Headlines

If there is one thing that the French are really good at has to be striking. Yes, that lovely concept of stopping work, walking around chanting nothingness with fellow coworkers, disrupting others lives and mainly being a nuisance. I want to give you a mini history lesson so that this will make a bit of sense.

1981-the age to receive retirement benefits in France is changed from 65 to 60 years of age bringing in close to 30 years of heavy liberal governing.

1981-2005-Heavy government spending on retirees, in conjunction with government spending in nearly every sector puts a heavy burden on the country as it continues to dig itself a hole.

2005-2010-Government becoming broke. Nuff said

2010-Brilliant Idea to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62. There is just not enough money to support all the people retiring.

September 3, 2010 to today-Paris shuts down!!

Okay now that this is out of the way, let me tell you about it. Last Friday when I was over in Paris I could hear a ton of noise, more than normal a couple of kilometers away and being quite curious, headed off in that direction. This is what I found.

















It is the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysee at the beginning of a procession of retired military folks who are protesting the increase in the age of retirement. Brilliant, 7 o clock at night, a Friday none the less, and the most important boulevard in all of the world is shut down, resulting in this. I am sure more than one person was not happy about getting stuck in this.
















So, the past few days the news coverage has been covering the marching and protests going on all over France about the new regulations. The new regulations include the increase in retirement age, and kicking out poor Romanian Gypsies that are beggers in the big city among other things. Yeah, good for you folks, you walked around looking like fools and are not going to change a thing. Hats off to you, you could have been out spending money and sparking your economy, but no, you have better things to do.

However, this mornings news took took the cake. The SNCF or the french railways are now on strike about it and since this is a major artery for people to get around, especially to go to work, many businesses are shut down. Schools are shut down again, not a week back into classes too. Grocery stores cannot open because truck drivers are on strike and thus, no food going to stores. And even worse, say you had a trip on the airplane planned say to southern France. Good luck. The folks that work at the airport handling affairs are also on strike. But, at least they are nice and allowing international flights to commence and not screw over foreigners too much.

So you ask, what are the lessons to take away from this? Firstly, Unions suck and are the scourge of the world and need to be abolished. They do nothing but disrupt the normal operation of life and are the antithesis of a working society. The sooner they can go away, the better off the world will be.

Secondly, the French fail to see the larger picture that many of their problems are because of the State. By living in such a nanny state, depending on the government for everything, the population will ultimately fall in on itself. Should we consider that the only other European country with a younger age for receiving retirement benefits is Greece at 58 years of age and just recently had to be bailed out by the European Union from its massive downturn. Or shall we look at the fact that in a recent report, French people have been determined to take the most days of vacation in the world at over 40 days a year, more than double of us Americans.

Lastly, while walking around Paris for a few days, taking it all in and getting accosted by more than one poor Roma, my feelings towards them just continued to drop. They stop you and ask for money, not singly, but in groups. You say no, and they just continue to press you for anything. "Search your pockets, open your bag" they say. Or if you are driving and get stuck at a light, they will start cleaning your windows and then ask for money, all without the service being requested. Thankfully I got out of Paris without getting mugged, pick pocketed nor lost anything. Quite frankly, these people are a nuisance and I do not blame Sarkozy, the French President, for wanting to rid his most amazing city of Paris of these people. One of the many free feeds going on in the northern arondissements for the homeless.














As you can tell much is wrong with this country right now, but only time will tell if the people are strong enough to take a stand and fix the giant hole or just stand by idling chanting and holding a sign as they continue to sink with the ship.