Paris burns again.

[Kayak]

Another fact is that for example in Germany the birth rate is at an all time low! Because families are insecure. Job's are insecure and we're even paying the fee for the companies.

A low birth rate is a sign of a wealthy populace, not a poor one.

If you work for someone are you exploited?
If you employ someone do you exploit them?

The answer is it depends. A truly free market (meaning no barriers to entry, and access the markets, etc.) does not automatically do either.

 

[Masquerouge]

And I like to hear, with what you disagree.
I value your opinion very high

Wow. What a pressure you're putting on me
My original goal was just to make it know that other opinions than Steph existed among French people.

What I really think is that the French mindset is currently not ready, and I think not willing, to simply adopt american-styled economical measures.

While I do admit that some very important things in the French system ought to be reformed (like the fact that it is a viable economical choice to remain unemployed), the whole French system is centered around the State, and could be summarized in that motto : the State will provide. trying to just copy-paste economical measures without adapting them to the French system is doomed to fail.

I also think that the ultimate goal of a society is not necessarily to have a great economy, especially not the BEST economy. My opinion is that as long your economy is decent enough to provide for a strong safety net and social security, and to allow for more free time, then you should consider yourself very lucky. I'm perfectly fine with not being the most competitive country in the world as long as I can enjoy my vacations, and not worry about medical bills.

Some people will say that this model is doomed to failure but so far France has managed pretty well. The unemployment rate has roughly been the same for the last 20 years, and we are still in the top 10 countries. It is high, but again it is because having a job is not at the top priority of everyone.

Do not get me wrong : I do not say the French model is the best, I'm just saying it works pretty well for the French. Trying to placate on top of it an American model (which works really well for the US) is not the solution.

Voila.

 

[ainwood]

I am not as stupid. The real situation is just that exspecially tiny and middle class companies are going downhill where as those mutilateral companies are earning like crazy and even get TAX GRATIFICATION from the state.
Man: how perverted ist this???

By tax gratification, do you mean that the government begrudingly lets them keep some of the money that the company earned so that they can reinvest it in the company so that they can expand and perhaps employ more people?

Where do you think tax comes from? Where do you think jobs come from? Companies are not there as a public service to provide some form of state-sponsored welfare-by-employment. That was tried in communist russia, and it failed.

Individuals who contribute nothing to the economy at all can be given free money by the state. How perverted is that?

The fact is that those managers setting free several thousands of employers earn immoral sums of money.
MAN: HOW PERVERTED IS THIS!!!

And how many other thousands of people are they creating jobs for?

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

@E-Raser

The thing is, wealth isn't something that is just "there", waiting to be divied up. It is something that is created out of resources at hand. Otherwise, 10,000 years ago there would have been a few millions of people dividing about 40 trillion dollars a year amongst themselves. It is created. And the thing about that is, you need previously generated wealth to invest in creating more wealth in the future. The people who are better at generating wealth (through previously investing their time and energy into building skills for themselves) create more of it than those who are worse at it. Usually, by taking the wealth away from those that are better at generating it will reduce the total "pool" of wealth. The more efficient people are at extracting wealth from a given unit of resource, the more wealth there will be.

The act itself of evenly dividing that vast sum of 8 000 dollars per person would reduce that number to a small fraction of what it is. In fact the people who were supposed to benefit from this evening of wealth would probably end up with less than they had in the first place.

Now that is not to say that there aren't some benefits to equity. There is probably a positive correlation between crime and the standard deviation of wealth within a society. By reducing this deviation, you may be able to reduce the amount of money spent on fighting/preventing crime. There are probably positive externalities created by university-educated people as well. If value isn't transferred back to them due to poor pricing information they may decide to not invest in education, and ultimately reduce total wealth generated in society.

It is still generally better to concentrate wealth back in the hands of the people who produce it (which can be hard to determine), rather than arbitrarilly, if you want to make everyone better off.

You say you want the market to work for you rather than the other way around, but the thing is, the market won't work at all if there is an arbitrary distribution of wealth to people. It will cause that pool of wealth to come crashing down to virtually nothing. This isn't a corporate conspiracy, this is empirical fact. There may be benefits to equity, but there are also benefits to a stratification based on meritocracy. For everyone.

Now I know that this might go right through one ear and out the other, and if you read it at all, I will probably get a vitriolic diatribe of caps locks, large font sizes, and all sorts of boldings and underlinings; however, perhaps you should put aside your extreme ideology for a moment and just study the facts being presented to you by Steph and luiz.

 

[Steph]

The market shall be made TO SERVE ME!

Thank you to reveal here your true nature. You claim to want a fairer system with more equality, when all you really care about is your own selfish interest.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

Reading this thread shows why so many new factories are being opened in Asia and other low labor cost/no government interference locations and not in the Western world.

We can pass all the laws we like, but when the factory has moved away and the jobs are now gone forever what will the laws really mean?

 

[Steph]

@ LoupEcarlate (il n'y a guère de bon synonyme pour Masque).

I don't really see in you answer to AVN in what you think differently from me. We are discussing to different things it seems.
You say you want to keep our welfare and safety net. I never speak about it in this thread. I enjoy it too .
My points are:
1) Youngs forget that it is not in the interest of employers to simply fire them after 23 months, because of the cost of the training. If an employer finds someone who he's good at what he does, he will want to keep him. From what I hear, I have the impression the youngs ALL think ALL employers are stupid slavers who cannot even take this parameter into account.
2) Having to strict labour laws is dangerous, we need to have more flexibity, for the employers to adapt the workforce to the market, and for the employees to seek better jobs. E-Raser could note by the way that this is far more important for small companies than big one, but apparently he was to busy ranting to realize that.
3) The youngs say it creates unsecure situation. Well, yes, being in a probation period is not very secure. But isn't being unemployed worse?

But this doesn't mean we should abandon the safety net. If a young is fired during his probation period, can't he get unemployed benefits? Isn't he covered by social security when he goes to the doctor?

I don't say we should adopt the American system. I say we must adapt our French system to cope with a mutating world economy. What we can't do is use a social model design for a situation 50 years ago, without having it evolve with the situation

 

[AVN]

@Masquerouge
Thanks for your explanation

And I agree with you that being the most competitive country shouldn't be the goal of countries in Western Europe. As you said, there are other important things for a country, like a good social safety net and enough free time for the working people. I fully agree with that.

Ok, now my own opinion on this proposal (not because I want to tell the French what to do, but because I see a general trend in this proposal, which I also see in other countries, like the Netherlands, which I don't like).

What I don't like is the unequal treatment of the people who have a job/work for years and the new people who are entering the jobmarket.
Although I agree with Steph, that an employer will normally not fire an well functioning employee when he has trained him for almost 2 years, there are situations where he will do it.
Namely when the economy gets worse after 2 years and the company doesn't have work for all it's employees anymore.
Who will be fired then : The good functioning employee who has worked there for a little bit less than 2 years, or the less functioning employee who has worked there for more than 2 years ?
Unfortunately the first person will lose his job then (because it's much easier to fire him), a situation which I consider very unfair.

And that's the point I don't like in this proposal.

If the jobsmarket should be made more flexible than it should IMHO be done with equal rights for people who currently have a job and people who currently don't have a job.

But of course that's just my 2 cents.

 

[allhailIndia]

So let me get this straight...

when all other countries, including France are actually tearing their hair over how to keep jobs at home, French students go on a rampage for a law that allows companies to hire more people, easily, simply because they can also fired easily....


Not only do they want their cake, but they want to eat it too...

No wonder Marie Antoinette was French

If they are successful, where do they intend finding their next job when some Indian/Chinese/Bangladeshi/Vietnamese is doing it at about a tenth of the price and happy to have such a job?

I hope they can cherish their victory when they are picking their way through trash bins for breakfast...

The last comment was intended to be in bad taste...any anger, accusations of trolling will be met with irritating smilies and non-chalance...Thank You come again

 

[EdwardTking]

Youngs forget that it is not in the interest of employers to simply fire them after 23 months, because of the cost of the training.

Actually when the period for permitted dismissal for no reason
was extended from 6 months to 2 years in the UK in the 1980s,
many factories, hotels and private service organisations adopted a
deliberate policy of sacking all trainees at 23 months irrespective
of ability, performance, vacancies etc, solely to prevent them acquiring permanent employee status.

 

[E-Raser]

-The world is not rich. Devide all the wealth equally and everybody would have around 8,000 dollars a year. Of course that's alot for some people, but that's no good at all.

I am very convinced there might be some oppsing to this words in for example Bangladesh or some African countries.

-What creates wealth is capitalist enterprise. Destroy it and we will be all much poorer.

This is what I deny most! WE ALL in this case simply means the managa-men.

 

[E-Raser]

Can you not see that a company going bankrupt means that all employees end up on the street? If the company going downhill is able to restructure, then they may be able to save at least some jobs. Which would you prefer?

Sure I see this: typical neolib B*S* Argument. As long as we're (the companies-> managers) aer fine and finer you'll keep your jobs. So work more and harder for less money and s*t*f*u*.
Is this what you wann tell me?

The reality is that working harder and longer destroyes even more working places. It does not produce more work, it is simply shared between less people.
So less jobs afterwards- more poverty- less consumers- worse market- less work- Another work longer and harder claim from some neolib betonheads - and so on and so force...

I really wonder why so many people are eating this? Because it is repeated a million times by the media?
1000 repitions make one truth?

Greetings from Huxley!

 

[EdwardTking]

The motive officially put forward for deregulating employment laws
in the West is that they damage company and national competitiveness.

In practice national competitiveness in the West is weakened by
a number of things e.g. the historic concentation in banking and share ownership has resulted in grossly overvalued western currencies and inflationary pressures which cannot be resolved by making the pople
at the bottom work harder and longer for less in a futile attempt to
compete on labour costs with developing Asian companies.

In many instances it is the company chief executives and share owners
who want flexible labour laws, purely so that they can increase their
own personal share of the company turnover at the expense of the
ordinary workers. This benefits neither the company or the nation.

The corporate overlayer will say that the company and nation can
not afford for example final salary pension plans for their work force,
close them for their employees, and seek to abolish them for public
sector employees; purely so that they can pocket the cash themselves.

 

[Azash]

Well, I think they have a good reason to burn the place.

 

[luiz]

I am very convinced there might be some oppsing to this words in for example Bangladesh or some African countries.

I do acknowledge that some peole live with far less than that. But do you? Would you be happy with 8,000 dollars per year? I guess not.

The world is not rich, this is a fact. You can devide the wealth all you want, it won't solve the problems. We need more wealth.

This is what I deny most! WE ALL in this case simply means the managa-men.

So you think that only the managemen are profiting in China from deregulation in the economy?

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

I am very convinced there might be some oppsing to this words in for example Bangladesh or some African countries.

Alright, so lets give the computer and car of some guy in Cambridge Massechusetts who is about to discover a cheaper way to provide electricity to poor people to some Bangladeshi farmer, and see what the net effects on potential prosperity for the poor are. This guy now doesn't have a computer to do his work, or a car to get to the office to do the work that will help a lot of people in the long run. A crude example, but delivers a point.

This is what I deny most! WE ALL in this case simply means the managa-men.

Really? How much wealth do YOU create? Not how much you would like to be paid, but how much do you truly create yourself? What do you do that allows you prosperity? I have a feeling that the answer is "not much", besides complaining on the internet about capitalists.

Sure I see this: typical neolib B*S* Argument. As long as we're (the companies-> managers) aer fine and finer you'll keep your jobs. So work more and harder for less money and s*t*f*u*.
Is this what you wann tell me?

Well, why don't you manage your own company then? No one is stopping you. Don't you know how? Apparantly it is a skill-free/work-free/time-free and ultimately a leaching enterprise, so it shouldn't be difficult to add it onto your workload.

I really wonder why so many people are eating this? Because it is repeated a million times by the media?
1000 repitions make one truth?

Or maybe because it is repeated 1000 times throughout history. Perhaps the more people study for themselves the less likely it seems that it is some capitalist conspiracy. Perhaps, "they have gotten to everyone, and everyone is trying to fool me", doesn't fly with logical people after a while.

 

[Masquerouge]

@ LoupEcarlate (il n'y a guère de bon synonyme pour Masque).

I don't really see in you answer to AVN in what you think differently from me. We are discussing to different things it seems.

Probably. It's just that I read your posts about the youth not being thankful enough about the government making it easier for them, and the one about the administration being a dinosaur, and it gave me a broad picture of you that I disagreed with.

@AVN : i just want to point out something. If I were an employer, and had to fire one employee, I would definitely fire the young one over the older one. Why ? Because it is easier for the young one to find another job, whereas try reinserting yourself when you're 50...
Of course, I think your example was about someone just under two years of employment, and someone just over 2 years, and about how maybe a week's difference can change things drastically.

 

[ainwood]

Sure I see this: typical neolib B*S* Argument. As long as we're (the companies-> managers) aer fine and finer you'll keep your jobs. So work more and harder for less money and s*t*f*u*.
Is this what you wann tell me?

No. Less people do the same work for the same money. Generally, you get rid of the people who don't work particularly hard, or steal, or lie, or who simply aren't very good at their jobs. You ever worked with people who aren't performing? The sort of people who take credit for your work, slack-off? Expect you to cover for them?

The reality is that working harder and longer destroyes even more working places. It does not produce more work, it is simply shared between less people.

It actually increases productivity. Do you think its OK for a worker to be paid for 40 hours work and only turn-out around 25 hours (or less) of decent work?

So less jobs afterwards- more poverty- less consumers- worse market- less work- Another work longer and harder claim from some neolib betonheads - and so on and so force...

So - do you actually have a reasonable suggestion as to what a company should do in an economic downturn? Or is it just everyone to the wall?

 

[luiz]

So - do you actually have a reasonable suggestion as to what a company should do in an economic downturn? Or is it just everyone to the wall?

You can always outlaw economic downturns, outlaw companies going through financial difficulties, outlaw unemployement, and so on. That should work

 

[E-Raser]

By tax gratification, do you mean that the government begrudingly lets them keep some of the money that the company earned so that they can reinvest it in the company so that they can expand and perhaps employ more people?

Where do you think tax comes from? Where do you think jobs come from? Companies are not there as a public service to provide some form of state-sponsored welfare-by-employment. That was tried in communist russia, and it failed.

Individuals who contribute nothing to the economy at all can be given free money by the state. How perverted is that?

And how many other thousands of people are they creating jobs for?

Well, nice always repeated point as usual.
Sticking to the German example (another I am not so familar with) it was during our economic wonderyears that the main income of communities cities and so on was the taxes of the companies. This was led to such an extreme during the last decade that - due to the possibilities to compare with losses abroad - that they even GOT money back from the communities.
I mean this is not a perversion?
I do not say companies must pay until death neither to provide some form of state-sponsored welfare-by-employment.
I say they simply must also give something to the community back and that there is something like a social aspect in business which seems to get more and more digusting for the usual manager.

Really? How much wealth do YOU create? Not how much you would like to be paid, but how much do you truly create yourself? What do you do that allows you prosperity? I have a feeling that the answer is "not much", besides complaining on the internet about capitalists.

Now this is certainly nothing for you to judge about, but anyway. I am working and I derserve what I earn. Although I wouldn't mind to be paid better it isn't that bad. And how about you?
But this has nothing to do with some basic facts of the opinions concerning the politics of economy, has it?

No. Less people do the same work for the same money. Generally, you get rid of the people who don't work particularly hard, or steal, or lie, or who simply aren't very good at their jobs. You ever worked with people who aren't performing? The sort of people who take credit for your work, slack-off? Expect you to cover for them?

This is not you're serious reply, is it? I mean if some dudes decide to kick out several thousands of workers to shift their factory to a cheaper place - than this thousands are those who "don't work particularly hard, or steal, or lie, or who simply aren't very good at their jobs"? Your sarcastic man!

See, I do not claim everyone should be paid same level, but if someone earns several millions p.a. on the behalf of destroying working places than it is wrong!

If there producing factories are displaced on low-price work states but the products are sold on high price markets than those mrkets beed out on the long run. Of course factory-owners are tempted to do so- but to protect the own markets politician should not enable them.

If unemployment takes place to claim for longer workload is contrapoductive. YOu shift some work on less people and more get unemployed. Where is the clue?

IMHO it is simply basically something wrong is about 80% of wealth is owned by 10% people. This is just too much disbalanced and it destroyes the market because the masses aren't able to afford the goods they produce.
Even H. Ford who was everything but a commie paid his workers enough to buy themselfes a car with time. Stange enough, right?