France Planning on Destroying Themselves With Socialism

Francois Hollande, who won the presidential election in a landslide over the incumbent, is adamantly opposed to the austerity measures France had agreed to undertake in order to reduce their debt. Apparently the national retirement age of 62 is just too great a burden for workers to handle and will be reduced to 60. Planning on inflating a lot entitlement programs, of course. And to pay for it they'll be upping their max tax rate from 50% to 75%. So basically you can expect every millionaire to leave the country. Will be interesting to see how their debt increases in the next few years.

 

Interesting social experiment, glad we aren't the subject of it. I'm all for living wages and the like, but they're going to Greece themselves by pulling this stuff in the current economic climate.

 

Philosophical differences aside, it just seems obvious to me that this just isn't financially viable. The next guy or generation's problem, I guess, depending on how quickly the feces hit the fan.

 

Agreed. This isn't even about philosophy at this point. The credit card bill is maxed out and they're talking about just taking out a couple of other ones.

 

they've been well on teh path already. 55% of their gdp is govt related. that is not sustainable.

 

Tis worth watching.

No way on earth that it makes sense unless bill #1 is to not allow millionaires to leave the country.

 

The other 45% is crepe and baguette based. I think there is a little beret business in there, too.

 

Don't forget about the beret sector.

 

How the heck can you pass something like that? It's outright theft.

 

If only there was a way to make money by surrendering or sucking at war.

 

They had a solid run for like 300 years in the war department.

 

My point exactly.

This isn't going to work.

To some great extent on taxes, ask the state of Maryland what happened when they decided that they would solve their budget woes by throwing a surtax on millionaires.

 

8 weeks of vacation
12 federal holidays
35-hour work week

Oh yeah, they should definitely lower their retirement age.

Link: France: Less Work, More Time Off - CBS News

 

Was 100 of the the Hundred Years' War? Not impressed.

 

That is the modern day equivalent of Army being a college football power.

 

No, I started counting after that. 100 years war was essentially occupation of France by England. I was counting from the death of King Henry the VIII until Napoleon.

Remember, no France, no Revolutionary War victory.

 

Yes, that is an exact analogy.

 

You had to ruin all the fun by getting all serious with yer book talk.

 

Anyway, what I take from this is that even a country in desperate need of reform won't vote for a guy that asks that the voter make some sacrifice in order to achieve sustainability. Instead they'll flock to whatever schmuck promises more handouts and less work. I hope we are capable of being more rational.

 

Why did British soldiers wear red coats? So the enemy could not tell from afar if a soldier was wounded or not.

This is similar to the reasoning behind French soldiers wearing brown trousers.