LIVE: The Yellow Vests Movement

[yerrag]

At least Macron has the fiscal sense to lower taxes and liberalize the economy where it counts. I mean, gas tax aside, he has mostly tried to lower taxes and balance the budget. What these people are really protesting is the increase of their pension age from 50 to 60. That is still lower than the standard age of 65 in most countries, but the French have always had a culture of socialism and protest.

It's true that the French does protest much. I remember not long ago the French farmers blocking roads to keep produce from being transported but I forget what they were protesting about. But I didn't know the protest is largely about their pension age and if that's the case I would just call it silly for them to do so. I think there would be larger issues at play that would cause them the protest movement to swell in its ranks. I don't know if liberalizing the economy is such a good thing for these people, as liberalizing used to sound nice until it became synonymous with globalization and lost jobs and wages. As for lowered taxes, it would be a good thing but it depends on who benefits from the lowered taxes. Is it them or is it the corporations, for example?

 

[Goldenboi]

What these people are really protesting is the increase of their pension age from 50 to 60. That is still lower than the standard age of 65 in most countries, but the French have always had a culture of socialism and protest.

I don't agree they are protesting because of an increase of their pension age. The age is being gradually increased from 60 to 62 years by 2018 from 65 to 67 years by 2023 but that was announced in 2010.

 

[LucH]

The French “grumble” because if nothing changes, we go straight into the wall.
The higher age of the pension and the increase in fuel taxes are just the tip of icebergs.
The problem: If nothing changes we go straight into the wall. Why ?

*) at the ecological level:
- Global warming: We won’t probably stay below 2 ° C of temperature increase. Carbon footprint too important.
- Feeding mode: We consume more than what we produce (red meat).

*) at the economic level.
Public debt is too high (130%) (private and business). They are trapped because they can’t sustain growth. They need new revenue to sustain themselves, otherwise it is a potential financial tsunami. The market will collapse if the government does not handle it well.
Either they nationalize the bank and the debt, or the people insures the breakage (like Lehman's Brothers in 2008). The public debt then takes charge of the financial recovery. So, it is the citizen who pays the case indirectly (mutualization of risks but not gains that go to the shareholders). Privatization of gains> <Mutualisation of risks.

The option of saving banks has been constantly chosen (USA 2008, Italy Monte Paschi 2013). Financial blackmail. If we sink, the state flows with.
It's the same thing in the USA (...).

To restore order in the banking sector, it is necessary to separate the two types of banks: the investment bank (speculation) and the loan bank (deposits and loans).
Indeed, 90% of the economy is fictitious, because it is this economy that makes it possible to release huge margins.

This is very well explained on this Video, in French: Interview of Gaël Giraud, Jesuit priest and chief economist of the French bank for the development of southern countries (public non-profit bank), director of research at the CNRS in economy and teacher (...). On the YouTube channel Thinkerview. Duration 1H30 '.
https://youtu.be/2oFARgqG0NA

The European Central Bank (BCE) could play a key role in case of default, except that they’ve been tied up. We could bypass all the failures (to put the assets in a bad bank). However, the market may only refinance with private banks. The wolves devour each other, as long as the strongest find their account. It is the poor and intermediate social class that bears most of the difficulties (unemployment due to restructurings, reduced allowances and subsidies, increased taxes, etc.).

To escape the deficit, we privatize much. As in Greece. The state abandons the management to the “Privé” which takes profit incidentally. Therefore it offers a beautiful part to the extremists that has nice game and want then to "deregularize"...

People are fed up and listen to good talkers but these people do not have the required management capacity. (...)

We have to go back to a banking model that contingents risks. In addition, the capital requirements need to be "strengthened". At least 20% and not 2 to 3% like in some banks ...

Shadow Banking must be avoided: Banks create institutions that are not subject to the rules and constraints to continue to carry out transactions that earn more than interbank rates and mortgages. It is localized outside banking regulation to increase the margin and to be able to continue to increase the creation of money in order to maintain the system. It's very well explained in the video (video, timing 30'). Even if we do not have to agree on the means to get there. There are nuances to bring.
From Belgium (close to).
Hope it will help to perceive why we're all concerned !!! See the video if you can read / listen to French.
LucH

 

[LeeLemonoil]

And saying that, there is also a huge rift between the countries that are in the Euro-Zone, in numbers, capabilities and financials orthodoxies.
That’s why the EU will have a hard time misusing enough support and faith of its citizens. There’s layer upon layer of differences, resentment, hidden agendas and so forth among the member states.
Before the EU, there was the EC and the EEC, which provided a much more beneficial and peaceful sense of community and unity among the European nations - by leaving them much more identity and souvereignity than.
That’s why protest movements today are a mixture of traditional uncompatible left and right positions. Against economic excesses and chaos and against the centralization tendencies of the EU-Superstate.
It’s a genuine democratic movement.
Europeans will never again gave each other in war or hate, but we also don’t want a imposed unity within a technocratic, eventually totalitarian behemoth.

Germany, after all it perpetrated in WW2 now has the sternest support among citizens for the EU. I‘m very weary and also afraid of this stance. My countrymen in part changed extreme nationalism for extreme nationless-ism/Europeanism ... it’s still not very sane
..

 

[KennethKaniff]

And saying that, there is also a huge rift between the countries that are in the Euro-Zone, in numbers, capabilities and financials orthodoxies.
That’s why the EU will have a hard time misusing enough support and faith of its citizens. There’s layer upon layer of differences, resentment, hidden agendas and so forth among the member states.
Before the EU, there was the EC and the EEC, which provided a much more beneficial and peaceful sense of community and unity among the European nations - by leaving them much more identity and souvereignity than.
That’s why protest movements today are a mixture of traditional uncompatible left and right positions. Against economic excesses and chaos and against the centralization tendencies of the EU-Superstate.
It’s a genuine democratic movement.
Europeans will never again gave each other in war or hate, but we also don’t want a imposed unity within a technocratic, eventually totalitarian behemoth.

Germany, after all it perpetrated in WW2 now has the sternest support among citizens for the EU. I‘m very weary and also afraid of this stance. My countrymen in part changed extreme nationalism for extreme nationless-ism/Europeanism ... it’s still not very sane
..

The issue is not so much Europeanism or even the EU itself, as it is the spiritual despair, self-loathing, and racial suicide that Europeans, particularly Western Europeans, are engaged in.

 

[sunraiser]

You have your feet wet on the ground and you have a better feel of what's going on in UK and in the EU, and you make valid points. But I don't think I'm far removed in seeing the same things happening in the US also happening in other parts of the world, especially in equally developed and Western countries. I've grown to disdain parties that make policies that appear to be benevolent on the surface, and so claim to have a moral high ground, and then proceed to make things worse in practice. And then after decades, as it takes that long to see the effects, they profess that what actually happened are unintended consequences. Yet I believe there is malice from the start, and it's just their high pretensions and feigned naivete that keeps such noble yet evil schemes regurgitated time and again.

So, when the EU legislates in favor of people, do they actually benefit the people? Or are they using corporate interests as their bogey man? Yet it is the corporate interests, on the whole, that benefit. There are exceptions, such as the EU being more strict on foods that are GMO, which contrasts with the US policy on GMO.

Going back to immigration in the EU, what does the current immigration policy really do Europe? Take away the benevolent part of it, where you receive with open arms refugees, and what have you got? Doesn't it drain the public coffers? Does it have the effect of making resources less available to the native-born and poorer sections of that country? Does it less to more taxation that is an additional burden to a heavily taxed population? And then you have to ask why there are refugees. Why is there this immigrant refugee class that needed to be helped? Didn't they use to have a decent life in their own countries? Did they prefer life in a foreign land over their own, were their land were liveable and enjoyable amongs their friends and family, in familiar surroundings? Why would they venture through hostile terrain and dangerous seas to land on unwelcome shores?

Where was the EU in all the events that precipitated the need to become refugees? I'm not blaming the EU really as being an innocent and helpless bystander really absolves it from any complicity. The real cause is that US policy, driven by the deep state elements of it that favor war and dependency on it as a hegemon. But the EU, were it really a force for good, should have used its power to counter US actions that led to the current crisis of immigration. Yet it is Russia and China, the putative bad guys, that are countering the US penchant for war. And the EU acts just as expected, being a de facto vassal aggregation of states, at best a passive and at worst an active collaborator of the war criminal US deep state. For that, we have the refugees and immigrants, and for that, we have the Yellow Vest constituents of France being foisted on to carry the burden of suffering the consequences of someone else's policies and actions.

The EU isn't going to redress the grievances of a large section of France that has suffered greatly. Not at all. Not ever.



I haven't watched all of his videos and need to go back to see what he said exactly. I can't rely on 2nd hand accounts (not referring to you) so I have to see his comments in context. Very often, media can put words out of context and vilify and dox people. I'll have to get back to you on this.

I don't know why you still use terms like redneck. Have you really known people who are rednecks? Perhaps you've met Muslims and you've realized they are just as decent as both you and I are. Perhaps it's time you go visit some rednecks and perhaps you'll find them to be people too.



What are you referring to you here? The ones I can think of are the people who sit cushy while they dictate policies and actions in which the consequences of is hardly felt by them. They probably never used their hands, and are the same soft hands upon which the Bolsheviks used as basis for their execution.

And yet more dependency on the government isn't going to make things any better. I would bet that if the surplus is in private hands, instead of being taken away from them by taxation to be redistributed in the form of welfare, people would have the means to help and not only help, but to find better solutions. And by solutions, I don't mean having more firemen to fight fires, but having better ways to keep fires from happening.


A strong and well-educated (in contrast to well-indoctrinated) middle class is the bulwark against such things happening. But if you make this educated middle class poorer and poorer, which is the trend in the US and I suspect in the EU, then there really is nothing left to check these wealthy people. Don't think the government will do that for you.

It's strange that we observe lots of the same things happening and have disdain for them, yet have such different conclusions.

Politically, in the UK for example, the non-corporate party are fronted by a guy who has been in the fringes of politics for 30 or so years and has a consistent voting record (anti-war, anti corporate interest, pro social policy) with the words he preaches.

Effectively we disagree that malice is at the root of every political decision and that's where we diverge so much. People like you and I could literally become politicians (with a little luck) in Europe, and while many come from private school backgrounds and have no concept of the lives of working people, others have a lot of empathy for the average person.

With regards to the surplus being in private hands; it IS in private hands - a large percentage of the world's wealth is in private hands.

A strong and well-educated (in contrast to well-indoctrinated) middle class is the bulwark against such things happening. But if you make this educated middle class poorer and poorer, which is the trend in the US and I suspect in the EU, then there really is nothing left to check these wealthy people. Don't think the government will do that for you.

I completely and utterly agree, but what I don't understand is; without taxation and governance how do you provide wide scale education to people? If schools are all in the private sector a huge chunk of the population will not be able to afford schooling and this leaves them ripe for media indoctrination and influence. The burden should not be heavy on the middle classes - the system needs to be way more progressive at ultra-high income levels.

There are large political entities in Europe that believe (and actively influence) policy and tax should be used for these purposes - education/social workers/affordable transport infrastructure etc. This allows the "teach a man to fish" approach instead of just giving them fish, so to speak.

As for the Molyneax guy, I got the statements directly from his twitter. And yes, you're right - I was out of line with the redneck comment. I had just read his twitter and was annoyed that such an unabashed racist would have such a following.

The challenge at current is to find a way for people like you and I to get on the same side in democracy. We're effectively in the same position but have (probably) polarising voting approaches and extremely passionate views. I think US born people, because of their history, have an innate distrust of government that makes things challenging. It's a shame the British exploited the colonials so much. Some of the same familial dynasties still have huge amounts of wealth and power in the UK at current, I'd imagine.

 

[sunraiser]

More "Yellow Vests" activity this weekend. The police response is shown in the video. Apparently Macron has drafted in the military, too.

It's a shame this no longer seems to be covered in UK media.