Working Women around the world

From Eurostat data: the percentage of women ages 20-64 working in the following countries.

Sweden 76.8
Switzerland 76.0
Finland 72.5
Netherlands 71.9
Germany 71.5
U.K. 68.4
U.S. 65.3
France 65.0
Japan 64.5
EU 62.3
Spain 54.0
Italy 50.4
Turkey 30.9

It is somewhat interesting to note that taxes as per GDP of each country with a few exceptions, also coincides with that list.

What I postulate here is that in countries with high - higher-  tax rates; the most capable care giver - the mother (sorry guys you can't cut it like a female) is "forced" to move into the work force.  Read on women libbers before you attack me please. But first a stock tip!

Stock tip!  If mostly men stayed home and were the main care givers, put all your money on Can Production companies and Chef Boyardee.  You will make a killing in the market!

Now back to my article...

Many women desire to work outside the home by choice and the freedom to choose such a path is a great thing, but taxation creates an atmosphere where those who prefer not to (or feel it's important not to), are not given the opportunity to do so because of tax burdens.

I am unable to find statistics for number of working women on long island but just looking around it appears we are much higher than the country's 65.3%.  And really is it any wonder why?

I celebrate a families choice to have a two income family (even thought the additional buying power leads to exaggerated cost of living many times - such as home prices), but what I dislike is the forcing of others to have to do so to make ends meet because of taxation / exaggerated COL factors.

Much of that additional income will be eaten up by taxes, child care, and expenses incurred by another individual from the home needing to work outside the home.

I see a possible future where households of the future will have to send their children to work as soon as possible too to make things affordable.  I also see those children sticking around much longer in the homes of their parents.  And...

Years from now, the need for many many more 2 family homes on long island to make ends meet and even apartment complexes .  Many decades from now that will be the death blow to long island unless we start thinking creatively and a bit more radically about how to fix the issues at hand and those headed our way. 

Picture the island of Manhattan blown up to the size of a long island and you see what I'm talking about.  Don't be selfish and say that will never happen in your time so you don't care.  Think about our children and theirs and theirs.  We have no greater duty than to them.

Do not leave here feeling down.  I have faith and so should you.  Get active.  Let go of the minor useless stuff people get too focused on such as movie stars, and sport figures and what Miley Cyrus is grinding on or rubbing herself with.  All that is preventing us from seeing ourselves clearly and the struggles that lay ahead for us and what is really beautiful around us.  You are free to choose of cause whatever path.  But I ask you to consider the following:

Hold your child's hand today and tell them you are going to get actively  thinking about the world around you - especially this island around you.  Tell them you are going to try to keep this beautiful island we live on a place that they can stay too - if they want - and live out wonderful lives and raise families without suffering under a system we broke and unloaded on to them because of our shortsightedness, greed and general stupidity.

I ask you to consider emptying your cups today and flush the contents down the toilet and begin to fill them up with other visions, and thoughts, and ideas, love and caring - pay attention to the important things in life and not the diversions created by big money changers and would-be rulers at your (our) expense.  Go down to the beach or in your backyard and jam your hands into the earth soil and sand and feel the connection to it, and that which connects all of us.  Drop to your knees when you do it.  Put some heart into it.  Don't just bend over and flick it lightly. Feel it deep! Stand up, seek to resolve conflict not escalate them and create new concepts along the way. Then pour that new liquid conceptualization out of your cups upon us so we can drink it up.

Don't worry if your feel alone or outnumbered.

By nature humans evolved to follow along with the crowd.  It was a necessary survival tool embedded in our DNA.  Because that exist in us, it allows the few to move the many.  I do not like those currently in the drivers seat, nor the direction or speed in which they are headed, so to speak.

If you appear to be alone sticking your hands in the earth and drinking of that new cup, fear not.  The few can indeed change the many and that can be done by offering a choice - the freedom to choose a new path.  It must not be forced.  Clear example is the only way and a choice.

The epoch surrounding the Age of Enlightenment was not forced upon us, it was clearly empirical, so people jumped on board and embraced the concepts.  So too shall this current dip pass and the freedom to choose a new path be joined by the many.

There is danger and risk ahead and possible wrong turns, but beyond that is the next level of mankind here on earth.  I do see beauty, freedom, faith, science and facts ruling the day.

Right now , as much as we want to believe we are more sophisticated, we are not far removed from our ancestors who ran with torches and mindlessly killed others because of words spoken with no basis in fact, or paid a nickel to see and laugh at carnival freaks and their suffering. 

Carnival shows have been replaced with Jerry Springer type TV shows, and torches replace by hurtful intentional lies that damage and ruin lives, happiness, families and careers, and TV shows such as Judge Judy where people - idiotic or not - get belittled on national TV.  Really the concepts are still the same, just variations of torches and nickel payments.  The same concepts at a different level that is all.

That is all going to change and real fast.  Get ready to ride a new train.

It's gonna be a wild trip!