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French Toast
Today is the first round presidential election in France. As voters head for the polls, incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy is badly trailing his rival Francois Hollande. It is likely that Sarkozy will live to fight one more day, since he is expected to poll second behind his rival to continue on to the runoff election next month. But the consensus among the French is that Hollande will emerge as president.
The strength of Hollande's lead is rather surprising given that along with Germany, France is navigating the financial crisis rather well. Sarkozy has Merkel's explicit endorsement, and though he has had his own share of gaffes, on balance his policies are more moderate and sensible than his opponent's. So why is he losing?
According to my French colleagues, Sarkozy acts like a nouveau riche--he flaunts his wealth and status. This, in France, is just not done. At a time when the French economy is wobbling, Sarkozy's display of the good life, often in exotic locations with his glamorous wife, has not played well among the French populace. With his approval rating stuck in the low 30s for years, Sarkozy has dug himself into a hole.
But Sarkozy's hole will be nothing like the Hollande tunnel. Francois Hollande is a socialist, and his prescription for France's economy is sculpted along socialist lines. He has quite a program in store:
- Hire 60,000 teachers in a country of 65mm
- Balance budget by 2017
- Tax income above EUR 1 million at 75%
- Reduce consumer utility bills
- Lower retirement to 60 for those who have worked 41 years or more
- Reduce payroll tax
- Renegotiate European treaty
- Separate commercial and investment banking
By themselves, these planks don't seem particularly onerous, but taken together and put in the context of a European recession, the prospects for the French economy are not good. Much of his platform requires new spending, while the only new revenues to be raised seem to come from his tax on salaries above EUR 1 million, an ineffective red herring political line used around the world. Few Frenchmen fit that description, so the total take will be insignificant.
How Mr. Hollande presumes to balance the budget in four years remains to be seen, but if he follows the path of the other Francois, socialist President Mitterrand, he will reverse course soon after entering office. Mitterrand came to power in 1981 on a very progressive socialist platform, but after two years completely reversed course in what was known as "tournant de la rigueur" (turn to austerity). Such a reversal in the near future, if it comes, would surely lead to a recession and add to the burden of the struggling Eurozone.
There is some chance that voters will in the end come through for the incumbent in the runoff election. It is not politically correct these days to support Sarkozy, so voter response to opinion polls may not be an accurate reflection of what people will do in the booths. But in all probability Hollande will prevail, and come May Europe will have a new albatross around its neck.
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No significant left? 47% of American households pay no tax. Unemployment benefits to 99 weeks, record numbers of food stamp recipients, medicare, social security, and now Obamacare. How do you define "left?"
Do you think the record numbers of people on food stamps just chose to be recipients? Steaks and caviar ... right? It must be incredibly lucrative to live on unemployment benefits with no livable wage jobs in sight? Oh yeah ... living large on $200/wk. Many of the old and retired people living on social security were forced from their homes by property tax increases in the runup of the false real estate pricing scam. They deserve that don't they...the fucking bastard old people who have absolutely no control of the games politicians play with bankers and deregulation.
The bankers and their sock puppets created this mess, if you cannot see that you are simply blinded by whatever has been feeding you a line of shit.
Name one state that gives $200/wk. Just one.
Some states pay very well indeed on unemployment. Banks and the financial system are an issue but an entirely separate one.
I think you've mixed a lot of unrelated "ideas" in your rant. First, ALL State benefits are funded by taxpayers (or, more correctly, our grandchildren). It's not a matter of "deserving" more taxpayer money. It's a case of getting an amount set out in laws. There was no conspiratorial "runup" in housing - it was yet another bubble as witnessed numerous times in history. Unfortunately it was houses rather than dotcoms, social media, tulips or beany babies.
Small rural banks that fought gov't pressure to make unsafe loans survived pretty well. It was the big guys in collusion with politicians who gave idiots $500,000 homes with $5,000 down on a sub-prime interest.
So under your brilliant Karl Rove Rush Limbaugh David Rockafeller detective kit, you're finding that anyone on Unemployment Benefits, food stamps, medicare or social security is "From the left"?
Seriously, bro. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Democrat. Republican. Liberal. Conservative. Socialism. Corporate slave fuck fest.
None of these words ever have a real definition, they're all used for divide and conquer verbal masturbation of the masses.
This BS is enough to piss off the Pope. 47% of American households pay no FEDERAL INCOME TAX. They pay sales tax, taxes and "fees" on their utility and phone bills, license "fees" to drive or start a business and on and on ad nauseum. And, they pay the silent tax of INFLATION which is the most regressive tax of all, and is NEVER mentioned. Exactly what percentage of American multinationals "pay no tax?"
Face it, Macaroni (sic), you have been completely out-gunned.
the straw man that John Boner and Karl Rove use all the time. 47% pay no tax. Even the "no-taxer" pays payroll taxes. Most would gladly have more income even if it meant paying 15-20% in tax.
we all pay property taxes...and that is the truest of crimes. for ownership of a good we must pay the government? how does that work? sales tax. okay. income tax? sure, no problem. a tax on PROPERTY? this is why the USA had a revolution in the first place.
The Death tax is just as pernicious.
People work and invest and save in the present, and do so harder and more diligently, the more they think their efforts will benefit THEIR LOVED ONES, rather than strangers, nevermind government dependents.
The Death Tax is extremely demotivating of hard work and even the very spirit of long term investing that must be the engine of civilisation.
The Death tax is just as pernicious...
That's just another reason for pms. What better way to pass on a blessing to posterity and away from the prying eyes of those who have no business determining what you want to do with your accumulated wealth.
Royalty has argued the same exact thing for hundreds of years. When you are born into wealth, you are entitled to it. Entitlement. To someone else's money. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?
Dear petridish, because they don't pay FEDERAL taxes, and still get to vote in FEDERAL elections, we end up with a Congress and White House full of profligate spenders. Congress can't be bothered to vote on, nevermind vote on, a budget these days. Obama signs whatever crazy spending or vote buying pork filled crap Congress wants, whether he or anyone has read it.
So, as to your comment, let the non-FEDERAL-taxpaying folk vote only for offices that tax them, such as state and local.
Touche, as Hollande might say.
Perfectly stated.
The other elephant in the room, left unstated, is "How much is enough". Federal spending accounts for 25% of GDP. State and Local about 23% of GDP. Government is 48% of GDP. All I hear over and over and over is the assertion that we will need some further form of revenue.
I would like for one politician, at any level anywhere, to stand up and say how much would be enough. Total government currently needs 48% of our entire productive capacity. Still they assert they need more. So what would be enough. 60%, 70% 80%. At what point will some politician or tv commentator stand up and draw a line. When do we reach the final percent of take before we will say "no more, we have to live on this percentage of total GDP"?
All the socialist countries listed, who think their system is so much better, fail to realize they are on the same path that socialism always follows. I read daily of the slow breakdown of their systems. Eventually they all end up like the current Greece. Fewer and fewer producers in the system want to work. If they do work they want to opt out of the monetary system where their efforts are stolen in ever greater amounts.
Those on the receiving side grow ever greater in numbers until so few are actually producing, verses those who want to live off the producers, the system goes into a phase where those in the system are living off debt. Then it progresses to living off ever increasing fiat money. Then the system collapses as the few remaining producers go into hiding and the monetary system collapses and has to be replaced.
"Fewer and fewer producers in the system want to work. If they do work they want to opt out of the monetary system where their efforts are stolen in ever greater amounts."
Pure rhetoric and ideology without substance or basis. U.S. corporations are currently contributing only ten percent of our federal budget, versus forty percent a few decades ago. Yet they make more profit now than ever. Middle class productive jobs are gone from the West not because people don't want to work or because of mythical high taxes to support social programs, but because of free trade with countries that allow virtual slave labor and rampant pollution of their environment. Corporate CEOs have enriched themselves by gutting our economy. If you opened up a factory in any city in the U.S. with decent wages, you'd have a mile long line of applicants.
Nonsense on stilts.
Corporations do not pay taxes, only the end customer, i.e. the individual or family, pays corporate taxes, built into the prices on products and services they buy from corporations, which is to say everything they buy.
Which also means, QED, that corporate taxes are always "regressive" (as opposed to "progressive" in the lefty sense of thje world) because poor people buy their consumables from corporations. Let's go even further to note that corporate taxes are even more regressive than sales taxes, because sales taxes are usually not applied to food, however the cost of corporate taxes is right there in the price of the food the poorest of poor pay for at the register.
Let's remark in the same breath that taxes on capital gains of corporations, and taxes on dividends paid to their investors, are also built into the price of goods and services the corporations sell. They must be, because investors will not invest, lenders will not lend without the return they demand. The corporation must raise prices to end consumers to provide the returns. Increased prices and increased costs of production from corporate taxes mean less demand, and less capital investment, slowing the economy, slowing productivity growth and crushing down that much further the motivation of EVERYONE to produce, improve, save, invest, and be hopeful about the future.
By EVERYONE I mean also a lot of folks living off of the government tit too.
Myopia.
What about sales abroad by U.S. corporations, that turn into profit which is not taxed? What does the U.S. consumer care if a consumer overseas pays extra to cover tax paid to the U.S.? Or are we really just worried about CEO bonuses?
If paying lower taxes in the U.S. creates jobs -- U.S. corporations pay less now than since the twenties -- why have jobs been lost in the U.S. by the millions?
If more net income to corporations creates jobs, why have jobs been lost by the millions?
If the facts contradict your ideology, do you give a shit?
You need sound money...gold money ideally...to keep the corporate money "here" so to speak. Having said that..."an unlimited energy supply which is cost free" isn't a bad "number two" as they say. Your keen observation is duly noted however...
Food for thought, VET(thanks for the service BTW) "gold money ideally..." You know, you have the ability to buy gold now, If tomorrow the Treasury announced "US Federal Reserve notes are again redeemable in gold bullion coins, at current spot plus seniorage direct from the mint, minimum of $500,000 to redeem" would you consider that a win? I'd guess they'd make damn sure J6P wasn't in on that redemption, thus the minimum qty USD redeemed. Well you can redeem as little as $200 as of right now go to the mint's web site and/or find a dealer or order direct larger qty. Catching my point? They could do this anytime, but it's already in place and the currency too plentiful to redeem it all. Bill Still explains, well, IMO, why it's that the notes need to be produced, by Congressional authority, by the Treasury directly, not a gold standard attached to these current notes we use.
continued...I think they need to simply do this, make a coin say nickel size 40% gold, 60% silver, call it what it's been called forever..."electrum"(look it up) and stamp it at denominations of say $500.00. Viola, it doesnt infringe the constitutional definitions of metal per dollar, etc, cause it's not a single metal! BTW you'd still be cheaper to just buy a damn gold or silver eagle from the mint, now!
GDP is a meaningless quantity. The Federal government spends as much as every citizen of the United States combined.
You forgot the 23% VAT on the continent petriddish. And rather than expecting the rest of us to pay for your phone and driving fees, why don't you smell the coffee and realize we all have to, like, work for a living.
You said 47% of AMERICAN households pay no tax, but they all pay something. If I have $1000 and pay $300 in taxes, I have $700 in remaining purchasing power. If I have $1000 and my purchasing power is reduced by $300 due to inflation created to benefit banks and big business I have paid the same tax.
No one asked you to pay for my driving.
At least stay on point.
The "left" is not defined by what government payments you receive. You are suggesting that as soon as you get, say, unemployment you are "left"? Corporations receive far more relief than individuals.
And that is corporatism; fascism.
You don't even need to be nuanced and talked about socialism for the rich. The Red leaning States receive far more federal tax dollars than the Blue "left" states as a whole. http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelpinto/2987025203/.
One of the leaders of the welfare queen states is super GOP supporter Alaska, which gave us none other than Sarah Commie Hater Palin. Alaska takes in almost twice what it pays in taxes. Get out of my way, government! I need more Blue State money!
This is nonsense, and that source is shit. Its pretty clear you dont have the curiosity or the brainpower to look into this further, you saw what you wanted to. Lets look a little deeper, eh?
It links to the Tax Foundation that shows these figures. What are their sources?
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html
Well, gee, as source it lists themselves with no links, and the Census Bureau, also with no links. Any college freshman taking Tiddlywinks 101 would fail miserably for this level of unsourced, unsubstantiated bullshit. So, what is the reality?
The Census does publish info on what states receive- at least it did, but the current adminstration canceled this report lest the proles actually learn something. maybe this is what the Tax Foundation used, but who knows? They dont say. This is the Consolidated Funds Report, 2010 is the last year available.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/cffr-10.pdf
Table 13 shows how much was spent for all reasons in each state. This includes all pensions, military, social security, procurement, whatever- the entire sum of federal money sent to a state for all purposes under the sun.
Well, first tax collections from the IRS, 2010 stats listed here-
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=206488,00.html
An analysis of money sent vs. received shows quite clearly that only a small handful of states are net donors. They are (in descending order)-
1) New Jersey- 37,952,547,000 2) Minnesota- 23,634,129,000 3) Delaware-7,251,877,000 4) Nebraska- 1,109,943,000 5) Illinois- 1,071,760,000 6) Ohio- 34,026,000
Only the first three are really getting hosed, Nebraska and Illinois get slightly hosed, and Ohio is pretty much break even at 34 mill.
Now, who really gets the big money from Uncle Sugar? Top 5:
1) Virginia- 78,128,254,000 (there goes the surplus from all the above) The vast creeping Federal bureaucracy makes its homes there, and it also has the Naval facility at Newport News
2) Florida- 75,339,258,000 3) California- 60,455,894,000 4) Maryland- 48,588,785,000 5) Pennsylvania- 44,075,246,000
Ratios of dollars received vs. sent-
Lowest (who get the least) by ratio:
1) Delaware- .53 2) Minnesota- .65 3) New Jersey- .68 4) Illinois- .99 5) Ohio- 1.00
Everyone else gets more then they send.
5 who get the most by ratio:
1) New Mexico- $3.67 2) West Virginia- $3.58 3) Mississippi- $3.48 4) DC- $3.37 5) Hawaii- $3.32
Ratio is a little sketchy as an analysis tool, a small state with military bases, alot of military members, alot of retirees, or something like that can have an unusually high ratio. I suspect NM gets cranked up with border enforcement expenditures and Hawaii by the naval presence. Regionally, the South has a very outsized military enlistment rate while California and New England are very undersized, this can distort numbers on both sides as can all the Northern retirees who head south (this really blows up the numbers for Florida).
Alaska has OIL and is a NET EXPORTER OF IT Mr. "so called Randian." That "welfare state" as you call it also produces PRODIGIOUS quantities of food "for all those blue state hoity -toities." If you looked at PRICES in Alaska you might ask "why does everything cost so much here?" It ain't transportation costs that's fer sure!
Aren't Alaskans supposed to be rugged individualists and all of that, with their snow machines and their dog sleds? Do the Alaskan people take credit for the oil in the ground that support their freeloading lifestyles? How does Sarah Palin get away with talking about government handouts being a bad thing when her home state is literally one of the top takers of the handouts, when her state is also blessed with abundant natural resources?
A piddly US $133 a month for food money, and no other benefits, with unemployment insurance totally expiring after 2 years, and no health insurance for 50 million or whatever people, is not 'socialist' living.
These scrimpy social benefits in one of the richest countries of the world, and yet the most un-equal country in the developed world (along with Israel), is hardly 'leftism'.
Those benefits are a small sop to keep the US people from outright revolution, along with running the gulag of 2.3 million prisoners - 25% of all the world's prisoners - with the courts jailing innocent people and backing a system of terror against the politically dissident.
And it seems that 'Obamacare' is a fraud which will still leave tens of millions without health care, while robbing the middle class of thousands in fees every year to further impoverish them, and to profit oligarchs who own US insurance and medical companies.
In several countries in my part of the world, we essentially have Zero poverty among any legal resident. Everyone has a minimal income, a decent modest life, and health care, at the very least. When you start to approach that, the European success story, why it is so nice to live here, that is when you have 'leftism' finally at work.
And yet with all our socialism, 1 out of every 140 Belgians is a millionaire. In the USA, 1 out of every 140 Americans is in prison.
sorry dupe
The entire movie we are watching here on ZH TV for the past few years is coming to a conclusion. As it plays out we shall see if all those wonderful benefits promised the people can be paid...or if they were all lies aimed at getting elected. The USA is anti socialist not because we have been propagandized but because we see that everything the government tries to do it fucks up. We believe the Milton Friedman story...buy a gift for yourself and you will pay attention to price and quality; buy it for someone else and only price matters: buy it for someone else with someone elses money and neither price nor quality matter...that's government...and why we barely tolerate it.
those benefits can be cut as well. "Just ask the Greeks...and now Spain."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYllEjiQ3SQ&feature=player_detailpage
wikipedia: On January 1, 2008 more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States were in prison or jail.[
and the majority of people i speak to see no problem with this, infact they think it is GOOD! more people in prison, less problems on the street.
The real mystery is how poor and middle class whites have been convinced to vote AGAINST their economic interests for the last generation or so in the US, Bush tax cuts for the ultra-rich, Medicare giveaways for Big Pharma, the War on Afghani Goat Herders, the War for Libyan Gold, the War on Nothing in Yemen, the War on Drugs etc etc but also Clinton's dismantling of Glass Steagal, now Obomba and his War on the Constitution, War to Bail Bank Robosigners, the list is endless. All they have to do is wave a flag, create some fear and greed, then distract everybody with birth certificates and dogs on car roofs or Indonesian dinner plates. 8 friggin 75 per hour is the *median* wage in the US, think about that for a minute. How refreshing to see France, where they have a semblance of political alternatives on offer. Le Pen *named Goldman and the banksters by name* and said they must be stopped and she gets 20% of the vote, especially young people.
And don't start telling me about "ooh bad socialism", we already have socialism in the US but it's the banks, the corporations, and the military who are lined up receiving all the giveaways while the rest of us get the wrong end of the capitalist stick.
So yes bankguy you are right Americans have not the first clue what real socialism would mean for them and their families and kids. The repubs are so far right that Reagan would be considered a leftie, and the Dems are just the same hopeless puppets of The Machine. It's the Machine itself that is the threat to actual people going to work paying taxes paying bills and living actual lives.
We need another politician like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hphgHi6FD8k&feature=related
Ha ha. In America we have a fucked up socialist/fascist police state.
Boil the frog slowly, Goldman!
It's a nice model, except for that pesky "sustainability" part.
And, as I believe, you also have the Global Computer known as "The Beast". Belgium LOVES socialism. Yes, America has grave problems but at least we weren't made to "Lick the boots of the Nazis" such as you guys did...
We just lick the boots of bankers and sign over our future income and the incomes of our descendants. The Nazi's were'nt as effective in their plundering.
The, uh, nazis KILLED TENS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, but I guess that doesn't count as plundering, even where they stole the houses, property, gold fillings AND lives of around 6 million homos, jews, gypsies and retards.
So does the USA. The gubbermint has kept it overseas until the NDAA.
correction in the USA 1 in 31 adults are under some form of correction, be it incarceration, probation or parole.
http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=49398
yes, this is a socialist country.
A jingoist, super massive corporate-nationalist-socialism, beyond whose event horizon exists nothing but the death-poverty singularity.
Which by definition is socialism no more.
+17 dictionaries
If there is no left or socialism in the US, then why does the vast majority of the budget revolve around socialist programs like social security, medicare and medicade, this doesn't include the postal service, amtrack or various other unconstitutional spending.
pie chart
And with O'numb-nut, we now have the biggest boondogle in history unfortunately called Obamacare.
How much more leftist national-socialism do you need?
We hang the banksters.
Corporate tax revenus are at a generational low while income is up. Tax rates for the wealthy are far lower than just a few decades ago, across the board. Yet middle class income adjusted for inflation is way down, so we can now say with certainty that trickle down doesn't work. The defense budget is bigger than the rest of the world combined. Literally trillions are sent to the banks in exchange for worthless mortgages so that the elite can pay themselves giant bonuses. So yes, let's blame the poor and the middle class. Clearly their fault for expecting the wealthiest economy on earth to provide basic health care, education and eventual retirement that does not entail greeing people at Wal-Mart.
I'd like to send you to a true workers paradise, Pajama Boy's Illuminated Son, North Korea.
And don't forget the free-market capitalist paradises ... minimal government ... lowest taxes in the world ...
Somalia
Afghanistan
We must stay there to defend the Opium for the Queen!
How else can the PTB finance their shit?