This theory of yours and reality example may equate to more happiness, but economic prosperity would suffer. You're talking about taking away the carrot on the stick- everyone would be happier but no one is chasing a carrot or having much motivation to do more. Meh, 5 hours of work = more family time no hurry to work longer hours and advance technology or cure diseases any time soon (not saying this would go away). Economically things would slow; which is fine, I'd rather be happier myself, but this isn't ideal from an economical productivity stand point. Jeremy MountainJohnson jeremy at jskier.com On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 10:09 PM, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, 24 Aug 2010, Robert wrote: > >> And at what point do exorbitant taxes cause us to become a slave to the >> government?! > > Never in a democracy, I guess. But the highest taxes in the world are in > Denmark and they also have the happiest people in the world. So I guess > high taxes are good. One reason is that everyone does fairly well, so > people don't feel pressured and they choose to do for a living what they > like to do -- they don't struggle for bigger earnings by taking a job they > hate. > > http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=4086092&page=1 > > Costa Rica is another happy country. Apparently this has something to do > with their getting rid of their military-industrial complex and spending > their money on education: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/opinion/07kristof.html > > In the USA we have low taxes and a big military budget. Maybe the > resulting misery is the real underlying cause of Tea Party maniacs' > incessant, angry complaining. If we'd just slash the military budget and > raise their income taxes to about 55%, they'd be happy. It's worth a try. > > Mike > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list >