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Luxembourg is at the top of GPD, with low gasoline prices. That might change soon since the EU ponders about it.
Everyone that ever visited the city of Martelange, which is a Belgian city on the border of Luxembourg is surprised that one side of it's main road is really plastered with gas stations. A dozen or more or so, it is a surreal sight.
That side of the road actually lies in Luxembourg, and the prices are considerable lower then in the surrounding countries. Martelange is a comfortable and small detour from one of the main highways of continental Europe, A2/E25, and is a known truckerstop for this reason.
moths to a flame
This thing has been going on for a while: Luxembourg always had lower gasoline taxes then Belgium or Germany. What adds most to the sureallity of the scene is that the environment around it is rather nice: large woods on hills, small rivers run through it. Therefore it is a tourist attraction.
Now there is something which will disappear: Mass tourism
Very small countries are an anomaly, specially in Europe. They are usually tax havens, trying to attract commerce and business from the neighbours. Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar...
You could see them as parasitic economies, sucking money through their borders. They can be that way because they are not big, so the drain in the resources of the neighboring countries is acceptable, while they give some specialized services mostly to the higher classes: hush-hush banking, casinos, cheap electronics, luxury vacations.
Luxembourg is bigger and has more of a real economy than say Monaco, but still it has these kinds of tendencies.
Do you believe that privacy for banking should not be allowed? Because your post reads as such? Switzerland is an excellent example of a country which is highly stable (past 500 years) near zero interest rates. Highly trained and armed populace (14 soldiers per square km versus the USA <1) They maintained neutrality during ww1 and ww2 and have continued.
Banking privacy is very important, why should anyone know how much money I have after I declare my income for a given year and pay taxes?
and there's the rub. The main reason people love bank secrecy is it allows them to hide income.
Why not?