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Francois Hollande elected as new French president

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Original post by Herr
He will have no choice but to implement austerity measures, or else it will be the markets that would send him down the same way like it told that frog Mitterand where the door was :biggrin:


Oh yes, he would not be able to fulfil a vast majority of his promises, but will be interesting to see what happens nonetheless :smile:
Original post by zara55
This is correct and also note that neither Britain nor France's current debt levels are at historically high levels, despite the hype of various right-wing forces like the hedge funds, city traders and their friends in the bond markets, manipulated ratings agencies and fellow-travelling right-wing media. The reality is that the huge drive of the last 30 years to steal wealth from the overwhelming majority and funnel it to a small clique of market-manipulators (1% of the 1%) is being uncovered and the public are voting against it.

The same will happen here at the next election.

France now needs to pressurise Germany to start relaxing government spending and allow the ECB to issue Eurobonds, both long overdue.

German austerity is utterly ridiculous and the main depressor of the European economy.


Right-wing forces? Are you a hired troll woman?
Reply 122
Original post by Zalachenko
Right-wing forces? Are you a hired troll woman?


Not last time I checked. Are you a hired trader? Have you heard of the Left in Cambridge, MA? They exist. :smile:
Original post by zara55
Not last time I checked. Are you a hired trader? Have you heard of the Left in Cambridge, MA? They exist. :smile:


Located in London at the moment.

Please explain these 'right-wing' forces to me.
Original post by emanuela15
oh dear Carla must be upset :laugh:


I hear she went from "married" to "It's complicated".

Seriously though, Sarkozy is not the greatest politician of all time, but Hollande is a disaster. Which successful, hard-working businessman would agree to pay 3/4 of what he earns in taxes? That is not a principle of welfare-state, that's plain ridiculous.
And furthermore, Hollande will not manage to employ any of these banlieues, nor is it his ambition to do so; all the French politicians refer to Muslims as merely 'immigrants' and consider them a lost cause.
Most of Hollande's voters aren't fans - they just didn't know what to vote and thought "a change would be good".
Reply 125
Original post by Aconcernedparent
I hear she went from "married" to "It's complicated".

Seriously though, Sarkozy is not the greatest politician of all time, but Hollande is a disaster. Which successful, hard-working businessman would agree to pay 3/4 of what he earns in taxes? That is not a principle of welfare-state, that's plain ridiculous.
And furthermore, Hollande will not manage to employ any of these banlieues, nor is it his ambition to do so; all the French politicians refer to Muslims as merely 'immigrants' and consider them a lost cause.
Most of Hollande's voters aren't fans - they just didn't know what to vote and thought "a change would be good".


One big issue for all the main economies is that tax havens like Monaco, Luxembourg, the Channel Islands, etc, legitimise the non-payment of taxes by the rich, removing huge potential tax revenues from each government and causing more of the tax burden to fall on the non-wealthy. The really wealthy avoid tax; the middle class pay it.

If the tax havens of Europe were closed down, taxes on average could be considerably lower.

One of the outrageous things in the UK for example is that many major corporations based here and trading here pay little tax because they "moved" their HQ or trading profits (sometimes just with elaborate, empty tricks) to Luxembourg - good examples are Vodafone and Amazon, but there are many more. Vodafone is one of the UK's largest and most profitable companies, it was founded here, it built up here, it has millions of accounts here - yet pays way below the tax level it should pay. The HMRC have compliantly waved through these arrangements under pressure from right-wing politicians in successive governments, stooges for the international bankers and their super-rich clients like Blair, Brown and Cameron.
It's a disaster. We need to start focusing on growth rather than austerity soon, sure - but having leaders of France and Germany at odds is not going to help. Better to do the second best thing properly than to sit there arguing about which path is better.
I'm glad Hollande got it. Sarkozy was getting a bit too big for his boots, and as for Marine Le Pen, did anyone see her throw a MASSIVE tantrum when Sarkozy lost, and some woman on the french news blamed her for it? Rightly so. The ball was in Le Pen's court, but she scored an own-goal. Now, as we begin to turn our attentions to the elections in the US, I would like to keep Obama in.
Happy that Hollande got it over Sarkozy but in all honesty I feel like Europe's idea of socialism is somewhat different to what it is here. Saying that he looks to have some great policies and I really hope they'll get introduced. Breath of fresh air for France... good luck to him.
I don't know much about French politics, but from what I picked up of his pledges and opinions in his victory speech, I'm pretty glad. I am completely opposed to the austerity, austerity and more austerity which seems to be the only thing you hear from the EU and their time-bomb currency, so Hollande's approach is most definitely something that appeals to me.

It's a shame the UK doesn't take the same approach. We need to invest in our primary and secondary sectors in order to achieve long-term financial stability and growth!
Original post by HeyyImRyan
I don't know much about French politics, but from what I picked up of his pledges and opinions in his victory speech, I'm pretty glad. I am completely opposed to the austerity, austerity and more austerity which seems to be the only thing you hear from the EU and their time-bomb currency, so Hollande's approach is most definitely something that appeals to me.

It's a shame the UK doesn't take the same approach. We need to invest in our primary and secondary sectors in order to achieve long-term financial stability and growth!


It's better to have a 50% tax rate and keep the wealthy than a 75% and lose them.

The eurozone crisis is imminent.
Original post by Zalachenko
It's better to have a 50% tax rate and keep the wealthy than a 75% and lose them.

The eurozone crisis is imminent.



Very true, I was more aiming at his stance on austerity than losing the wealthy people in the country. They're the people needed, to help invest in manufacturing in order for france's exports (or England's, with any luck) to become a much more prominent and dependable income.


The eurozone crisis is imminent regardless though, are you aware of how much hidden debt is owed by every Euro nation? They all did secret deals with investment banks in order to hide their debt and meet the Euro pre-requisites...this will definitely backfire as soon as the fixed rate disappears (it's like sub-prime mortgages all over again...but this time for whole nations).
Original post by Zalachenko
It's better to have a 50% tax rate and keep the wealthy than a 75% and lose them.

The eurozone crisis is imminent.


But where is the evidence that the rich will flee if their taxes are put up? they haven't been doing the vital investing that the champions of austerity say will disappear if we change tactics anyway.
It makes me wish I was French.
Original post by zara55
This is correct and also note that neither Britain nor France's current debt levels are at historically high levels, despite the hype of various right-wing forces like the hedge funds, city traders and their friends in the bond markets, manipulated ratings agencies and fellow-travelling right-wing media. The reality is that the huge drive of the last 30 years to steal wealth from the overwhelming majority and funnel it to a small clique of market-manipulators (1% of the 1%) is being uncovered and the public are voting against it.

The same will happen here at the next election.

France now needs to pressurise Germany to start relaxing government spending and allow the ECB to issue Eurobonds, both long overdue.

German austerity is utterly ridiculous and the main depressor of the European economy.


Britains debt in terms of GDP per capita is lower than it has been for 200 of the past 250 years.


Although, I really don't think the Tories will be voted out at the next election. Especially if we lose Scotland, then we will basically have a Tory dictatorship.
Reply 135
Original post by Zalachenko
It's better to have a 50% tax rate and keep the wealthy than a 75% and lose them.

The eurozone crisis is imminent.


The 75% kicks in on earnings over a million Euros a year, so your concern is that those earning more than e1m will go? They will already have most of their money with your trader friends in Zurich or Monaco anyway, so what difference would that make exactly?

In the case of banks and other too big to fails though it would be a huge net benefit to countries like the UK and France if they were to "leave" and headquarter in Zurich, Qatar or Dubai. Our taxpayers would then be relieved of the huge threat they represent the next time their casino operations fail and they demand a cash injection of 50% of our GDP to "rescue" them.

I said "leave" in inverted commas because it's always just the *headquarters* that "leaves" - sometimes not even the real HQ, but just a shell operation, a couple of computers and an accountant behind a buzzer in Luxembourg. This is apparently enough to convince our manipulated tax authorities that they are no longer in the country, even though their big money-making operations still are.

The banks now are analagous to mafiosi or criminal empires and many of their activities aimed at us "customers" are similar to organised criminal operations like drug smuggling or vice rings.
Reply 136
I'm very interested to see how Hollande moves around this scenario. On the outlook it's a very negative picture, he's a socialist who has been dropped into a system where business and the rich hold the power, so I do worry whether he'll be tied back like many socialist politicians. However, while there may be an initial unsteady period while the rich flee, if he does implement these policies, gets people working and gets money flowing, we could see a very strong and steady France come out of this.

Who knows though, who knows...
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 137
Original post by Swell
I'm very interested to see how Hollande moves around this scenario. On the outlook it's a very negative picture, he's a socialist who has been dropped into a system where business and the rich hold the power, so I do worry whether he'll be tied back like many socialist politicians. However, while there may be an initial unsteady period while the rich flee, if he does implement these policies, gets people working and gets money flowing, we could see a very strong and steady France come out of this.

Who knows though, who knows...


Yes, and crucially if he can succeed in influencing Merkel and the Germans to alter course and start spending again and seriously take on the Euro crisis by making the ECB a proper central bank. There are signs already that Merkel may be showing flexibility on the former, but the latter appears to be utterly gridlocked and will probably still lead to some kind of catastrophic failure; my guess is that Greece and possibly even Spain and Italy will end up leaving the Euro and that the Euro will then either unravel or become some kind of Euro 2 with only Germany, Denmark and Austria in one and reversion in the others.

Note his rather optimistic (naive?) assertions that he will effectively nationalise the bond market problem - let's assume this was pap for the left of his party but are they really silly enough and Little France enough to have such grand delusions? It is true that the bond markets are political instruments carrying out global policy moves for Goldman Sachs and JPM, but they are instruments of the US banks and the CIA, not something the French can do anything about.
Original post by alex5455
scandanavia is doing fine and they are nicely left


http://www.perspectiveone.com/rebuttal-to-scandinavian-socialism.asp
http://theuklibertarian.com/2010/06/22/the-myth-of-scandinavian-socialism/

Original post by alex5455
someone said something silly without thinking :colondollar:


Yes, they did, didn't they? £8 pint, anyone?
Reply 139
Not too sure whats going on, but as far as im aware he really did win the election.

More importantly combined with the results of the greek election we have the beginning of the single currency collapse, and about time.

The collapse will be excrutiating, and plunge all of us into very harsh times indeed, but is necessary in that countries can finally go back to their own currencies and start trading at the correct level of interest for their economies and be able to devalue, the huge problem that struggling countries like greece are suffering without at the moment.

The euro project must be abandoned, or more chaos will ensue, and the EU, especially Germany's ignorance of the situation, can no longer be tolerated.

Trade between europe is essential in order for all countries to prosper and be at peace with one another, but a currency and flag which no one needed should finally be consigned to history.

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