Not defending Macron, I think france is a disaster, just stating that the protesters are not ready to pay the price for lower taxes. Once you create a social welfare state people tend to want to have the cake and eat it too. The cake being low taxes and eating it being social welfare. Just look at Italy right now or Greece before it finally agreed to the EU rules, people are freakin stupid. Its simple math, you cant spend money you don’t have. You can have high taxes with high social services or lower taxes with lower social services.
I don’t think this is actually true. The UK provided a modest but effective Welfare State in its very early incarnation. The Taiwan health service, despite its many shortcomings, works incredibly well at a (relatively) modest cost.
Compare that with the current situation in the UK, where it is now the employer’s responsibility to provide a pension … while the government continues to take a large cut of salaries as National Insurance. That sort of bullshit not only has financial impacts, it makes (potential) employers more likely to think “bugger this for a game of soldiers”. When you have to assume a role as a corporate nanny because the nanny state says you have to, it’s more rational to just exit the business, or at least to take on as few people as possible. That’s the fundamental reason third-world countries have no jobs.
Modern welfare states now have absolutely nothing to do with social protection; they’re simply a tool for social control. In many cases they represent the accumulation of power for its own sake:
“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”
The basic problem is that Welfare States like France cannot be made efficient without a loss of political power. It’s those in charge, not those at the bottom of the heap, who don’t want to sacrifice hard-won privileges.
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Do you think the US system is sustainable?
I saw an interview with one of these yellow vests. They drove into her rather nice detached home in the countryside and had a cup of tea while she moaned about this and that.
I’d like to have a house in the country too but hey, guess what, it’s hard to get a decent job !
I do think taxes needs to be limited though, especially as they already get taxed so much.
Interestingly French people do get very good pre school education, health system isn’t bad, and they get children’s allowance as well. They are better off than most that way. Their towns and villages and roads are generally very well maintained.
They are probably hitting the max tax rate along with cost of living rises …Either incomes go up or tax rates will have to drop…But then their social welfare will drop back too most likely.
France is a big country it doesn’t seem like they have the same problems in the big towns and cities. It seems to be more countryside specific. It’s hArder for people in the countryside to boost their incomes or to cut their costs.
Ireland had fairly tough austerity in the 1980s and 2010s and now is flying again. It can done but you also need solid economic drivers underneath it all. Also some countries are prone to have revolutions more than others !
An example of another common issue for rural dwellers. Broadband access. A lot of this is really related to rural living having a lot of costs and drawbacks.
Extending mobile phone broadband coverage to 95 per cent of the State in geographical terms would cost €858 million, while extending it to 99.5 per cent would cost almost €1 billion more, according to new reports.
Loads and loads of people make more than 3000ntd a day in office jobs in Taiwan and don’t need to risk their life for it. That’s just a 100 US a day.
It will depend on whether the plantation party will manage to apply to other states the strategy that gave them California: import a fuckton of poor people, give them welfare, cash in their votes and guarantee yourself to stay in power by redistributing taxpayers money.
If enough people fall for the “open borders! free everything for everyone!” scam of Occasional Cortex & friends, then the Us will go the same way. During the visionary administration #44 we’ve seen what happens with extra regulations and taxes: companies close down or move abroad.
In before:“But those migrants go the Us for work!!!1!”
If Texas turns blue the Us are fucked, and the border counties lean in that direction.
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Well … as noted, it’s only those with nothing to lose who can afford to make a noise. That means the independently wealthy and the very poor. The working stiffs always just bend over and take it.
Two major turning points in British history - the signing of the Magna Carta and the installation of William III - were driven by the rich, not by the peasants. Come to think of it, the instigators of the French revolution were the moderately-wealthy (merchants and suchlike, who would today be equivalent to BMW-driving white collar types: CEOs, upper management, lawyers, etc), and a lot of the grievances revolved around taxation and State inefficiency. They then rallied the plebs to make common cause. It’s deja vu all over again.
Its nice to see Macron get a dose of reality. He’s been ranting like an insecure moron about trump, climate change, the greatness of migration, and more recently the European army. The average French person doesn’t want what he’s saying or isn’t impacted or care about these things.
Idk how he’s still there with an approval ratings in the low 20s.
I’m not convinced there’s much to the yellow vests movement unless urban dwellers participate en masse. They’ve achieved their main goal now anyway.
Giving everybody yellow vests is very…French.
Yeah thought the same thing. I also guess they won’t have much staying power once the government gives in a little.
Well … yes and no. The fuel tax has apparently been scrapped. But the structural problems remain and will no doubt blow up in a different form next year.
Do people think Macron should help jobseekers find work?
Is he out of touch to tell the guy that there are jobs if he looks for them ?
French jobseeker tells Macron to help him find work - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45559355
If one sets up a cradle-to-grave welfare state with the deliberate intent of making people dependent on the State, then one should not be surprised when citizens become helpless and expect the State to solve their problems for them. He’s ‘out of touch’ in the sense that he doesn’t seem to understand the implications of pervasive socialism.
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It’s more like he hasn’t made a dent in unemployment like he promised and tells a guy who can’t find a job to simply cross the road like it’s just like that.
Right wing nutters!
European! You need a yellow vest in every vehicle!
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Seems like a sensible policy.
They are from both the left and the right.
Authorities suggested extreme-right and extreme-left militants were involved in the rioting.
Also
"I guess what’s specific to this movement is that it is relatively apolitical, so they (the protesters) are not from just one party on the left or right. They’re white, middle-class people that are squeezed by the welfare state. They pay a lot of taxes but they don’t get a lot of benefits in return,”
I think it’s just a bunch of different disaffected groups taking the chance to come out and have a go at the state. It wouldn’t work in most countries cos they’d get shot or properly banged up in jail. But …France.
Still those who care about living costs got the tax repealed for now which is a significant win as it puts a line in the sand there.