You have to love those silly Europeans:

Sticking with the economics theme, hey what else am I going to talk about, I read an article in the Financial Times today about some wrangling that is going on between France and Germany.

The issue at hand is about France’s desire to reduce the value added tax (VAT) that European countries charge their consumers. Jacques Chirac wanted to lower the VAT rate on French restaurant meals. As Americans, to us this sounds like a no-brainer and good way to get people to eat out more helping the French service industry. Germany’s call for Chirac to scrap his idea is because they are concerned that if France lowers their VAT, Germany will be pressured to do the same.

Here in America we call this friendly competition, which is why our companies and states are generally efficient. Could you imagine New Jersey complaining to New York about lowering their tax rates for downtown because it might get companies to move to New York? Isn’t that the point?

They just continuously make it to easy for us to kick their buts.