French Fried Frog Frexit

[AJ]

Great article. You never see a word about this in the USofA MSM. This reporting has truly changed my opinion of Macron. MSM portray him as a nice guy (compared to Trump almost anyone is ) who it just so refined and FRENCH. He is just a banker for the wealthy trying to supress the little people of France. Time to bring out the guillotine Robespierre?
AJ

• Tweet

[Surly1]

Great article. You never see a word about this in the USofA MSM. This reporting has truly changed my opinion of Macron. MSM portray him as a nice guy (compared to Trump almost anyone is ) who it just so refined and FRENCH. He is just a banker for the wealthy trying to supress the little people of France.
AJ

The fact that you don't see this here just reflects the real ownership of corporate media, including the so-called and much ballyhooed "liberal media." Anyone paying attention made Macron for what he is from his campaign forward: a former investment banker who slashed housing benefits, and hiked taxes on French pensioners.

Macron was hailed as a centrist, and a bulwark against extremes, but cuts taxes for the wealthy, attacks workers’ rights and demonizes refugees. And now we see the blood on his hands. He represents a doubling=down on austerity and the corrupt and discredited economic policies.

• Tweet

[Eddie]

Except France is controlled by the socialists already. Oops.

• Tweet

[RE]

Except France is controlled by the socialists already. Oops.

Fascists often wear the Socialist cloak as a disguise.  The Nazis after all called themselves "National Socialists".

RE

• Tweet

[Eddie]

Which I already mentioned in some post or other several weeks back, in reference to the coming pendulum swing toward socialism  in America.

Which gets back to another point of contention.

It isn't the the name of the party that matters. It's the benevolence (or lack thereof) of the leaders that really matters.

I'd be happier with a benevolent monarch than some nest of lying communists who only pretend to be for the people.

• Tweet

[Surly1]

Except France is controlled by the socialists already. Oops.

To assert that Macron is anything but an enforcer for the bankster class is to misread everything put before you. I don't get it.

• Tweet

[AJ]

Except France is controlled by the socialists already. Oops.

To assert that Macron is anything but an enforcer for the bankster class is to misread everything put before you. I don't get it.

I think Macron fooled us (me) because we were not really paying attention to French politics AND when he appears next to Trumpsky he looks particularly cool, rational, reasonable and SANE. In the French election the MSM in this country portrayed him as the reasonable alternative to Marine La Pen and better than the guy the establishment wanted who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar (or was it his wife?).
AJ

• Tweet

[Surly1]

Except France is controlled by the socialists already. Oops.

To assert that Macron is anything but an enforcer for the bankster class is to misread everything put before you. I don't get it.

I think Macron fooled us (me) because we were not really paying attention to French politics AND when he appears next to Trumpsky he looks particularly cool, rational, reasonable and SANE. In the French election the MSM in this country portrayed him as the reasonable alternative to Marine La Pen and better than the guy the establishment wanted who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar (or was it his wife?).
AJ

Quite true. And most Americans don't pay adequate attention to our own politics.

• Tweet

[K-Dog]

Except France is controlled by the socialists already. Oops.

To assert that Macron is anything but an enforcer for the bankster class is to misread everything put before you. I don't get it.

As you've noted reader mileage often varies.  All of us have a hobby horse or two and when we get-a-riding it can be hard to figure what's bouncing around the noggin.  Eddie gets a-riding his petite bourgeois hobby horse and eyes glaze over at the affronts to all the beleaguered forlorn and unappreciated hard working soldiers of progress living in his utopia who but for the stupidity of everyone else and freeloaders, would be kings, their heroic journeys rewarded with riches beyond dream.

Whoa horsie and yeah baby.  We see what we want.  A buzzzzzz is in the air.  To some the picture below is a happy picture.  A carnival!  All it needs is cotton candy and beer.  Ride Sally ride n' 

P-o-w-a-h  t-o  d-e-e  P-e-e-p-h-i-l-l,   p-o-w-a-h  t-o  d-e-e  P-e-e-p-h-i-l-l  c-o-m-e  o-n !



To others those men are joints on the index finger in a crowd which like a clenched fist with one finger pointing up says fuck you.

Children of the revolution were eaten by the revolution and then came Bonaparte.  But if it fits your narrative a few years more than two hundred years ago can be more significant than everything in between.  Go-fer-it.  Express thy nature.  This is truly what living in a free country really means.  We are free to believe shit.  That is the way it goes.  We all feed our narratives and we try not to change hoping our desert hides wells so we don't have to shift out of lazy too long.  Human nature is what it is.  Too much change and the average man goes through an existential crisis and does not know who he is.

And if we should feel the pain do we really want fair?  Can we wrap our heads around what fair would really mean in the world?  I don't think the human derangement called normal could handle it for half a second.  Madness would blossom and everywhere everyone would passionately be seeking relief from the naked truth of it.  If we are honest the answer is absolutely not.  We don't want fair.  Not enough stuff to go around that way.  Life is only good if you are living on the surplus of others.  A harvest of pain.  To some this is a religion and they become insufferable with a zeal that won't consider anything else.  As a last resort they believe in miracles and have to tell you about it.

• Tweet

[Eddie]

Except France is controlled by the socialists already. Oops.

To assert that Macron is anything but an enforcer for the bankster class is to misread everything put before you. I don't get it.

You don't get that when America goes socialist that they will also do the bidding of the bankster class? No. I didn't think you did, which was why I said that.

I'm convinced that the central bankers smacked down bitcoin two weeks ago because the yellow vests were taking their cash out of the banks and buying cryptos. What's going on in France now is more serious than Occupy, I think. I've been watching lots of videos for the last week showing the brutal police suppression of the protesters. I'm not in support of that.

The pie is shrinking and only the real wealthy are happy with the status quo. Massive immigration has damn near destabilized society in Europe, and the socialist dream of something for everyone is coming up way short. Bank runs are serious business.

Macron was a socialist party politician until 2009, when he went independent. He was in Valis's cabinet before Hollande, and Valis was a socialist.

My point is simple. France is a social democracy several clicks to the left of the US, and that isn't  working out that much better than our own right-wing dominated polity. France is fucked. It's the same problem in the UK. 

• Tweet

[Eddie]

Except France is controlled by the socialists already. Oops.

To assert that Macron is anything but an enforcer for the bankster class is to misread everything put before you. I don't get it.

As you've noted reader mileage often varies.  All of us have a hobby horse or two and when we get-a-riding it can be hard to figure what's bouncing around the noggin.  Eddie gets a-riding his petite bourgeois hobby horse and eyes glaze over at the affronts to all the beleaguered forlorn and unappreciated hard working soldiers of progress living in his utopia who but for the stupidity of everyone else and freeloaders, would be kings, their heroic journeys rewarded with riches beyond dream.

Whoa horsie and yeah baby.  We see what we want.  A buzzzzzz is in the air.  To some the picture below is a happy picture.  A carnival!  All it needs is cotton candy and beer.  Ride Sally ride n' 

P-o-w-a-h  t-o  d-e-e  P-e-e-p-h-i-l-l,   p-o-w-a-h  t-o  d-e-e  P-e-e-p-h-i-l-l  c-o-m-e  o-n !



To others those men are joints on the index finger in a crowd which like a clenched fist with one finger pointing up says fuck you.

Children of the revolution were eaten by the revolution and then came Bonaparte.  But if it fits your narrative a few years more than two hundred years ago can be more significant than everything in between.  Go-fer-it.  Express thy nature.  This is truly what living in a free country really means.  We are free to believe shit.  That is the way it goes.  We all feed our narratives and we try not to change hoping our desert hides wells so we don't have to shift out of lazy too long.  Human nature is what it is.  Too much change and the average man goes through an existential crisis and does not know who he is.

And if we should feel the pain do we really want fair?  Can we wrap our heads around what fair would really mean in the world?  I don't think the human derangement called normal could handle it for half a second.  Madness would blossom and everywhere everyone would passionately be seeking relief from the naked truth of it.  If we are honest the answer is absolutely not.  We don't want fair.  Not enough stuff to go around that way.  Life is only good if you are living on the surplus of others.  A harvest of pain.  To some this is a religion and they become insufferable with a zeal that won't consider anything else.  As a last resort they believe in miracles and have to tell you about it.

Fuck you buddy.

I pay way more taxes than I should and I don't like it, and if I want to bitch about it... I will.  It's about all I can do, since the average forum participant here can't tell the difference between earned income and the tax preferred passive rentier income of the real rich, and thinks "middle class" in America means $53K for a family of four.

Are you people retarded?

Take your hobby horse and shove it where the sun don't shine.

• Tweet

[Surly1]

Except France is controlled by the socialists already. Oops.

To assert that Macron is anything but an enforcer for the bankster class is to misread everything put before you. I don't get it.

You don't get that when America goes socialist that they will also do the bidding of the bankster class? No. I didn't think you did, which was why I said that.

I'm convinced that the central bankers smacked down bitcoin two weeks ago because the yellow vests were taking their cash out of the banks and buying cryptos. What's going on in France now is more serious than Occupy, I think. I've been watching lots of videos for the last week showing the brutal police suppression of the protesters. I'm not in support of that.

The pie is shrinking and only the real wealthy are happy with the status quo. Massive immigration has damn near destabilized society in Europe, and the socialist dream of something for everyone is coming up way short. Bank runs are serious business.

Macron was a socialist party politician until 2009, when he went independent. He was in Valis's cabinet before Hollande, and Valis was a socialist.

My point is simple. France is a social democracy several clicks to the left of the US, and that isn't  working out that much better than our own right-wing dominated polity. France is fucked. It's the same problem in the UK.

I agree with you that the Gilles Jaunes movement is "more serious" than Occupy, because it is more sustained and more protracted, and has made the instrumentalities of the state reveal themselves in a way that the November 2011 mass evictions of Occupy camps never did.

As to this familiar trope:

...the socialist dream of something for everyone is coming up way short.

Let's be clear: it's not about "something for everyone" or "something for nothing" so much as it is the reallocation of resources and the clawback of these inane tax cut giveaways. For example, "we can't afford it" is the standard, off-the-shelf bleat of the apparatchiks of the ruling class whenever things like universal health care is discussed. That is true, the way the pie is cut up now. (All based on Nixon's gift to Henry Kaiser.) Congressional Republicans yammered that a universal health-care plan by Sen. Bernie Sanders would cost the federal government $33 trillion by 2031, thus proving Democrats have moved too far left. During the same period, we'll have spend $50T on the current system. Little wonder the status quo players like their nice little cutout.

there's plenty of money. We just need to spend it differently.

• Tweet

[AJ]

And if we should feel the pain do we really want fair?  Can we wrap our heads around what fair would really mean in the world?  I don't think the human derangement called normal could handle it for half a second.  Madness would blossom and everywhere everyone would passionately be seeking relief from the naked truth of it.  If we are honest the answer is absolutely not.  We don't want fair.  Not enough stuff to go around that way.  Life is only good if you are living on the surplus of others.  A harvest of pain.  To some this is a religion and they become insufferable with a zeal that won't consider anything else.  As a last resort they believe in miracles and have to tell you about it.

Personalities aside (boy there is a lot of bickering on this site )
K-Dog hits the guts of it right here. Collapse, especially if it is slow, will result in most of us in the US learning to live with nothing near what we had before. Any equitable distribution of the world's remaining resources would reduce the Empire we have amassed to next to nothing since we are living on the excess energy of eons ago and the surplus labor of others.  I figure either slow or fast collapse and there will be a lot of suicides as the harvest of that pain. And as an additional benefit probably a way lot more murders about stuff (especially food).
AJ

• Tweet

[Eddie]

there's plenty of money. We just need to spend it differently.

Of course there's plenty of money. Taxes are already onerous, and they're about to go off the charts as the new wave of socialism spends more on top of what we're already wasting. I haven't seen any evidence that any political party, left or right, has any plan other than priting money and setting it on fire.

Debt service and the military together is a third of all revenue. When the socialist dismantle the perpetual war machine, I'll march down Pennsylvania Avenue singing about Joe Hill and carrying a red flag.

Same promise if they pass a wealth tax on billionaires. It sounds great, but a snowball in hell has a better chance.

It won't happen. The currency is just going to get debauched a little further, and taxes will go up on the same damn class of people who pay the freight now. And Americans will continue to be delusional thinkers who think 2 people working, making 25K apiece makes them "middle class" , even though that puts them in a 12% tax bracket, 2 points above what people in "poverty" pay.

My marginal rate is more than 3 times that. But the real rich buy bonds and offshore their money and pay zilch..

You all worry too much about the poor. 44% of American working people pay NO NET FEDERAL INCOME TAX. That is a huge break for the poor. The poor might not have all the opportunities in the world, but they aren't overtaxed.

The real problem here is not that the US government screws the poor...the problem is that they subsidize the real rich.

What is being ascribed here to me "getting on my hobby horse" is just the real crux of the problem, explained. You can get it or not get it, and you can think I'm an asshole, but I'm speaking the truth here, and I'm sick and tired of being called a rich crybaby. That's bullshit.

If BAU persists and I don't drop dead, I'll end up rich eventually . I'm not rich now, but unlike most people, I understand how to get there, and I don't have any guilt around fucking other people out of their fair share. I never have done that, and none of my strategies involve predatory economics.. I'm not Mitt Romney or Eddie Lampert.

And best of all, my crypto investments are allowing me to remove my financial support from the big banks, which is really sweet. i kind of like this crypto-anarchy thing. It might have legs.

• Tweet

[RE]

Personalities aside (boy there is a lot of bickering on this site )

File this under "boys will be boys" and "they are just roughhousing". 

RE

• Tweet