February 15, 2005
Cut taxes and ease labor rigidity
Germany's economy shrank by 0.2% last quarter. Welfare-statism doesn't work. It happened to Sweden in the last decade, and it's happening to Germany now. Let's all hope Bush can make the changes to Social Security that he's talking about and that someone, somewhere, gets rid of that idiotic prescription drug benefit.
I generally agree, but Sweden always rates near the top of the "happiest" countries lists. The Economist rated it #5 because even though the average income was relatively low, it rated extremely high in other areas like "health", "gender equality", and "freedom" (whatever that means).
I'd like our "free market" to become free-er too - trim the medi-subsidies, please - but I'd also like a little more vacation time like those European backpackers, or a long paid maternity leave mandate, and maybe the freedom to wear leather pants.
And those things will hurt the economy, but they'd make me happy.
The vacation time and maternity leave issues will be resolved by the market - one way or the other.
But the leather pants: that wouldn't just hurt the economy, my friend. Oh no, we'd be talking about planes crashing out of the sky, the whole nine yards.
Posted by: ryan at February 15, 2005 11:39 PM