Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Those "nutty" Frenchmen

Ah........those "nutty" Frenchmen. What would we do without them?

Just when you thought that they couldn't get any sillier, they prove you wrong, again. I'm speaking of course of the rioting going on "over there" by the youth of France who somehow have the mistaken impression that having a job and keeping a job is a "right".

Some of you reading this are thinking to yourself............."Well it is a right, at least in France". True enough, that in a socialist system I guess a job is supposed to be a right. The reality however is another matter.

Because of the political and economic path that France and most of Europe has taken over the last half century, they find themselves in an awkward situation. Taxation in France is very high, in order to provide all the "rights" of a socialist society. I mean, if you don't have a free market, capitalist economy, somebody has to pay for all these rights.

Fair enough, but why isn't it working? Why is it that unemployment among French youth is around 23%? The answer to that one is simple. The short answer is of course that socialism is a stupid system and has never worked. At least not the way it's been "advertised".

The longer answer is that the French economy as a whole is stagnate. Unemployment for all Frenchmen is 9.7%, nearly twice that of the U.S. The French suffer from high taxation, low productivity (short work weeks, ridiculously long vacations, etc.), lack of incentives for investments, modernization, expansion.....the list goes on and on. Combine this with making it almost impossible for a company to rid itself of it's least qualified, least productive, least efficient employees and it's no wonder the French economy is in trouble.

The hysterical part of all of this is the youth of France, marching, rioting, resorting to violence and for what? It's because they would rather have 1 out of every 4 of their friends without a job, instead of the possibility of more of them having jobs. Why? Shockingly, it's because they don't want to keep their job based on their own performance. They'd much rather keep their job, just because their French, rather than keeping it based on their performance. For some reason, the concept of a merit based system scares the Hell out of them.

This type of attitude is totally foreign to Americans. I guess that's why we call them foreigners. Even American youth, who BTW don't have the same attitudes that American youth had when I was a youngster (when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), aren't this self-centered. Then again, it's hard to beat the French in that category, regardless of the age group.

Even our own spoiled, insufferable youth don't think that a job is a "right". They understand, that a job is a "privilege". I suppose one of the benefits of the capitalist system is an inherent sense of reality.

Thank God for reality. Thank God for capitalism and our way of life. Otherwise, our kids would be rioting in the streets and fast food as we know it would no longer exist. Perish the thought!

Monday, March 27, 2006

The Blogger News Network

I'm proud to announce that I've been invited to become a contributor to the Blogger News Network. Not only will my blog appear here on this site, but also on the BNN website as well.

http://www.bloggernews.net/