Posted on 03/25/2006 5:49:53 PM PST by forty_years
Thousands of French students have taken to the streets to... protest for cushy jobs? Au moment même où vous avez pensé ce ne pourrait pas devenir plus mauvais. Well, it has. Much worse. France's economy is sluggish, sporting a whopping 10% unemployment rate, precisely because of the stiff and rigid sentiments of the student protestors. There's nothing Bohemian ("libéral") about them; precisely the opposite. Dynamic economies flourish. State-controlled economies decline. From the BBC:
To the barricades, they went, these revolutionaries, to fight for their rights - to pensions, mortgages and a steady job.Such odd revolutionaries. No heartfelt cry to change the world, but a plea for everything to stay the same.
For France to remain in its glorious past: a time of full employment and jobs for life - a paternalistic state to take care of them from cradle to grave. ...
So what brought this on? On the surface, a new youth employment contract, aimed at helping young people get their first job - no easy task in a country with 10% unemployment, but almost one in four out of work among the young.
It's contract that would allow employers to take a chance, to hire a youngster in the knowledge that the trial period could be up to two years long, and the normal French restrictions on firing would not apply.
Voici la pièce de résistance:
A recent survey suggested that for most of the young in France, the real dream is to become a civil servant - a fonctionnaire. To work in government offices with regular hours, long holidays, and a 35 hour working week.
In other words, drag the whole state down so some can have lifetime security. Pensée pas vraiment collective, est-il? Or, to frame it in the language of "la révolution," bourgeois petit. If state control and lifetime security were viable economic models, then Cuba and the USSR would now rule the world ("Cuba is a low-income, food-deficit country," according to the UN; the USSR doesn't even exist anymore; DOH!).
On the other hand, dynamic economies, most notably the U.S., create enormous prosperity, but require that citizens take a little risk. The evidence?
The U.S. economy has created 5 million new jobs since August 2003; gross domestic product grew 3.5 percent in 2005; worker productivity has increased at a 3.4% annual rate since 2001; manufacturing activity has increased for 33 consecutive months; inflation has remained at a tame 2.1% over the last year; personal income has grown 8.2% since 2001; and, the U.S. is at or near full employment (those looking for work are finding work).
American orders for durable goods jumped 2.6% in February, the fourth increase over the last five months. Durable goods are defined as products with a normal life expectancy of three years or more, like furniture, aircraft, computers, and automobiles. I could go on and on and on...
Il est facile de parler du "socialisme." It is quite another thing to create true prosperity.
http://netwmd.com/blog/2006/03/25/486
How French of them.
Yes. LOL
the french are toast - burn baby burn - let them reap what they sowed
The equivalent in the United States:
What does the Hampton's set of partying teenagers have in common with gangsters from 8 Mile in Detroit.
Neither have worked a real job a day in their lives.
And their French equivalents are rioting in common cause in Paris.
The US can't afford to be too smug when looking at this situation in France. The barbarians are at the gates here too. Look at the recent demo's of illegal aliens across the country protesting the upcoming legislation before Congress this week. Every country has its own brain drain, at least in the US they're not here "legally", lol.
Don't forget to include those who demand that the government "do something" to preserve their jobs and their incomes. Quite a few of them post here on Free Republic.
Define "preserve", lol.
Oh, you know: Jobs should never be outsourced or eliminated by technology or competition.
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