As you guys know (and the whole World), Portugal is facing one of its biggest economic crisis since D. Afonso Henriques (Portugal´s 1st King), although there is enough evidence that we live in a higher level of richness, compared with the USA citizens.
Let´s take a look at the following speech (received in my e-mailbox), between two best friends: a portuguese guy ("pork-chop" as they call them in New York) and a new yorker.
"Portuguese: "Did you know, we (portuguese people) are poor..."
New yorker: "How can you say such a thing, when you pay for a litre of gasoline, more than the triple that I pay? You can also pay electricity and cell phone fares over 80% than I pay.
How can you say that you´re poor, when you pay the triple for bank service comissions and for credit letters, compared to us?
How can you buy a 20 000 € car, when the same automobile in the United States costs 12 000 dollars (8 320 €)? You can give your government an extra 11 680 € gift, when compared to us!
We are the poor guys ... for example, the New York State Government, caring for the poor financial situation of its' citizens, taxes only 2% of "IVA"(tax over comsumption) plus 4% of federal taxes (total 6%), nothing compared to the 23% taxed to the rich portuguese people. Happy with 23%, you still pay "city hall" taxes.
You have a private bank that bankrupts (a Casino-like specie), you don´t have nothing to do with it, but still pay your government to protect it. Nevertheless, you pay the Portuguese Bank Governor 3 times more than we pay the US Federal Bank Governor.
We are the poorest! The americans don´t gift their government with taxes over their work salaries. You can pay taxes over garbage recovery, for watching public tv, water consumption, gas and electricity. You pay private security for banks, city halls, urbanizations, when we, the poor people, have to conform ourselves with public law enforcement.
You ain´t poor... you just don´t know how to spend your money. You waste it!"
True or not, some of the statements of this speech, are a good comparison, and gives us a slight idea why we (the portuguese citizens) are living a deep economic and social crisis. When I was 16 years old, I had the chance to work at a company called "Big Apple Beer Distributor", stated in Bronx (NY), during the Summer. My pay-check had almost the same amount than I can get today as a teacher (with 20 years of teaching). But this is not the major problem ... The problem is ... with all the taxes (to pay our leaders' incompetence over the years), saving is a mirage for the common portuguese people. Besides that, government demands more and better work (from portuguese common people) and asks for cuts on the pay-check. What logic rules this Country? I really don´t know! I just remember working on the States, under the following logic: the more you work and produce, the more you earn!
P.S. - Just another evidence that we´re richer ... In 2006 there existed 25 Mercedes CLK GTR AMG in the World, like the one in the image. 4 were in Portugal (according to http://forum.autohoje.com/roadbook/33236-mercedes-clk-gtr-em-portugal.html). I bet the owners don´t pay all their taxes or belong to the Clan issued on my last post! Believe it or not ... we have 16% of these cars, when we have only 0,15% of the world´s population. Aren´t we rich?
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