France Needs Victims

[Ed Hudgins]

France Needs Victims

by Edward Hudgins

August 9. 2012 - The war between expropriators and producers has taken a wholly expected turn in France. The recently-elected socialist government announced plans to slap a 75 percent tax rate on the dwindling number of its citizens who make more than a million euros (about $1.2 million). Obamanomics on the Continent!

France’s GDP in 2011 was about $2.776 trillion. Government revenues were $1.386 trillion. You’d think that taking half of the wealth generated in the country would be enough for the politicians. But no! They spent $1.535 trillion, resulting in a huge budget deficit. The government debt now is pushing 90 percent of GDP. And the economy is a mess.

For decades the political parties have traded positions in power. But even so-called conservative governments at best have slowed the growth of state controls on the economy and the looting of the more prosperous citizens in order to transfer wealth to those who did not earn it.

In the past decade one French government policy sought to spur job creation by cutting the work week to 35 hours, but keeping salaries the same, and punishing anyone who worked too much, supposedly to force employers to hire more workers. But paying them how? Off what magic tree would employers pick money for salaries? Blank out. Yes, that’s how self-deluded socialists and welfare statists are! Needless to say, unemployment in France has been at 9 percent or more for the past decade.

Even if the French citizens targeted by 75 percent tax acquiesce in their own despoilment, the resulting revenue would barely make a dent in the budget deficit. In any case, a growing number of those potential victims are likely to flee the country or retire from productive work. Atlas will shrug, there will be even fewer victims to loot, and France will follow the downward spiral of Greece and other collapsing Euro-economies.

The 2012 American elections are also a battle between expropriators and producers. President Obama promotes the same policies that are destroying the economies of Europe, using the same appeals to guilt and envy that destroy personal autonomy, independence, and pride in the human soul. Only enough producers voting this fall for their right to their own lives will keep the guillotine from their necks.

For further reading:

Edward Hudgins, "France Fried: The 2012 Elections & Return to Socialism."May 8, 2012.

Edward Hudgins, "France Labors at Folly." March 29, 2006.

[Dglgmut]

Is it fair to say that socialists see all people with money as undeserving, accrediting their success to either luck or evil?

That's the only reason I could see them supporting robbery.

[Mikee]

"Deserves" got nothing to do with it. These are predators, you got meat on your bones, they want to eat you. Simple as that. All this "for the children" and "workers" is bullshit misdirection.

[Dglgmut]

Come on, there are plenty of well meaning socialists out there! I wanna know what their problem is.

[caroljane]

Come on, there are plenty of well meaning socialists out there! I wanna know what their problem is.

Thank you, we do not see people with money as evil, in fact we like them a lot, and except in France I do not think we have a lot of problems.

Carol\

Well meaning socialist

[Selene]

Well meaning socialist

An oxymoron. Contradiction in terms. A figment of a philosophical imagination gone awry.

[caroljane]

Well meaning socialist

An oxymoron. Contradiction in terms. A figment of a philosophical imagination gone awry.

Well meaning socialist

An oxymoron. Contradiction in terms. A figment of a philosophical imagination gone awry.

Ay, and a living breathing reality.

[Mikee]

There are no well meaning socialists who understand the economics of the last 250 years or the political history of the last 100 years or who have glimpsed the inner workings of socialist political machine. Poets are exceptional because they are poets not because they are socialists.

[caroljane]

Poets kmow/how life doth flow/how thought behind/in woe doth go

[Dglgmut]

we do not see people with money as evil, in fact we like them a lot

Then why do you think it's okay to steal, particularly, from them?

How can equality be established by stealing, unless the way they made the money was unfair to begin with?

[studiodekadent]

Well meaning socialist

An oxymoron. Contradiction in terms. A figment of a philosophical imagination gone awry.

Untrue, although usually these "socialists" are NOT state socialists... they tend to be of the fuzzy sort.

Well-meaning socialists (using the broad meaning of the term 'socialist') are very real. They are just very bad with economics.

[Selene]

Well meaning socialist

An oxymoron. Contradiction in terms. A figment of a philosophical imagination gone awry.

Untrue, although usually these "socialists" are NOT state socialists... they tend to be of the fuzzy sort.

Well-meaning socialists (using the broad meaning of the term 'socialist') are very real. They are just very bad with economics.

Ah, so when the people they put in office, the government thugs, put the gun to your head and take what you have created, we should feel much better because the glove gripping the gun is made of "fuzzy" material?

I feel so much better now.

[Brant Gaede]

Well meaning socialist

An oxymoron. Contradiction in terms. A figment of a philosophical imagination gone awry.

Untrue, although usually these "socialists" are NOT state socialists... they tend to be of the fuzzy sort.

Well-meaning socialists (using the broad meaning of the term 'socialist') are very real. They are just very bad with economics.

Ah, so when the people they put in office, the government thugs, put the gun to your head and take what you have created, we should feel much better because the glove gripping the gun is made of "fuzzy" material?

I feel so much better now.

Well, a "fuzzy" gun might not be so bad. "Stick 'em up!--or I'll shoot you with my fuzzy guns' fuzzy bullets!"

--Brant

I wonder what that might feel like?--Squish!? Squish!?

[Brant Gaede]

Well meaning socialist

An oxymoron. Contradiction in terms. A figment of a philosophical imagination gone awry.

Untrue, although usually these "socialists" are NOT state socialists... they tend to be of the fuzzy sort.

Well-meaning socialists (using the broad meaning of the term 'socialist') are very real. They are just very bad with economics.

You mean they are purblind to the actual consequences of what they advocate? And can't you take this beyond economics to the real human impact?

--Brant

[Dglgmut]

Ah, so when the people they put in office, the government thugs, put the gun to your head and take what you have created, we should feel much better because the glove gripping the gun is made of "fuzzy" material?

I feel so much better now.

If they do mean well there's no way they think you earned what you made... otherwise they would see what they were doing. I think they just compare rich people to poor people, thinking that there's not much of a difference in the people and that therefore there should not be such a difference in the circumstances.

There's so much evidence of a vicious cycle, always blaming free markets for government created problems... They obviously think free markets are not fair.

It's the same with sales and marketing, now that I have a different perspective on those... Why is the salesman a bad person for selling garbage to people? Why isn't it the system that cripples innovation and production, that puts salesmen--who sell stuff, that's what they do--in a position where they have virtually no choice but to sell garbage, that is to blame? If people were continuously impressed by the products they bought, wouldn't salesmen be heroes?

I think it's the same thing with economics. Blame the producers for dealing with the situation they've been dealt... How much does taxation really affect our lives? Every time something switches owners the government takes a cut? Just keep adding taxes to the people at the top and see if they don't compensate by raising their prices and their salaries, or going out of business...

More importantly, I believe, is the complete invasion of property rights by telling people what voluntary contracts they can and cannot make with one another! Maybe this is at the core of the unfairness of free markets--the unfairness of property rights.

Carol, if you really are a socialist, is it property rights that you have the real issue with?

[caroljane]

Dgl, I don't think that property is theft, but I don't think it is sacred either,.Property rights are not equal to the right to life.

[Selene]

Dgl, I don't think that property is theft, but I don't think it is sacred either,.Property rights are not equal to the right to life.

Carol:

Now that is an interesting semantic opposition you have stated.

This is not a "trap" question, do you see property rights lower on the vertical scale of values?

Would "life" be the highest/first on that vertical scale?

Adam

[Dglgmut]

I'd like to see your answer to Adam's question.

Also, what I got from your last post is that you don't believe in absolute ownership; that people do not deserve freedom if someone else has to die. Correct?

[caroljane]

Dgl, I don't think that property is theft, but I don't think it is sacred either,.Property rights are not equal to the right to life.

Carol:

Now that is an interesting semantic opposition you have stated.

This is not a "trap" question, do you see property rights lower on the vertical scale of values?

Would "life" be the highest/first on that vertical scale?

Adam

Of course life would be highest...

Carol

feeling trapped already

[syrakusos]

Every place had its "best of times, worst of times." And England was blessed with good times. It is hard to find 100 bad years in a row. But with France, an undisturbed century is rare.

[Selene]

Dgl, I don't think that property is theft, but I don't think it is sacred either,.Property rights are not equal to the right to life.

Carol:

Now that is an interesting semantic opposition you have stated.

This is not a "trap" question, do you see property rights lower on the vertical scale of values?

Would "life" be the highest/first on that vertical scale?

Adam

Of course life would be highest...

Carol

feeling trapped already

Is your life your property?

[Dglgmut]

OHHHHH

[caroljane]

That's a tautology.The self is the individual consciousness encased in the body.Property is external objects owned by that individual.

[Selene]

That's a tautology.The self is the individual consciousness encased in the body.

A rhetorical tautology can also be defined as a series of statements that form an argument, whereby the statements are constructed in such a way that the truth of the proposition is guaranteed or that, by defining a dissimilar or synonymous term in terms of another self-referentially, the truth of the proposition cannot be disputed.

Consequently, the statement conveys no useful information regardless of its length or complexity making it unfalsifiable.

It is a way of formulating a description such that it masquerades as an explanation when the real reason for the phenomena cannot be independently derived.

A rhetorical tautology should not be confused with a tautology in propositional logic, since the inherent meanings and subsequent conclusions in rhetorical and logical tautologies are very different.

Rhetorical tautologies guarantee the truth of the proposition, where the expectation(premise) was for a falsifiable construct, any conclusion is a Non sequitur (logic). Logical tautologies guarantee the the truth of the proposition and is expected to do so by logical necessity.

=======================================================================================================

I did not use "self."

Is your physical body your property?

[caroljane]

Adam, no you didn't, I should have said "life" not self.

Technically I suppose my body is my property, but my rights over it are not absolute. For example, here i can't sell my kidneys not that anybody would want them. However, being extracted the kidneys would be outside my body and therefore my property, which I would not have the right to sell.