"Mike Rapoport" writes:

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:zoN8e.26116$8Z6.5821@attbi_s21...
Just because French society has different values to the US doesn't make
them "dunderheaded" either.

Call it what you will. Anyone -- French, British, or Martian -- dumb
enough to tax avgas up to $7.50 per gallon is dunderheaded.


Why? Societies make choices about what they want their governments to
provide and what to tax to pay for it. France (and most of the rest of
Europe) has chosen to provide extensive social benefits and pay for them
with taxes mostly on consumption. The US has also chosen to provide
extensive social benefits and also buy a huge mililtary and pay for it with
taxes mostly on production (and borrowing from their children.).

Would that we were taxing ourselves, but we're not. And we're not
borrowing from our children, but from the rest of the world. One day,
not so far away, the rest of world will get tired of it. I think
within 10-15 years the world's goods will be priced in something other
than the US dollar (probably the Euro) and then our consumption will
come to an abrupt halt.

Dunderheaded is when you consume way more than you produce, when you
borrow not to invest in production but in consumption, when you launch
wars half way around the world on the basis of lies or gross
incompetence, when your only national energy policy is drilling more
holes and nothing else.

Dunderheaded is also when you think you know everything by having a
few foreign guests stop by.