France doubles down on stupid

We all love to make jokes about the cheese eating surrender monkeys known as the French. I’ve done it myself on occasion. Ok, many many occasions. The problem is, the French make it so simple to laugh at them.

Now, they have decided to commit national financial suicide. Recently the French voted out President Nicolas Sarkozy ((Nicolas Sarkozy)) and replaced him with a complete idiot by the name of François Hollande ((François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande)). Hollande is a socialist and has stated that “I don’t like the rich.”

France is basically bankrupt like most of the big spending western nations. (I include the United States in this) France’s answer to it’s financial problems was to double down on stupid and vote in big spending socialists who have no real idea how the free enterprise system works. Of course, that hasn’t stopped them from getting rich.

Let’s take the new president, Hollande. He is a classic Limousine Liberal ((What is a Limousine Liberal?)) or as they call them over there, Champagne Socialist. Basically he has his and he wants to make sure no one else can get theirs. So what is Hollande’s “Great New Economic Plan?” He has lowered the retirement age for some people from 62 to 60. The reason for this is that the big crybabies started screaming, ranting and raving about working an additional 2 years. Originally Sarkozy raised it to 62 to try and stave off the bankruptcy of the system.

Not content with starting the total collapse of the French retirement system, Hollande is now increasing taxes on the most productive, (relatively speaking), members of France. Here’s a few details from Reuters:

France’s new Socialist government announced tax rises worth 7.2 billion euros on Wednesday, including heavy one-off levies on wealthy households and big corporations, to plug a revenue shortfall this year caused by flagging economic growth.

As you might expect, this is going over like a lead balloon. Here are a few comments from the Financial Times:

More than the 75 per cent rate, it is a move to higher wealth and inheritance taxes that worries him – and what he perceives as a cultural hostility to the rich. “The anti-wealth rhetoric is just not encouraging. I’d rather be in a country where I don’t have to deal with that,” he says.

It is not just expatriates who are concerned. Henri de Castries, head of Axa, the insurer, is one of France’s most respected business leaders. “I’ve listened to Mr Hollande. He wants to see more growth and lower unemployment. He wants to see business prospering. We want to see that, too,” he says. “The question is how to achieve these goals? There is no example, in modern economic history, of a country that has succeeded in reducing its deficits by bringing taxes to a confiscatory level. On the contrary, it leads to a decline in activity, and an increase in the deficits.”

Needless to say, other European countries are salivating at the impending destruction of France’s economy. They are looking to get all the refugees and their money into their economies.

The UK prime minister last month riled France’s new Socialist government when he declared he would lay on a five-star welcome for anyone moving to London to avoid the tax regime promised by President François Hollande – including his election pledge of a 75 per cent marginal rate on incomes above €1m a year.

Great Britain has their own problems, but they are beginning to see that following France into the abyss might not be a really good idea. So, just how bad are the finances in France? Back to Rueters:

The budget followed a grim assessment of public finances on Monday by the state auditor, which warned that 6-10 billion euros of deficit cuts were needed in 2012 and a hefty 33 billion in 2013 for France to avoid a surge in public debt dragging it into the centre of the euro crisis.

One of the highest state spending levels in the world has raised France’s debt by 800 billion euros in the last 10 years to 1.8 trillion – equivalent to 90 percent of GDP, the level at which economists say debt starts to hinder economic growth.

And massive looting of the private sector is going to fix all this how? Shouldn’t they be cutting spending instead of increasing it?

Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac said that, while the initial focus this year was on tax rises for the wealthy, the government would progressively rein in its expenditure from 2013 onwards.

“Cutting spending is like slowing down a supertanker: it takes time,” he told Reuters.

No actually, it doesn’t. You simply stop spending money you don’t have. Of course Hollande and the other socialists don’t see it that way.

Mr Hollande insists it is only fair that the wealthy and big companies shoulder a large part of the fiscal burden. It is an important argument if he is to retain support, particularly within strongly anti-austerity Socialist ranks, for the public spending cuts and broader tax increases needed to haul down France’s debt, which is set to exceed 90 per cent of gross domestic product this year.

Hay dumbass! Let me try to explain a few things to you. If you start raping the wealthiest sectors as well as the producers, you’re going to end up with a lot less then you think. People are already leaving your little Marxist paradise.

The president has always been clear that the 75 per cent tax rate, which he says will affect only 3,000 households, is much more important as a symbol to deter excessive executive pay than as a revenue-raising measure. But James Johnston, private client lawyer and head of the French group at London-based Bircham Dyson Bell, expects the increase to lead to the departure of wealthy French citizens to the UK, Switzerland and Belgium.

“France already has one of the highest tax rates for high-net-worth individuals. A 75 per cent top rate of income tax would bring the total theoretical marginal rate of tax, with everything added in, up to 90 per cent. This is a rate that the rest of the world is not resorting to.”

As Margaret Thatcher once said, “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” France is broke and the useless layabouts are chowing down on the seed corn. France is a beautiful country with fine wines, great food, wonderful museums with magnificent artworks. The only problem with France is the French. The French are always right there when they need us. This time, we won’t be bailing them out. They might end up begging the Germans to come in and conquer them again. I don’t think the Germans will be paying another extended visit this time. We might make them keep France.

For the rest of us, watch what’s happening in France and consider that we are well on our way to duplicate their abject failures. It isn’t to late to stop it and reverse course. We just need to get rid of Democrats and RINO’s. (Impeaching 5 Supreme Court justices will also be a big help)

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~