Posts Tagged ‘france’
In the early 1970’s, Denis Healey, a member of the Labour Party and then-Shadow Chancellor of Great Britain, warned that there would be “howls of anguish from those rich enough to pay over 75% on their last slice of earnings.
The idea of wealth re-distribution sounded great to those in need of it, but they never did receive as much as they could have. For the rest of that decade and on into the 1980s, the list of musicians who left Britain for tax reasons included Ringo Starr, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury, Pink Floyd, Sting, Phil Collins, Ozzy Osbourne, Cat Stevens, Ray Davies, and Bad Company.
source: wolfgang’s vault
Imagine the embarrassment and humiliation for the entire citizenry of Great Britain to see their greatest ambassadors of art and culture fleeing their homeland as a resonse to the incredibly oppressive taxations levied upon those very same people who had brought so much goodwill and prosperity to Mother England.
How’d that work out for you pandering politicians looking to stick it to your 1%? Seems your one-percenters fled en masse, didn’t they?
After that disaster, Britain finally got wise, taxes dropped under Thatcher and the economy boomed.
Well, across the channel just recently, French voters responded to their gruesome economy by voting in another Socialist regime. Never underestimate the ability of politicians and the ignorant citizenry who vote them in to fail to learn the lessons of history . . .
France: Ready to jump ship
Growing anxiety at moves to raise taxes on the rich reflects divisions over the Socialists’ response to the crisis
Roger, a senior expatriate executive working for an international company in Paris, is thinking seriously of taking a walk down David Cameron’s “red carpet”. The UK prime minister last month riled France’s new Socialist government when he declared he would lay on a five-star welcome for anyone moving to London to avoid the tax regime promised by President François Hollande – including his election pledge of a 75 per cent marginal rate on incomes above €1m a year.
“I’m very happy in Paris. My wife and I love Paris. We came here by choice. But I’m reconsidering our situation given the changes in the pipeline,” says Roger, who declined to be identified by his real name.
More than the 75 per cent rate, it is a move to higher wealth and inheritance taxes that worries him – and what he perceives as a cultural hostility to the rich. “The anti-wealth rhetoric is just not encouraging. I’d rather be in a country where I don’t have to deal with that,” he says.
It is not just expatriates who are concerned. Henri de Castries, head of Axa, the insurer, is one of France’s most respected business leaders. “I’ve listened to Mr Hollande. He wants to see more growth and lower unemployment. He wants to see business prospering. We want to see that, too,” he says. “The question is how to achieve these goals? There is no example, in modern economic history, of a country that has succeeded in reducing its deficits by bringing taxes to a confiscatory level. On the contrary, it leads to a decline in activity, and an increase in the deficits.”
source: Financial Times
So it looks like in their infinite wisdom, the French voters have chosen to double-down on the socialist policies that got their economy in the dismal state in which it’s found itself. Brings to mind that well-known and oft-repeated definition of insanity.
Here in America, the top 10% of Americans pay over 70% of Federal taxes, but no increasing amount of that share will ever amount to a “fair share” for the politicians who base their entire political careers on pitting one social class against another. May God have mercy on America if American voters decide to do the exact same thing expecting different results in re-electing the economic disaster that has been Barack Obama, because there is a metaphorical place called Galt’s Gulch, and all the politicians who base their careers on demonizing the rich may one day wake up to find out what America could become when all the wealth generators and job creators relocate to a new land of opportunity outside of this new America where success and prosperity are not viewed as the objects of scorn and envy.
source: Who Is John Galt t-shirt $23.95
source: Going Galt t-shirt for $30.95
source: You Cannot Helpt the Poor by Destroying the Rich t-shirt for $23.95
All vehicles travelling on French roads must carry a chemical or electronic breathalyzer test beginning Sunday, under new rules aimed at reducing alcohol-driven accidents.
“Alcohol has been the main cause of mortality on roads since 2006,” according to road security authorities.
About a third of fatalities on French roads is due to drink driving, a rate that far surpasses the 17 percent recorded in Britain or 10 percent in Germany.
Here in the us, approximately 40% of all motor-vehicle fatalities are alcohol-related. Drunk driving is the leading criminal cause of death, with more than 17,000 people are the victims of drunk driving accidents every year.
If you’re someone who believes in liberty as the highest ideal and hates most any heavy-handed government intrusion into our lives, don’t think the mandatory breathalyzers could only happen to the Euros, right here in America, in the state of Virginia, just today a law went into effect that all first time offenders will have to blow an alcohol-free blow themselves or they won’t be able to start their cars.
Which brings us to our poll question. Perhaps more than any other country on Earth, America has a love affair with the automobile and the freedom it gives us, making the question over mandatory breathalyzers the classic question between freedom and whether it should outweigh the consideration of the common good.
Loading ...Of course, all I can imagine is the ways around it, and even the opportunities it might provide.
Imagine standing in the parking lot of a popular bar or nightclub, “Pssst . . . hey buddy, I’m stone cold sober, kick me down five bucks and I’ll give your breathalyzer a blow and get you on your way home.” You could make quite a killing in a night.
Designated blower? One sober friend could give two or three or four different friends’ cars started on the way home from the bar.
Or how about blowing in a balloon before your night gets started, tying it up securely and unleashing your sober breath from before you went out right into the machine?
Maybe even an oxygen tank would be a worthwhile investment, would probably last a year or more of nights out on the town.
It just seems to me that if people were determined to get around it, they’d surely find a way, but even with that, and even with the fact that the government is constantly insinuating itself into our lives in ever greater extremes, becoming more and more of an Orwellian nightmare with every passing day, this one incursion into our automobiles might be well worth it if only to consider the number of lives that could be saved. I’m not so worried about the drunks who get behind the wheel and kill themselves, but of the other share of the 17,000 innocent people who die from drunk driving every year, I think they do deserve a breathalyzer in every car.
Please do share your thoughts after voting and post below.
10. When your best player and team leader gets booted from the championship game for throwing a head-butt to the chest of another player, suffice it to say the average IQ of your team is probably near mental retardation.
9. The clock will never have an exciting “three . . . two . . . one . . . zero!!!” countdown because of this thing called penalty time, which the announcers can guess at how much is remaining but it never seems to end exactly when they say it will. Hey, we’ll play for 45 minutes . . . give or take a few minutes and a handful of seconds.
8. In no other sport in the world can you witness the breeze of a closely passing player actually knock someone down. Geez, if I want to see that much flopping I’ll hang out on a commercial fishing boat. Why don’t they just put these players in ballerina outfits and get it over with?
7. The games can end in ties! What the hell is that? Hey, why don’t you just go all the way with it and do like they do with the little kids playing soccer and just stop keeping score so no one has to go home crying?
6. The teams are filled with greasy long-hairs who only have one name. Picture professional wrestling if you need an analogy as to why greasy long-hairs with single-names are lame.
5. Hooligans.
4. I’ve watched two world cup championships. The boredom of watching a 1 – 1 championship tie after 90 minutes plus another 15 plus another 15 is only exceeded in boredom of the utter futility of 1994′s 0 – 0 championship tie. I’ve watched a grand total of four hours of world cup championship and I’ve seen a grand total of 2 freakin’ goals. Dude, I’m petitioning FIFA because I want a refund on my time invested.
3. Your entire world championship game is decided by penalty kicks??? Do I even need to explain all the reasons why this is so utterly lame? That’s about as lame as deciding the NBA championship with a three-point shootout or determining the World Series winner with a homerun derby.
2. France is good at it.
1. Any sport where the players are only allowed to use two of their four God-given limbs is a half-assed endeavor at best.