Posted on 03/25/2006 5:16:08 PM PST by JAWs
PARIS
Last Saturday morning, needing help to move several heavy cartons of books from my apartment in central Paris to a storage room, I hired two movers and a van from the want ads. Students were in the streets protesting the Contrat de Premier Embauche (CPE) -- a law proposed to combat unemployment by giving employers more flexibility to fire young employees -- and the barricades and traffic diversions made our four-block drive into a half-hour ordeal. As we turned down one obstructed street after another, the movers -- both Arab immigrants -- became more and more incensed."They're idiots," said the driver, gesturing toward the ecstatic protesters. "Puppets for the socialists and the communists." He pantomimed pulling the strings of a marionette.
"It's us they hurt," added the second man. By this he meant immigrants and their children, particularly the residents of France's suburban ghettos, where unemployment runs as high as 50 percent. And, of course, he was right, as everyone with even a rudimentary grasp of economics appreciates: If employers are unable to fire workers, they will be less likely to hire them. It is now almost impossible to fire an employee in France, a circumstance that disproportionately penalizes groups seen by employers as risky: minorities, inexperienced workers and those without elite educations, like the outraged man sitting beside me.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I wonder if brad pitt and angelina jolie still want to live in this "progressive france"?
LLS
I heard Chirac just surrendered the country to a Muzzie 14 year old with a stick in one hand and a moletev cocktail in the other.
They bleeding hearts have raised the minimum raise to the point where there are no jobs for youngsters.
With payroll taxes for social security and medicare, the minimum wage and liability insurance, the minimum cost of a legal worker makes many jobs available only to illegals.
It's not even about bleeding hearts or liberal nonsense, it's about out-and-out racism. Essentially, if you want a good job in France, you have to come with the impeccable credentials that come with a good education and the middle-class background necessary to get one. That locks out pretty much everyone in the lower classes and dooms most immigrant families to living in lower-class neighborhoods with the aforementioned 50% unemployment rates.
The French college students aren't totally blind to all of this, they've played by their parent's and grandparent's rules for their entire lives. Now, just when they're about to finally benefit from jumping through all of the stupid hoops, here comes the government trying to change the rules. I'd be pissed off too.
The French system has to change, and I think that they either know that or will realize it soon, I just don't think that they have a leader capable of taking them through the painful transition.
Damn Europe...I'm totally against this but for Europe- the time is right for another Hitler type.
They do unfortunately. They want the same decline for this country because they hate America.
Being born and raised here in a family that has been here for generations only makes you a US citizen. These American haters never became Americans they are world elitists and can't stand this country. Socialism is poison,they know it and that is what they want to feed us. - tom
I'd think they would. They have plenty of money earned in other countries, and they can afford to live in a gated, secure community. The prices there are low, because few people have any money.
Libs often like to live in places where they are the monied elite.
That has always been interpreted as "attitude". Even the checkout clerk at the neihborhood market with a deadend job will display it at any and all "foregners".
If my daughter, who spoke French like a native, had not been there last time, I might never have seen a frog humiliated beyond all expectations. It was a work of art...
Great cartoon.. Made me laugh.. Thanx... ;o)
You actually need a license to work in France. And I am not talking about immigrants or people on visas. This may be a policy that Hillary (tm) will want to implement here.
Most of old europe has employment rules that make work a dirty word. Hard work darnright illegal and they are paying the price now.
which is why we have so many illegals in this country who don't pay taxes.
If we went to the Fair Tax - everyone would pay their FAIR share - , especially the very wealthy...NO loopholes. If the illegals still work as such, they will get no tax credit towards the national sales tax - but will have to pay it full and up front when they make a purchase. The rich buy another yacht - they pay full tax on it. I buy another used car - NO tax. (no tax on second hand goods)
no payroll taxes, no tax returns on dreaded April 15th.......small business would boom, new jobs would sky rocket and there would actually be MORE money going to Washington...but they wouldn't have a grip on our throats.
http://www.geocities.com/cmcofer/ftax.htmloats.
print it out, read it through, email it to everyone. WE need to get this on the agenda.........once it's understood, even the dimwits will vote for the candidate that will put this through...
I think you meant "ripe," not "right."
It is difficult however to believe that all the corrupt politicians enjoying the kickbacks from manipulating the current tax code would stand for this.
Color me cynical.
Damn - it would be a rebirth of this nation if it happened.
I was going to say "no", but on second thought I could see the eurosocialists overreacting somehow. I don't think any kind of hard-fascist government could last, though. Europe has to compete with Asia too, and capital is much more mobile than in 1933.
The time may be ripe for a French Thatcher or Reagan. (Is there any kind of free-market intellectual infrastructure there to support such a person today?)
Imagine that.
The astounding stupidity of these kids is beyond imagination. And I do remember what it was like to be a college kid and even (way) back then I understood the work world perfectly well.
I've been fired more times than Cape Canaveral, and look how great I turned out! ;-)
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