France's Election is Today

[DVO]

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I am with you -- hope Royal wins. The "conservative" candidate won't be able to make any real changes -- he'll merely slow the inevitable. France needs to become a serious object lesson for the world's economies -- the sooner and the more dramatic the better. Get the pain over with ASAP and get a new generation of people who have a different take on government and socialism.

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I agree. I call this the "Jimmy Carter Effect".
Elect a moron that throws your country into the toilet so that the people get pissed enough to elect a 'radical' conservative. A typical French 'conservative' makes John Kerry look like Milton Friedman. Better to let the French socialist tank France so that the French people will wake up... Then perhaps the French can elect a French version of Ronald Reagan.

France needs to hit bottom before they cure themselves...

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No way the French people wake up in the scenario described. We (the U.S.) had a history to draw upon in 1980 that the French completely lack. Never have they embraced free markets and individualism the way we had, for long stretches, prior to 1980. After the Carter debacle, we had some 60% of the population, with some vague sense of our history, ready to give it another go. The French have no such imbedded DNA.

France is in trouble.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Their politics wasn't originally a failure, they have just failed to reform unlike many other countries. Thus they have ended up in a situation where the politics is out of touch with the current reality. Other European countries saw the warning signs, but i.e. France and Germany just ran straight into them. In both countries they still lack public awareness of the magnitude of the problems and thus politicians calling for big changes aren't getting elected. Their culture is not willing to take impulses from other cultures, so the "enligthment" is a slow process.

In the US you are in the beginning of the same process, unsustainable fiscal and foreign policy out of touch with current reality and unwillingness to take impulses from abroad, heading into the same trap. Your mentality is more similar than it is different. So I advice not to mock them as you will end up with a foot in your own mouth.

[hmkpoker]

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In the US you are in the beginning of the same process, unsustainable fiscal and foreign policy out of touch with current reality and unwillingness to take impulses from abroad, heading into the same trap. Your mentality is more similar than it is different. So I advice not to mock them as you will end up with a foot in your own mouth.

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I really with the English language did not use the same pronoun for the second person singular and second person plural. This sentence makes no sense.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

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In the US you are in the beginning of the same process, unsustainable fiscal and foreign policy out of touch with current reality and unwillingness to take impulses from abroad, heading into the same trap. Your mentality is more similar than it is different. So I advice not to mock them as you will end up with a foot in your own mouth.

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I really with the English language did not use the same pronoun for the second person singular and second person plural. This sentence makes no sense.

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Sorry, see that now. Just meant that speaking to French people isn't that different to speaking to Americans. You have different "golden cows" that can't be slaughtered that probably needs to be, but the public awareness isn't there. You aren't living in a progressive country politically, so you aren't in a position to mock the France for not being neither.

[hmkpoker]

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In the US you are in the beginning of the same process, unsustainable fiscal and foreign policy out of touch with current reality and unwillingness to take impulses from abroad, heading into the same trap. Your mentality is more similar than it is different. So I advice not to mock them as you will end up with a foot in your own mouth.

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I really with the English language did not use the same pronoun for the second person singular and second person plural. This sentence makes no sense.

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Sorry, see that now. Just meant that speaking to French people isn't that different to speaking to Americans. You have different "golden cows" that can't be slaughtered that probably needs to be, but the public awareness isn't there. You aren't living in a progressive country politically, so you aren't in a position to mock the France for not being neither.

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You are never speaking to "Americans" unless you are publicly addressing large groups. ConstantineX (who I think is libertarian-leaning) and myself are both Americans, but we do not represent the status quo (which is what/whom you were addressing)

I mock the USA for their retarded policies on a regular basis; much moreso than any other country in the world. I am in every position to mock France all I want.

[NewTeaBag]

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In the US you are in the beginning of the same process, unsustainable fiscal and foreign policy out of touch with current reality and unwillingness to take impulses from abroad, heading into the same trap. Your mentality is more similar than it is different. So I advice not to mock them as you will end up with a foot in your own mouth.

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I really with the English language did not use the same pronoun for the second person singular and second person plural. This sentence makes no sense.

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Sorry, see that now. Just meant that speaking to French people isn't that different to speaking to Americans. You have different "golden cows" that can't be slaughtered that probably needs to be, but the public awareness isn't there. You aren't living in a progressive country politically, so you aren't in a position to mock the France for not being neither.

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I'm a little confused. Are you German or Swedish or what?

Either way, Im sure your own country has some "issues" as well.
WHy is that you are allowed to mock/crap on The USA constantly over seemingly every issue yet someone from The USA can't mock France? Perhaps I'm dumb, or perhaps your assertion is illogical. (Perhaps a bit of both)

[ConstantineX]

Please. There's still a pretty fundamental ideological difference between the psyches of Americans and the French. The French see themselves as entitled to their jobs, while most Americans see success as meritocratic (71% believe capitalism is the best economic system). And I agree we are nominally on the same path, but there are still many people in the US who like low taxes and free enterprise. Hardly a single person in France I've seen quoted has linked their vaunted "French system" with their economic maladies. That's a pretty dramatic disconnect. Even the worst government excesses, like the Iraq War, are a pittance compared to the wealth compounded by the private sector. We'll discuss this later when Americans' real incomes are falling.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

Yes, the difference is huge. As an anecdote I checked in in at a hotel 2 days ago in France and the lights weren't working. So I go downstairs and tell them that the lights aren't working and thus I am leaving for another hotel without paying. He just looks at me like I am the biggest idiot in the world and starts shouting at me. I was driving a car with German number plates and though I am not usually a nit about such things most Germans are and thus he should account for that. Throw people thinking like that into globalism, lol.

My point was more that the same sort of mentality is developing.

[clowntable]

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Their politics wasn't originally a failure, they have just failed to reform unlike many other countries. Thus they have ended up in a situation where the politics is out of touch with the current reality. Other European countries saw the warning signs, but i.e. France and Germany just ran straight into them. In both countries they still lack public awareness of the magnitude of the problems and thus politicians calling for big changes aren't getting elected. Their culture is not willing to take impulses from other cultures, so the "enligthment" is a slow process.

In the US you are in the beginning of the same process, unsustainable fiscal and foreign policy out of touch with current reality and unwillingness to take impulses from abroad, heading into the same trap. Your mentality is more similar than it is different. So I advice not to mock them as you will end up with a foot in your own mouth.

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I tend to disagree. France and Germany are extremly different from what happened over tha last years.
In Germany, costs of reuniting have hindered the country a lot during a period when other European countries invested in improvements of all kinds.
France while they did a lot of things wrong at least managed to get incentives for reproduction out and thus they won't face the massive overaging as other European countries (i.e. Germany)

p.s.: I'm German and live/work in France so I assume I have a pretty good picture of what's going on.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

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I tend to disagree. France and Germany are extremly different from what happened over tha last years.
In Germany, costs of reuniting have hindered the country a lot during a period when other European countries invested in improvements of all kinds.

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I don't disagree that they are very different. I just meant they have in common that they did not reform early enough, just ran straight into the problems. Btw, reunification, how long is that going to be an excuse? Slovenia is a former communist country and has 6.3% unemployment.