[KaptKaos]

There are lots of hidden "taxes" in the system too that don't make it the tax calculations that your referring to; compliance costs, insurance mandates, legal fees and other costs. Some may refer to those as "the cost of doing business." Those costs are real and somewhat unique to the USA.

An interesting side effect is that some of those costs minimize domestic competition. For example; good luck building an oil refinery. There is no way to build one due to the compliance costs, and the bureaucracy associated with them. Therefore, those existing refineries have a virtual monopoly. This eliminates domestic competition by making the barrier to enter the market too high.

I always found it funny that the Greens and the Unions would be on the same side. You'd think that labor unions would want more industry thereby creating more jobs. That was until I realized that they're not labor unions, but service unions many of which work for government agencies. They don't make anything anymore.

Oh well.

Happy Monday!