Posted on 05/06/2012 2:22:06 PM PDT by whitedog57
Francois Hollande defeated French President Nicolas Sarkozy as voters handed control of the second-biggest European economy to the Socialists for the first time in 17 years.
Socialist Hollandes simple solutions include:
=Taxes *Impose a tax on financial transactions. *Impose a 75 percent income tax on earnings above 1 million euros ($1.32 million) and raise the rate to 45 percent for the income bracket between 150,000 euros and 1 million euros per year. *Repeal 29 billion euros of tax breaks over the next five years. *Increase total tax level to 46.9 percent in 2017 from 45.1 percent in 2012 (payroll and profit). *Increase tax on biggest companies to 35 percent. *Scrap Sarkozys 1.2 percent VAT increase.
-Public spending: *Raise state spending by 20 billion euros over five years. *Allow those who have worked more than the legal minimum of 41.5 years to retire from the age of 60. *Limit pay of executives at state-owned companies to 20 times the lowest wage. *Hire 60,000 teachers and school employees and 5,000 police officers over next five years. *Hire 150,000 youths in state-subsidized jobs over the next five years. *Cut French presidents and Cabinet ministers pay by 30 percent.
Slow growth, high unemployment and staggering deficits and debts are a tumor on the economy. And France decided to take up smoking heavily as a cure to a lung tumor.
(Excerpt) Read more at confoundedinterest.wordpress.com ...
What is economic suicide for $100 Alex.
It's going to be awhile before I get to "Wolf Hall" and I will read it only if I like "Greater Safety".
Sounds like our leader.
This is a great film set during the French revolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6SnYSLFJiY
Use the Firefox add-on DownloadHelper to save a copy to disk.
This is a 480p video. Download the 480p flv version and use the free VLC player to watch it. This is as good a copy as my DVD copy is.
Things in the near future may get as bad in France as they were in the revolution (or even worse)
It’s a very thin line between civilization and chaos.
And that chaos can come from anywhere.
You can start off with someone who is basically a thug, like Hitler; but you can also start off with people who have some high-falutin’ ideals like the French Revolutionaries.
The part of “Citizens” that got to me was when they decided to execute the man who had served as the King’s defense attorney at the “trial” before he execution.
There goes your “rule of law” right down the tubes.
Another interesting thing was how narrowly Thomas Paine escaped the guillotine, just by accident.
And he had gone over there to support the revolutionaries!
I also never knew how anti-religion the whole thing became.
And, speaking of anti-religion, I was completely unaware of the Mexican “Cristero” war over religion that’s going to be portrayed in that new movie “For Greater Glory”.
That took place in the 20s, right next door to the US, and I’d never even heard of it until I read about this movie.
So, I feel ignorant!
Hollande is proposing...once he crosses the threshold of the Élysée Palace the hard door of reality will slam him silly.
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