It was like that for me, until it wasn't. I am still weight lifting but my sleep is much worse if I push too much. Sleep issues are simple only until you have them.
The price France is paying for Niger's uranium has been higher that world market price for a long time.
The main reason France has an interest in it is to be independent from Russia and Kazakhstan production.
I think if we compare the history of the relationship between America and Saudi Arabia (also a desert with catastropic demographics, but a rather different economic outcome) vs. that between France and its African colonies (or Britain and its India colony), we can see that European colonialism was actually a bit worse in outcome for its partners than what's known as American imperialism (which still has major problems, but not as bad as what Europe got up to).
Your comparison is flawed and oversimplistic. You might as well consider the US as a former British colony and consider that British colonialism faired quite well.
In the scenario where the market is crashing faster than they can keep up with, do you think they'll put their own sell orders ahead of those of other customers? Could they get in trouble for that?
Really the only way as an employee is to have a family because income tax depends on household size. And let's remember that there is a de facto second income tax (CSG/RDS) on top of the income tax.
But this is a small part of the issue with tax. Regarding employment there are the taxes paid by employers, as you rightly point out, which make the cost of labour quite high in France, but there are also all those other taxes on about everything.
It gets a bit awkward there because the interest return is afaik taxed as it is earned through income taxes while the gold return is capital and taxed at sale.
I know in Australia if you are looking for wealth preservation it is a hands-down win for gold but I don't know enough about the US tax system to comment on what would happen. I suspect the returns are a lot less rosy and it turns out most of the real wealth ends up being transferred to the government.
You need a prescription only if you want the social security/insurances to pay for the the glasses.
If you pay for them yourself, there is no need.
Additionally, many opticians consider themselves and act as optometrists.
I don't have this information for the UK, but for France parent is right. Mortgage duration for a typical income and a typical house in the 70s was 10 years, compared to 25 years today.
Considering all the taxes car owners pay in Switzerland, such as street tax, the vignette, fuel tax (which gets completely misappropriated, for public transportation no less, while the car owners sit in traffic jams every day), how are private cars subsidized? The "milk cow" initiative caused a scandal when it was found out that the money drivers have been paying for years in fuel taxes was being misappropriated to fill budget holes elsewhere for decades! How are cars subsidized?
In the US the gas tax is only covers about 20% of the road budget in most states, the rest comes from other sources like income and property taxes. Public transport however is expected to be entirely self sufficient and is held up as an example of the failure of public projects when it ends up being more expensive than driving a car if you don't account for 80% of the roads funding.
That's in the U.S., but we are discussing Switzerland, not the U.S. here, and in Switzerland, the taxes private car owners pay generate huge surpluses which are then embezzled by the federal government to plug up budget holes elsewhere, as well as for subsidizing public transportation. Meanwhile, car owners in Switzerland must sit in traffic jams at least twice per day because no new roads are being built, just the existing ones maintained.
