France
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Insightful piece by Thomas Chatterton Williams in the Atlantic.
“Nihilists of the kind we’ve seen flood the streets of France from coast to coast will never uphold their end of the social contract, no matter how beautifully it is drafted.”
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It’s a society that has been living above its means for close to 50 years and its leadership doesn’t have the courage to tell them. I guess they’re just waiting for the IMF or EU to force it on them so they don’t look like the bad guy.
I’m reminded of the line from Basquiat, (the French economist not the English vandal/artist):
“The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”
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I'm sure Macron's pandering to the ultra rich (abolishing the wealth tax, reducing capital gains taxes, giving corporations cushy tax rates) has had nothing to do with France's economic woes. Much like here in the US starting with Reagan. Oh, no. It's always the lower classes who are pinned with blame for societal upheavals. Well, I think we are nearing the end of this game, inequality has reached breaking points and a lot more people now are aware of how oligarchy is fleecing society.
The US should be so lucky to have a smidge of French resistance.
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French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday blamed “foreign leaders,” including those “on the other side of the Atlantic,” for trying to exploit France’s tense social climate for their own political agenda. Protests over soaring living costs have led to widespread rioting and looting. Trump has used the violence to rally his political supporters, making unsubstantiated claims that Muslim migrants are responsible for the unrest.
Macron responded by saying there “has been foreign manipulation of information in the aftermath” of the looting in Paris and other French cities. “And that has led to comments that are as unacceptable as they are stupid, from many people, including foreign leaders,” he said.
Asked by a reporter if he was referring to Trump, Macron replied: “Among others.” Macron added: “We’ve seen AI-generated images depicting scenes that never actually happened in France. We’ve had people claiming that we were invaded by hordes of migrants and Islamists, which is completely false.”
--NBC
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I would like to point out the following :
Insofar as some of the rioters are actually concerned with “austerity” and “neoliberalism” it’s worth pointing out that France's level of public social spending is the third highest in the world at 30.6% of GDP and its total public spending is 57.2%, second highest among large countries not at war.
What’s my point? It’s a pretty important one. There is no scenario where the protesters ‘win’. The inevitable result is the protesters get educated by reality. But I’m cynical enough to believe that the educators won’t be their leaders, who are cowards, but some international organization setting conditions for France’s bailout.
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It’s a society that has been living above its means for close to 50 years and its leadership doesn’t have the courage to tell them. I guess they’re just waiting for the IMF or EU to force it on them so they don’t look like the bad guy.
I’m reminded of the line from Basquiat, (the French economist not the English vandal/artist):
“The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”
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I'm sure Macron's pandering to the ultra rich (abolishing the wealth tax, reducing capital gains taxes, giving corporations cushy tax rates) has had nothing to do with France's economic woes. Much like here in the US starting with Reagan. Oh, no. It's always the lower classes who are pinned with blame for societal upheavals. Well, I think we are nearing the end of this game, inequality has reached breaking points and a lot more people now are aware of how oligarchy is fleecing society.
The US should be so lucky to have a smidge of French resistance.
I'm sure Macron's pandering to the ultra rich (abolishing the wealth tax, reducing capital gains taxes, giving corporations cushy tax rates) has had nothing to do with France's economic woes. Much like here in the US starting with Reagan. Oh, no. It's always the lower classes who are pinned with blame for societal upheavals. Well, I think we are nearing the end of this game, inequality has reached breaking points and a lot more people now are aware of how oligarchy is fleecing society.
The US should be so lucky to have a smidge of French resistance.
Smidge is right because if you quantified it you couldn't reach 10%.
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Another economist (and a very reputable one) blames the French people for their woes. Oh, wait. That's not what he does at all.
Link to video -
I would like to point out the following :
Insofar as some of the rioters are actually concerned with “austerity” and “neoliberalism” it’s worth pointing out that France's level of public social spending is the third highest in the world at 30.6% of GDP and its total public spending is 57.2%, second highest among large countries not at war.
What’s my point? It’s a pretty important one. There is no scenario where the protesters ‘win’. The inevitable result is the protesters get educated by reality. But I’m cynical enough to believe that the educators won’t be their leaders, who are cowards, but some international organization setting conditions for France’s bailout.
I would like to point out the following :
Insofar as some of the rioters are actually concerned with “austerity” and “neoliberalism” it’s worth pointing out that France's level of public social spending is the third highest in the world at 30.6% of GDP and its total public spending is 57.2%, second highest among large countries not at war.
What’s my point? It’s a pretty important one. There is no scenario where the protesters ‘win’. The inevitable result is the protesters get educated by reality. But I’m cynical enough to believe that the educators won’t be their leaders, who are cowards, but some international organization setting conditions for France’s bailout.
Well, is the US, in the grip of actual fascism, going to win, if you will? If supporting privatization was the right thing to do, then how did we get here?
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It’s a society that has been living above its means for close to 50 years and its leadership doesn’t have the courage to tell them. I guess they’re just waiting for the IMF or EU to force it on them so they don’t look like the bad guy.
I’m reminded of the line from Basquiat, (the French economist not the English vandal/artist):
“The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”
jon-nyc said:
I’m reminded of the line from Basquiat, (the French economist not the English vandal/artist):
“The State is the great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense of everyone else.”
Interestingly, the quote comes from the revolution of 1848, which saw the abdication of King Louis-Philippe and the coming to power of Napoleon III. In the original French:
"L'État, c'est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s'efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde."
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I've heard that sentiment my whole life as have we all.
It was taxpayers who paid dedicated taxes per the Social Security Act. It was taxpayers who funded the science that industry used, who paid for the infrastructure, who paid for the creation of the public utilities, and who paid for the public education system.
It was taxpayers who paid for every asset Thatcher and Reagan stole and sold back to the people at terms that have led to the ruination if the middle and working classes.
We weren't "living off of other people" in any sense of the word. My parents worked a combined 50 years. My mother's parents worked a combined 55 years.
Full time. Year round. For 30 years, 20 years, 33 years, and 22 years, respectively.
Not from these quotes, demonstrating your point, but where did you actually get the idea that when people had a functional government they at the same time lived off each other like a bunch of grifters?
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I was talking about France. Again it has the third highest social spending in the world and the second highest government spending (of a large country not at war). It isn’t about what they deserve, it’s about what the country can afford. Both far left and far right are promising to lower the retirement age, already among the lowest in the developed world, and it simply can’t be done. Unlike us they can’t inflate their way out of their fiscal problems.
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I've heard that sentiment my whole life as have we all.
It was taxpayers who paid dedicated taxes per the Social Security Act. It was taxpayers who funded the science that industry used, who paid for the infrastructure, who paid for the creation of the public utilities, and who paid for the public education system.
It was taxpayers who paid for every asset Thatcher and Reagan stole and sold back to the people at terms that have led to the ruination if the middle and working classes.
We weren't "living off of other people" in any sense of the word. My parents worked a combined 50 years. My mother's parents worked a combined 55 years.
Full time. Year round. For 30 years, 20 years, 33 years, and 22 years, respectively.
Not from these quotes, demonstrating your point, but where did you actually get the idea that when people had a functional government they at the same time lived off each other like a bunch of grifters?
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I don't think it's that simple, jon.
"What they can afford."
France is doing things right and are paying for it because the rest of the world dilly-dallies. France rates way above the US when it comes to addressing climate change. It has strict business regulations. It has a recycling rate of 50% (the US is a meager 6%). France cares for it's citizens by providing them with healthcare (we all know the situation in the US). None of this is cheap. But it is right.
Then there are the peculiarities of being in the EU. Their debt is not in their own currency (I don't exactly know why this matters, but I've read from several sources that it makes a difference.). As a ratio to the GDP, their debt numbers are lower than the US. There is also wealth inequality that has risen fast. High unemployment at around 8% that doesn't budge.
It seems to me that when wealth is transfered to private hands as it has done so grotesquely in the past 40 years, that wealth is not invested in the well-being of a country. It is used by the wealthy to get more wealth. If the government taxed at appropriate levels, that wealth would go into societal investment, and it would benefit everyone, not just the wealthy who continue to get wealthier. It's a bad cycle and one that needs to be halted in it's tracks. Citizens of society create wealth and it's been getting scooped up beyond the limits of decency for too long.
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No sooner had I posted above, then I see a new video today from Richard Murphy ...
Link to video
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