• the stock market ALWAYS performs much beeter under the left;
  
• the public debt increases a lot more under the right;

As to France, the big difficulty is that I'd need to write stuff in French in addition to doing it in English and I just don't have the energy in me right now. I know I should do it.

It may sound a but strange, but I'm not very good at pushing myself forward. I have no problem speaking up in public and expressing myself forcefully, but I have trouble going towards people and talking to them.

We need to do more to promote ET in public outlets (write LTEs), push the site on other sites and the like, but I'm sort of counting on the rest of the community to do it. I'll provide - hopefully compelling - content.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

If I'm the Duchess of Moneybags with 5 kids, I get money from the State, right?

I suspect that's similar to the children's allowance here. It's not about the parents, it's about the kids. Part of the reason is to work around the situation where himself comes home and doesn't give her any money to do the housekeeping, though I suppose that's a bit anachronistic you'd hear the occasional story of middle-class families were the only money the wife had control over was the children's allowance. But at base the money is being paid to support the kids, not the parents, so the parents' circumstances are irrelevant. It's also probably cheaper to do it that way than try to administer the means testing - I think that's what studies here suggest anyway. The tax system in Europe generally takes enough money from the rich that it's not important anyway.

While we're on the topic of what I don't get, I don't understand the "allocations familiales" especially for well-off people. If I'm the Duchess of Moneybags with 5 kids, I get money from the State, right?

Maybe someone can take a turn at explaining that one for me?

It's part of a consistent pro-family policy for the past century. Families with kids are helped, full stop.
Means testing was a Reagan/Thatcher invention. It may make apparent sense, but it sends the wrong signal.

You get a fixed amount per kid (more for later kids in large families), so it helps the poor a lot more, and it's simple, consistent, and it sends a clear message all around (together with other policy items that help). Considering the amount,s I'm not even usre you'd same much by means testing, and you'd create a detestable precedent.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

The free-market pretense is that the entrepreneur operates in a vacuum using his God-given resources and property to create wealth as part of his holy avocation and that he should have the right, as the priest in communion with higher powers, to act more or less as he wishes. It is only out of benevolence that he employs people at all.

The truth is that he uses his resources to leverage the infrastructure of the society around him to create wealth and that he needs workers to realise that wealth. Because he is in a position of power - especially were unions don't exist - society places an obligation on him not to treat workers - without whom the business wouldn't exist -  unfairly. We consider it unfair for him to dismiss an employee on a whim. Need to reduce the work-force? No problem - we call it reduncancy. Incompetent or disruptive staff? No problem either - go through a fair process and you can fire them. We even allow for periods of probation in order to ensure that the employ fits in. Normally three to six months. Because that's what we feel is fair.

If you have  a mortgage and a few kids you are not in  position to just walk away.

(Apologies for the sarcasm, but I have a bad cold and I'm cranky.)

Well, that is just the way it is here. And has been for a very long time, which creates a system. In France, any job (bar seasonal) has to have a written contract, quite possibly a simple one, but there must be one.

It may be that, further back, this arises from a difference between Roman law, more written, and Anglo-Saxon law, which relies more on common law. Plus, as I suggested, America has a distinct subset of values on these matters -- which, btw, though I "get" them, I find disingenuous in their assumption of good faith on all sides, of equality in the contractual relationship, and -- especially -- the absence of a power struggle or a balance of power between employer and employee. The right to walk away, excuse me, is piffling compared to an employer's rights and powers. It may be a useful threat in some circumstances, but, most of the time, the firing sanction is a much heavier tool. You're assuming bosses are not present-day Caligulas? Well, maybe they're not in California, (?), but there's a fair amount of anti-employee feeling among French bosses (deeply-seated, going back a good way) that justifies, in my view, the reluctance of young people to see their  early job experience exposed to arbitrary employer decisions.

How would this result in lowering the cost of labour? By creating conditions of fragility and precarity for employees in which they will accept less good terms in order to be sure of holding down the job. A boss who can fire at will is a boss who can fix wages and conditions to his advantage unless the job market is tight which is not the case here.

(BTW, the State doesn't force any employer to keep an unwanted employee, that's not the way things are structured. There are contractual relations, there are conventions, there is jurisprudence, that need to be respected, and that is the case anywhere, including the US. An employer can fire an employee if he can show reasonable cause.)

Also, macro-economic conclusions based on 2-3 years of data are hardly to be recommended.

Unemployment is not going down so much because the active population has been growing faster than elsewhere, so the economy needs to create more jobs just to stay in place.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

, not directing the business world

As a matter of cultural interface I urge you to write a diary about this, because it is one of the biggest chasms between the US left and the European left.

It's a really emotive and difficult subject to communicate on, because it goes to the heart of the deepest assumptions in society. It will doubtless be a horrendously flame-filled debate, but hey, ET survived talking about Iran and Cartoons, I'm sure it can survive this one.

Everything that makes jobs less "real" for other social purposes (pension rights, unemployment benefits, and things like finding housing) without compensation elsewhere are a direct hit on the life of those that rely only on their salary as income.

I did not understand that.

What I mean is that pension rights, for instance, are proportional to the time spent in full time employment. Temporary jobs or part time jobs add almost nothing to the minimum pension you are entitled to in any case. So anything that weakens the permanent job model also weakens the living standards of future pensioners.

Another example is that of healthcare. While the big things remain covered 100%, the smaller stuff (doctor visits, basic exams, and things like the dentist or glasses) is increasingly covered through a two-tiered system: la Sécu covers a portion (typically 65%, but less for some stuff), and a mutuelle (private or mutual insurance companies) pays for the difference. Most full time jobs have a mutuelle as part of the package, whereas other kinds of jobs usually don't - so these workers need to buy that additional insurance themselves, or pay for part of their healthcare.

And so on. When you get dropped out of the full time CDI job, you drop out of the middle classes into what can quickly be a very precarious situation.

Thus the working poor and the panhandlers that are now a frequent sight in big cities - they did not exist 20 years ago, beyond the odd clochard.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes