Knowing the French, they would go on strike if they had to open their shops 24-hours a day. A funny anecdote; in Amsterdam, only shops in the touristic center are allowed to open every sunday, except for certain holidays that are also sundays. Thus, a supermarket manager outside the center made a list of all possible holidays in Europe and found that he could thus open his store effectively year-round. Eventually, a judge decided that he couldn't.
It's very inconvenient that supermarkets close on the one day I usually have nothing better to do.
That was my guess as to the reason, though laziness wouldn't be a bad guess either. Nobody bothered to check tickets on either of the trains I took yesterday and the second one was so full there were a few people standing in our car for awhile.
religious paintings as i recall from my trip to Italy. religious art comprised about 75% of the art with portraits making up the balance! After 3 weeks of museums I was very tired of the religious art and do not like it to this day.
Matt, you definitely wouldn't consider me a socialist but I agree with you on the gas price thing. Taxing gas more would 1) take account for the externalities of carbon emissions and pollution 2) Drive people to buy more fuel efficient cars and 3) stabilize the gas price so the incentive is always there for consumers and the market is consistent for car producers. After living in Europe (and yes England is in Europe despite what the Brits may think!) I've seen how it works there. They tax gas to around twice the US price and this has pushed the market to develop smaller, more efficient cars as well as advanced diesel technologies that enable a majority of cars to achieve greater than 40 MPG.
I advocate for policies similar to that in other countries that happen to be more socialist than the US. However, these policies are not necessarily redistrubitive.
If I actually became a socialist I couldn't use the term to demonize all the pinko Europeans, and that's too much fun to give up.
Bram
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Knowing the French, they would go on strike if they had to open their shops 24-hours a day. A funny anecdote; in Amsterdam, only shops in the touristic center are allowed to open every sunday, except for certain holidays that are also sundays. Thus, a supermarket manager outside the center made a list of all possible holidays in Europe and found that he could thus open his store effectively year-round. Eventually, a judge decided that he couldn't. It's very inconvenient that supermarkets close on the one day I usually have nothing better to do.