Gee I thought Europeans liked to pay higher prices. We have been lectured for years that gas is more expensive in Europe due to taxes, and that while they pay higher taxes, they have better public transportation, and more gov’t services, and young mothers get family leave, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I’m surprised anyone in a socialist paradise would be upset about these higher prices.
Seems you were wrong.
Actually, my sister lived in Amsterdam with her Dutch husband for years (and intend to go back to live) and I heard exactly that from her regarding the high taxes and services provided. Of course she’s a liberal. She did get good services when she had both kids and they didn’t need a car. Problems started when the immigrants began to cost them more and now this - I suppose everyone has a breaking point and seems that the gas and all the resulting increases for other things like food are just too much.
I work here in Germany for the US Air Force but pay German taxes. I pay around $8.50 a gallon and every ten days...toss in around $110 for a tank of gas. It was around $85 a year ago. I live in a semi-rural area where there are eight bus run’s a day....and the only possible way I could get over to the base via public transportation would be to get up at 05:15 in the morning and take the 05:40 bus from one block away...ride all the way into town, and then wait for 30 minutes until the train would take me out to the base...so public transportation is a joke.
Every German I know....drives a 4-cylinder vehicle and gets 30 mpg or more. They are all paying an extra $75 a month on groceries now, compared to a year ago. Every truck that transports over the autobahn, now pays a special tax. The rate of inflation now operates even with the garbage truck taxes...which are rumored to be going up next year. The natural gas price? It will jump thirty percent in January. From the normal group of folks who would take a two-week vacation in the summer....I’d say thirty percent have canceled that trip this summer and will be painting the house or just sitting at the neighborhood pool.
The amusing thing is that they buckled down and saved every way possible...like the environmentalists wanted...and now? Theres no way left to save or skip. They have to cut from the pocketbook and are wondering how they can make it off a paycheck that is only 55 percent of what they actually make per month (the rest going to health care, pension, and taxes...to include the 19 percent sales tax). Every single one of these guys now lives in fear of their job going away.
I don’t see any positives in this European environment. Its a lose-lose scenario no matter how you slice it. They always wanted to point downwards on the US...but now its their own way of life in jeopardy.
This is the fruits of globalism.