>> The Netherlands maybe the most averaged out country in europe, no
>> extremes in wealth and poverty, no extremes in political opinion, no
>> extremes whatsoever in anything.
>
>Wow. After thinking about that statement for while, I shudder.
>That's about the most succinct definition of Hell I've ever seen.
Some people would call it heaven: stability, safety, nobody hits anyone
over the head. I call it boring. It's a country where everyone has a
future, yet you know its largely planned for you already...
>Fred Foldvary:
>> The countries economy depends highly on transport & sales
>>of imported goods to other european countries.
>
>I recall that the Netherlands has a great deal of natural gas, which
>has funded its welfare-state programs.
Some other european countries have comparable or more natural resources.
Max:
>>It's also the western european country where the gov't spends the highest
>>percentage of the GNP (53% in 1994, US: 23% in 1994),
>
>23%?!! You must be talking only about federal spending. Add in state and
>local spending and it's much more than that. The USA is very far from a
>free market or low tax economy.
I can only imagine that the dutch state's spending must be even higher in
that case, i think the comparison still goes, even though it maybe a little
less shocking. These figures came from world statistics: state spending in
% of gnp. (source: dutch central bureau of statistics)
Joost.