French Elections 2017

Idiosyncratic said:
Not supporting wealth redistribution = not caring about the 'losers' of globalisation? :wtf:
Is wealth redistribution the only means to the end?
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The people that (usually) lose out in globalisation = unskilled or low-skilled workers. How are you going to help them without engaging in some form of wealth redistribution?
 
OrbitalDawn said:
The people that (usually) lose out in globalisation = unskilled or low-skilled workers. How are you going to help them without engaging in some form of wealth redistribution?
Click to expand...

Wealth redistribution leads to a very Robin Hood styled mentality on things, and people how didn't do any evil are disadvantaged. The issue is that the 1%'s wealth generally isn't redistributed through contemporary socialist methods. Taxes? I pay taxes, but the wealthy get away with almost nothing. Confiscation is foolish as it destroys the economy - so that doesn't work either?
What then, we look at economic growth and reform as a solution. Rome wasn't built in one day, and there's no quick solution that'll benefit the unskilled and low-skilled workers in the long term without adding to their numbers. We need to implement policy which grows the economy at the base also. If economic development takes place, then yes, the richest get richer, but new jobs are created. People have numerous opportunities to be educated, but if they don't use them, then not much will change either. You can't have functional capitalism with perfect balance between everyone regardless of occupation and effort. The issue is that we don't have functional capitalism - it's artificial and the banking cartels are destroying the most vulnerable's livelihoods. Gone are the days where any man can open a business and make a success out of it - the economic climate and regulations just don't allow it anymore, and it's sad, because poor families find it near impossible to get themselves out of poverty. Welfare isn't a long term solution either, as the mindset of people change and we don't see solutions, just a demand for more welfare.

So there are there are more ways than one to skin a cat - whether we agree with the effectiveness of these ways or not doesn't change that they exist.

SA's own Mcebisi Jonas proposed functional plans to benefit the poor before he got axed...
 
NarrowBandFtw said:
Yeah French farmers are doing great in the EU: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-farmers-block-roads-in-protest-at-huge-drop-in-milk-and-pork-prices-following-russian-trade-a6875581.html
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The farmers are always on strike in France.

EU or not. France gets what they ask from the EU for our farmers, if our government doesn't ask the right time, it's the government's incompetence, not the EU's.

Here's an entire book about their strikes in the 1960s.

https://www.cairn.info/load_pdf_do_not_index.php?ID_ARTICLE=HSR_041_0089
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Heh.

Also, usual The_Donald intelligence on display.

C_Py3sEVYAASgnj.jpg:large
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:wtf: :crylaugh:
 
Macron showing some self-awareness... largely absent from the gushing tones of the Western media who don't really understand how the French presidential system works...Yes he got 2/3rds of the vote but different to the ANC getting 2/3rds.

Mr. Macron seems aware that his large victory isn’t a large mandate, that the pressure is now on to ensure that France’s reprieve from the National Front is not just a temporary one. “If I fail to solve” France’s problems “or fail to offer a solid start to solving them, in five years it will be even worse,” he told the left-wing news website Mediapart on Friday night. “What nourishes the National Front will be even more virulent,” he added.

Without an established party behind him, Mr. Macron’s most immediate hurdle will be in June’s legislative elections for France’s Parliament. He has promised to field candidates in all 577 parliamentary districts, but whether he can do so is unclear. Nor is it clear how many Socialists will support his program.

The National Front could win as many as 100 seats in the new Parliament, according to some analyses, making it a formidable opposition party. Indeed, even as Ms. Le Pen was soundly defeated on Sunday, she still managed a showing that not too long ago would have been unthinkable. And in her concession, she made it clear that she was already looking toward the parliamentary elections, and the future.

Then there is the potential opposition represented by Mr. Mélenchon, who won in some of France’s biggest cities — Marseille, Toulouse and Lille — and is already claiming the mantle of Mr. Macron’s principal opponent on the left. His voters, as much as Ms. Le Pen’s, do not trust Mr. Macron.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/07/...-won-france.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&src=trending
 
Idiosyncratic said:
Wealth redistribution leads to a very Robin Hood styled mentality on things, and people how didn't do any evil are disadvantaged. The issue is that the 1%'s wealth generally isn't redistributed through contemporary socialist methods. Taxes? I pay taxes, but the wealthy get away with almost nothing. Confiscation is foolish as it destroys the economy - so that doesn't work either?
What then, we look at economic growth and reform as a solution. Rome wasn't built in one day, and there's no quick solution that'll benefit the unskilled and low-skilled workers in the long term without adding to their numbers. We need to implement policy which grows the economy at the base also. If economic development takes place, then yes, the richest get richer, but new jobs are created. People have numerous opportunities to be educated, but if they don't use them, then not much will change either. You can't have functional capitalism with perfect balance between everyone regardless of occupation and effort. The issue is that we don't have functional capitalism - it's artificial and the banking cartels are destroying the most vulnerable's livelihoods. Gone are the days where any man can open a business and make a success out of it - the economic climate and regulations just don't allow it anymore, and it's sad, because poor families find it near impossible to get themselves out of poverty. Welfare isn't a long term solution either, as the mindset of people change and we don't see solutions, just a demand for more welfare.

So there are there are more ways than one to skin a cat - whether we agree with the effectiveness of these ways or not doesn't change that they exist.

SA's own Mcebisi Jonas proposed functional plans to benefit the poor before he got axed...
Click to expand...

This is a lot of words that don't actually answer the question. Whichever way you want to 'skin the cat' to help unskilled or low-skileld workers you'll have to use tax funds to do so, i.e. a means of a wealth distribution.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
This is a lot of words that don't actually answer the question. Whichever way you want to 'skin the cat' to help unskilled or low-skileld workers you'll have to use tax funds to do so, i.e. a means of a wealth distribution.
Click to expand...

Writing policy requires tax funds for the ink required to write with...I'll give you that. But that's not wealth redistribution in my book. Also, deregulation and decreasing taxes stimulates economic growth (whether we think this is ideal or not is a different story), again, not wealth redistribution in the contemporary political sense of the word.
 
Idiosyncratic said:
Writing policy requires tax funds for the ink required to write with...I'll give you that. But that's not wealth redistribution in my book. Also, deregulation and decreasing taxes stimulates economic growth (whether we think this is ideal or not is a different story), again, not wealth redistribution in the contemporary political sense of the word.
Click to expand...

It generally doesn't, actually. It's the age old 'trickle down' voodoo economics spiel that never works. It wrecked the Kansas economy, just recently.

But still, if you want to help low skilled or unskilled workers you'll have to either retrain them, subsidise the industries they work in, hike minimum wage, give them health benefits that they can't get without work usually etc. All of this requires tax funds, which is a means of wealth redistribution. That's why progressive tax systems exist and work.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
It generally doesn't, actually. It's the age old 'trickle down' voodoo economics spiel that never works. It wrecked the Kansas economy, just recently.
Click to expand...

I said whether we think it's ideal or not isn't relevant to the point.

My personal opinion? Economic growth and development at the base is ultimately the only sustainable long term solution. You can't play Robin Hood and then expect the structure to remain intact - capitalism itself is designed to counter any attempts to thwart it, hence the need for the artificial stimulus and control we see today. This is unnatural, and is setting us up for disaster. Raising the minimum wage hasn't sparked any significant economic growth I'm aware of, instead, countries which seem like shining beacons of its implementation for the most part only implemented it after reaching a form of economic maturity. If the market dictates a value, you can't counter this with minimum wage and think that there'll be no negative effects. Mark my words, history will judge us as fools should we continue down the path we've begun journeying on. Hard work, not education, should be (and originally was) the determining factor in career advancement and career opportunities.

As for the trickle down voodoo you talk of, it works in an economy without mega conglomerates manipulating markets...it just doesn't happen overnight.

If you look closely at the so-called "progressive tax systems" of countries like NZ, you'll notice sirens going off. They may seem to work now, but somewhere the bubble will pop - you just can't farm backwards forever and hope to get away with it.
 
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