How We Became the United States of France Now our laissez-faire (hey, a French word) regulation-averse Administration has made France's only Socialist president, Francois Mitterand, look like Adam Smith by comparison. All Mitterrand did was nationalize France's big banks and insurance companies in 1982; he didn't have to deal with bankers who didn't want to lend money, as Paulson does. When the state runs the banks, they are merely cows to be milked in the service of la patrie. France doesn't have the mortgage crisis that we do, either. In bailing out mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, our government has basically turned America into the largest subsidized housing project in the world. Sure, France has its banlieues, where it likes to warehouse people who aren't French enough (meaning, immigrants orAlgerians) in huge apartment blocks. But the bulk of French homeowners are curiously free of subprime mortgages foisted on them by fellow citizens, and they aren't over their heads in personal debt. We've always dismissed the French as exquisitely fed wards of their welfare state. They work, what, 27 hours in a good week, have 19 holidays a month, go on strike for two days and enjoy a glass of wine every day with lunch -- except for the 25% of the population that works for the government, who have an even sweeter deal. They retire before their kids finish high school, and they don't have to save for a $45,000-a-year college tuition because college is free. For this, they pay a tax rate of about 103%, and their labor laws are so restrictive that they haven't had a net gain in jobs since Napoleon. There is no way that the French government can pay for this lifestyle forever, except that it somehow does.
Now our laissez-faire (hey, a French word) regulation-averse Administration has made France's only Socialist president, Francois Mitterand, look like Adam Smith by comparison. All Mitterrand did was nationalize France's big banks and insurance companies in 1982; he didn't have to deal with bankers who didn't want to lend money, as Paulson does. When the state runs the banks, they are merely cows to be milked in the service of la patrie. France doesn't have the mortgage crisis that we do, either. In bailing out mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, our government has basically turned America into the largest subsidized housing project in the world. Sure, France has its banlieues, where it likes to warehouse people who aren't French enough (meaning, immigrants orAlgerians) in huge apartment blocks. But the bulk of French homeowners are curiously free of subprime mortgages foisted on them by fellow citizens, and they aren't over their heads in personal debt.
We've always dismissed the French as exquisitely fed wards of their welfare state. They work, what, 27 hours in a good week, have 19 holidays a month, go on strike for two days and enjoy a glass of wine every day with lunch -- except for the 25% of the population that works for the government, who have an even sweeter deal. They retire before their kids finish high school, and they don't have to save for a $45,000-a-year college tuition because college is free. For this, they pay a tax rate of about 103%, and their labor laws are so restrictive that they haven't had a net gain in jobs since Napoleon. There is no way that the French government can pay for this lifestyle forever, except that it somehow does.
Put it all together, and the America that emerges is a cartoonish version of the country most despised by red-meat red-state patriots: France. Only with worse food.
Similar reaction a few years ago when it was turned out that the cheese eating surrender monkeys were actually right about Iraq... Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
you are the media you consume.
When the state runs the banks, they are merely cows to be milked in the service of la patrie.
Government milks state-owned companies. We so love those caricatures that show government in a wonderful light
Sure, France has its banlieues, where it likes to warehouse people who aren't French enough (meaning, immigrants or Algerians) in huge apartment blocks.
The French are uber-racist.
Mitterand's nationalization program and other economic reforms failed, as the development of the European Market made a centrally planned economy obsolete.
Except it did not fail, and it did not make planning obsolete. But hey, let's keep on repeating it, it will be true.
The Rothschilds got their bank back, a little worse for wear.
Tha nationalisations saved most of these banks from collapse, then.
These days, France sashays around the issue of protectionism in a supposedly unfettered EU by proclaiming some industries to be national champions worthy of extra consideration -- you know, special needs kids.
Industrial policy is protectionism. The EU are hypocritical wimps.
But yes, it's harmless fun. It propagates no narrative, no memes, no hidden agendas. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Now I accept that the US & British senses of humour are different and so it is possible I'm misreading this but it comes over to me as massively sarcastic about the failings of america. And I appear not to be alone in this interpretation. keep to the Fen Causeway
