Support the French workers - we are all one

[malaise]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE69E43320101021
<snip>
One of France's biggest unions called on Thursday for further "massive" strike action next week against a planned pension reform that has triggered the biggest and most sustained anti-austerity protests in Europe.

A final Senate vote on President Nicolas Sarkozy's unpopular bill is set to be speeded up to make sure it happens on Friday, a parliamentary source told Reuters, following pressure from the government as protests and fuel blockades sweep the country.

Sarkozy, a conservative who is determined to face down unions and force through a rise in the retirement age, is battling with 10-day-old refinery strikes and fuel depot blockades that have dried up a quarter of France's petrol pumps.

His popularity already mired at all-time lows 18 months before a presidential election, Sarkozy is fighting deep public opposition to a reform he says is the only way to stem a ballooning pension shortfall as the population ages.
---------------
What happens in France will not stay in France.

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[Catherina]

2. Go France! Put that School of Chicago back in its place n/t

[Lost4words]

3. + 1 totally!! nt

[malaise]

4. I heard Glen Beck referring to

The Road to Serfdom. Poor fool should shave a look at the empirical evidence Jeffrey Sachs produced to destroy Hayek's argument. Fuck Friedman and Hayek.

http://books.google.com.jm/books?id=fLovVMN6swkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+road+to+serfdom&source=bl&ots=oLSV-PWyj_&sig=M1JuAwOT6uZ8DZalXYjkf87Pl1M&hl=en&ei=qTnATMybKMGs8Abil9DYBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2006/10/sachs_friedrich.html
<snip>
On average, the Nordic countries outperform the Anglo-Saxon ones on most measures of economic performance. Poverty rates are much lower there, and national income per working-age population is on average higher. Unemployment rates are roughly the same..., just slightly higher in the Nordic countries. The budget situation is stronger in the Nordic group, with larger surpluses as a share of GDP.

The Nordic states have also worked to keep social expenditures compatible with an open, competitive, market-based economic system. Tax rates on capital are relatively low. Labor market policies pay low-skilled and otherwise difficult-to-employ individuals to work in the service sector, in key quality-of-life areas such as child care, health, and support for the elderly and disabled.

The results for the households at the bottom of the income distribution are astoundingly good, especially in contrast to the mean-spirited neglect that now passes for American social policy. The U.S. spends less than almost all rich countries on social services for the poor and disabled, and it gets what it pays for: the highest poverty rate among the rich countries and an exploding prison population. Actually, by shunning public spending on health, the U.S. gets much less than it pays for, because its dependence on private health care has led to a ramshackle system that yields mediocre results at very high costs.

Von Hayek was wrong. In strong and vibrant democracies, a generous social-welfare state is not a road to serfdom but rather to fairness, economic equality and international competitiveness.

[Catherina]

6. But that would go against our WAPS ethic of making people

pay for their sins of *laziness*. Why should the poor be rewarded?

[secondwind]

7. K&R, if this is socialism, then I'm all for it! Enough already with CEO's making 100 Mil a year!

[blindpig]

11. Von Hayek was a screwhead and a tool.

If not for the support of American businessmen and the US Chamber of Commerce he would be a forgotten crank. Chairs were created, thousands of books were distributed for free. His was a ready made "philosophy" for capitalists scared to death of the 'red menace'.

[malaise]

12. Bingo

Thatcher adored him. I wonder if he too had dementia like Reagan and Thatcher? :evilgrin:

[Panaconda]

5. K&R

[marmar]

8. Je suis française !!!! ...... Or at least I wish I was anyway.

http://www.photos4travel.com/paris_france/paris_+france.jpg

[TheKentuckian]

9. I'm in to the tune of 110%

[TBF]

10. Solidarity nt

[maryf]

13. Solidarity

K&R

[Waiting For Everyman]

14. K&R

I support those in France and England and anywhere people are opposing the corporatist RW thieves.

Solidarity, yes!