The voters of France have elected a devout socialist by the name of Francois Hollande to lead them ... perhaps on a direct path to where Greece is today.
When economic realities meet socialist delusions, we've all seen which one wins:
Paris has a strange atmosphere right now. It is hard to get a table at the bistros of Saint-Germain, yet people have a sense of foreboding.They know austerity has hardly begun. The press is full of stories that the biggest property bubble ever known in France has begun to deflate. Yet the party goes on. Perhaps this is what it felt like in May 1931, avant le déluge.
Germany took its medicine with the Hartz IV labour reforms eight years ago - under a Social Democrat, nota bene - when the world was humming and EMU competitors were merrily inflating their way into varying degrees of fixed exchange rate Hell.
France will have to take its medicine in less propitious times, somehow clawing back 20pc in unit labour competitiveness against an austere Germany.
It is not easy to see how France can pull this off. Little has been done so far beyond repeal of the infamous 35-hour week. Labour rigidities - employment protection, high tax wedge and minimum wage (SMIC), etc - are among the most entrenched in the OECD club. The unreformed French state takes 55pc of GDP.
I fear Alberta has started down the same road with Red Ali at the helm. Hope they can hang on for 4 years.
I think you can officially say the Germans are over writing cheques for the laziest people in the world, their EC partners.
"Socialist candidate promises to replace austerity with growth"
Yeah, growth of the debt/deficit,numbers of unemployed in the private sector, civil service,and last,growth of the number of rioters when the whole thing falls flat.
France might as well cut to the chase,and declare war on Germany.
What's French for "Bend over and take it for the Republic"
Because socialism works so well everywhere else.
Well, leftists are utterly ruthless. So we will have rather fewer French millionaires. But in all likelihood the new gov't will stick it to them,
just as Ratface Dalton McGuinty has done in Ontario.
It doesn't matter what your political orientation is - NO MONEY = NO MONEY.
Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch ;)
The French will discover that there is at least one thing worse than austerity, and that is insolvency.
Tomber de la poêle dans le feu.
Apparently Hollande is going to finance his experiment in social justice by introducing some truly draconian taxes on the rich. I can hear the fax machines in the Canadian immigration office cranking up as I type.
It is much the same here in Canada. Some socialist wag is suing the federal government for ending Katimavik. Canada is well entrenched with socialist maggots feeding on the tax payers. Canada's Total Public Debt is around 4Trillion for 16 Million taxpayers to carry, Taxes now consume more of the middle class pay cheque than Food, Clothing and Housing combined. And it seems none of them can figure out their paycheques and how they are getting a rodding from 3 levels of parasitic socialist tax and gorge governments. They call for moore mass immigration when we can no longer afford healthcare for our natural born citizens. The single largest cost each year is 24B a year for health and welfare for immigrants. That is more than we pay to shut up the frogs, the Indians and the operating budget of the Canadian Military each year every year. The G&M today calls for increased immigration with more freebies and entitlements for all. The real level of Immigration each year is around 700,000 per year when you add in Temporay workers who never go home and foreign students who never go home. Each year every year.
How does Hollande's rhetoric differ from Obama's, really? And yet the American left scoffs at calling Obama a socialist.
What can you say, all of these and our Liberal Leftist crapholes are going to explode eventually, and they’ll be standing around blaming Bush.
The only thing conservative “right-wingers” can do is prepare as best as you can for some serious financial collapses and civil unrest.
Above all else, remember who these people are when it's time to tally up from your local community anarchists to the Gestapo that they put in charge.
This is the political equivalent "The Happening" as bad as that movie was.
Guns ,ammo, medical supplies ,a well fortified piece of property, the ability to grow crops,a clean source of water , gold ,silver, ....am i missing anything? oh fuel...alot of fuel .
Preppers network , it is a great shop i hate to say it on national geographic channel teaches you all that you need to know about self reliance, self preservatin,and sustainability. greta show ...
it is called dooms day preppers!!
"Perhaps this is what it felt like in May 1931, avant le déluge."
Or June 4, 1940. The proposed marginal taxes are 75% for income over 800,000 Euros, but some analysts say that it is over 100% once all extra levies have been taken into account.
I'm no economist, but I figure this will put a dagger into the heart of French investment, causing its economy to stagnate.
It's not all doom and gloom. All that is needed to avert disaster is that the selfish Germans will have to work a little harder and a little longer.
Vive la Francois.
Light is the only thing that moves faster than wealth looking for a safe haven.
Just like in Alberta. They voted themselves in Socialists knowing full well what they have done under the guise of being Conservative for almost 4 years.
The bubble is about to burst here as well. Thanks to the usual selfish people, who can't see past the next day.
Marxism has killed any Nation infected with it. Yet the pretty lies keep the mooches coming like cattle to slaughter.
For Sale.
One French WW2 rifle.
Never used.
Dropped once.
But I read it on msncbc:
"Francois Hollande gives France hope"
How can anyone think they can "spend their way to prosperity" on borrowed money, no less? Morons. Absolute morons. Obama's cut from the same cloth.
France won't even be worth the krauts invading any more at this rate. Upside?
from Fox News-
Hollande will announce at the NATO mtg in Chicago that France will withdraw from "...the Group of Eight leading world economies."
That would make sense...
"He also plans to increase spending in a range of sectors and wants to ease France off its dependence on nuclear energy."
Go for it Francois- watching him walk this policy back will be entertaining.
One has to ask, what is it that the socialists don't understand about basic economic premise:
Basic Economic Premise
http://timdarnellac.wordpress.com/basic-economic-premise/
How do you stop those that claim that the way to create wealth is to print money?
How is it that they have not learned from Germany in the first third of the 20th century?
How is it that they have not learned from Argentina of the last third of the 20th century?
How is it that they have not learned from the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and its vassals of the last decade of the 20th century.
How is it that they absolutely ignore the debacle of Greece.
How is it that they absolutely ignore the train of Spain rushing into a concrete wall?
How is it that they are not learning from Venezuela of today?
Gecko said that for lack of a better word "greed" is good. This theme is what the useless, entitled masters of the entitled masses hang on to and spread rather successfully. They, will not think for one second that in the end, it is an economic impossibility to give freely to many, that was taken from fewer that produced it.
Have know a very nice guy, a union man if it kills him. His and the rest of the socialist gangsters (for lack of a better word - heh) idea is that they will do it different. Don't know how, don't know why, don't know anything other than printing money is good, then everybody will have enough.
This works for a period of time while the wealth of an earlier era is consumed, then it's Greece. Poorer countries will hit the wall sooner, the wealthier countries will last longer, in either case the result will be the same.
One has got to ask, is this by design? Who would benefit?
> France won't even be worth the krauts invading any more at this rate. Upside?
Cheaper real estate for those who can afford it.
French voters just turned to Germany and said "Keep that free stuff coming!"
Vat?? Do ve hav to come over dere und kik you're sorry french asses once again??
"One has to ask, what is it that the socialists don't understand about basic economic premise:"
I think they understand just fine, but they live under the delusion that they can somehow make people other than themselves pay for it.
There is something about the French mind. Presently, in Quebec the government and the radical students who have been protesting for several weeks, will be voting on an agreement. Needn't worry though, if it isn't lucrative enough they will vote it down and they will expect the ROC to pay more Danegeld.
If there's a reaction on the bond market coming, 10 weeks is not enough to avoid it in any way. So what happens in the next French bond auction will be highly indicative of how bad things are going to get.
Rabbit, it will do more than just kill investment. Marginal tax rates like that do what happened in Sweden in the 1980s. It chases them all out of the country. These are people wealthy enough to have offshore alternatives.
You are right that insolvency is much worse that austerity. And France has experienced it before, most recently in 1958. The severe economic distress and the fact of losing two colonial wars, Algeria and Indochina, directly led to De Gaulle's overthrow of the constitution of the 4th Republic.
But there's another severe consequence. The Euro might survive the collapse of Greece. But it can't possibly survive severe economic distress in France and Spain, let alone the rest. And when the Euro breaks the result will be a huge recession in Germany as German products become unaffordable to the rest of Europe, its principal export markets.
Margaret Thatcher was right. The designers of the Maastricht Treaty in the early 1990s were insane. It may have taken 20 years, but all of the bad possible outcomes of that act of economic hubris are all coming home to roost.
And if the poll results in Greece are any indication, the results will be greater support for fascism and communism. Shades of 1931, anyone?
paul in Calgary >
The problem with that show is that it caters to lefties and gives them the idea that they should be prepping as well as conservatives. Very dangerous indeed, I’m very much counting on the useless lefties to be unarmed and starving if we ever find ourselves without rule of law!
I saw one show where they had this idiotic lefty couple from the Calgary area in their late 30’s/ early 40’s starting to “Prep”. They did a bug out drill (under 5 minute goal), of packing their supplies including suitcases and bugging out to their BASEMENT – LOL. We couldn’t stop laughing for at least five minutes after seeing that.
Then this idiotic couple went to a gun store to buy a couple of Glocks the first friggen guns either had ever handled in their lives - at their age, living in Alberta! Like I said some of these stupid prepper tv shows are giving the wrong people the wrong idea, and it’s not so good for the rest of us.
what we need is a good war, and Iran is looking to have the shiite kicked out of them:-))))
No doubt the great Soviet experiment will work this time in Europe.
I see Euros still haven't connected debtm taxes and economic melt down to decadent socialists and the bankers who love to put them in debt.
Im seeing the same mistakes made over and over in much the same fashion as in the text book description of insanity - i.e. making the same mistake repeadedly expecting a different outcome each time.
The fate of France?
Shrug. And a gallic shrug at that.
I bet Mulcair will recycle his fellow countryman Hollande's election strategy for his other country's countrymen to follow in 2015.
As socialists have no need for a country per se, only power.
@ Posted by: NME666 at May 6, 2012 10:09 PM
"what we need is a good war"
Can't. That comes under our new bullying laws and is a no no. We can't even yell at them without the CHRC suing us. We can still let them know we have more Generals than tanks and that should scare the hell out of them. We just won't mention that we couldn't put a single division into the field.
Wonder how dion and mulcair voted in the french election? Just askin'.
This will only lead to more uncertainty in europe-hastening the collapse. It cant be stopped now.
Kipling said you can't have too much ammunition.
Any day now, someone is going to press the great big red RESET button.
I know where they can get a few thousand students to help 'em out. Let's all chip in for one-way tickets from Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport to Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. ☺
If anyone in America is paying attention - what more pressing reason would you need to NOT vote for Obama. Come on America - wake up and give your collective head a shake.
We said the same here in Alberta a different bob and it didn't work. A people who won't stand for anything fall for everything.
To resurface an old joke...France surrendered yet again. Hey it is what they are best at doing.
France is now about to discover the realities of life, and they will make Greece and Spain look like pikers when it comes to financial mismanagement.
To the last waiter in Paris, when I was last there, who openly sneered at my dinner choice, I raise my glass to him...and to his inevitable unemployment...
Well the Socialists have indeed protected France from ever being invaded again.
Countries can't run or hide fast enough from France anymore. An invasion would be a little like a burglar looking to rob an outhouse in a hippy commune.
The same with any business prospects other than burka's and Molotov cocktails.
France has been in decline for a long time, no matter who has been running the country. I lived there for several months in the 1980's, and the decline was obvious even then.
When the socialists are in power they make the decline happen more quickly.
In general things are not going well. France just went left. BC is going left. Alberta just went left. Ontario still loves pinko McGuinty. And the US might vote His Socialist Highness in for a second term.
As I noted, the reason why I think the electorate is increasingly making bad decisions is because a generation of youngsters have been utterly brainwashed by the school system.
I think it is going to get far worse before it gets better. Things will only improve when these young adults wake up and realize that what they were taught in school about global warming, one-world utopia, virtues of socialism, etc. was all a load of utter rubbish.
It should be noted that Sarkozy was ever so much a lover of the Total State as much as Hollande, he just liked to tweek a few entitlements. Glad to see his back.
European politics is as follows roughly:
Left-wing = socialism + hate the rich people
Right-wing = socialism + hate the brown people
The single largest cost each year is 24B a year for health and welfare for immigrants.
LIES.
TJ, one can only hope and do our best to educate those around us. Most of the eastern Europeans woke up to pleasantries of the great utopian experiment.
peterj "We can still let them know we have more Generals than tanks and that should scare the hell out of them."
We have about 125 generals for 60,000 troops which is many times what they need.
There is also an interesting fact. In the British and our military tradition Brigadier Generals and full Colonels are the same rank. We have another 300 full colonels where formerly we had none.
For reference a colonel commands about 3,000. We have enough senior brass for an army of over 1 million. They've simply become fat a$$ed civil servants.
Frances problem is two fold.
One, this is the birth place of socialism.
Two, the basis of socialism is that there is some bad guy out there that got where they are by stealing from the less fortunate, and when the government can't find a "bad guy" they invent one.
The Jacobins win this round.