that fails they just go back to work. Who benefits in a system like that? Government and corporations, that's who! You create, through high taxation, a more or less 'captive' worker population, one that cannot revolt that much because they simply can't afford to, and that, over time, HAS to create a more docile type of citizen, one who is more prone to just go along and accept things rather than speak their mind too strongly.

Sure, the Germans, and all Europeans for that matter, are highly politically active, but when was their system really changed in such a way that their people actually had more freedoms and not just a change in leadership?