Testing days for Sarkozy
In Paris and other French cities the protesters have left the streets. The unions claim 2.5 million people marched against increasing the pension age from 60 to 62. The government put the figure at just over one million. But everyone agrees that the scale of the protests has increased since June.
For President Nicolas Sarkozy his pension plans are a key cost-cutting reform. He has said the basic elements of the proposed law are non-negotiable. After today, there are likely to be further protests and strikes. The expectation is that Mr Sarkozy will eventually get his way, but he will probably have to offer some concessions.
The protests demonstrated the depth of feeling across France against changing pensions. Many protestors told me that they felt raising the pension age challenged the French way of life. Some of the placards read: "Let's refuse austerity plans."
And later this month Mr Sarkozy is expected to announce £35bn of further spending cuts. Now he is likely to reduce costs by ending tax breaks and reducing the numbers of civil servants. What most commentators agree on is that the French people will oppose any fundamental changes to their basic benefits. The president has little room for manoeuvre.
There was further embarrassment for Mr Sarkozy today. Members of the European Parliament attacked France for its plans to deport Roma (Gypsy) migrants. Some MEPs said the policy was "unacceptable". But Mr Sarkozy was spared criticism from the European Commission. The European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding said she was satisfied by France's explanation for its actions. She said that money was available to help the Roma but "the money is not being used in order to solve the problem".
For the French president these are crucial weeks that may well determine his political future.
I'm 
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~31~RS~)
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Sarkozy & the France Unions will be delighted: For every extra demonstrator over the 1 million there will be an additional ###Euros donated to France by the unfortunate Tax-payers of Germany. Not that anyone will reveal that largesse to the German Citizens.
'Testing times' will come when Germany wakes up to the enormous 'bill' it is being expected to pay for French Workers, the Unemployed & Pensioners to go on living above their National means for another decade.
Germans stood for it in the reasonable times, but having forked out 70% of the EUro-zone Bail-out package to now be required to keep French Citizens in comfort whilst they work to 67, I think the EU may unravel from its greatest benefactor losing all patience & trust in the 'ever closer union'.
It has to said: 'Germans, Rise up! You have only to throw-off France's chains to be free!'
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The dog days of Summer are giving way to the dog days of Sarkozy's presidency.
Most sensible people know that the European nations have to reduce their levels of sovereign debt. It is only the people who think the World owes them a living and that money grows on trees that think borrowing and spending should continue ad nauseam. Unfortunately, it easy for these people to talk up the benefits of social spending and any one person or governmemt that tackles the ever-increasing sovereign debt will be faced with an ever growing rebellion from the electroate - who know and understand the need for cutting costs but cannot tolerate that cuts might impinge upon their own lifestyles and living standards.
The people of north-western Europe have had it too good for too long to give up their expensive State-financed lifestyles and social benefits willingly. Sarkozy and any other political leader or party or governemet that pursues cost cutting and debt reduction - even if it is desperately needed - will suffer increasing resentment and unpopularity in the polls and, probably, lose votes and power at the next Elections.
Good government and strong leadership is to hold a poison chalice - poor government and lily-livered docility is the easier option.
We will soon know if Sarkozy is a man or a mouse!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Incivility, Inequality, Bankruptcy.
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USA, USA, USA
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Stepping back from the details: If Mr Sarkozy is successful in enacting the proposed changes, would this not be a break with the past where French Governments usually back down in the face of the mob?
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"If Mr Sarkozy is successful in enacting the proposed changes, would this not be a break with the past where French Governments usually back down in the face of the mob?"
If he can get a real change (although 60 to 62 is still not in line with the rest of us), then I expect Satan to be ice skating to work...in the thermal underwear knitted for him by his mum.
Chances are the French will be told to take their medicine but eventually the French government will be able to give them no more than a cough drop...which will be a triumph and all that the government were after anyway of course.
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It is admirable how some living in societies which are over-exploited (eg. 1/3 of Americans live in 3rd world conditions) really care to see others enterring the same situation as theirs. True that the miserable wants to see others being miserable too.
One has to analyse things. True that in some cases the pension system in France is irrational. True that syndicates in France like elsewhere have overturned France's competitiveness and true they are just a bunch of commies and gauche-caviar, I agree and add more to that, but then in a country that does not even suffer a demographic problem like the rest of Europe one should start wondering why on earth do they have such a problem with the pensions. Bad management? So? When your company goes bad what do you do? Do you keep on with the same policy, keeping the same director and simply ask your shareholders to pay more?
There is no question that the contribution-type pension system in France and many European countries archaic and not fully adapted to modern needs. But on the other hand, one has to note that this is an imposed system and that employees of the public or private sector have absolutely no alternatives: they are charged for it and that is how it goes. Till relatively recently, the idea was that you would take full pension after 40 years of work (but you could get a meaningful pension from 35 years of service), thus a guy working from 18 he would get full pension at 58 which is fare enough if you take into account that people that start working from 18 are more often than not in those jobs that require a younger age. recently age limits were added so you should have more than 60 years to get the full pension or in some cases to get any pension at all. Under the current plans the age is supposedly raised from 60 to 62 but its quite a trick: the reality is that to get the full pension (as compared to current standards) one has to reach the age of 67 anyway while getting a pension at 62 for a large array of professions and situations will only render a poverty-ceiling pension and that somehow irrespective of the employees allocations through their working life.
It is clear that the system is made to trap the employees into being robbed money as these are money being taxed and not given, i.e. they demand the people to pay for the mishandling of the budgets by politicians, managerisks and syndicalomaniacs. And it gets even more tragic in the more and more common situation (nearly half or more? of the working force) of people with fragmented working lifes, changing jobs and periods of unemployment. For them it is certain that they will be working well past 70 to complete any meaningful pension.
At the end of the day, if it is to reach the age of 70 to get a pension, people would wonder why on earth being taxed for it and not have the possibility to keep the money for themselves and deal with them accordingly.
I would not put my signature that all those who go on strikes and demonstrations are really "dissaffected" people, as many are really into very advantageous situations still, but the reality is that the majority of the working people in France are being robbed without even being given any other explanation than that all that is necessary for the viability of the system while none explained to them why the system is not viable.
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Thank you, Nik, for your explanation.
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Nik;
"1/3 of Americans live in 3rd world conditions"
And where did you get this information? Have you ever been to the United States? Have you ever been to the third world?
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"The protests demonstrated the depth of feeling across France against changing pensions. Many protestors told me that they felt raising the pension age challenged the French way of life."
So there's a silver lining under the dark cloud after all: the French way of life may finally go.
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"It is admirable how some living in societies which are over-exploited (eg. 1/3 of Americans live in 3rd world conditions"
Any proof of that or it's simply something you've been handed in as a talking point at the morning party meeting?
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Re #8
Paraphrased Quote from the 'greek', "..One-third.." of 'Americans live in 3rd World conditions'.
Oh really!?
USA Population 2008 - 308,000,000 American Citizens:
Thus the 'greek' claims approx, "..103,000,000.." Americans live below the Poverty line, i.e. subsisting at 'central African' levels!
By contrast, in reality and factual analysis as opposed to the stunning over-simplification and assumptions of the 'greek':
There is indeed statistical evidence as many as 30% to 40% of Americans fall below the 'poverty threshold' at some time in a cyclical 10 year period (post-1970). However, that Percentage is not permanent for each year: The overall statistic is that for the great majority the 'poverty' experience usually is for under a year duration. Almost all the analytical data suggests there are 2 key categories within this '40%' per decade: They are the longterm minority of permanent dislocated peoples (i.e. the vagrant) & the much larger temporary destitute group who experience this dislocation for reasons of lengthy unemployment, illness, emigration to another State etc. leading to a 'homeless' condition or the need for provision of Food Stamps/Welfare cheques.
The obvious difference for those Citizens in the EU27 who are unemployed for a 'year' or more is the 'Welfare-Net' in the EU is so much wider; even so, there is a vagrancy/tramp/homeless issue in the British Isles and across Europe - - the 'Roma' etc. being a prime example.
In 2008 the USA Office of Census found 13.2% of American Citizens (NOT 33%) living below the accepted 'Poverty criteria', i.e. aprox 40,000,000 Americans were destitute.
Now that is still a lot of impoverished People in one Nation in any one year, but is some 60,000,000 short of the 103,000,000 the 'greek' chucks into the Blog. Yet again, without a single substantive reference!
Then he has the nerve to inform everyone what needs to be done about Pensions etc..
Why am I not surprised!?
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powermeerkat;
""The protests demonstrated the depth of feeling across France against changing pensions. Many protestors told me that they felt raising the pension age challenged the French way of life.""
Au contraire, what it means is that they will have to pretend they are working for two years longer. Who wants to pretend in a stuffy office when there are the girls, the cafes, the wine, the foood, la France that awaits just outside? "Bonjour Paresse" was a book that gave a roadmap to get from your first day of employment to retirement on a good salary without ever having to do a single stich of work in your life. It was the best seller in France for quite some time. It was what many of France's best university graduates aspired to, a life as a mid level management flunky in a large corporation or the government. What a waste.
When I lived in France, Paris Match published a study showing that 1/12 of all French adult women and 1/4 of all French adult men had a serious problem with alcohol. But unlike the British who are typically weekend binge drinkers, the French are daily sippers consuming maybe a gallon of wine a day starting almost from the time they get up. I don't know if it is still true or not.
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It is interesting to see the view from the other side of the Channel Gavin. And it is even more interesting to see that some French people are against austerity or the medicine their government has proposed for Portugal,Spain,Ireland and Greece.
An interesting side effect of the shock and awe programme according to notayesmanseconomics has been.
"Actually somebody certainly did as you see German ten-year bund yields were 2.85% at the end of the week whereas as I stated earlier they are now 2.27%. The other core euro nations such as France whose equivalent yields were 3.11% then and are 2.57% now have benefitted too which is not quite what was advertised on the tin was it?"
So France in terms of her government bond yields and debt interest costs is currently benfitting from austerity.http://notayesmanseconomics.wordpress.com
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"And ever since I meet this man my life is not the same
And Nicolai Ivanovich Sarkozy is his name."
(Paraphrasing Tom Lerher.)
Just about anything you could want to know about Sarkozy is found in Charlie Rose's excellent interview of him conducted in January of 2007 shortly before the election. Unfortunately Segolene Royal did not accept Rose's request for an interview.
This link may work;
http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/32
I find him pathetically out of touch. Royal struck me as even worse. President Obama for all his faults still strikes me as far smarter than his European counterparts.
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MAII: "Unfortunately Segolene Royal did not accept Rose's request for an interview."
Royals usually don't. Particularly if they represent Socialist Party.
[which of course they can afford]
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Lots of you referred to the 1/3 having taken it literraly referring to definitions of poverty line and such. Thank you for the explanations. However, be it 1/3 (perhaps), 1/4 (probably) or 1/5 (maybe), what I wanted to say was quite clear: a large part of the US society even if slightly above the poverty line presents 3rd world living conditions, exemplified - for example - by low educational standards among young people, precarious housing (low quality wooden, preconstructed or even mobile etc. etc.) and even down to missing teeth, lack of proper dental care. Even if this is also another misleading over-generalisation which I accept to take back anytime if you insist, what is very well the case is that definitely the 1/3 of the US society is low paid, does not get enough holidays and gets sacked and smacked according to how well the boss slept. This is misery: all I said is that naturally miserable people are often more happy to see other people becoming miserable too rather than concentrating in looking at dealing with their misery.
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Re16: """...I find him (Sarkozy) pathetically out of touch. Royal struck me as even worse. President Obama for all his faults still strikes me as far smarter than his European counterparts."""
Sarkozy is no accidental figure. He is into politics since his university years when he was already giving interviews on tv speaking about his own ideas on French politics. You have to see Sarkozy in early 80s speaking, it is the same speech, again and again 30 years now. Identical. You know why? Because his policies are his speech and nothing more than that. Ok he may push a bit here or there but there is no real line behind his policies. As a politician he represents France's capitalist class. Nothing new for him, his first job prior to becoming mayor of a rich quarter of Paris, was to aid rich guys avoid tax by investing their money overseas!!! Haha, now he comes to correct this as much as Jeffrey comes to correct the enormous debt that his father left to the country. I would say that politically, Sarkozy is the natural continuation of Pompidu, the respective equivalent of Miterran and the opposite of De Gaul.
Segolene Royal... or just Segolene as the French call her has in fact a funny background and has risen not so much out any long-term political career. Herself only a minor member of the socialist party was only known inside the party merely for being the wife of Francois Holland and mother of his 4 children. They were not typically married in church or mayors house but were in a long-standing, "free relationship" which has legal standing as "couple cohabitation"... you know these are some 1970s leftish... hehe!!! Anyway. Holland is a prominent socialist member and in fact following the downfall of Jospin, being the party's secretary, he was the most prominent successor to take the lead and pose for presidential candidate representing the PS party in the 2007 elections. Segolene till then had no implication apart sporadic short termed positions she managed to gain only through her husband and she was widely known as "Francois' wife...".
BUT... as bad tongues say (and I speak the voice of a French collegue who is an insider in the PS party... - I asked him when I first heard about Segolene...)... Segolene jumped up at the last moment and declared she would pose also her candidature inside the PS internal elections to get the position of presidential candidate for the PS party!!! I.e. against her own husband.
The reason? Well Francois, like all French politicians, had an affair with a woman, a known journalist working for Le Monde or Figaro newspaper, do not remember. Segolene as soon as she learnt she became outraged and wanted to take revenge and thought posing against him in the PS party would ridicule him and make him lose the momentum he had started taking. Soon she would also declare publicly her separation to Francois - however she did it actually after the internal elections, anyway there was no marriage to dissolve apart a "cohabitation paper" and such. Why? Because, while having started as a joke-revenge it quickly gained momentum: as soon as she took to the television, it was proven that Segolene thought not particularly intelligent (and of ok but still average background university education and of near-zero experience) she manages to present a bit of charisma that all other socialists seem to currently lack and she made the link especially to the female population of France (.... especially the cheated wifes, haha!!!)... ending up in a situation where many many more socialists actually jumped on her bandwagon see this is as change from the old dinosaurs of the Miterran times which essentially even Holland represents. Hence, Segolene out of nothing, she found herself being voted as presidential candidate and even if later she lost the leadership to another woman, Aubry (no accident, daughter of Jacques Delors!) she still retains a powerful base inside the party.
That is all about Sarko and Segolene. Given the way politics go, I would not be surprised if it was Sarkozy who whistled Francois' love affair to Segolene!!! Haha!!!
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Maybe some commentators should find out what the French really mean in all those demonstrations. Actually most people in France believe the retirement system does need some fixing, but they massively (75% of them according to polls) object to the current Sarkozy government's approach. There is also a backgroud of serious general discontent with the Sarkozy lot, as was seen last Saturday when we demonstrated in great numbers not about pensions but about human rights policies and the treatment of minorities.
Maybe the British public could take to the streets more often to defend their interests or their views about democracy.
Finally, all these messages about the French being lazy etc. are getting a bit tedious. In fact productivity per our worked in France is at the top of the league, and the number of hours worked per year is similar to what it is in Germany and other advanced nations.
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"Maybe the British public could take to the streets more often to defend their interests"
Then UK might have end up bailing out of EUSSR.
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#20. At 2:06pm on 08 Sep 2010, ERIATLOV
I have sympathy for what you say. The characterisation of the French as a lazy bunch is nothing more than mischievous hype and far removed from the truth. Nevertheless, with respect, we are not talking here about the number of man hours worked per week but the number of years in a working lifetime.
Most European countries concluded right from the outset of their respective social safety net provision that universal retirement at 60 simply was not tenable. The Germans have typically retired at 65 and so have British men (although women retired at 60). Improvements in health care and increased life expectancy mean that a significant proportion of the working population are fit for work for the longer term and I have long argued for a flexible retirement age. While it is patently absurd to make people who have worked in declining industries retrain with only a few years of work left in them or to pay them unemployment benefits which cost little if any less than pensions when they could retire with dignity, it is equally stupid to tell someone who is fit and well and wishes to carry on working that they may not do so beyond 60, 62, 65 or 67.
It seems absurd to me that, when so many benefits are means tested, no account is taken of the ability and desire to continue working on the one hand or allowing people who may be less able to work to take early retirement. This kind of flexibility is manifesting itself in the UK labour market. Many older workers are availing themselves of opportunities for seniors to work especially in some of the service industries while some corporations regard early retirement deals as more cost effective than expensive redundancy packages. I believe that flexible retirement is the sensible way forward as dogmatic fixed retirement dates begin to look increasingly inflexible and anachronistic.
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"Maybe the British public could take to the streets more often to defend their interests"
But they do - most Fridays and Saturdays defending their right to drink as much as possible and dispose of the empties in each others faces. Indeed, they have gone to some lengths to spread the word doing much the same thing on the streets of Prague, Krakow, here in Budapest or whatever city happens to be the flavour of the month for stag dos and weekend breaks.
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ThrenodioII
Re #23
Oh dear me! Not You too!?
One cannot deny there are is excessive, mind-boggling drink-binges at weekends, but I'm afraid this is far from just a social issue in the UK. I don't know about eastern Europe, but I've seen from Helsinki to Hamburg to Brussels & Paris very much the same sort of behaviour. None of it would lead me to conclude any of those Nations or particular social groups within them deserved to be pilloried.
I will give You a recent example from Sky News which IMO was most illuminating:
Sky ran a news report that Spanish Hoteliers were very concerned about a new craze for 'jumping off balconies' into swimming pools; they showed 2 or 3 films of such idiocy; the commentary remarked that '6' young people had died in such accidents and quite a few more been injured. It concluded with the Spanish were 'especially worried about British youths' & the last bit of film showed Brit lads swigging copiously from bottles on balconies.
All very worrying: And then an enterprising viewer text-in to ask why they had not heard of the '6 dead' & Sky announcer replied none were Britons & then went on to add there had been almost no reports of British youths injured in this craze!Doubtless British youths are involved: It is part & parcel of youth to ape & goad each other into the most foolhardy & dangerous activities and I imagine some have been hurt or had very lucky scrapes.
However, note the tone of the report & the reality: Why did Spanish hoteliers single out the Brits? Well, I would hazard a guess it is because they know there is a UK Media & a good deal of UK Public only too ready to show/believe in warts & all, but not too keen on substance.
This succumbing to a media stereotyping of an entire Peoples in the UK is just incredible.
Tell me ThrenodioII: What of the UK young adults who are police, ambulance, fire, customs, nurse, doctor and all those working on night-shifts in offices-factories-care homes, road-rail-air, the theatres, cinemas, sports centres etc.?
Don't they deserve some credit?
To say nothing of thousands upon thousands of adults who venture out at a weekend and return home safely & properly.
To read You, MHoward, the 'greek' one would think the whole of the UK/England was out-of-its-collective mind on drink & drugs every Friday-Saturday!
IMO a slur on many fine young people and a complete travesty of the genuine situation.
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Re 318
1) No, 'one-third' is what You wrote & You were yet again attempting to mislead or simply making enormous, unverified assumptions, yet again!
2) No, whatever the figures, there is not millions of Americans living in 'Third World' conditions - - that is plainly unsubstantiated hyperbole by You - - below the 'Poverty threshold' in the USA is considerably different from no food or housing at all for days, weeks at a time & births taking place in open ground whilst people drink typhoid/cholera contaminated water.
3) No, You are attempting to rewrite Your diatribe as if You had all along meant 'no holidays', 'being sacked' etc. and that is nothing like You originally implied.
And even less to do with 'Third World' poverty.
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Re25: CBW, what can I say? Laugh? Cry?
Here is what I said:
""It is admirable how some living in societies which are over-exploited (eg. 1/3 of Americans live in 3rd world conditions) really care to see others enterring the same situation as theirs. True that the miserable wants to see others being miserable too."""
And on the basis of it you think you have found at last (at last! eh! after so many defeats!) a point to prove I have been wrong.
Yet again you are falling:
Read again and again and again my phrase and - let alone the reference to 1/3 being more poetic than statistic as I did not at all aim to talk on that - it still makes 100% sense and is 110% in touch with the realities in USA. I thank you very much for your information the definition of what is the moverty line and all that but I clearly spoke about "Americans living in 3rd world conditions", I could not care less about how much money they make or not, I am not money-oriented.
"""No, whatever the figures, there is not millions of Americans living in 'Third World' conditions"""
Yes there is. Unpaid vacations is 3rd world for me. Absence of basic health care is 3rd world for me - oh, and teeth is basic health care you know, it is not cosmetics. Being fired because your boss woke up on the wrong side is third world for me. You want me to continue? You think all these are hyperbole? Alright, do as you wish, I personally consider all that downright misery and these people that are found in such situations as downright miserable. That is the icon of 3rd world. And no I do not need to mention about Los Angeles during earthquakes and New Orleans during floods, I think it should be evident to anyone where this "1/3 third world" refers.
"""You are attempting to rewrite Your diatribe as if You had all along meant 'no holidays', 'being sacked' etc. and that is nothing like You originally implied."""
We have hugely different standards on what consists of 3rd world and what civilisation. Mine are higher.
"""And even less to do with 'Third World' poverty."""
Did I mention poverty? I mentioned misery. Please read my text carefully.
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Homer Simpson
"Pastor vows to carry out Burn-a-Koran day on Sept 11."
Remind you of anything? I thought there was no racial tension in the USA.
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#24 - cool_brush_work
Yes of course they do and I do not tar everyone with the same brush but I am getting a little bit tired of people nodding knowingly and saying 'Angol' every time there is rough behaviour on the streets and I have to say from personal experience that I feel a lot safer on the streets of Budapest at 3 in the morning than I did on the streets of a small Hampshire town at midnight.
There are decent human beings of all ages and types all over the planet and I am open to the accusation of making a generalisation which does not stand up to scrutiny. Also, I encounter many very pleasant and charming English people here. Nevertheless, on several recent occasions, I have encountered examples of out and out thuggery here and, on every occasion, Brits have been involved.
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#16
Marcus,
This may be of interest. Use the Listen Again facility.
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 PM 17:00 BBC Radio4 0:40.48
Then come back and say "I told you so!"
>8-D
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Why is there almost no news about the potential expelling of the gypsies out of France ? Didn´t another european country also do some ethnic cleansing about 70 years ago ?
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TPT;
"Homer Simpson
"Pastor vows to carry out Burn-a-Koran day on Sept 11."
Remind you of anything? I thought there was no racial tension in the USA."
First of all genius, the Koran is a book about Islam which is a religion, not a race. There are people of all races who are adherents to Islam. Second, it is not just a religion, for many of its practicioners it is a poltical cause, a political movement whose goal is to replace all governments around the world with a Caliphate ruled under Sharia law. This is to be done by any and all means including violence. This is not my intrepretation of it, it is what the book actually says as you'd find out if you'd bother to read it. It is what the media and so called moderate Moslems don't want you to read or hear and what they ignore in it at their own peril. The risk to them isn't from people who burn books or curse at them, it's from other Moslems. Moslem terrorists who want to impose one form of Sharia law or another have killed more Moslems than anyone else has and they've killed more Moslems than they've killed non Moslem infidels like you and me. This program of political violence is not acceptable in the US nor do I think most in Europe accept it either. Maybe you do.
Beyond that, there is an inalienable right enshrined in the first amendment to America's Constition, the bill of rights that guarantees freedom to speak. You know, one of our founding documents that differentiates America from Britain. And that freedom includes the freedom to openly practice hatespeak, prejudice, bigotry, and a lot of other things many people don't like to hear. That is when freedom of speech is tested, when what is being said is most repugnant to the majority. It was disgusting to hear general Petraeus whine on about Americans exercising their right to freedom of speech in their own country when he ought to be out their trying to defend it by kiling our enemies. Instead of trying to build nations and win heart and minds he should be winning wars by fighting them, that is his job, his only job. If he won't do it, he should step aside for someone who will, that is if our miserable politically correct miiltary colleges have turned anyone out who still believes in fighting to defend democracy.
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Margeret Howard,
I think the fire department of his city needs to have a fire hose trained upon him and his friendses ready to put out that fire before it happens...freedom of speech, more like freedom to be grotesque.
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DS, I see you're exercising you're inalienable freedom to whine. Go ahead, snivel away. What's the matter? Tough season? No one to audit?
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Scoth Git, the oil well may have been capped but the volcano this accident touched off has hardly begun. The many varieties of vultures from lawyers to politicians, from district attorneys to environmentalists all of who want to pick BPs bones could hardly have written a better script had they collaborated on it themselves. The Italians say revenge is a dish best enjoyed cold. We haven't heard word one yet about the criminal prosecutions that are sure to come either.
The British pundits and execs just don't understand US culture. This for many will be the opportunity of a lifetime to garner fame, fortune, political power, or all three.
Where did I get my insight into this from? Among other things I watched the hearings both the ones held jointly between Louisiana and the Coast Guard and the ones held by a Congressional committee. This could go on for many years, even decades. What a lesson BP is about to learn. I wonder if the Toyota fiasco has been sidelined by it.
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So when are the French and Germans going to wake up and say:
"If we want to save money then the most sensible thing is to abolish the 'EU' . Who needs it? Who needs Barrosso, Rumpoy and Ashton? Barrosso, Rumpoy and Ashton do, but nobody else does. Who needs all those Eurocrats earning more than three times what somebody else earns for the same job, over two thirds of it tax-free?* NOBODY NEEDS IT, except a very few."
French, Germans wake up!
Get rid of Merkel and Sarkozy!
Replace them with sensible people!
* Based on my application to teach in an "EU" school.
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"EU" = Enemy of Urope
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Re #26
"What can I say (the 'greek')?"
You said it, and three times at that:
Quote, "..e.g. one-third of Americans live in Third World conditions.."
That was statement untrue; that was deliberately misleading; it was a totally unsubstantiated allegation; a grossly inaccurate assumption....
The 'greek' in full, glaring prejudicial mode revealing error of fact, reality and understanding.
Again!
No more need be said.
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ThrenodioII
Re #28
Good to have acknowledgement there's good as well as bad in British/English society.
Nevertheless, I've seen & heard Brits behaving disgracefully, but then I've also seen Germans, Dutch, Italians, Swedes, Finns... well, I imagine quite a few over the many years sur le continent & before that in England. (Must admit, never met a bad American tourist!? Well, discounting their armed forces)
One thing occurs to me: Perhaps part of the "Anglos" labelling is something I have also encountered regularly in every facet of life. It is 'do you speak English?' used by Police & Emergency Services the World over when dealing with 'foreign' elements of any sort. Naturally, it turns out in many cases the 'foreigner' does & hence it is the language conversed in with miscreants & innocent.
I don't say it accounts for all the 'Anglos' devilry as there is clearly a mindlessness amongst some Brits abroad that is truly awful to behold.
Nevertheless, if you are a local & catch a snippet of 'english' as the common denominator then it's the 'English' get the bad name whether there or not.
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Biocath
Re #30 and 'news' of the 'Roma'
Where've You been?
Look back 4 Articles & find a mass of comments.
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MAII
Re #34
There's no doubt BP is at fault in several areas over the Gulf Oil spill.
Still, 'TransOcean' who ran the Oil Rig & 'Halliburton' who provided the Technical facilities plus invested heavily in the BP field will also "..learn.." about "American culture"...
Oh, but wait... they're both AMERICAN, so, perhaps there are some very "..costly.." lessons about to be learnt by them too as British Petroleum hauls them through the US Courts for their faults.
Yeah, for once I tend to agree with MAscaridII: "..This could go on for many years, perhaps decades..".
Then again, with over 12,000 Americans employed by BP across the USA & 35+% of BP Shares owned by US Stock-holders, plus former Presidents Bush Snr, Bush Jnr & former VP Cheney all standing to lose millions/billions were BP to go down I think there's a chance MAII & I could be wrong.
This whole thing could be settled in 3 parts: Shared payment of compensation to the bereaved of the 11 dead plus injured; in Court, shared payment of 'Fines' for breeches of rules, and, out of court with pay-offs to the very unfortunate affected Gulf Communities - - who as fellow Americans, as is typical of MAII, he appears to have lost sight of in his celebration of a European/British company in some trouble.
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#38 - cool_brush_work
Well yes but remember, like you, I am a native English speaker. I can spot an American or an Aussie or a Scot and distinguish them from an Englishman any time and, trust me, it is usually the English. There are many ex-pats from all over the place living and working here and they are, almost to a person, respectful of the locals and charming to everyone. You are also right about the Americans. 30 or more years ago, it was different but these days they are unfailingly polite and gracious.
What I am talking about is a particular element which fly in for short periods hell bent on having a riot. My best clients management team, with whom I also socialise a lot, are mainly Irish, North American, South American and a few Russians. As it happens, they are all big soccer fans. On the big match night last week, we decamped to a sports bar where all three of the big matches were being screened. There was a certain amount of noise when Hungary scored an own goal and some annoyance at the bad tempered nature of the Scotland match but the only serious incident was three Brits who ordered a bottle of spirits each and proceeded to get absolutely legless - and England won 4-0. They had to be ejected from the place with the usual murmuring of 'Angol' from the assembled group. This is what I am talking about. Thuggery for its own sake. In my later years in the UK, such behaviour was commonplace on Friday and Saturday nights and very intimidating it was too. Actually, it is not an especially English thing at home, rather a north European thing. I have seen incidents like this in Scandinavia, Holland and elsewhere but these countries do not, for the most part, export the problem. The habit of going abroad to tear up other peoples cities seems to be uniquely English and very distasteful it is too.
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#31
So you support the burning of the Koran by this pastor on September 11th?
(I'm not asking if he has the RIGHT to do it, just if you support it)
"And that freedom includes the freedom to openly practice hatespeak, prejudice, bigotry, and a lot of other things many people don't like to hear."
I'll remember that the next time you prance around astride your high horse aggressively targetting Europeans for their bigotry and prejudice against our ethnic and religious minorities. It's always been one law for you and another for us though, hasnt it sparky? One of these days you may wake up and realise that bigotry is bigotry, however its dressed up..racial, religious, nationality...its all the same. Just because you've decided that its ok to abuse on the basis of religion and nationality but not race, doesnt make it right. I can be no more blamed for the place i was born , or the religion i was indoctrinated into from birth, than i can be blamed for the colour of my skin.
Lets see what your precious First Amendment is worth when westerners across the globe , civilian and military, are murdered because of the criminal irresponsibilty of one attention seeking Evangelical.
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#34
The British pundits and execs just don't understand US culture. This for many will be the opportunity of a lifetime to garner fame, fortune, political power, or all three.
Every American is merely a plaintiff-in-waiting, we all know that. Your ambulance chasing culture is well known around the world,as is your record of vexatious litigation. There is no "US culture" to understand here, suing people at the drop of a hat is just what you people do.
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#34
Marcus,
The item I had in mind was the Arab immigrant experience in France, where Algerians whose families have lived in France for generations are resorting to name changes in order to find decent jobs.
40 minutes and 48 seconds in.
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44. At 10:41am on 09 Sep 2010, Scotch Git wrote:
"""#34
Marcus,
The item I had in mind was the Arab immigrant experience in France, where Algerians whose families have lived in France for generations are resorting to name changes in order to find decent jobs.
40 minutes and 48 seconds in."""
So what? Other immigrants also changed their names and they do not complain about it. Do you think Baladour's real name is Baladour? No it is Baladourian. Do you think Aznavour's real name is Aznavour? No it is Aznavourian. Both are Armenians. And Armenians in Fance are about 800,000 i.e. 1 in 70, yet you do not even notice them!!! Why? Because they have integrated. In fact they have integrated so good that they are even above the average, you hear a guy is an Armenian, it is ^practically "a guarantee" of being "ok". Why? Armenians were not even of same religion (orthodox might be christians but are vertically against the Pope...). Why? Because they had the same culture as French? Absolutely not, Armenians were a Caucasian-Middle Eastern culture with minimal to no links to France contrary to North Africans that had some more than 100 years of relations (be it good or bad) to develop a certain understanding.
You have at last ot start thinking that for some stereotypes, there is a certain base that they were created. Sometimes it is better to have your eye torn than your name. People simply need to work to improve their reputation and that is not done in 1 year or 2, it needs at minimum 2 generations. So concentrate your efforts of critiscism where it pays off, not to French themselves.
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#45
Nik,
Why shoot the messenger? Have you actually listened to the item in question?
If so, are you seriously supporting discrimination against French citizens based on their ethnic origins?
If not, don't you think you should?
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@ 33 MAII
"It was disgusting to hear general Petraeus whine on about Americans exercising their right to freedom of speech in their own country when he ought to be out their trying to defend it by kiling our enemies."
He was using his right to freedom of speech to point out how incredibly stupid this stunt is and how it may endanger American troops.
Do you only attack freedom of speech when people are using it to say something sensible?
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EU Prisoner;
"French, Germans wake up!
Get rid of Merkel and Sarkozy!
Replace them with sensible people!"
Hehehehehe very funny. Merkel and Sarkozy were the sensible people the Germans and French chose to replace Schroeder and Chriac. Do you actually believe there is a even a single rational man or woman anywhere in Germany or France who can solve any of the impossible dilemmas these irrational societies have created for themselves? The problem isn't the leaders of Germany and France, it's the Germans and French themselves. Get rid of them and the problems will go away.
"The unions claim 2.5 million people marched against increasing the pension age from 60 to 62."
Let them eat cake.
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CBW"
"35+% of BP Shares owned by US Stock-holders"
Then they will get out now before it is too late if they have even a single ounce of brains in their skulls. Considering how easily so many of them were taken in by Bernie Madoff and his clones, they may be stupid enough to take the elevator right down to the bottom. It's amazing how many Worldcom shareholders stuck it out right down to the subbasement.
"This whole thing could be settled in 3 parts: Shared payment of compensation to the bereaved of the 11 dead plus injured; in Court, shared payment of 'Fines' for breeches of rules, and, out of court with pay-offs to the very unfortunate affected Gulf Communities - - who as fellow Americans, as is typical of MAII, he appears to have lost sight of in his celebration of a European/British company in some trouble."
You are dreaming. One thing Europeans don't seem to understand about American culture is that if you swim with the sharks, you'd better not bleed. And this huge mauled tuna has a vast swarm of them just circling waiting for their chance for the kill and a huge meal of its meat.
One thing to understand is that there will almost certainly be culpability for negligent homocide. The FBI and DOJ are looking into it now and have been since the beginning. There will likely be hard prison time for BP execs as it will be demonstrated by prosecutors that the "corporate culture" of indifference to the safety of life and property in order to maximize short term profits was consistent with a pattern that made this tragedy or one like it inevitable. Once the criminal trial brings in a guilty verdict from a jury, the civil suits will have a walk in the park. The criteria for criminal conviction is beyond reasonable doubt. The criteria for winning a civil suit is a far lower standard, much easier to meet. The civil cases will be virtually prima fascae and make no mistake, there will be tons of them. I suppose you never heard of the deep pockets theory of American civil law either. The lawyers go after those with the most money. BP stands out.
Whatever assets BP has in the US will be sold off to the highest remaining bidders who still have permission to perform this kind of work in the US. BP's US subsidiary is headed for eventual extinction and total loss even if it takes ten years. That's my prediction.
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nonsese offramp;
"There is no "US culture" to understand here, suing people at the drop of a hat is just what you people do."
It's our alternative to killing each other in wars. That's what other people do.
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nonsense offramp;
"#31
So you support the burning of the Koran by this pastor on September 11th?
(I'm not asking if he has the RIGHT to do it, just if you support it)"
I've got a copy myself. Perhaps I'll fly down to Florida with it, buy a can of gasoline and a cigarette lighter and join them. And while I'm at it, I'll stick photos of President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and General Petraeus in with it. Then I'll march to the fife and drum playing "The World Turned Upside Down." As far as I'm concerned they can go to hell and join King George III. Just who do they think they are to deny America's their Constitutional rights especially after all their spouting off about torturning captured enemy conspirators to discover their plots at GITMO and Abu Gharib?
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@30 Biocath
"Why is there almost no news about the potential expelling of the gypsies out of France ? Didn´t another european country also do some ethnic cleansing about 70 years ago ?"
I salute France for this decision.
And you can be sure that many other people within Europe will do so as well.
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@35 EUPris
"So when are the French and Germans going to wake up and say:
"If we want to save money then the most sensible thing is to abolish the 'EU' . Who needs it? Who needs Barrosso, Rumpoy and Ashton? Barrosso, Rumpoy and Ashton do, but nobody else does. Who needs all those Eurocrats earning more than three times what somebody else earns for the same job, over two thirds of it tax-free?* NOBODY NEEDS IT, except a very few."
French, Germans wake up!
Get rid of Merkel and Sarkozy!
Replace them with sensible people!"
Don`t be too harsh with Merkel. She was the first German Chancellor to actually demand something for the money handed out.
What I have learned from the Sarrazin debate of the last weeks (I am not in Europe right now, but I follow big forums and newspapers regularly) is that the "we/you started the war" and "Nazi" arguments are no longer enough to shut people up.
With old generations dwindling in both Germany and the former allied nations, I expect a massive shift in EU politics within the next two decades.
The Sarrazin debate also showed me just how much the German political class has parted ways with the population.
We already had surveys that showed how almost half of the German population already lost faith in democracy and the political class.
The European Project as a form of German atonement for WWII, and as a means of anchoring Germany to Europe, will not remain that way.
But that`s a good thing imo, because this could be a trigger to acutally reform the EU and its bodies and stop the bureaucratic insanity.
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@48 MAII
"Hehehehehe very funny. Merkel and Sarkozy were the sensible people the Germans and French chose to replace Schroeder and Chriac. Do you actually believe there is a even a single rational man or woman anywhere in Germany or France who can solve any of the impossible dilemmas these irrational societies have created for themselves? The problem isn't the leaders of Germany and France, it's the Germans and French themselves. Get rid of them and the problems will go away."
So what about the French and most of all German immigrants to America who built up your oh so great nation?
Those tens of thousands who came to America to aid in in the war of independence. Those hundreds of thousands who came to America to fight for the Union during the civil war?
What about those German-Americans who founded the American companies you mentioned in previous blogs and which you are so proud of? E.g. Crysler or Boeing.
Would you consider these people or their descendents as "the problem" as well?
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#51. At 1:11pm on 09 Sep 2010, MarcusAureliusII,
Now why should we be surprised when a pastor in the USA decides to burn the koran, after all this is the country of prohibition, temperance, bible bashing evangelical happy clappers. What I find always so sad is that such an event attracts so much attention and holier than thou criticism, as I've lost count of the number of video's showing rioting mobs burning and defacing Christian images, and these are just reported and then ignored. Why does Obama not condemn the Iranian treatment of the woman who is now about to be lashed 99 times, oh I forgot, he's looking for the votes of Muslims in the USA now that he's unpopular.
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Drugstore Man;
"So what about the French and most of all German immigrants to America who built up your oh so great nation?
Those tens of thousands who came to America to aid in in the war of independence."
As I recall, most of the Germans who came to fight in the American colonist's war of independence against Britain were....Hessian mercenaries fighting for the British. As for the French, most were in Canada until the Canadians kicked them out of Arcadia. They settled in Louisiana where the name Arcadia evolved into "Cajun." Many still speak a patois of French.
Many Germans settled in Pennsylvania and their descendants became the Pennsylvania Dutch which actually were Deutch. Their descendants still speak German.
I'm not aware of any Germans who came specifically to fight for the Union Army in the Civil War. They came to America to escape poverty and oppression in Germany among many waves of foreign immigrants. Among the most racist people in the north were newly arrived Irish immigrants who were angry at having to compete with newly arrived escaped and freed slaves who came north from the Confederacy.
The descendants of all these people have blended into the mainstream, the result of the US melting pot. Many have intermarried with people of other ancestry. The distinction has no significance to us. I have no idea how anyone could consider people of these ancestries a problem except on an individual basis just like any other people. As a group...they are not even a group. Even as a distinct sub-community they seem to have mostly faded away into the mainstream masses. At most some Americans may be aware that they have German or French blood in their ancestry and may even attend Octoberfests along with people of other ethnicities.
"What about those German-Americans who founded the American companies you mentioned in previous blogs and which you are so proud of? E.g. Crysler or Boeing."
Typical American stories. Lots of people from lots of places founded large corporations here. Nothing unusual.
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Te #49
".. Bernie Madoff.." and ..British Petroleum: Well, yes the resemblance is so obvious, I wonder nobody else has noticed it!?
One a is a convicted multi-million dollar fraudster: The other a multi-Billion dollar Global company with investors across the World including every major Investment House in the World.
Sometimes, MAscaridII there is just no real point to replying because You are so off-the-wall it defeats the whole purpose of debate!
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#57. At 5:40pm on 09 Sep 2010, MarcusAureliusII,
So "Even as a distinct sub-community they seem to have mostly faded away into the mainstream masses. At most some Americans may be aware that they have German or French blood in their ancestry and may even attend Octoberfests along with people of other ethnicities."
Um, Er, MAII have you not forgotten the Irish Americans who have hardly forgotten the emerald isle and who collected for the IRA and hold St Patrick's day marches in New York, I'm also sure the descendants of the indigenous Red Indian tribes that the US North and South tried to eradicate have also not forgotten their origins. I'm also sure that the inhabitants of the French speaking areas of the USA are more than just aware of where they originated from.
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Buzet23
Re #59 and MAII #57
Well, as I've recounted before though I met many fine American Servicemen (& women) in the 1970s among the 'others' were some Irish descent US Army troops. One night they argued long & hard about how the 'English' (some did manage to recall 'Brits') should get out of Ireland and how they'd contributed to the IRA's 'cause' when the hat was passed around.
In the course of this illuminating session each claimed to be 'Protestant': Despite several attempts to explain none of them could get their head around they had been aiding a 'Catholic' terrorist group! One of these prime specimens was a 'Master-Sergeant'!
In all truth I never met any bunch quite as dull as that at any other time in the USA or anywhere else. Though I'm bound to say some of the knuckleheads in the Paras did come close at times.
These days, it is when I read MAII's & the 'greeks' contributions they most come to mind for their loose grasp of history & very basic misconceptions of reality.
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DurstTigerMann
Re #53
Your final 2 paragraphs were eminently sensible: I do hope this may be the start of Germany moving away from dependence on France's EU backing - - the break-up of the axis-of-ill-intent inside the EU would certainly be a bonus for all Europe - - with France's role down-graded political reform is bound to follow and may just save the EU from catastrophe.
Those 2 paragraphs went some way to making up for much of Your earlier stuff on causes of war which is revisionist History unsupported by fact.
Re #52
Completely disagree with You on this: France's and indeed EUrope's inc. UK attitude to the 'Roma' problem is inhumane an affront to the EU Charter of Human Rights.
Mind You, it is yet more evidence to put before the likes of 'pro-EU' enthusiasts Jukka_Rohilla, JeanLuc, Mathiasen etc. that just because something is written on EU Documents doesn't mean it is worth the paper it is written on. You know, much like France's Government's indifference to any EU Directive etc. that does NOT suit France, or, the Lisbon Treaty is NOT an EU Constitution except when it requires 3 additional Protocols for it to be passed by the Irish!
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cbw;
"One a is a convicted multi-million dollar fraudster: The other a multi-Billion dollar Global company with investors across the World including every major Investment House in the World"
With your demonstrated accumen in matters of economics and finance I'm hardly surprised that the association of Bernie Madoff and BP has escaped you.
Both represent enormous investments of over 50 billion dollars which attact very wealthy investors. Had anyone suggested that Madoff's funds were not viable prior to him turning himself in for fraud few if any would have believed it. And the proof of that is that someone did write again and again to the SEC and nobody listened to him. That was Harry Markopolis who was not just someone off the street but a man who was very savvy about finance and investments himself.
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35606057
And so today despite very real doubts by experts about the long term survivability of BP as was expressed again on the referenced Radio 4 link, many if not most who have money, jobs and therefore emotions tied up in it don't want to believe it either. This will give those who have the foresight to see it coming time to get out before the roof finally caves in. I assume you will not be one of them.
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Buzzard, I'm sure there is a point you wanted to make burried in there someplace but I'll be damned if I can figure out what it is.
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8. At 10:04am on 08 Sep 2010, Nik wrote:
--✄-- It is admirable how some living in societies which are over-exploited (eg. 1/3 of Americans live in 3rd world conditions) really care to see others enterring the same situation as theirs. --✄--
TRUE
--✄-- this is an imposed system and that employees of the public or private sector have absolutely no alternatives: they are charged for it and that is how it goes. --✄--
TRUE
--✄-- Till relatively recently, the idea was that you would take full pension after 40 years of work...one has to reach the age of 67 anyway while getting a pension at 62 for a large array of professions and situations --✄--
TRUE
--✄-- It is clear that the system is made to trap the employees into being robbed money as these are money being taxed and not given, i.e. they demand the people to pay for the mishandling of the budgets by politicians, managerisks and syndicalomaniacs. --✄--
TRUE is made to still more taxed money and respectively pay less the pensions
--✄-- And it gets even more tragic in the more and more common situation (nearly half or more? of the working force) of people with fragmented working lifes, changing jobs and periods of unemployment. For them it is certain that they will be working well past 70 to complete any meaningful pension. --✄--
TRUE
--✄-- At the end of the day, if it is to reach the age of 70 to get a pension, people would wonder why on earth being taxed for it and not have the possibility to keep the money for themselves and deal with them accordingly. --✄--
TRUE...i wonder the same
Now! Button click the cowboy below to find out how the U.S. soldiers...while trying to save Afghani women from their ultra-fundamentalist fate...use to play a new role game for "killing time"...
US Finger-ball
(•̪●)
'̿'̿ ̿'̿ ̿'\̵͇̿̿\☚=()=☛/̵͇̿̿/'̿'̿ ̿'̿ ̿
/ \
Sport
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41 threnodio writes:
"The habit of going abroad to tear up other peoples cities seems to be uniquely English and very distasteful it is too."
It's been going on for centuries.
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MAII
Re 363
Compared to enormous scope of BP convicted felon Bernie Madoff is checken-feed, but You carry on demonstrating Your 'economic' acumen.
I notice You're already playing safe & predicting 10yrs before BP disappears!
Let me assure You that in Your blind bias against BP You have totally misunderstood that BP has been swatting american flies along with every other sort across the Globe for almost a century just like all the remaining multi-national Oil Companies. The term 'British' in the name is about as relevant as 'Esso' was to Standard Oil (i.e. SO)!
MAscaridII as with so many things what You think You know and what You actually know about 'sharks' & 'blood' in the water are 2 very different things. There will be no 'Culpable Homicide' charges because to do that they will have to charge Halliburton, TransOcean & BP Executives and as to get to where they are to day they were and are the real live 'sharks' nobody is going near them without a lot more than a rickety rod & line of the sort You are familiar with for the sticklebacks!
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Re my #60
For any readers concerned that I'm claiming the I.R.A. was entirely Catholic based I assure You I'm well aware of its Communist & Nationalist Secular branches.
It is just that I gave up trying to explain all the facets of the I.R.A. because it was evident none of the US Troops had a clue about any of it.
Apologies if I caused offence to any God-fearing Catholic out there: It was not my intention.
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Re #66
"...been going on for centuries.."
Almost as long as You've been complaining about the English, then!
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cbw;
"Compared to enormous scope of BP convicted felon Bernie Madoff is checken-feed, but You carry on demonstrating Your 'economic' acumen."
Bernie Madoff is believed to have swindled investors out of at least 50 billion dollars. It may be among the greatest frauds in the history of capitalism. Even WorldCom was only 11 billion. 50 billion may be chicken feed to you but I think even BP would find that a tough nut to swallow. Not only is the FBI which is now dissecting the removed defective blowoff preventer swarming along with the rest of law enforcement in the US, investors, environmentalists, and everyone who can invent a reason why the spill adversely impacted their finances, so are the other oil companies who covet obtaining BP's assets at fire sale prices. BP is like a slab of raw meat in a lion's den. They are all drooling over the coming meal. That's what happens when you swim with the sharks and bleed. They tear you to shreds.
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E;
"8. At 10:04am on 08 Sep 2010, Nik wrote:
--✄-- It is admirable how some living in societies which are over-exploited (eg. 1/3 of Americans live in 3rd world conditions) really care to see others enterring the same situation as theirs. --✄--
TRUE"
The definition of living below the poverty line in the US is very different from what it means in other countries. Most people among us we consider poor would be considered middle class in most of the rest of the world.
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I have a riddle for CBW and the hooray henry collective:
What do you call a hole in the north sea?
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The Only thing I truly find I dislike about the "Brits" is that they changed the names of places during their reign as Imperial superpower.
Now, I have to learn all these new names for Peking, Burma, Bombay....did they not have names back then?
LOLOL:)
But as one can see from my postings I love the BBC "Masterpiece Theatre" television shows ...that is what I look for at DVD stores and on Netflix.
I'm semi Anglo phile and found that out when I visited London and saw the countryside and
saw Pink Floyd's factory (Pigs) and saw that there are historical places (buildings or monuments) on every corner--in London.
We -- the USA --only have that kind of history in the East USA and I find the East USA stuffy. (there are other cities than East coast cities..here.)
sorry America :O)))
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Ellinas,
Now I know why Kruschev said to the USA "We will bury you." One, he was upset. And
It was like the ultimate saying ...we will outlast YOU...but I'm not going to say it...as it seems (and to him later)....petty.
I'm just gonna be nice and ignore your baiting of Americans....maybe you should bait your own Greek government instead. :)))
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AND BTW,
Anything America does is reported by American newspapers--free press?--then magnified by people everywhere ...so you are just feeding into the "USA this and the USA that" frenzied obsession of the PR (anything reported is goodif it makes the USA seem important) press.
Duhh
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72. d_t
What do you call a hole in the north sea?
Ice hole.
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Actually changing the age at which one has access to pensions doesnt bring anything much because in France, you have to pay up a minimum of thirty years to even start thinking fo getting something and to have the full benifit one must pay for 40 years. So there is hardly anyone who will actually retire with full pension before the age of sixty. In any case, a lot of people lose their jobs in their fifties and it really doesnt make sense to pay them unemployment benifits. So Sarkozy's reforms will not decrease the deficit.
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#64. At 6:34pm on 09 Sep 2010, MarcusAureliusII,
Don't worry MAII, keep on attending the English courses and one day you'll be able to understand plain English, until then just keep on believing in your Walter Mitty land where everything is as you believe and the facts/truth an irrelevance.
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#77. At 09:32am on 10 Sep 2010, révti,
re "In any case, a lot of people lose their jobs in their fifties and it really doesnt make sense to pay them unemployment benifits."
This particularly affects the 'Cadre' level where 57 is a favourite age to be made redundant in France since this managerial level is entitled to three years unemployment benefit on the expectation that they take their slightly reduced pension at 60. The white and blue collar levels don't get that luxury I believe. Sarko's changes will affect the 'Cadre' mentality though.
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"What do you call a hole in the north sea?"
Fish population (also known as CFP victims)
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74. At 01:17am on 10 Sep 2010, DavidStvn wrote:
"""I'm just gonna be nice and ignore your baiting of Americans....maybe you should bait your own Greek government instead. :)))"""
Do not worry about it. Greeks do not bash Americans as people or as culture. When they bash they do it for their oligarchic leadership. And Greeks have very real reasons to do so unlike the millions of others who are anti-USA but do not know the exact reason that they are so. You ask aan Indonesian why he is anti-American and he tells you "Because of Palestine and Iraq" (ai ai ai ...). When you tell him what have you got to do with these far-away countries, he asnwers, they are muslim and Americans are anti-muslim. When you tell him, "but America helped the muslim Bosnians and Kosovars and bombed the christian Serbians to help them", they are perplexed, troubled, do not know what to answer.
Well, Greeks know precisely why they do not like Americans and it is because their relationship with US has only ended in dictatorships, in losing half of Cyprus, in being silenced for the death of 1000s of Greeks inside Turkey as well as the murder of 1000s of POWs in Cyprus, and in the completion of the total ethnic cleansing, in the loss of the balance of power with Turkey (where US almost blindly aids Turkey and implicitly supports its every absurd demand over Greece), in the soft-power cultural attack of Greece, in US implicit support to the aggressive propaganda of FYROM which has officially demands lands from Greece, for the open support to Albanian gueriillas and Albanian nationalism in the Balkans...
... there is not a single issue where Greeks have benefited from their relationship with the US. But Greeks - note this, in percentage one of the most educated nations on this planet - have the basic education to distinguish between US geopolitics and US people and their cultures. This is a country where people might protest against the US outside the consulate and throw eggs on its windows but at the same time a company of American citizens can be sitting right on the opposite pavement on a cafe and drink their coffee without anyone physically attacking them. There is no sense of other basic animosity, the problem is purely political. US geopolitical plans have been laid out and they do not include Greece in them, there is no reason for Greeks to be particularly appreciative of this, isn't it?
Note also that part of the anti-USness is actually an off-shoot of anti-Britishness, a feeling that was not correctly expressed in post-WWII Greece of civil war between right wing and left wing. Since US replaced Britain in the geopolitical chessboard and since it largely continues a similar approach without many changes, anti-british anger offshooted to US. However, for knowledgeable people like me, it is clear that the biggest and most dangerous interaction of Greeks with any of surrounding or far nations in the last 300 years have been not the one with Turks, nor the Bulgarians, nor the Italians nor the Germans and not the Americans but the British. Americans simply followed as successor power. If you delve into historic details you would understand it crystal clear but then why should you do so for a little corner of the earth? Do I know myslef about such issues in Philipines or in Zambia afterall?
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Re #72
I've heard a whisper it's: The only genuine, full-proof, 100% guaranteed escape from DemocThreat, the 'greek' et al!
Personally, I hazard a guess it's the 'gap' in UK Energy Supplies!?
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I can't claim to understand the merits or demerits of the different austerity policies that are being advanced in Europe. But I can say that I admire the political courage of her political leaders in putting them forward. It can't be pleasant for a Mr. Sarkozy, Papandreou, or Cameron to go to the people and say "This is unpleasant, but has to be done."
I wish we would see some of this sort of candor here in the United States.
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Re #81
"..anti-USness.. anti-Britishness.." plus, "..Turks.. Bulgarians.. Germans.. Albanians.."
Perhaps it is true: Insanity really is Your only means of relaxation!
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#71 MarcusAureliusII
--✄-- The definition of living below the poverty line in the US is very different from what it means in other countries. Most people among us we consider poor would be considered middle class in most of the rest of the world. --✄--
TRUE
The poverty line, is the minimum level of income deemed necessary to achieve an adequate standard of living in a given country and is usually determined by finding the total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year.
This approach is needs-based in that an assessment is made of the minimum expenditure needed to maintain a tolerable life and individual factors are often used, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc.
Poverty thresholds can be defined in different ways:
A basket of goods deemed necessary to live at the socially accepted minimum. Most developing countries and some developed ones (including the US) use this approach.
The European Union, instead, uses 60% of national median equivalised household income. As such, it is comparing low-income households with those in the middle, not with the richest. The use of median and not the mean income, automatically excludes the wealthiest individuals from the calculation. It uses household income rather than individual income, otherwise (for example) all children would be considered to be in low income
and the second method is more important to my opinion. To that we must add: social security and welfare benefits (a savage capitalistic system like the one in the US can't be equal to the European welfare benefits).
Social cohesion: there is a link between income inequality and social cohesion. In more equal societies (Greece), people are much more likely to trust each other, measures of social capital suggest greater community involvement, and homicide rates are consistently lower...and as far i know, the last 30 years, there was not a single fire gun shot in my city nor a single assassination (8th biggest city in Greece). That's not the case of the US.
Greeks still have a solid social and family system, still 95% of the Greeks own their house and 60% of them a second one as well as 40% of them also own a store and more than one parking places.
...and in my personal case, without any suffering (MIDDLE class family) also owning 8.000 sq. m. of land with 150 olive trees and various other fruits with another 40 sq. m. house inside there (build by our own hands...was great fun)
can a MIDDLE US class family be in that condition? I doubt! We all saw US families being evicted from their homes easily...I never saw a single Greek family being evicted in so cruel way in Greece by the authorities just to make happy some real estate agent speculators.
Public University is free of taxes and public schools have their scholar books for free as welfare benefits for the last 50 years and so on...
Economic inequality is thought to reduce distributive efficiency within society. That is to say, inequality reduces the sum total of personal utility because of the decreasing marginal utility of wealth. For example, a house may provide less utility to a single millionaire as a summer home than it would to a homeless family of five
a euro spent by a poor person will go to things providing a great deal of utility to that person, such as basic necessities like food, water, and healthcare; meanwhile, an additional euro spent by a much richer person will most likely go to things providing relatively less utility to that person, such as luxury items. From this standpoint, for any given amount of wealth in society, a society with more equality will have higher aggregate utility and that's the case of Greece not the US
But after all Nik didn't spoke about poverty line instead spoke of societies which are over-exploited (eg. 1/3 of Americans live in 3rd world conditions)...so not necessarily under the poverty line. You can be Rich and famous but over-exploit yourself and that's the case of the US. For instance Paris Hilton (rich beyond imagination but needed to make a porno film in order to be someone...cocaine, prison etc.), O.j Simpson, Tyson, Michael Jackson, Tiger woods, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears etc.
health Population? Obesity in US is beyond imagination and it's a clear symptom of an over-exploited society and 3rd world living conditions and so on
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#75 DavidStvn
--✄-- Anything America does is reported by American newspapers. free press? --✄--
Anything Iran does is reported by Iranian newspapers -- free press? I don't think so...like the Iranian woman facing, this days, death penalty by lapidation for murder and adultery charges
MP Censures France, Italy Over Stoning Case. The Human Rights Committee of the Majlis censured France and Italy for supporting an Iranian woman facing murder and adultery charges, a lawmaker said on Wednesday.
--✄-- then magnified by people everywhere --✄--
then...thanks God...news sometimes get magnified by people everywhere and they managed to suspend execution (at least for now) by reexamining her case.
Sakineh case continues to provoke debate especially in Italy. Rise the political tension between Italy and Iran.
All this without the need to threaten Iran...Italians and French have done the same, several times, with US sentences of death...without any success...
...and of course in 2009 you sentence to death and killed 5 times more people than Sudan and Yemen and quite the same number as Saudi Arabia.
BTW i was expecting you to be disgusted by some play-station US methods, instead you came forward me with the "Kruschev anger". I think i will hide my fingers the next time i talk to you :)
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I will not bury anyone, Ellinas. I can't afford it...I'm not a "rich American."
What does it matter in the great scheme of things...the most important thing for me is to live and to have a job and friends.
Besides, I learn from coming here. Also, the USA would greatly benefit by cutting its oh so grandiose ambitions for global blah blah blah blah...I mean our deficit is almost exactly the amount of military spending... hmmmm
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Isnt it not a good idea to cut spending during a recession? That has been the common wisdom. But we can't cut interest rates.
In fact it was Reagan who raised interest rates to manage inflation. Though people forget that the oil prices went down with the ending of the oil embargo from the Arab world at that same time. So, Reagan probably lucked out.
Balance budgets, to me, are the answer. I remember the economy taking off in the USA when Clinton and the Repub. congress balanced the budget. So, uh ohh, that is what is needed.
So, the Germans are not far off.
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62 cbw
"Your final 2 paragraphs were eminently sensible: I do hope this may be the start of Germany moving away from dependence on France's EU backing - - the break-up of the axis-of-ill-intent inside the EU would certainly be a bonus for all Europe - - with France's role down-graded political reform is bound to follow and may just save the EU from catastrophe."
A bipolar or even tripolar EU with the three major powers GB, France and Germany would certainly help to actually solve problems undermining a safe and peaceful future for Europe, which the EU certainly helped to promote.
And I think that we are on a good way to achieving this goal. As a first step, the German Federal Constitutional Court limited the degree by which EU policy could influence German sovereign policy last year.
The future of the EU does not lie in a single federal nation, but in a federation of nations with differing interests which will have to meet at the biggest common denominator.
Why I think this: like I said, so far the "axis of ill-intent" was basically a very confident France supported by an economically strong Germany haunted by the guilt of the greatest organized mass murder in history looking for a substitute identity.
If you want to know more about this, you could check out the German-Polish relationship, especially in regard to the expulsion of the Germans from Eastern Europe.
As this slowly changes with new generations which show more pride in their nation again, I don`t think that a European Union which could grow into one single entity or nation is not a possibility any longer.
"Those 2 paragraphs went some way to making up for much of Your earlier stuff on causes of war which is revisionist History unsupported by fact."
Actually, I don`t think that our opinions on that issue differ that much.
It`s just that I am quite interested in European politics of that time and about the way into WWI.
And how the people and political elites conceived the situation back then.
What happened in Germany back then, who wanted war, who didn`t and what was Wilhelm II role in all this?
But also how other nations conceived Germany and her new ambitions.
Just to name a few short points.
As to the fact that the German Empire could have stopped the war by not blindly following Austro-Hungary, or that the German Empire was the first to invade France and, therefore, has to take a big part of the blame, I did not mean to deny this.
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DTMann
Re #89
I'm afraid You mistake my objections to the EU-Brusels entity.
As a believer in 'Democracy' & wholly opposed to the EU for its virulent anti-Democratic institutions & policies there is no way that I could possibly support an EU simply because UK or England were admitted to the 'axis-of-ill-intent'.
In my eyes that is no reform or improvement: In fact it is worse - - with the duopoly of power (triple if we inc. Brussels itself) at least UK/England is on the outside and on times can garner support for stand against some of the excesses of Unrepresentative, Unaccountable authority displayed by Paris-Brussels-Berlin - - to become a part of such anti-Democratic methods would IMO be to forsake all that G.B. Parliamentary Democracy had stood for & evolved into over the centuries.
This is why I am gloomy about the future development of the EU-Brussels: I cannot see how it will find the philosophical will-power to break the power-base of that Triple Alliance - - they simply have far too much to lose - - more likely, and very sadly, I feel it will take Civil unrest on a great scale to end this political curse on the peoples of EUrope & the British Isles.
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--✄-- the most important thing for me is to live and to have a job and friends. --✄--
friends? Your expectations from life are enormous...i think acquaintances is more proper to say...good luck anyway
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Elinas, most people have bfs or gfs,
I can only explain my life by saying I like lots of friends and usually have no long lasting love affair. Honestly, its the being of an Aquarius, which means lots of friends and lots of loves....
I live for my family of friends (one or 2 on here), but I do not downgrade all to acquaintances, because when one "friend" is busy, I just move on to another...my therapist told me that WAS healthy.
Oh well too much info.
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