“France, Germany and Italy have joined forces to outlaw tax competition between EU countries in a letter to the European Commission. …the language and tone in the joint letter to the new Economic and Taxation Commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, is much more aggressive than in the past. …the letter from the finance ministers of the eurozone’s three largest economies says that ‘the lack of tax harmonisation in the European Union is one of the main causes allowing aggressive tax planning, base erosion and profit-shifting to develop.’ …Vanessa Mock, commission spokeswoman said Mr Moscovici ‘welcomes these significant contributions to the work being carried out by the commission.’”

And here are the most recent numbers from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), showing “average individual consumption” <REF: Net national income per capita> for various member nations of that international bureaucracy.

The average for all OECD nations is 100, and the average for eurozone nations is 96, so the U.S. score of 147...

The only nations that are even close to the United States have oil (like Norway) or are low-tax international financial centers (such as Luxembourg and Switzerland).

A new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows that 2.6 million children have sunk below the poverty line in the world’s most affluent countries since the crisis fist broke in 2008, bringing the total number of children in the developed world living in poverty to an estimated 76.5 million.

In 23 of the 41 affluent countries analysed, child poverty has increased since 2008. In Ireland, Croatia, Latvia, Greece and Iceland, rates rose by over 50%.

In Greece, 2012 median household incomes for families with children sank to 1998 levels – the equivalent of a loss of 14 years of income progress. By this measure Ireland, Luxembourg and Spain lost a decade; Iceland lost 9 years; and Italy, Hungary and Portugal lost 8.

The recession has hit 15-24 year olds especially hard, with the number of NEETs ("Not in Education, Employment, or Training") rising dramatically in many countries. In the European Union 7.5 million young people (almost equivalent to the population of Switzerland) were classified as NEET in 2013.

“The number of children living in relative poverty is rapidly growing in all Member States. This directly affects their health and well-being by leading to ill health, shorter life expectancy and lack of opportunities in adulthood. We owe it to our children to give them the best start in life, and to allow them to live healthy and safe lives until they reach adulthood,” says Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe.

Rapidly increasing inequality in every Member State

The European Region includes not only countries with the lowest number of infant and child deaths in the world but also those where children are 25 times more likely to die before age 5. In addition, mortality varies not only between but within countries. Child poverty is a risk factor for poor health even in high-income countries, and inequality is growing.

More than half of deaths among children aged under 5 years result from diseases that simple, affordable, proven measures can prevent or treat.
Each year, almost 1 million children in the Region do not receive all their scheduled vaccinations, resulting in 90 000 cases of measles and 70 000 cases of rubella being reported in the past three years.