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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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Boy there's apples to apples.
Here's the part where you explain Somalia's gubmint constriction of 'free markets'. Waiting.
Muslims don't believe in usary. No usary, no banks. Volia, theocracy, the religious government control of free markets.
Actually, Somalia has an excellent free market in weapon sales and Khat.
Khat
And, those pirates, ooh la la!
Usury is the word. You can bank without fixed returns, it's called islamic banking.
Just like Corzine at MF Global!
Sarko is one of our boys. Fuck Sarko.
Zooropa, vorsprung durch technik
Zooropa, be all that you can be
Meet our winner
Eat to get slimmer - U2
"Superbly ignored by the media until recently, Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the new flavour of the day in the French presidential campaign - latest reports put him at 17% of the vote.
Oratory is politically useless if one does not have an important message to deliver.
Mélenchon has one: neoliberalism has failed, so it would be suicidal to persist with its inadequate policies.
...he radically departs from mainstream politicians by explaining that the economic crisis is systemic, that is to say that it is due to our flawed political choices and priorities.
Our societies have never been as productive and wealthy as today, but the majority of the population are getting poorer despite working harder and harder.
The problem is not a question of wealth production (as neoliberals and Blairite social democrats would have us believe), but of redistribution of wealth.
In France raging pundits and opponents call the Left Front programme an “economic nightmare” or a “delirious fantasy”.
Shouldn’t they instead use this terminology to describe the banking debacle or austerity policies across Europe?
Mélenchon’s growing number of supporters view it as common sense and salutary:
a 100% tax on earnings over £300,000;
full pensions for all from the age of 60;
reduction of work hours;
a 20% increase in the minimum wage;
and the European Central Bank should lend to European governments at 1%, as it does for the banks.
Here are a few realistic measures to support impoverished populations.
Is this a revolution?
No, it is radical reformism;
an attempt to stop the most unbearable forms of economic domination and deprivation in our societies.
Fat cat bosses may leave France; they will be replaced by younger and more competent ones who will work for a fraction of their wages. (let them all move to the city or the lower eastside and eat icrap)
“Humans First!” is more than a manifesto title, it is a democratic imperative:
a sixth republic in place of the current republican monarchy;
the nationalisation of energy companies (as energy sources are public goods) and,
less often noticed, the ecological planning of the economy,
the core of Mélenchon’s political project.
Mélenchon has done French democracy a further favour.
In a memorable TV debate, he emphatically defeated the extreme right for the first time in 30 years.
Concentrating on policy details, Mélenchon demonstrated that Marine Le Pen’s programme was regressive for women.
Furthermore, he smashed to pieces the myth of the Front National as a party that has the working class’s best interests at heart.
Le Pen appeared lost for words and ill at ease.
Mélenchon’s campaign politicises the young.
He appeals to the working class, which, contrary to some claims, has largely shunned Le Pen and which has been abstaining from the vote.
For the first time in decades, Mélenchon is helping the left to reconnect with the popular classes.
For Mélenchon, free market politics does not work and inflicts unnecessary suffering on the people.
No other European politician is better placed than he is to convincingly argue that point."
Philippe Marlière is a Professor of French and European politics at University College London (UK). He can be reached at: p.marliere@ucl.ac.uk
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/17/the-left-radicalism-of-jean-luc-m...
One way or the other France and the French and their anti-French immigrants will know INCREASING misery. Sarko wants to kick the can down the road using different methods than Hollande or Melanchon, but to the degree any of them succeed in delaying the reckoning, the return of reality, the worse the return will be.
Knowing the French, their reaction to the accelerating decline will be a memorable burst of nationalist, scape-goating fervor, and prideful squalor with a sprinkling here and their of gleaming success to point to while things continue to get worse. The place is already a vast Potemptkin village.
The french are the french. They know what they want .. and fuck everyone else
This chart is helpful for others
http://s1159.photobucket.com/albums/p637/shroedingerskat/?action=view¤t=Aretheyaracist.jpg
Glenn Beck's screen name is silly, come on.
Macro and Cheese?
HOW many writers do you have on staff?