M Kabir

"I firmly believe the government can be run generously with a 10% income tax collection (and no sales tax). We just need to change our attitudes about tax and the responsibilities of the government." Run, and generously? So wrong. It won't probably cover free medical for every citizen in a deveopled country. Oh, wait! USA doen'st provide free health care for all. "Pay 10% flat tax" is normally an argument from the high to very high income groups - nothing wrong about you here. A non-married person earning 70K pays >45% in taxes, medicare, social insurances etc in Germany , sales taxes come on top of that. France should be not far from that. For that - medicare, education and many many others are free or close to free for all of the citizens. Its unaccepatable that big companies earning billions pay less than 10-15% through loopholes.

"The Greece population is effectively taken hostage by the EU and have to slave labour to earn the money the EU wants back."

Wrong.It was the Greek politicians who took too much credit, lived lavishly, sent their population to retirement at 55 whereas the Germans changed retirement age from 63 to 67. There were lots of lies and corruption at play. I am not defending EU, I dont like it either. But a lot of the Greek problems were made by the Greek politicians, and the Greek people are paying the price. 

knowitall said:

It's only lip service. 
Wait till you get seriously ill and find out that the incredible high taxes and social ‘premies’ you paid during 30 years of work evaporate instantly to zero because some asshole Arbo doctor forces you to quit your job 

I won't generalize. I am sure you are talking about a valid problem in the Netherlands someone needs to take care of.
But fact is, in most North EU lands one gets very good medical care, even one doesn't have much in pocket. I know personally a Asian student who during his masters got fully paid for a very difficult heart sergery and 4-5 months hospital stay. At that time he hardly paid a thousand EUR total in the system. You can imagine how much the total cost was. He is now completely OK, has paid enough last 15-20 years in the social system, and I dont think he will ever regret paying medical insurance or taxes. And that one gets through the University degree without much debt in also a plus here. Now when everybody is paying for the system, the BIG Techs must also. Pushing money to the Caymen Isands, Ireland or Malta shouldn't allow them to avoid taxes.