France an embarrassment?

Lost the confidence vote!

Thats going to take some doing

Error corrected

I don’t think France is really an embarrassment, but it does things in a way that makes no sense and looks like a disaster to many Anglo-saxons. Each nation has its own set of cultural weaknesses that rear their head at times.

8 Likes

I think the point of getting rid of Bayrou is to stop there being lean times. Well at least not now.

1 Like

I despair. Living in heaven compared to almost anywhere, and yet think they’re in hell. There seems to be an imagining that harsh world realities such as needing to work for a living, needing to be competitive so as not to be eaten alive by Asia (hello, car industry!) and work longer becauae of the age pyramid and better health etc, can be kept out by voting leaders out every 5 minutes and not giving time to see policies through.

And the destructive comments from baying politicians each hoping to gain personal power … that are basically wanting to dismember the country and feed on the corpse instead of pulling together in roughly the same direction… I really wish people would realise how very lucky they are and work to compromise rather than destruction.

11 Likes

Well I will be doing my bit soon. Still basking in my free health care at the doctor’s I got home to find a Fonciere bill for € 451. :astonished_face:

Last year it was € 330 and back in 2022, € 86. Not complaining, the streets are clean and the rubbish collected from just down the hill each week at no extra cost, and no need to pay for the dechetterie. :joy:

So who is at fault in that respect —- France for borrowing the money or the lenders being daft enough to lend it in the first place. It’s only imaginary anyway. Just another aspect of institutionalised false accounting.

I’m reminded of the following story;

On this particular day a rich tourist from back west is driving thru town.
He stops at the motel and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick one to spend the night.
As soon as the man walks upstairs, the owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher.
The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to pay his debt to the pig farmer.
The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill at the Feed Store.

The guy who owns the Feed Store takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her services on credit.
She, in a flash rushes to the motel and pays off her room bill with the motel owner.
The motel proprietor now places the $100 back on the counter so the rich traveler will not suspect anything.

At that moment the traveler comes down the stairs, picks up the $100 bill, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, pockets the money & leaves.

NOW,… no one produced anything…and no one earned anything…however the whole town is out of debt and is looking to the future with much optimism.

16 Likes

I absolutely love this! :smiley:

:purse:

2 Likes

Something to inspire France parliament

No one makes a fun political vote like Taiwan!

Yes and all other insurances have gone up too which all ends up in the government coffers somewhere along the line so donations from us all there as well.

Same everywhere it’s gotten out of control

Isn’t the hotel owner out by $100 because the $100 she accepted to pay of the prostitutes room bill had to be given to the traveler?

1 Like

The $100 bill is a red herring and simply symbolic that everyone has had $100 of value from the previous person in the chain.

3 Likes

From my limited understanding, all that needed doing was to tax the 1800 ultra wealthiest individuals and corporations and the fiscal problems were solved. And didn’t the lower house of government propose exactly this?

Of course the money power was having none of that and the Senate voted it down. Is that an accurate synopsis?

Don’t spoil a metaphor with analysis. :wink:

The classic definition of why is paramount that we keep money circulating.

The issue arises when someone does not pass the bill along and demands interest on it. French bond interest is, and has been falling for a while. Down this month from 4% to 3.5%. This worries me as do the commentatotors’ prediction that by the end of the decade, France will need 100bnUSD just to service its debt… I am quite sad over it all, and no better after a conversation with my girlfriend - who is totally French - with her answer: c’est la vie, whilst wondering what extravagance we can have for lunch :rofl:

1 Like

Maybe the French DO have it right after all - to hell with the analysis and keep on printing the greenstuff :rofl:

2 Likes

NO. The $100 bill given back to the traveler at the end of the tale is the same $100 bill that the traveler left on the front desk of the hotel in the first place. No-one has made any money, but all the debts in the circle have been paid and the traveler still has his original $100 bill.

1 Like

Only a politician can make the impossible sound plausible.