[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[Lago PARANOIA]

So. TGDs.

Could anyone living in:

The UK
Australia
Canada
Chile
Brazil
Japan

Give Lago their personal opinion on the politics and prospects of the political parties in their country?

[Koumei]

Sure. We have Labour, which is centre-Right, and Liberal, which is far-Right. Also there are the Greens, which are seriously looking like they might start to become contenders for the real elections in the future, simply because the other parties are so fucking awful.

The Greens tend to absorb every Socialist or Communist party that rocks up, so is centre-Left, and also covers environmental concerns and the like. But they cop a lot of flak because "Abloobloobloo they won't use nuclear reactors, OR THE MIGHTY CURE-ALL WONDER-POWER-SOURCE OF THORIUM FAP FAP FAP. They just want to stop using electricity!"

Then there are all these other parties that nobody really gives a toss about. There used to be one Crazy Racist Party (One Nation, led by Pauline Hanson, who we shipped off to England so that she can be the immigrant). Now there are new ones cropping up every other week, so between that and the leader of Liberal making a stance to "STOP THE BOATS" (refugees), Labour thinks it needs to take measures to appeal to the crazy racist demographic of the country.

Which to be fair is probably a large portion of this awful country.

The Crazy Racist Parties are always, without fail, Christian parties as well. Now I'm not saying Christianity and insanity & racism go hand in hand, but... actually I am saying that. We also have, and I shit you not, the Australian Climate Change Sceptics Party. As in, there are seriously Australians who don't think Global Warming is a real thing, even though you can fucking measure it on a year-to-year basis in this country. Presumably they don't have a memory.

As for our economy... well, I'll put it this way. Our previous PM, at the start of the economic crisis, basically just gave everyone a wad of cash and said to go spend it on plasma televisions or whatever. Maybe as a result of this, maybe not, we managed to get through the situation without particularly noticing it, and didn't have a massive crisis. Granted, it's still hard to find any kind of job, but the situation isn't like it was in America, Japan etc. and is in Europe. And for a while our dollar was stronger than the US dollar, and these days it's basically even, which is awesome for figuring out how much stuff will cost when ordering online - just like when $1AUD equalled 100 yen.

So in short, economically we're not doing amazingly well, but we've managed to stay afloat and didn't get hit as hard as... just about anyone else. By the time our news stations were saying "Uh, things are a little tight, don't eat that second slice of cake just yet", British ones were wearing sack cloth and screaming "Oh god, a baby had to sell its eyes to pay for its teeth, we're all in RUINS!"

Are we like the only part of the British Empire still intact?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Canada is doing pretty swell, but when are they not doing pretty swell? I was under the impression that India is on an upward trend. And Ghana does look like it has a good shot at joining the post-industrial nations in a few decades.

[Juton]

Canada is doing pretty swell, but when are they not doing pretty swell? I was under the impression that India is on an upward trend. And Ghana does look like it has a good shot at joining the post-industrial nations in a few decades.

WRT Canada, Harper (Conservative) keeps fucking shit up. Lately he's said that same sex marriages performed in Canada are only valid for Canadians. It's still kind of unclear what that means. I don't know if it scores him any points with his base or if he just performed this dickish move for his own pleasure.

In related dickish moves the Conservatives have eliminated the Canadian wheat board, the board was a monopoly that made sure farmers got a fair price for their wheat. Considering that farmers are usually considered Conservative voters this move can't appeal to his voter base, he did it either to appeal to monied interests or to just be a dick.

There's more, a lot more, hopefully he gets voted out in the next 3-4 years, but that's a long time to wait.

[Zinegata]

Pfft. I scoff at your limited list of countries . (j/k)

[PhoneLobster]

Koumei has... missed a lot of stuff let me fill in some details.

We do Hippie Punching Too

But they cop a lot of flak because ...

They cop a lot of flak for being "hippies" the "punch a hippie" reflex ingrained heavily into complete idiots by decades of right wing propaganda is now so deeply ingrained as to be vicious, senseless and hair trigger. The Greens would like to save some trees? They are hippies they need punching they will be punched on every issue for no reason and the hippie punchers will align diametrically opposed to every Greens policy for no other reason than to try and punch more hippies no matter how hard the punching hurts themselves.

Lago should be familiar with this phenomenon it is pretty much global and pretty damn similar in its raw stupidity.

Unlike You we have minor parties, it's totally cool, sort of

Then there are all these other parties that nobody really gives a toss about.

And this in passing is actually a really important point that touches on the political prospects and horse race question Lago posed.

Australia has minor political parties. We have independent elected representatives at basically all levels of politics and also numerous political parties other than the big two many of which have LESS public support and actual elected representatives than many single individual independents.

See importantly we have a really rather nice electoral system and you CAN in fact vote for third parties without throwing your vote away.

But it is not that simple.

We have, especially at a state level in NSW a plethora of stupid usually conservative bullshit parties.

We seriously have parties like the "Fishers and Shooters Party" a party for morons who actually believe their "rights" to kill random animals in the wilderness are in fact so important as to trump every other issue they might vote on. We have sporting recreational vehicle parties, we have a dozen little racist asshole parties and parties that are little more than a motherhood statement for a name with a single front man and a Post Office box.

Many, MANY of these parties are not actually legitimate real political parties. They were founded with NO intention of ever winning ANY election. Many of them were NOT even founded with ANY intention of even gaining political power with which to influence parties that DO win elections.

Many of them are created in bulk batches by conservative party operatives as a way of catching fringe conservative (and long time "I vote Donald Duck" nutter types) votes and syphoning them via the preference system DIRECTLY into the pockets of the major conservative parties, primarily the Liberal National alliance.

Which is certainly an interesting quirk of Australian electoral politics.

On the other hand third parties in Australia have real political power and clout. Especially at the federal level. The Democrat party for instance used to be "The third party (other than the Nationals who don't count)" until they spectacularly sold out to John Howard, took the blame for his massively unpopular tax, had serious bitch fights with BOTH their most popular members (and best prospects for future or even PRESENT party leadership) in succession and then as a basically direct result of their actions disintegrated rather promptly into nothingness.

Meanwhile we have the Family First party. A party formed by a crazy evangelical "third wave" cult called Hillsong Church, a scary scary nasty bunch. It was a faky manufactured party. They would bus Hillsong church members all over the country to pretend to have local crowds, the whole shebang. They were manufactured exclusively to gain control of a swing vote in a close senate and leverage it into massively disproportionate power. They succeeded.

Politics in Australia suddenly started seeing a number of small but often nasty, and insane bits of legislation being passed off as gifts to the Family First crowd. Like for instance our federally mandated extra large cup size in Australian porn. (Yes, Really)

This lead to the formation of another remarkably influential minor party in Australian Politics. The Australian "Sex Party". A party formed largely by sex workers and their advocates dedicated primarily directly to the downfall of the Family First party. They too did pretty damn well at their intended goal. And succeeded well enough that if they stick around by the time the Greens are close to major party status the Sex Party may well be the like minded minor party they form a coalition with to take government.

Yes. That's right in the distant future Australia COULD in fact be ruled by a 'Green Sex' coalition government.


Two Major Parties? Sort of...
SPEAKING OF WHICH. We do not in fact have just two major political parties in Australia. And I am NOT talking about the rise of the Greens.

Because here in Australia our conservative party has been sufficiently on the defensive against Labour that they were forced to form a coalition with the next biggest conservative party in order to actually win, well, any elections, for a very long time.

And while that has changed a bit they ARE still the "Liberal-National" coalition and not an actual single political party.

Now the Liberal party are a somewhat... odd... conservative party historically. Sure they are basically the ramshackle thrown together remains of the prior political era's aristocracy party rebranded for the more modern era of the 19th century (in the 20th century). But their... ideological excuses initially and briefly ran more towards libertarian craziness with a strong favoring of the rich mans rights ahead of anyone else.

The National Party was a party founded well before the Liberals essentially as a political front for the mobs of red necked thugs hired to beat the shit out of starving unionizing sheep farm laborers. No. Really. Their ideology was based on banjos, shot guns and a distrust of foreign devils, edumacation and city folks. And as such they have actually remained remarkably MORE true to their ideological roots than the Liberal party which is basically just the "Greedy stupid aristocrat party" these days.

The alliance was uncomfortable for many many years. But the liberal party NEEDED the National party for pretty much EVERY government they held and often by a large margin. Deals were struck, "the farmers" got stuff, often crazy fucking stuff.

Then along came Telstra and One Nation.

So on the one hand John Howard and the Liberal party stabbed the Nationals in the back. They pulled out a MASSIVELY unpopular privatization program for our national telecommunications network. It was... massively MORE unpopular "in the country" because those guys knew they would be the FIRST TO BE SCREWED, and hard, and forever by privatization. After all telecommunications in the outback are ludicrously unprofitable. Howard rammed it all through. And the Nationals, in allowing him to do so, utterly decimated their own electoral support.

Around the same time, it's hard to say because the telstra thing was going for YEARS in various ridiculous "maybe if we cut it into pieces and hide it in tiny lollies" phases, the One Nation party arose. A redneck party MORE red neck than the party founded for rednecks who liked to beat up sheep shearers.

One Nation basically picked up all the dissatisfied red necks fleeing the Nationals and ate them for breakfast. In another country it would have been a scary moment in a potential rise to facism.

In Australia with our rural redneck population being pretty damn isolated, scattered and small it was probably never going to be a facist revolution, but it was ugly for a while. Ugly, and hilarious, I mean "Pleaz Explain" but yeah, ugly.

One Nation didn't instantly win every election that hadn't even happened yet forever and the supporters, disappointing, confused and rapidly distracted by small shiny objects dispersed.

Then John Howard leader of the Liberal Party adopted massive portions of the policy and rhetoric of the One Nation party. He ran entire campaigns on basically beating up a giant racist panic about foreign devils on boats then promised horribly punitive punishment for refugees coming to our nation.

Some people may dispute this but during the ABC election coverage major Liberal party figures (I think the one it might actually have been fucking Tony Abott himself) responded on national TV to the accusation of the lifting of One Nation Policies for political advantage with "Well you are just jealous because WE succeeded!".

At elections which were looking dangerously close Howard saved his quivering whining ass, saved his party, got the racist vote locked up and got it locked up for the Liberal party directly. And this last is important. In the PAST the NATIONAL party was the distasteful front man for the racist red neck vote. The liberals pretended to be above that and lamely wrist slapped the Nationals for speaking out in various racist ways but then shared in the benefits of racist electoral support through a coalition.

But NOW they no longer NEEDED the racist redneck front man party. Well, not much, and if the nationals couldn't get things done when they were strong they were getting dick all done now!

The results of all this remain up in the air, many nationals went independent, there was much talk of abandoning the coalition, elsewhere talk of merging it, no one seems to know what the fuck is going on in Queensland previously the one place were it used to be more "National Liberal" than "Liberal National".


The Ministerial Incompetence Defence
Speaking of the racist anti refugee bullshit. It is a MAJOR shaping issue in Australian politics. You guys do it too, so does Britain and France, but Australia fucking OBSESSES over this.

The full story is pretty scandal ridden and insane. But the most important thing to come out of it was that as the source of arguable ever second ministerial scandal to plague the remarkably scandal ridden Howard regime it was one of the prime grounds upon which the Ministerial Incompetence Defence was tested and proven.

See Australia doesn't just let our politicians go totally fuck nuts. There are rules ESPECIALLY for Ministers and Prime Ministers and so on.

Things about lying and about ministerial misconduct and crap. And the thing is John Howard and his top ministers kept getting caught out in serious and obvious cases of misconduct. Time and time again documents, phone records and witness accounts by major public servants indicated various forms of serious ministerial misconduct.

Heads SHOULD have rolled. A lot. But see as it turns out Ministerial Incompetence is actually permissible. So whenever Johnny or one of his henchemen was AGAIN up in front of an inquiry they need only pull out "I must have forgotten", "I do not recall" or the even simpler "I don't know" in response to everything. This became such a wide spread cop out that it became a joke.

Unfortunately it was a water tight joke that CAN still be used to this day. I think it is a major sleeper of procedural politics in Australia and those that shrugged and laughed it off haven't seen anything yet. After all we would only need Tony Abbot come to power, a man who a minister that in fact somehow survived ACTUALLY being OPENLY in defiance of parliament for some extended time in order to see a return to the days of "I do not remember ever seeing those incriminating documents".

We keep having late night back room coupes and waking up with a new prime minister/premier/whatever

Labour thinks it needs to take measures to appeal to the crazy racist demographic of the country.

Well. Some of labor. Did you know we had a major coupe in federal politics a while back, shortly before the last (for labor disastrous) election the then labor prime minister was overthrown in the middle of the night and replaced with a puppet of the far right "political strategists" (actually political incompetents but they think of themselves as masterminds).

The thing is WHY that happened. Now it is widely touted that the Mining Tax is what brought Rudd Down. In a time of economic disparity where most Australian's are struggling but the mines and miners are raking it in, when Mining Companies are more hated than ever before, amidst an economic crisis in the offing... During the ideal political climate to put through a fucking vital mining tax the Labour Party hard right "strategists" shat their pants in terror at the "vote losing" strategy of taking money from one of the most hated segments of Australian industry and putting it into everyone else's pockets.

BUT. Actually while that IS true, Rudd had just come off the back of a major labor party meeting where he had given a speach about refugee policy. Basically he said the detention camps were barbaric and more importantly a total political loss for labor and the ONLY way to kill the issue was to shut the camps down act responsibly, marginalise the racist vote and take away the giant racist wooden leg propping up the failing conservative coalition.

The Labor "Strategists" shat their pants even further and basically over threw him in the depths of that very same night. Pretty much the FIRST comment out of Gillards lips was that she "didn't think it was racist to be concerned about boat people".

She proceeded to very nearly lose the unlosable election against the most unpopular political opponent she could have hoped for. Brilliant strategy... you "strategists".


The Current State Of Affairs
But Koumie didn't mention that the result of our last federal election was so close between the major parties that neither could form government. They needed to round up independents, and the Greens, to do so.

Which meant labor won because NO ONE wanted to deal with the mad monk. The most conservative nut bag asshole red neck independent involved basically said "I cannot possible deal with Abott and COULD deal with labor, but I want to punch hippies at any cost so I am dealing with NO ONE" then everyone else promptly cut their deals with labor and formed government.

And deals WERE cut. And the Greens got themselves some actual real concessions. Which is probably good news for labor because come the next election the ONLY vote winning ANYTHING they have visible gotten done has in fact been in the form of those very concessions. Well. That and the broad band network.

And the next election is going to be interesting the Greens have proven themselves a major power. As a third party actually getting shit done is a MAJOR step on the road to replacing a failing major party and ALL THREE major parties are struggling in Australia! The Nationals are just short of dead. The Liberals have yet to seriously recover since the massive hit they took from the John Howard work choices embarrassment. And Labor has shot themselves in the foot SO much and seems SO intent on doing it AGAIN AND AGAIN that they are losing state governments like red shirts on an alien planet and can barely hold federal against the most unlikable liberal party leader next to an actual literal slimy rotten no good snake.

Other Stuff

there are seriously Australians who don't think Global Warming is a real thing, even though you can fucking measure it on a year-to-year basis in this country. Presumably they don't have a memory.

Seriously. These people are crazy. I mean it's fucking hot hear. 2 extra degrees means vast regions of the country become uninhabitable. Even modest projections are claiming that Perth will soon be uninhabitable by humans without airconditioning. Not to mention also out of water. As in like drained every drop of aquifer for as far as modern engineering can feasibly reach.

As for our economy... well, I'll put it this way.

Er. No.

I mean, sure may have helped. But the point about the Australian economy is two fold.

1) We are in the midst of a resources boom. We are a "mine things out of holes in the ground" nation. We are booming.
This means MASSIVE stimulus to our economy, unfortunately targeted largely at mines and miners, meaning we have a "two economies" problem where the Miners are raking it in and EVERYONE ELSE in Australia is living in an economic crisis. But without an adequate mining tax that will REMAIN a problem.

2) We did the right thing.
More so that almost ANY western nation we DID do stimulus and we did it better than basically anyone. It has been good, large and persistent. And it REALLY HELPED. The labor government took the political risk that Abott never would have and actually remained in deficit to do it. They are now probably ending that policy a little to soon, but LESS too soon and LESS ending it than most other austerity obsessed basket cases of the western world.

The secret hidden point three on the list of 2 however is that our own local housing bubble crisis is yet to fully break. We STILL have serious housing price issues. And it STILL deforms our economy and hurts people, and it is still gonna bust one of these days.

Are we like the only part of the British Empire still intact?

Considering most of the other ones are only now independent parts of the "former british empire club" or "Commonwealth" and WE are still an actual honest to god subservient colony, well, sure, close enough.

[Koumei]

I figured Lago wanted mostly recent things. Hence not mentioning the "They threw their own babies off the boats! No we didn't photoshop that, honest!" incident, or the government selling the infrastructure off as fast as they could. But I suppose the details of Rudd getting backstabbed and a robotginger tosser replacing him are pretty relevant. After all, she still runs the country is Prime Minister.

[PhoneLobster]

the "They threw their own babies off the boats! No we didn't photoshop that, honest!" incident

Oh I NEARLY did the whole "history of children over board" starting with the Tampa and rolling through Children over board, that queensland women who had a stroke and was deported to the phillipines, that sydney women with a mental disabillity who was imprisoned and raped, children in detention, and so on and so on and all the enquiries and so on.

But really the important thing to bring out of all that is that Australia has a lot of potential for Ministerial accountability, much more so than the US system, but John Howard spent years shooting that repeatedly in the foot with the Ministerial Incompetence defense and his endlessly repeated claim that he and his entire cabinette were a bunch self admitted incompetent clowns with the five minute memories of apocryphal gold fish, and that particular defense REMAINS VALID as Australia walks forward into potentially interesting times.

[Josh_Kablack]

We seriously have parties like the "Fishers and Shooters Party" a party for morons who actually believe their "rights" to kill random animals in the wilderness are in fact so important as to trump every other issue they might vote on[/i

Given that they are an Aussie party and therefore interested in shooting Austalian animals - isn't that a good thing ?

[Koumei]

Actually, while I at first thought it was hilarious - picture the following:
Reporter: so, what's your stance on the financial crisis?
Candidate: we like to fish!
Reporter: I... see... how about the current mining industry?
Candidate: we like to fish!
Reporter: um... okay then, refugees?
Candidate: we like to fish!

The fact is that they are also a crazy racist party. They pretty much want to do the Texas thing of building a big old wall... around the entire country. So them damn foreigners don't get in.

[PhoneLobster]

They pretty much want to do the Texas thing of building a big old wall.

A wall around a whole continent, in the sea, spanning several oceans.

But really while the "I like to fish" thing is true and disturbing these parties pretty much are often as not just 1 or 2 guys the minimal legal requirements to be a registered political party, and a cynical plan to filter the votes of dumbasses directly into the pockets of major mainstream conservatives.

Often without even making ANY policy demands in exchange for that electoral influence.

[tzor]

I'm not sure what is so odd about the "Fishers and Shooters Party." Imagine in the United States if the NRA (that's National Rifle Association) formed their own political party. Just because you do label a party based on one of your planks does not mean the party has only one plank.

Besides, New York still has the first place with the infamous "The Rent is too Damn High" party!

[Josh_Kablack]

Actually, while I at first thought it was hilarious - picture the following:

Oh, so they are only slightly less nuanced than US republicans, who will answer those questions thusly:

Reporter: so, what's your stance on the financial crisis?
Candidate: Capital Gains Tax Cuts! (will spur the economy)
Reporter: I... see... how about the current mining industry?
Candidate: Smaller Government! (end intrusive regulation)
Reporter: um... okay then, refugees?
Candidate: Welfare Cheats!

[tzor]

I'm going to post this one without comment (well much comment) Francois Hollande vows to make rich pay for financial crisis

So, does he have a shot?

[Vnonymous]

The "left wing" party in Australia is run by a bunch of faceless, unelected men who decide everything about the party and are complete morons. Thanks to wikileaks, we now know that a great PM of ours was backstabbed and torn down from the leadership position because he wasn't nice enough to the states, which got the "men in the shadows" nervous due to the deals they'd struck with the US embassy.

The "right wing" party is a complete joke and led by a clown, completely incapable of providing real opposition. They have no actual positions or arguments, they simply adopt the opposite of whatever the left wing party does, no matter whether or not they previously agreed with it or not.

[Username17]

The French women in my Infectious Disease class think that Hollande will probably win. Sarkozy is flailing. After four years of not fixing the crisis, he's finally agreed to the financial transaction tax to try to take the wind out of the Socialist's sails. But it's so close to the election that he is basically giving them momentum.

Sarkozy's chances of beating Hollande are about the same as his chances of not even making it to the runoff by having the right wing position taken by the Front National. In national polls last week, Hollande enjoyed a twenty point lead in runoff polls. The primary is in April and the runoff is in May, so Sarkozy could change that and doubtless will. But twenty points is twenty points. That's like Romney's lead over Huntsman.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Oh, neat, that's some nice news.

So if Hollande boots out Sarkozy and Socialists make some gains in the government, what does that mean for France?

[Username17]

Oh, neat, that's some nice news.

So if Hollande boots out Sarkozy and Socialists make some gains in the government, what does that mean for France?

Probably it means that they balance their budget in 2017 and stop hemorrhaging social safety net to do it. Hollande's prescription of increased taxes and increased spending is exactly what their economy needs. Extremely basic Macro economics analysis tells you that. In France, as in most of the rest of the world, the Leftists are generally more fiscally responsible than the Rightists.

The only real issue would be if Sarkozy manages to ram Angela Merkel's European Suicide Pact down the country's throat before the elections. That might make balancing the budget really hard because it would require the deficit to be slashed to 13 billion dollars in one year - and that's just not even possible without extreme actions that would jeopardize the recovery.

Basically, if Merkel gets her way, the whole Eurozone is fucked. And it doesn't really matter what the next French President does, because even if he saves France, it's just not realistic to expect Spain to reduce their deficit for $130 billion in one year while unemployment is over twenty percent. There's just nowhere for that money to come from. We could seriously see double digit GDP contractions in a bunch of countries, which would double dip recession the entire planet.

-Username17

[sabs]

Not much..
We have a saying in France.

Capitalism is the Abuse of Man by Man
Socialism is the exact opposite.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Capitalism is the Abuse of Man by Man
Socialism is the exact opposite.

... the Cherishing of Women by Women?

Excellente.

[tzor]

[THREAD DERAIL]

The French women in my Infectious Disease class think that Hollande will probably win.

For some reason that seems strangely funny. Of course if you remember that "in" means taking the class, the humor vanishes.

[/THREAD DERAIL]

What happens if the Socialists win? France goes down the drain and pulls all of Europe down with it. This will please the French becuse those annoying Americans under Obama have been trying to out French the French and no one does that!

I also predict the return of Madame Guillotine by 2020.

[DSMatticus]

Capitalism is the Abuse of Man by Man
Socialism is the exact opposite.

... the Cherishing of Women by Women?

Excellente.

Socialism sounds a lot sexier when you put it like that.

OOGA BOOGA BOO SOCIALISM IS THE HARBINGER OF THE APOCALYPSE

If that were anyone else, I would have thought it was sarcastic. Even from you, I have trouble believing that's not sarcastic.

[Gnosticism Is A Hoot]

What happens if the Socialists win? France goes down the drain and pulls all of Europe down with it. This will please the French becuse those annoying Americans under Obama have been trying to out French the French and no one does that!

I am finding it hard to imagine a perspective from which Obama's healthcare reforms look anything like the French system. Ditto employment rights and welfare regimes.

I also predict the return of Madame Guillotine by 2020.

Wouldn't that be the French trying to out-America the Americans?

[sabs]

Not to mention that France's Healthcare system is considered one of the best in the world One of the high points of the French Economy was during the 14 years of Socialist Rule in the 80's/early 90's.

[tzor]

Actually I wasn’t even thinking about healthcare, except in the abstract of the “socialist” notion that government is the enforcer of an aspect of a citizen’s quality of life which is then considered a “right” (having nothing whatsoever with the inalienable rights such as life, liberty and property … hey this is a French thread, I might as well use the French and not the Jeffersonian ones) of the citizen.

Clearly the imitation is never as good as the original, and in terms of social programs France is well above that of the United States. That’s not a good thing; the thing that sucks least still sucks. France’s protections for those currently employed discourage companies to hire more resulting in high unemployment (reaching a historical high of 11.80% in March 1994).

So what happens if they pull the class warfare card? As the old saying goes, it depends. The banks aren’t the most stable, but they aren’t the least stable either. But Europe is starting to become a single amorphous mass. If you start poking a billionaire Frenchman long enough he might not decide it’s worth it being a Frenchman. (This is a similar problem in the United States and is a major problem for states like New York and California. The super rich are leaving slowly but surely.) Then there is the question of tourism because the Mediterranean coast of France is still a magnet for the rich all over Europe. I’ve seen enough “house hunter” shows to know that the English love to retire in France. Well not if you start poking the rich hard enough. If you poke them they will leave. If you poke them they won’t come. Then how are you going to “balance the budget?” Corporations are super rich too and they too can both leave and not come. So where are you going to get your really money attracting industries?

The rich will be poorer, but the poor will be even poorer. And eventually the poor will revolt. And the last ones to lose their heads will be the ones who started the revolution. History always loves repeat performances.