Macron at a crossroads with rising riots and protests over gasoline and nuclear

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

39 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

The irony is that a workforce that adopts a flexible attitude generally expands and ends up with higher wages and benefits, as that plant with labor flexibility will continue to innovate, generate good gross margins, and capture market share, as well as introduce new products.  Politicians, including (sadly) quite a few labor union leaders, just don't understand this. 

Yep. 

Now have a look at Marine Le Pens campaign program and then Macrons. Macron wanted to create a flexible labour market based on the Scandinavian model. Marine Le Pen said everything was the immigrants fault. Macron won and are trying to make reforms. Guess what : it ain't pretty, but there's a chance France can come out stronger. Change is scary. That's why people kick back... it doesn't mean it is not the rigth thing though. 

Edited December 4, 2018 by Rasmus Jorgensen

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

ROTFLMAO!  You and I could get along.  🤝👍🖖🖖

Oh, and thanks for the instructions.  I set it up and did my first search.  Worked a charm!  Thanks.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Dan Warnick

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

And in America, for reasons beyond even Joe the Plumber, Bloomberg reports:

Gun Sales Fell in November

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

16 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

ROTFLMAO!  You and I could get along.  🤝👍🖖🖖

Oh, and thanks for the instructions.  I set it up and did my first search.  Worked a charm!  Thanks.

You see, everything's related, or relative:

The thread is about riots in France.

I wanted to use DuckDuckGo for limited searches.

My first limited search turned up the photo above.

The Mona Lisa was painted by italian Leonardo da Vinci, but was sold to France and is in the Louvre Museum now.

Culture amongst the rioting is on fire, and may be all the rage this season.

The Mona Lisa (/ˌmoʊnə ˈliːsə/; Italian: Monna Lisa [ˈmɔnna ˈliːza] or La Gioconda [la dʒoˈkonda], French: La Joconde [la ʒɔkɔ̃d]) is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci that has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world".^[1] The Mona Lisa is also one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in history at $100 million in 1962,^[2] which is worth nearly $800 million in 2017.^[3]

The painting is thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel. It had been believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506; however, Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. Recent academic work suggests that it would not have been started before 1513.^[4][5][6][7] It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic, on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797.^[8]

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

And in America, for reasons beyond even Joe the Plumber, Bloomberg reports:

Gun Sales Fell in November

Reason:  nobody has any money.

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

21 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Reason:  nobody has any money.

But Trump is making America great again, the economy is booming... what gives?

[Rodent + 1,424]

34 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Reason:  nobody has any money.

 I have money. 

"Dick’s Sportings Goods sales continued to decline last quarter in the wake of their new restrictions on gun purchases.

Dick’s sales fell 3.9 percent from August to November, due largely to poor performance in their technology and hunting departments, company executives explained in a conference call with analysts on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported. Sales have declined for the last five consecutive quarters.

Following the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla. in February, Dick’s announced it would no longer sell assault-style weapons and would stop selling guns and ammunition to customers under the age of 21, prompting backlash and legal challenges from gun rights activists. Walmart made similar policy changes but its executives say they have not experienced the same slow-down in sales."

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

40 minutes ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

But Trump is making America great again, the economy is booming... what gives?

Could be all the new guns are under the Christmas trees!  That's actually a big thing in many parts.

[Rodent + 1,424]

14 minutes ago, mthebold said:

Alternative hypotheses, tongue-in-cheek (but not really.  Let's be honest: this is 'Murica😞

1)  Americans have doomsday prepped so many times even we can't justify more of it.  Seriously, we own millions of assault rifles - and that's just the documented ones.  Everyone I know with an inclination towards self defense has more weapons available than friends/family to wield them.  At this point, I think Sgm. Plumley had the right idea.  
2)  Bored of rifles and inspired by the Global War on Terror, Americans have begun stockpiling explosive devices.  
3)  Sales didn't dip, but the sales aren't occurring through tracked channels.  E.g. the AR-15 is legally defined as the finished lower receiver.  Aside from that one component, every other part may be purchased as easily as toilet paper.  A citizen who knows where to look can also purchase unfinished lower receivers (w/o serial number, that being unnecessary for an inert lump of aluminum), which may be finished with minimal tools & effort.  This can even be done legally, depending on where you live (future Supreme Court rulings permitting).  Alternatively, you could just print or machine your own.  
4)  Following the military's example, citizens have switched from purchasing new firearms to upgrading the tens of millions of existing firearms.  There's some incredible new tech available, although the standard solutions are more likely.  
5)  We're just practicing more.  

1) Indeed. Prepped--been there, done that. 

3)

5) Impressive!

 

[Rodent + 1,424]

I would also like to posit that the deals on Black Friday (not specific to gun deals) are becoming less and less impressive. So while that weekend traditionally brought retailers back in the black, it may fail to give all retailers that final push over the edge anymore as people become disillusioned. Anecdotally, Black Friday deals used to be killer. Now, not so much. 

One could also make the argument that we have SOOOO much money now that we don't need to camp out in a tent on Thanksgiving to save a few bucks. No way Jose! I'll pay full price and enjoy my Turkey.

Murca. Ain't it great.

[jaycee + 348]

8 hours ago, Guillaume Albasini said:

As I've said before, I think the opposition between big metropolis (core cities) benefiting from globalization  and peripheral cities hurted by globalization is essential to understand the current "Yellow Vests" protests in France. Ilurion disagreed with me  and said that globalization was hurting big cities as much as small and medium cities. So I promised him to add some references to explain on what my assumptions were based.

The following text is  an excerpt of a recent review essay from Robert Mark Silberman (Buffalo University) titled "Rethinking shrinking cities : peripheral dual cities have arrived" and published in the "Journal of Urban Affairs"

 

"Globalization has transformed a select group of core cities into an integrated network of knowledge and financial centers. This network is composed of large megacites across the globe like Tokyo, New York, London, and Paris. During the last quarter of a century, these cities have experienced an infusion of capital and economic growth. The ascent of these cities has also been accompanied by the concentration of wealth and growing income inequality. In the shadow of global cities, there has been increased instability in cities on the periphery brought on by international investment and labor patterns characterized by increasingly footloose industries operating within the construct of multilateral free-trade policies The relationship between global cities and other urban places found on their periphery is structurally unequal. Unlike global cities, peripheral cities are at the base of a system of inequality and oppression. They are most vulnerable to the mobility of labor and capital and pitted against one another in the global economy. In contrast to global cities that form a network of command centers for the accumulation of knowledge and capital, peripheral cities are fragmented and dependent on the flow of outside resources for their survival.

 

Global cities have emerged as new command and control centers focused on generating wealth and extracting resources from peripheral cities. At the top of this system, global cities are well networked and integrated. At the bottom of the system, peripheral cities are pitted against each other in a fight to the bottom. In the short term, capital ebbs and flows into peripheral cities in order to sustain global city growth. Across cycles of investment, some individual peripheral cities prosper, whereas others do not. In the long run, peripheral cities are maintained in a relative state of stasis as a group, in order to perpetuate the global system of inequality that their oppression supports. Consequently, the growing concentration of wealth in a small number of global cities increases the ranks of peripheral cities. The omnipresent need for these cities to compete for investment from the core results in stunted development and eventual shrinkage as the global economy expands.

 

The material conditions in shrinking cities are qualitatively different from global cities. Although both exhibit spatial and social polarization, shrinking cities are chronically resource depleted, dependent, disenfranchised, and dispossessed from the networks that promote the stability of the broader global economy. In essence, shrinking cities are alienated from the global economy and subordinated by it. Their underdevelopment is a structural component of the broader global economy and it is expressed through spatial and social polarization. Being a shrinking city is more than being peripheral to and dependent on global cities for resources. It also entails the internalization of a colonized mindset where decision makers actively seek affirmation from above by internalizing the institutional norms and practices that form the core of the global economy. This is largely a subconscious process where local leaders rationalize their actions as pragmatic efforts to make the best out of a bad situation. By failing to recognize the contradiction between the material conditions in shrinking and global cities, the former become alienated from their own interests, which perpetuates their acquiescence to the global economy."

 

Link to the whole article :  http://www.thecyberhood.net/documents/papers/rms18.pdf

First may I say your command of English, for a non-native speaker, is amazing for you to read that. The essay is very verbose and never fails to use long words to make points when shorter ones would have made reading so much easier never the less a very interesting essay thank you for posting it.

I thought the essay was a bit too American focussed the further it went but I can see the points the author was making, namely that mega cities suck in everything and leave other cities, shrinking cities, as colonies which in turn regenerate their cores for the benefit of the more affluent in an attempt to attract investment and business and operate on the trickle-down principle.  This fits in with all independence, populist, nationalist parties etc just now who are complaining of diminishing opportunities for people and these people are not being heard. It explains the rise in Scottish nationalists and their attempt at a separatist vote as they too recognise all the assets of Scotland are being sucked into machine that is London. If the author had been European I am sure he would have seen the bigger picture of one state sucking the life out of other states in a similar way and creating colonies feeding back to it as this is exactly the problem with the EU namely the superstate Germany sucks in everything into it’s maw and leaves other states as shrinking states just like the supercities do. This clearly explains the rise of populism in the EU. Paris does the same in a similar way to France and hence the rebellion of the yellow jackets is mainly from the rural areas where all they see is more taxes and less spending on infrastructure they need to develop.

The solution proposed by the author is that more autonomy and money should be given to the shrinking cities so they can work out their own ways to regenerate their cities to their benefit rather than to feed all to the more prosperous supercity which chimes with my view on another thread that Italy should be allowed to run a larger deficit, or get debt restructuring, so that it can have greater autonomy in how it regenerates itself.

The essay fits in with what I see and puts a structure to it and a solution that I had already suspected but now to see it set out so clinically is refreshing.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

 

25 minutes ago, mthebold said:

  If a significant fraction of European women begin to feel uncomfortable, that will be the end of it.  For all the talk of patriarchy, Western women get what they want - and they value their safety above all else.  I don't think the wishful thinking will survive long. 

 

I rather suggest that a "significant fraction of European women" already feel very uncomfortable. 

I was on the streets of a mid-sized German city, walking out to dinner, and observed no Germans on the streets.  This is a city of half-million and it is deserted.  I have dinner in an empty restaurant.  I get back to the hotel and ask: "What are those knots of Middle-Eastern men doing standing around on the street corners?"  Reply:  "That is their job."  Turns out the males, all sullen, all rather unfriendly-looking, are selling drugs and sizing up pedestrians to see who they can go rob.  So you have an entire city so intimidated that the natives don't dare go out at night.   A bit "uncomfortable"?   Yup, sure is. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

11 hours ago, Guillaume Albasini said:

The governement is postponing the tax and not removing it.

But the fuel tax was just the spark starting the fire. This decision will not treat the real roots of the discontent.

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

45 minutes ago, mthebold said:

If only we could provide the same experience to upper-middle-class women in the US so they understand what they're voting for.  

I have figured out one tactic for this though: when the subject of immigration comes up, I explicitly tell women that, having warned them of the dangers and been ignored, I would not lift a finger to defend a liberal neighborhood.  Conservative area?  Sure.  They listened.  Liberal neighborhood?  Nope.  I'd walk right past and pretend I didn't see a thing.  They made their bed & can lie in it.  

And that elicits an emotional reaction.  Western women are accustomed to being an indispensable asset.  Boat is sinking?  Women and children first.  Dangerous job needs to be done?  Send the men.  Foreign threats?  Young men rush to the front lines lest they be seen as cowards.  For a brief moment, I'm able to lift that ironclad guarantee of security and let them feel reality: the things they ask for are costly - sometimes impossible - and male generosity only goes so far.  Hopefully that plants the seed of critical thought.  

On that note, I think Western men need to rethink the obligation they feel towards society and the privileged place they reserve for women.  In the modern era, women are not helpless damsels in need of protection; they're adults with full voting rights.  A man should only sacrifice & protect a woman if she provides something in return.  If we're going to have equality, then let's do it right.  

OK, you got a lot off your chest on this thread.  I'm sure you feel better!

One thing I would ask is that possibly you could adopt different code words for the two competing groups, as you see them:  "liberal" and "Conservative."    In essence, you are equating "liberal" with Hillary Clinton and the Clintonite policies.  But you don't want to call them the Clintonites, you call them the Liberals.  I really don't think that is fair. 

I view myself as a Liberal, albeit as a Monarchist.  I disavow Clintonism and the Clintonites, who have brought rack and ruin everywhere and want to go to war with other families' bodies in order to advance the ideas of Clintonism on the world stage.  Liberals don't do that.  In terms of immigration, liberals are not advancing ideas of unfettered migration waves; rather, they see the building of decent societies around the globe as a reasonable, indeed prudent, goal.  The Clintonites - well, I'll let them speak for themselves. 

It is certainly true that the Clintonites have dominated, indeed suffocated, what before was a democratic Democratic Party.  It is now the Party of the Clintons, and that has been in part repudiated by the American voters and public  (only in part).  The Clintonites refuse to let go, which is in large part why you have these savage conflicts with Mr. Trump. 

See what you can do to come up with a better nomenclature.  Cheers.

[ActionXJackson + 3]

4 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

 

I rather suggest that a "significant fraction of European women" already feel very uncomfortable. 

I was on the streets of a mid-sized German city, walking out to dinner, and observed no Germans on the streets.  This is a city of half-million and it is deserted.  I have dinner in an empty restaurant.  I get back to the hotel and ask: "What are those knots of Middle-Eastern men doing standing around on the street corners?"  Reply:  "That is their job."  Turns out the males, all sullen, all rather unfriendly-looking, are selling drugs and sizing up pedestrians to see who they can go rob.  So you have an entire city so intimidated that the natives don't dare go out at night.   A bit "uncomfortable"?   Yup, sure is. 

For me it would be interesting to know which city you are talking about? I live in a german city(>1million) and couldn't comfirm what you are writing. Yes, you see more middle-eastern men... yes, they are definetely not all rocket scientists... yes, some had found out, that the law isn't that strict but you're observation is something I've never seen or heard about in this country.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

46 minutes ago, mthebold said:

This is the male equivalent of women saying, "Who hurt you?" after you point out obvious, physiologically-driven human behaviors.

Westerners would take immigration more seriously if they'd seen the underbelly of 3rd world countries the way I have.  You've been told; it's not my problem any more.  

I would not exactly say that I am some fan of unrestricted migrations.  So far, the evidence is that they have been a disaster for the West. 

Getting past that, while I do not have the breadth of travel to the 3rd world that you have, I consider even neighboring Mexico to be a "no-go" zone.  With the extreme level of violence, useless policemen or worse, and everyone packing a concealed pistol, Mexico is no longer a place that I would even dare set foot in.  I hear that you arrive at the airport in Mexico City, hire a cab (to avoid walking or the bus) and the driver takes you out to a deserted industrial area, where his chums wait to rob and beat you, strop off your clothes, and leave you there - or maybe even kill you just for sport.   Nice place. 

My guess is that Mexico is probably civilized compared to others.  I would shudder to attempt to walk around in Nigeria or Pakistan, for example.  Hey, that's just me.  Cheers.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Hey Macron and France, how's that whole "Weath Re-distribution Program" of the "Carbon Tax" under the name of "Environmental Policy" working out for you?  Saving the world yet?

 

● "Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War."

● "There is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil."

● "But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole."

[Robert Ziegler + 121]

On 12/2/2018 at 6:18 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

Pics and vids.  

https://twitter.com/InfosFrancaises

Is that a petrol station that is getting firebombed?

 

Peage = Toll Booth

[Robert Ziegler + 121]

The Argentinians have the perfect sense of situational humor: A yellow-vest was the reception committee for Macron.....

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

The Real Significance of the French Tax Revolt

The gilets jaunes (Yellow Jacket) anti-tax riots in France escalated over the past weekend, again citing the impact of higher taxes on fossil fuels –and high levels of taxation in general – on everyday life. French citizens, already subject to the highest taxes in the OECD, are being crushed by both new and systematically increasing taxes, and have taken to the streets by the hundreds of thousands in a “citizen’s revolution”. 

... Levying taxes on individuals to combat climate change – or for the accomplishment of any social betterment project – is unfailingly undertaken in the name of the sanctity of life. Yet if life is an invaluable state and condition, so too is that of the right of personal property. A life absent the ability to enjoy the products of our toil by utilizing them directly or voluntarily exchanging them with that of others is a life circumscribed, and thus a life forcibly, purposely denigrated in quality.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

5 minutes ago, mthebold said:

I'm still struggling to understand what they gain from this.  How does destabilizing advanced nations benefit anyone? 

My suggestion is ... Question the Official Narrative.  And then keep asking questions.

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

23 minutes ago, mthebold said:

I'm still struggling to understand what they gain from this.  How does destabilizing advanced nations benefit anyone? 

I really think that you have misunderstood the message the UN / IPCC / Otmar wanted to send. Probably because @Tom Kirkman (maybe intentionally) oversimplifies. I believe that the message Otmar wanted to send is that we need to be honest about what the implications of these policies. You are OK to disagree. No problem. 

[Osama + 248]

On 12/3/2018 at 11:05 PM, Dan Warnick said:

Here is an interesting, seemingly fairly thorough analysis of what is and what is not going on in Paris:

ANALYSIS: The savage violence in Paris was not a protest, it was an insurrection

I'll leave it to those closer to comment and/or reflect.

The way the writer describes it......this is very serious as it clearly has undertones of a wider, broader and deeper generic resentment against the government as a whole. This also depicts situations in mamy other countries....only that it is under control...seething under the surface..

 

Inequality has once again become very sensitive issue (it always was)....EU needs more "Glue" (to borrow from Amy Chua's Day of Empire).

 

Cc: @Tom Kirkman, @Dan Warnick

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

18 minutes ago, mthebold said:

Are you saying that Otmar was pointing out what was happening, but not necessarily agreeing with it?  

What's your take on "the implications of these policies"?  

I think that Otmar is pro carbon tax. However, I think he is honest about what carbon tax is. It is punishing (at the time) OPEC countries and countries that consume a lot of fossil fuels. i.e re-distributing wealth on a global scale. Agree or disagree. THe man derserves credit for being honest. 

Personally, I am pro oil & gas and therefore not pro a carbon tax. I think any energy transition needs to be left to the market. However, I am pro a strong UN that could enforce things like no child labour, anti-pollution (for example IOCs could do a lot to limit pollution in Africa. I know for a fact.). NB! I really do not want to get into any superior culture discussion etc. I just felt that an honest politician needs credit. 

[shadowkin + 584]

Anybody else feeling a bit of schadenfreude at the election of Macron? The entire Western political establishment and media, the Deep State if you will, did everything they could to elect him and it worked. He was the anti-Trump who was going to rescue the world from Trumpism and the fascist LePen. The reality is he's the latest interchangeable puppet put forth by the 1% to do their bidding.