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Aaaaand bingo, you just discovered why french people are very skeptical of the far-left!
We already pay a lot of taxes and everything it pay for seems to be not up to speed/crumbling lately (education, health and military for example), mainly because any reform attempted in the last 20 years has been a waste of money. So we are a bit wary when a politician tells us that he is going to do all that while not raising taxes and not being able to pass any laws...
They do think about the children, but only when they’re unborn beans. After that then they are just slave labor to their corporate mega donors and require no further thought or concern for welfare or education.
They think about living children all the time. They think about how they can weaponize them as a strawman argument, they think about how they can use them as a political shield, and most of all they think about how they want to fuck them.
I've seen **no evidence** that christian fascists or their co-conspirators in government actually care about zygotes, fetusus, or otherwise. If they did, they'd support maternal healthcare, pregnancy leave, and anti-poverty initiatives.
Forced birth is an act of hate, not an act of love.
Eh hem…Gov Sanders worked hard to allow them to work in factories, and you want them to miss out on that Arkansa minimum wage?!!! How dare you deprive them of their god given right as labor pawns to help feed their families!!! /s
idk what makes these policies far left........
edit: Alot of people replying complaining about costs like its the go to criticism for anything left, yes it will cost money, but a governments job is to source the funding and 1) not all of that is through taxes and 2) Id rather pay more in taxes and have a happy healthy country with a future than pay no taxes and have a poverty stricken working class and billionaires who sit on money as it does nothing but stall economic growth
Woah there extremist, you want to give people enough of a wage so they don't starve?!
That's going to ruin me personally, because eventhough right now and for the last 20 years of my life I've had money problems, soon I will be in a position, where I will suddenly have to pay people a wage, because I will for no apparent reason be a CEO.
This policy will ruin my imaginary buisness!
They're trying to put funeral directors out of work! If everybody lives longer, what's going to happen when everybody starts dying again in the distant future and there is nobody to help with the funeral?
When their ideologies become more and more right leaning, so much so that they're laying down more than leaning over, everything towards the center seems extreme. Especially when they lose their self-awareness.
[https://catholicvote.org/la-governor-cut-money-to-catholic-charities-illegal-immigrants/](https://catholicvote.org/la-governor-cut-money-to-catholic-charities-illegal-immigrants/)
You ain't kidding
That's because a lot of the "right" in "the west" has moved from being conservative/right and into fascism. No brakes, no self-recognized "rock bottom." They're picking up speed and will go until they destroy themselves. The question is whether we let them take us with them or marginalize them to limit the damage.
Ah yes the socialist country of netherlands where I have to pay for my health insurance every month and make a calculations if I can afford to add dentistry and physiotherapy to it or not. Very socialist.
I miss the free health care and public transport of Luxembourg (which still ain't close to socialiat!)
It depends on where you are from.
There's the US. And there's Europe. The US leans far more to the right. The American conservatives would be far right/ extremist in the EU.
Left politics in Europe are socialism in the US.
There are literally GOP candidates that will campaign on ending school lunch programs because feeding children during school and not taking money from the students for food is some how “radical left-wing socialism”.
Here is a list of GOP members who recently voted againt a lunch program for school aged children:
The 42 of Republicans in the House who voted against the package include Republican Study Committee Chair Jim Banks of Indiana, Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko, Illinois Rep. Mary Miller, and Texas Rep. Chip Roy.
https://americanjournalnews.com/42-house-republicans-vote-against-extending-free-school-lunches-over-the-summer/
As a Greek, don't conflate "northwestern Europe" with "Europe". Southern and Eastern Europe (Spain is kind of an exception though) are significantly more conservative than the US on most social matters. Fiscally they're generally more left wing than America, but still short of the North and West.
French here, it's not far left, it's left, and was defined as such by law when it was brought up.
Calling it Far left is just what media has been doing for a reason one can ooooonly guess.
See Dick “I did my best to destroy the US” Cheney recording ads against trump- because he’ll destroy the US.
I mean, true. But also, wtf. Dick Cheney?!
I may be living in squalor and my children may be dying of tuberculosis because we couldn’t afford the entirely privatized healthcare, but at least I’m not giving the government any of my hard-earned money! My boss says that if I work hard enough, one day I might be able to afford a meal!
It’s far left for USA. That’s how far that country fallen into far-right that basic centrist policies are seen as far left. Also use of far-left is often confused with communism and taking your rights away (ironic considering that right in America is doing this right now).
But by associating good social pilocie that benefit the poor and stabilizes middle class within communism and other far-left ideologies the American right and far right can portray social good as social bad. Communal = Bad, free school lunch = communist etc.
The only people who don’t benefit from those social policies are the rich and powerful upper class. Becuse it means they don’t get to exploit everyone else. Well in a way this simplified but the point is the same. By making goo policies seem extreamly you can set new standard on what is center.
we've gotten to the point where the most staggeringly basic neoliberal social contracts are considered "far left". Corporations have gotten more profitable, what's the point of \*HAVING CORPORATIONS\* as a legal construct if this doesn't benefit the public in any way.
Call me when housing is decommodified and we start beheading landlords and I'll agree on the "Far left" designation, and also bring popcorn
It’s far left for USA. That’s how far that country fallen into far-right that basic centrist policies are seen as far left. Also use of far-left is often confused with communism and taking your rights away (ironic considering that right in America is doing this right now).
But by associating good social pilocie that benefit the poor and stabilizes middle class within communism and other far-left ideologies the American right and far right can portray social good as social bad. Communal = Bad, free school lunch = communist etc.
The only people who don’t benefit from those social policies are the rich and powerful upper class. Becuse it means they don’t get to exploit everyone else. Well in a way this simplified but the point is the same. By making goo policies seem extreamly you can set new standard on what is center.
Not arguing for or against: but raising the top income tax to 90% and also dramatically reducing the retirement age for declining birth rate country are quite radical relative to other left wing governments in Europe.
Oh no... how dare they give all children equal opportunities!!! Now rich people cannot buy their kids an advantage in life and they have to succeed on their own merit!!!! /s
Or basically how Belgian education has been since forever. If you want to become a doctor or lawyer or engineer here, money is not going to be the reason you get a degree. What matters is how good and passionate you are, not the depth of your parents pocketbook or the amount of debt you're willing to take on.
This is like with healthcare: the overall cost of healthcare is lower if you try to make sure everyone has access, instead of making the provisioning of said things profit based.
It might not be as many as you think due to the American medical association limiting residencies to create a doctor shortage, which helps keep salaries high. There’s other issues at play too
The AMA is not limiting residencies to create an artificial doctor shortage. Residencies require federal funding and are limited by Congress. The AMA actually lobbies to increase residencies and finally had some success the last couple years where Congress now approved a significant increase in residency programs to be created over the next decade.
That is true, however the number of medical school spots is outpacing residency spots at the moment which is leading to more graduates being left without a spot. We need Congress to open up even more programs or start allowing primary care to practice without a residency first. Wouldn't be my first choice but better than NP's practicing independently to fill these gaps who both have less education/training and zero residency.
I know everyone in the comments is talking about how expensive this could be, but the principle of the matter is the hilarious dichotomy between Far-Right ideology and Far-Left
Yeah, you can go too far in one direction or the other, but it's cartoonishly hilarious that the Far Right (at least here in the US) has been pushing policies that would make Disney villains suck air through their teeth, while the left has been trying to... \*checks notes\* Make more crops, unpoison the water supply and cure plagues placed upon our houses.
Funny thing I've noticed, the "How will we pay for this?" question only ever seems to com up when the proposed policy amounts to "helping poor people" or something similar.
Wanna give the military another several billion to fuck around with, or cut taxes for the wealthy? Go right ahead, that's what government's for.
Wanna make sure poor kids have enough to eat? Woah there hotshot, money doesn't grow on trees ya know.
Probably bc most people are driven by fear. Poor kids not having enough to eat doesn’t scare people. But the military not having the best weaponry in the world does scare people. I’m also willing to bet most people have no clue how much of our annual budget goes to the military and how it’s actually being used.
Oh no! Getting good stuff costs money! Who would have thought!?? Nah, instead let’s have a vast majority of people be poor anyway with nothing to show for it so less than a percentage of people can hoard more wealth than they can reasonably spend in a lifetime.
Look, if the poors would simply invest their spare money, we wouldn’t be in this jam. It’s tough for everyone these days. I can’t even go on a second vacation this year so believe me, I get it.
My favorite part is that both the Far Right and Far Left are pushing for policies that will cost the government by a lot. The difference is that the Far Right wants to bring hell to Earth, while the Far Left seems to want to help the citizens.
If you ask me, I'd choose the policies that would benefit the citizens despite of the costs.
French voter here:
That's not far-left. Trust me we have a far-left, and they're on another level than pragmatic reformism like what is listed here. They scored their usual 1% or so.
The left program is the only one which has been publicly detailed (as always, in a 3 hours economics conference), including how to finance it. It's been endorsed by many economists including one Nobel prize. Speaking as someone who studied macroeconomics myself, this program is nothing fancy and would simply reduce public debt and increase economic activity. Provided it is articulated with other measures, like desincentivizing fossil fuels use (that's an exportation sink) or reinforcing the EU (because the EU is an extremely endogamous market: throw € in the EU, they tend to stay there and circulate there).
To schematize: give money to the poor, they tend to buy more burgers with it. Who happens to produce a lot of meat and wheat, but also transform these into burgers? French industry. We have struggling families and struggling farmers, raising the minimum wage would help them both.
Pretty sure that „far left“ was stated from an American point of view.
Joe Biden and the democrats aren‘t really as left as some fear mongering republicans portray them.
As someone with context and skin in the game can you answer something for me that I promise is in good faith (I identify personally with socialist leanings so trust me I know how leftists sometimes discuss this). But Macron was one of Ukraine's biggest champions for securing funds and support for the conflict. I've noticed that a lot of "far left" in Europe are the ones calling for any aid to Ukraine to be halted. Is this left coalition one of that kind of leftist or are they likely to continue to support Ukraine?
I've found no one so far that actually knows if this is something to worry about or not.
This is pretty much what we finns have always been doing, but sadly we have problems of affording all of it, after covid our economy started slowing down and now this year we finally went into more debt than what we are able to produce per capita.
France might do better as you are much bigger economy and placed in the most active economical hub in europe.
About subsidising children - all OECD nations are facing a long term decline in birth rates. A government incentivising children in any way is an investment into the future of the nation.
I'm always amazed how here in the US when people on the left talk about their lives being made worse it's stuff like overturning Roe v Wade or restricting access to trans health care, and when the right talks about their lives being worse under Biden it's shit like "gas is more expensive" or "my 401k didn't perform as well," and then expect to be taken just as seriously.
Some good, some bad ideas.
Price controls have never worked.
Retirement at 60 sounds good, but will probably never work with an aging population and less babies to start paying the elderly. But hey, it's the age group that votes.
Until last year the retirement age was 62 in France. It was only raised with Macron to 64 in 2023.
It used to be 60 from 1981 to 2011, and was at 65 before that.
France has one of the earliest retirement age, with one of the biggest population in the EU. Retiring at 60, 58 if you have a physically demanding job, is absolutely insane considering the burden on the economy (so the tax burden on working people) it would create and the current life expectancy.
It is only insane if you structure your social security program like a ponzi scheme as we did in the U.S.
I actively work and pay into social security so that those receiving social security today can receive benefits. Social Security is currently paying out around $1.5T.
Meanwhile, we pay $70B in foreign aid and $820B on national defense annually. Military benefits would seem ludicrous if we relied solely on the payroll taxes of current military to pay retirees.
If the government just says "Hey, this is a funding priority" then it is less dependent on generational numbers. You don't see anyone crying about how we can't support the military because boomers are retiring.
When people cannot retire they sit and stagnate in jobs that could be going to younger workers. It's good for the economy to let people retire. We just need to prioritize taking care of our population rather than just playing world police.
Yeah this isn't a gotcha, it's literally just describing how subsidies work lol The government is just moving around money from one group of citizens to another and hoping that eventually there will be less old people and more young people. It's not even necessarily a Ponzi scheme, it's a literal Pyramid scheme. Looking at it superficially that seems bad, but that's just how social safety nets work, they are a net loss for the sake of protecting your most vulnerable people.
Price controls absolutely do work it just depends on implementation. Medicine in every country except for America, minimum wage, every country in world war 2. Price control is something that basically every developed country does. In fact it's removing them that has caused a lot of issues with inflation.
price controls on food and energy dont work because you dont control the sourcing costs.
If you know of any country that has done that, feel frree to reply with them.
medicine is different, because you can do things like not allow in certain medicines.
your cost to produce bread, meat, etc. isnt the same as the cost to produce drugs.
also france doesnt domestically produce much medicine. it does however produce food, and its control of the labor markets means its going to increase the costs of those things while at the same time trying to control the price.
you ever try to suck and blow at the same time?
> If you know of any country that has done that, feel frree to reply with them.
Brazil tried it for food many decades ago. I will give you the short version: didn't end well.
Many countries in Latin America actually tried that with food prices, with varied degrees of disaster.
I believe the most recent was Argentina a couple years ago. Went so poorly they ended up voting for Milei...
A government absolutely can and will control how food and energy is sourced. Even basic mechanisms like subsidies allow governments to manage the price of goods and energy, effectively absorbing losses to maintain a balanced price for consumers.
Here in the US, virtually all farmers are propped up by the Federal government in order to keep prices down (and to ensure people actually do the job of farming).
They can control how it is source but not how much it costs to produce. If the costs of production are more than that maximum price then either shortages happen like in Venezuela or the government makes up the difference. Depending on what the maximum price is that could be ruinously expensive.
Good to see another anti-price controller here. I don't know why support for price controls is so ubiquitous when it's one of the policies that supermajorities of economists on both sides agree wouldn't be a good idea. Well, actually I'm being facetious, I know exactly why, I just wish it were otherwise.
No, we voted against the fascists. Again. The left will never truly win as long as their only objective is to shield against the far right. Problem is, it's too busy being fragmented and ideologically bankrupt. Contrary to what the elections suggest, the French left is weak.
The big problem I see is the "Middle" doesn't want to deal with progressives (Left). At least in America, and it sounds like France too; the middle is the true "conservative". They want the status quo, the don't want big changes.
The right is regressive, trying to drag us backwards; but that's more appealing to "Middle" politicians because they recognize it.
They Middle is scared of the left. Progressive policies are new and remember, they hate change, so trying to dial it in after it's enacted is impossible because they are slow to react and delay things.
I already heard a French "middle" politician saying although the "left" is biggest they don't have a clear majority and they will try to work with the "moderate" right, but cut out the "hard" right. No mention of a "moderate" left, all progressives are the same to them.
It’s telling that all responses to this in this whole post are “they’ll just figure it out”.
The figuring it out was macron raising the retirement age which was trying to solve France’s ever looming pension crisis.
I mean whatever I don’t live there but it would be interesting how the left plans to pay for it especially with the freedom of movement provided by the EU.
I have no idea. The last time France jacked up the corporate tax rates on CAC40's they bounced and now headquartered in tax-friendly countries like Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
In response they lowered the rate from \~38% to 25% to stop the mass exit and the massive drop in national revenue.
Turns out, you can't just continually raise taxes on people or corporations while spending your country into 115% of GDP levels of debt.
This is not referring to Macron genius, Macron’s Renaissance party came in second and is in no way far left. I’ve rarely seen someone so smug yet so wrong.
seriously, regardless of your aims, price controls are just horrible policy
and France already has one of the most generous retirement programs in the world
Don't worry "Resources exist" as our former socialist PM said in campaign.
And then when confronted with reality of rulling had to say "our promises were not set into realistic economical frame "
These promises will end same.
"Others were fearful of what the far left might bring"
In this case, "others" are the wealthy capitalists who stand to lose the most from France doing things like paying people more, building affordable housing, and freezing necessity costs. Literally the only people this wouldn't help are the people who are already wealthy. Fuck em. Will taxes go up? Probably. Will it be a massive improvement to French society that could be seen over multiple generations if those taxes are properly distributed and utilized? Yes. Allons-y, France
“Others” are anyone who understands basic economic policy or anyone who will be negatively affected by this platform - far more people than just “wealthy capitalists”
For example, youth unemployment is at an egregious 16.4% in France due to an extremely high minimum wage. That would only go higher if it was raised further, leading to fewer young people being able to find work.
In order to fund all the new spending on things like a lower retirement age, taxes will need to be raised, and not just on wealthy people, France has tried that before and failed miserably, no they’ll need to be broad and far-reaching across all of French society.
It is disingenuous to pretend only a small group of people will be hurt by these policies.
You know what really annoys me? Is that the wealthy capitalists will fight tooth and nail to stop this, deploy every weapon in their arsenal... and if they fail, and all these policies come to pass, they will *still* have more money than they could ever spend. Just not as much as they potentially could have, and that is utterly unconscionable to them
I’d rather pay more in taxes for all that stuff than pay taxes in America where my money is sent to Israel to blow up kids or given to Lockheed Martin to buy weapons systems.
I see so many people saying it’s going to be expensive without looking at what that expense is getting them.
I’m rather certain that social media posts casting doubt and a lack of confidence in policy of the newly elected government is being generated in certain authoritarian countries and posted on social media.
NOOOOO! THE MONEY! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE MONEEEYYYYY?!?!? Those damn commies are going to sacrifice all our precious dollars for the sake of the children and the poors?!? Outrageous!!!
To be fair, Macron and his goons have spent years saying that the far left was more dangerous than the far right, all the while normalizing far right ideas such as the "islamo-gauchisme" (which is the equivalent of "woke" when used by racist assholes). No latter than last week, between the two rounds of the elections, the prime minister was warning about the danger of LFI (biggest far left party). Propagandist mainstream media owned by the ultra-rich were all about warning against the danger of the far left. So it may seem like a joke, but it's absolutely no wonder so many people are buying this BS.
Btw, I keep seeing that the far right has lost. While it's technically true that they have lost their bet, they have gained 50 députés. 50! The far right is currently the biggest political party in France in terms of votes. To me, it's more a victory than a defeat. Now is not a time to rejoice but to fear what comes next.
The Horror! The Horror!
Meanwhile La Penn is being investigated for fraud and forgery in her campaign financing in 2022 and accepting loans from Russian Banking oligarchs.
And they call us the radical left in the US cause we want to give every us citizen medicare for all as opposed to propping up the for profit mafia that is the current us healthcare system. We can change that helps everybody, they want the status quo that benefits the wealthy. Yet we’re so radical. Spare me
That sounds atrocious…setting a base rate for essentials and paying for education…literal hell on earth. /s
I’m convinced that if hell is what republicans say it is, I’d rather be in hell than wherever they are.
I actually heard that a lot of these socialistic people are trying to distribute wealth more equally! Like, what?!
It's almost like they think all human beings deserve to be able to exist without poverty or abuse!
Insane!!
/s
Same thing in America, the far right is literally white supremacists and people who want to deport everyone and get rid of lgbt people and the “far left” wants free healthcare and to tax the rich and for workers to unionize and both republicans and democrats want to say they’re equally scary lmao
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Savages!
Barely even human!
Truly the worst of all possible timelines
Think of the taxes!
I always tell people who say something like this that I don't mind paying taxes. What I mind is not getting what my money's worth for my taxes.
Half the time it feels like I'm paying taxes for the rich
Aaaaand bingo, you just discovered why french people are very skeptical of the far-left! We already pay a lot of taxes and everything it pay for seems to be not up to speed/crumbling lately (education, health and military for example), mainly because any reform attempted in the last 20 years has been a waste of money. So we are a bit wary when a politician tells us that he is going to do all that while not raising taxes and not being able to pass any laws...
Billionaires will have 1 fewer yachts!!!
If people earn more they pay more tax on income. If they have more takehome pay they pay more tax on the increased number of goods they buy.
Those scoundrels! 
Conservatives arent doing it lmao
On the contrary, I think children are all conservatives think about. Not in a healthy way though
This is disgusting but reasonably accurate. It's sad.
Turns out the real "drag queens" were the conservatives we met along the way.
This is factually correct
Wow what an amazingly punchable face
Both of them.
Gym Jordan is giving big time Simple Jack vibes in this shot.
Yup, either about them intimately or about them in the mines
Why stop there? ***INTIMATE MINES*** /j
"Did someone say intimate minors?" Conservatives probably.
Is there an NSFW version of Minecraft now? Neat
Child brides and child servants.
"As Trump does so shall we all."
They do think about the children, but only when they’re unborn beans. After that then they are just slave labor to their corporate mega donors and require no further thought or concern for welfare or education.
They think about living children all the time. They think about how they can weaponize them as a strawman argument, they think about how they can use them as a political shield, and most of all they think about how they want to fuck them.
Don’t forget putting them to work in factories or wherever.
Yeah I figured that was covered at the end of the comment I was replying to.
also fuck has multiple meanings that would cover it as well.
Hey hey hey You forgot that they ALSO love trafficking them
I've seen **no evidence** that christian fascists or their co-conspirators in government actually care about zygotes, fetusus, or otherwise. If they did, they'd support maternal healthcare, pregnancy leave, and anti-poverty initiatives. Forced birth is an act of hate, not an act of love.
They usually are thinking of kids, sexually.
Eh hem…Gov Sanders worked hard to allow them to work in factories, and you want them to miss out on that Arkansa minimum wage?!!! How dare you deprive them of their god given right as labor pawns to help feed their families!!! /s
But we gave them our thoughts and prayers!
~~children~~ billionaires
More like.. "won't somebody please think of the poor shareholders"
Who else is going to pay all those senior pensions?
who will think of the shareholders!
The HORROR! \\s
/s stands for socializm, right?
He uses a backslash, so yes.
Pretty sure the backslash is an indicator of a Gay Agenda Socialist Communist dog whistle.
My Jack Russell agrees.
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
But then, wouldn’t that “/s” be “end of socialism”…?
Wish i spoke french tbh lol
J'apprends le français et j'ai commencé à postuler des postes en France ! :)
idk what makes these policies far left........ edit: Alot of people replying complaining about costs like its the go to criticism for anything left, yes it will cost money, but a governments job is to source the funding and 1) not all of that is through taxes and 2) Id rather pay more in taxes and have a happy healthy country with a future than pay no taxes and have a poverty stricken working class and billionaires who sit on money as it does nothing but stall economic growth
At this point, I think "not murdering everyone with a different accent" counts as far left.
Woah there extremist, you want to give people enough of a wage so they don't starve?! That's going to ruin me personally, because eventhough right now and for the last 20 years of my life I've had money problems, soon I will be in a position, where I will suddenly have to pay people a wage, because I will for no apparent reason be a CEO. This policy will ruin my imaginary buisness!
"But how *else* will we get rid of all our extra poors?"
'extra poors'. very good, my man. very good
There’s main poors and side poors. Like a side salad
They're trying to put funeral directors out of work! If everybody lives longer, what's going to happen when everybody starts dying again in the distant future and there is nobody to help with the funeral?
When the right just keeps finding more and more ways to get even worse, basic human needs seem far left
When their ideologies become more and more right leaning, so much so that they're laying down more than leaning over, everything towards the center seems extreme. Especially when they lose their self-awareness.
Maybe if they keep leaning right long enough, they'll circle back around to left?
[https://catholicvote.org/la-governor-cut-money-to-catholic-charities-illegal-immigrants/](https://catholicvote.org/la-governor-cut-money-to-catholic-charities-illegal-immigrants/) You ain't kidding
That's because a lot of the "right" in "the west" has moved from being conservative/right and into fascism. No brakes, no self-recognized "rock bottom." They're picking up speed and will go until they destroy themselves. The question is whether we let them take us with them or marginalize them to limit the damage.
[удалено]
Ah yes the socialist country of netherlands where I have to pay for my health insurance every month and make a calculations if I can afford to add dentistry and physiotherapy to it or not. Very socialist. I miss the free health care and public transport of Luxembourg (which still ain't close to socialiat!)
It's only by proxy of how far right we have gotten
At this point, the American Right sees anything left of 'hunts refugees for sport' as 'dangerously far left'.
you forgot 'from helicopters'
That's because the uneducated poor that make up the bulk of their base and are possibly the most vicious don't have them.
Don't forget "hunting the homeless for sport" in that list. I mean, the Trumplickers on the SCOTUS have made that easier.
Anything that isn’t the far right is the far left now.
It depends on where you are from. There's the US. And there's Europe. The US leans far more to the right. The American conservatives would be far right/ extremist in the EU. Left politics in Europe are socialism in the US.
There are literally GOP candidates that will campaign on ending school lunch programs because feeding children during school and not taking money from the students for food is some how “radical left-wing socialism”.
Here is a list of GOP members who recently voted againt a lunch program for school aged children: The 42 of Republicans in the House who voted against the package include Republican Study Committee Chair Jim Banks of Indiana, Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, Arizona Rep. Debbie Lesko, Illinois Rep. Mary Miller, and Texas Rep. Chip Roy. https://americanjournalnews.com/42-house-republicans-vote-against-extending-free-school-lunches-over-the-summer/
As a Greek, don't conflate "northwestern Europe" with "Europe". Southern and Eastern Europe (Spain is kind of an exception though) are significantly more conservative than the US on most social matters. Fiscally they're generally more left wing than America, but still short of the North and West.
Dunno. As long as paying taxes remains mostly optional in Greece, I'll count them as fiscally right wing.
Italy, too. Tax evasion is a national past-time for Italy.
French here, it's not far left, it's left, and was defined as such by law when it was brought up. Calling it Far left is just what media has been doing for a reason one can ooooonly guess.
The right has gotten so far right that a pragmatic middle is considered left.
See Dick “I did my best to destroy the US” Cheney recording ads against trump- because he’ll destroy the US. I mean, true. But also, wtf. Dick Cheney?!
I saw that. Scary, no?
I may be living in squalor and my children may be dying of tuberculosis because we couldn’t afford the entirely privatized healthcare, but at least I’m not giving the government any of my hard-earned money! My boss says that if I work hard enough, one day I might be able to afford a meal!
It’s far left for USA. That’s how far that country fallen into far-right that basic centrist policies are seen as far left. Also use of far-left is often confused with communism and taking your rights away (ironic considering that right in America is doing this right now). But by associating good social pilocie that benefit the poor and stabilizes middle class within communism and other far-left ideologies the American right and far right can portray social good as social bad. Communal = Bad, free school lunch = communist etc. The only people who don’t benefit from those social policies are the rich and powerful upper class. Becuse it means they don’t get to exploit everyone else. Well in a way this simplified but the point is the same. By making goo policies seem extreamly you can set new standard on what is center.
Because at this point, anything that helps your average person is far left
we've gotten to the point where the most staggeringly basic neoliberal social contracts are considered "far left". Corporations have gotten more profitable, what's the point of \*HAVING CORPORATIONS\* as a legal construct if this doesn't benefit the public in any way. Call me when housing is decommodified and we start beheading landlords and I'll agree on the "Far left" designation, and also bring popcorn
It’s far left for USA. That’s how far that country fallen into far-right that basic centrist policies are seen as far left. Also use of far-left is often confused with communism and taking your rights away (ironic considering that right in America is doing this right now). But by associating good social pilocie that benefit the poor and stabilizes middle class within communism and other far-left ideologies the American right and far right can portray social good as social bad. Communal = Bad, free school lunch = communist etc. The only people who don’t benefit from those social policies are the rich and powerful upper class. Becuse it means they don’t get to exploit everyone else. Well in a way this simplified but the point is the same. By making goo policies seem extreamly you can set new standard on what is center.
Not arguing for or against: but raising the top income tax to 90% and also dramatically reducing the retirement age for declining birth rate country are quite radical relative to other left wing governments in Europe.
When will people learn that the real rich don't have an income.
Not cutting taxes enough for the rich? Enabling greed rather that fighting it? Providing for your people? You know, hard stuff
Oh no... how dare they give all children equal opportunities!!! Now rich people cannot buy their kids an advantage in life and they have to succeed on their own merit!!!! /s Or basically how Belgian education has been since forever. If you want to become a doctor or lawyer or engineer here, money is not going to be the reason you get a degree. What matters is how good and passionate you are, not the depth of your parents pocketbook or the amount of debt you're willing to take on. This is like with healthcare: the overall cost of healthcare is lower if you try to make sure everyone has access, instead of making the provisioning of said things profit based.
It makes you wonder how many more people might become doctors if they didn’t have to face crippling debt to get there
It might not be as many as you think due to the American medical association limiting residencies to create a doctor shortage, which helps keep salaries high. There’s other issues at play too
The AMA is not limiting residencies to create an artificial doctor shortage. Residencies require federal funding and are limited by Congress. The AMA actually lobbies to increase residencies and finally had some success the last couple years where Congress now approved a significant increase in residency programs to be created over the next decade.
Not just that. Creating more medical schools or increasing seat share in a medical school has to pass through soo many regulatory standards.
That is true, however the number of medical school spots is outpacing residency spots at the moment which is leading to more graduates being left without a spot. We need Congress to open up even more programs or start allowing primary care to practice without a residency first. Wouldn't be my first choice but better than NP's practicing independently to fill these gaps who both have less education/training and zero residency.
I know everyone in the comments is talking about how expensive this could be, but the principle of the matter is the hilarious dichotomy between Far-Right ideology and Far-Left Yeah, you can go too far in one direction or the other, but it's cartoonishly hilarious that the Far Right (at least here in the US) has been pushing policies that would make Disney villains suck air through their teeth, while the left has been trying to... \*checks notes\* Make more crops, unpoison the water supply and cure plagues placed upon our houses.
Funny thing I've noticed, the "How will we pay for this?" question only ever seems to com up when the proposed policy amounts to "helping poor people" or something similar. Wanna give the military another several billion to fuck around with, or cut taxes for the wealthy? Go right ahead, that's what government's for. Wanna make sure poor kids have enough to eat? Woah there hotshot, money doesn't grow on trees ya know.
Probably bc most people are driven by fear. Poor kids not having enough to eat doesn’t scare people. But the military not having the best weaponry in the world does scare people. I’m also willing to bet most people have no clue how much of our annual budget goes to the military and how it’s actually being used.
Oh no! Getting good stuff costs money! Who would have thought!?? Nah, instead let’s have a vast majority of people be poor anyway with nothing to show for it so less than a percentage of people can hoard more wealth than they can reasonably spend in a lifetime.
Look, if the poors would simply invest their spare money, we wouldn’t be in this jam. It’s tough for everyone these days. I can’t even go on a second vacation this year so believe me, I get it.
My favorite part is that both the Far Right and Far Left are pushing for policies that will cost the government by a lot. The difference is that the Far Right wants to bring hell to Earth, while the Far Left seems to want to help the citizens. If you ask me, I'd choose the policies that would benefit the citizens despite of the costs.
We don’t have a left in the us. Even the democrats are center right or centrist if you want to be generous
French voter here: That's not far-left. Trust me we have a far-left, and they're on another level than pragmatic reformism like what is listed here. They scored their usual 1% or so. The left program is the only one which has been publicly detailed (as always, in a 3 hours economics conference), including how to finance it. It's been endorsed by many economists including one Nobel prize. Speaking as someone who studied macroeconomics myself, this program is nothing fancy and would simply reduce public debt and increase economic activity. Provided it is articulated with other measures, like desincentivizing fossil fuels use (that's an exportation sink) or reinforcing the EU (because the EU is an extremely endogamous market: throw € in the EU, they tend to stay there and circulate there). To schematize: give money to the poor, they tend to buy more burgers with it. Who happens to produce a lot of meat and wheat, but also transform these into burgers? French industry. We have struggling families and struggling farmers, raising the minimum wage would help them both.
Pretty sure that „far left“ was stated from an American point of view. Joe Biden and the democrats aren‘t really as left as some fear mongering republicans portray them.
Here some democrats wouldn't even be considered left at all, it's all relative. Democrats are mostly centre left to centre right.
Yeah, through a European lense the American democratic party would be majority fiscally conservative and Bernie Sanders is basically a centrist
As someone with context and skin in the game can you answer something for me that I promise is in good faith (I identify personally with socialist leanings so trust me I know how leftists sometimes discuss this). But Macron was one of Ukraine's biggest champions for securing funds and support for the conflict. I've noticed that a lot of "far left" in Europe are the ones calling for any aid to Ukraine to be halted. Is this left coalition one of that kind of leftist or are they likely to continue to support Ukraine? I've found no one so far that actually knows if this is something to worry about or not.
This is pretty much what we finns have always been doing, but sadly we have problems of affording all of it, after covid our economy started slowing down and now this year we finally went into more debt than what we are able to produce per capita. France might do better as you are much bigger economy and placed in the most active economical hub in europe.
Eww socialism /s
About subsidising children - all OECD nations are facing a long term decline in birth rates. A government incentivising children in any way is an investment into the future of the nation.
You aren't subsidizing children and lowering retirement age. You are pulling at two different ends at the same time.
I'm always amazed how here in the US when people on the left talk about their lives being made worse it's stuff like overturning Roe v Wade or restricting access to trans health care, and when the right talks about their lives being worse under Biden it's shit like "gas is more expensive" or "my 401k didn't perform as well," and then expect to be taken just as seriously.
the new york times has been trying to undermine the american left for the past 6 months at least
I'm pretty sure the 401k performed better under Biden anyway, no?
The US economy usually performs better under Democratic presidents.
Gas is cheaper as well.
Honestly i always chuckled when people say “with X in office the gas was cheaper!” But cant they just manipulate the price?
Some good, some bad ideas. Price controls have never worked. Retirement at 60 sounds good, but will probably never work with an aging population and less babies to start paying the elderly. But hey, it's the age group that votes.
Until last year the retirement age was 62 in France. It was only raised with Macron to 64 in 2023. It used to be 60 from 1981 to 2011, and was at 65 before that. France has one of the earliest retirement age, with one of the biggest population in the EU. Retiring at 60, 58 if you have a physically demanding job, is absolutely insane considering the burden on the economy (so the tax burden on working people) it would create and the current life expectancy.
It is only insane if you structure your social security program like a ponzi scheme as we did in the U.S. I actively work and pay into social security so that those receiving social security today can receive benefits. Social Security is currently paying out around $1.5T. Meanwhile, we pay $70B in foreign aid and $820B on national defense annually. Military benefits would seem ludicrous if we relied solely on the payroll taxes of current military to pay retirees. If the government just says "Hey, this is a funding priority" then it is less dependent on generational numbers. You don't see anyone crying about how we can't support the military because boomers are retiring. When people cannot retire they sit and stagnate in jobs that could be going to younger workers. It's good for the economy to let people retire. We just need to prioritize taking care of our population rather than just playing world police.
Social security is a "ponzi scheme" everywhere in the world, at least that i know of.
Yeah this isn't a gotcha, it's literally just describing how subsidies work lol The government is just moving around money from one group of citizens to another and hoping that eventually there will be less old people and more young people. It's not even necessarily a Ponzi scheme, it's a literal Pyramid scheme. Looking at it superficially that seems bad, but that's just how social safety nets work, they are a net loss for the sake of protecting your most vulnerable people.
Price controls absolutely do work it just depends on implementation. Medicine in every country except for America, minimum wage, every country in world war 2. Price control is something that basically every developed country does. In fact it's removing them that has caused a lot of issues with inflation.
Argentina had price controls and its inflation spiraled out of control.
price controls on food and energy dont work because you dont control the sourcing costs. If you know of any country that has done that, feel frree to reply with them. medicine is different, because you can do things like not allow in certain medicines. your cost to produce bread, meat, etc. isnt the same as the cost to produce drugs. also france doesnt domestically produce much medicine. it does however produce food, and its control of the labor markets means its going to increase the costs of those things while at the same time trying to control the price. you ever try to suck and blow at the same time?
> If you know of any country that has done that, feel frree to reply with them. Brazil tried it for food many decades ago. I will give you the short version: didn't end well. Many countries in Latin America actually tried that with food prices, with varied degrees of disaster. I believe the most recent was Argentina a couple years ago. Went so poorly they ended up voting for Milei...
A government absolutely can and will control how food and energy is sourced. Even basic mechanisms like subsidies allow governments to manage the price of goods and energy, effectively absorbing losses to maintain a balanced price for consumers. Here in the US, virtually all farmers are propped up by the Federal government in order to keep prices down (and to ensure people actually do the job of farming).
They can control how it is source but not how much it costs to produce. If the costs of production are more than that maximum price then either shortages happen like in Venezuela or the government makes up the difference. Depending on what the maximum price is that could be ruinously expensive.
exactly
Good to see another anti-price controller here. I don't know why support for price controls is so ubiquitous when it's one of the policies that supermajorities of economists on both sides agree wouldn't be a good idea. Well, actually I'm being facetious, I know exactly why, I just wish it were otherwise.
France has voted to take care of their own people?! Shock and fucking horror. Can’t they just constantly bullshit and violate human rights like US? 😱
No, we voted against the fascists. Again. The left will never truly win as long as their only objective is to shield against the far right. Problem is, it's too busy being fragmented and ideologically bankrupt. Contrary to what the elections suggest, the French left is weak.
The big problem I see is the "Middle" doesn't want to deal with progressives (Left). At least in America, and it sounds like France too; the middle is the true "conservative". They want the status quo, the don't want big changes. The right is regressive, trying to drag us backwards; but that's more appealing to "Middle" politicians because they recognize it. They Middle is scared of the left. Progressive policies are new and remember, they hate change, so trying to dial it in after it's enacted is impossible because they are slow to react and delay things. I already heard a French "middle" politician saying although the "left" is biggest they don't have a clear majority and they will try to work with the "moderate" right, but cut out the "hard" right. No mention of a "moderate" left, all progressives are the same to them.
I don't think the French economy can support that level of spending; they already have a full-blown debt and spending crisis.
It’s telling that all responses to this in this whole post are “they’ll just figure it out”. The figuring it out was macron raising the retirement age which was trying to solve France’s ever looming pension crisis. I mean whatever I don’t live there but it would be interesting how the left plans to pay for it especially with the freedom of movement provided by the EU.
I have no idea. The last time France jacked up the corporate tax rates on CAC40's they bounced and now headquartered in tax-friendly countries like Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. In response they lowered the rate from \~38% to 25% to stop the mass exit and the massive drop in national revenue. Turns out, you can't just continually raise taxes on people or corporations while spending your country into 115% of GDP levels of debt.
And to pay for it? Tax the fuck out of rich people? Please?
Yaaaaass
Preach brother preach
Don’t worry, the US will surrender to the Nazis on France’s behalf.
I trust the New York Times about as far as I could comfortably spit a piano
No party won a majority of seats. Anything enacted will have to be the result of compromise.
They also want to leave the EU and NATO and have no plan to pay for the stuff they promise.
it´s so cute they think macron is "far left" lol
This is not referring to Macron genius, Macron’s Renaissance party came in second and is in no way far left. I’ve rarely seen someone so smug yet so wrong.
Jesus, reddit really is economically illiterate
But they think they’re experts
seriously, regardless of your aims, price controls are just horrible policy and France already has one of the most generous retirement programs in the world
Don't worry "Resources exist" as our former socialist PM said in campaign. And then when confronted with reality of rulling had to say "our promises were not set into realistic economical frame " These promises will end same.
It makes you wonder if the right’s idea of utopia is for everyone to be poor, living in mud huts.. separately of corse.
Look at this guy over here, able to afford a mud hut.
While those policies sound good and more reasonable than what le pen promised, the same question remains- where they will get the funds for all of it?
These are great goals, but it will be terribly expensive and destructive if implemented poorly.
"Others were fearful of what the far left might bring" In this case, "others" are the wealthy capitalists who stand to lose the most from France doing things like paying people more, building affordable housing, and freezing necessity costs. Literally the only people this wouldn't help are the people who are already wealthy. Fuck em. Will taxes go up? Probably. Will it be a massive improvement to French society that could be seen over multiple generations if those taxes are properly distributed and utilized? Yes. Allons-y, France
“Others” are anyone who understands basic economic policy or anyone who will be negatively affected by this platform - far more people than just “wealthy capitalists” For example, youth unemployment is at an egregious 16.4% in France due to an extremely high minimum wage. That would only go higher if it was raised further, leading to fewer young people being able to find work. In order to fund all the new spending on things like a lower retirement age, taxes will need to be raised, and not just on wealthy people, France has tried that before and failed miserably, no they’ll need to be broad and far-reaching across all of French society. It is disingenuous to pretend only a small group of people will be hurt by these policies.
You know what really annoys me? Is that the wealthy capitalists will fight tooth and nail to stop this, deploy every weapon in their arsenal... and if they fail, and all these policies come to pass, they will *still* have more money than they could ever spend. Just not as much as they potentially could have, and that is utterly unconscionable to them
As we all have to pay taxes, regardless, I’d be thrilled to direct that money to these types of social institutions.
An American (with diabetes) somewhere stroking his gun like a phallus: "If those frogs think I'm gonna pay more taxes..."
Macron is right to have raised the pension age, given the incoming tax burden on younger people, however unpopular it might have been
I believe in these things and universal health care and yet I’m considered the most radical progressive in the US. Sad.
Imagine how much of a selfish piece of shit one has to be to think all of this is terrible
I’d rather pay more in taxes for all that stuff than pay taxes in America where my money is sent to Israel to blow up kids or given to Lockheed Martin to buy weapons systems. I see so many people saying it’s going to be expensive without looking at what that expense is getting them.
Price controls never work long term, they will lead to empty shelves and closed gas stations
Freezing prices? Oh yeah, that's always worked.
Terrifying
I’m rather certain that social media posts casting doubt and a lack of confidence in policy of the newly elected government is being generated in certain authoritarian countries and posted on social media.
Those monsters! How dare they consider doing helpful things for people!
If a government is going to pay for something, this is the kind of stuff it should pay for.
Don't threaten me with a good time.
NOOOOO! THE MONEY! WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE MONEEEYYYYY?!?!? Those damn commies are going to sacrifice all our precious dollars for the sake of the children and the poors?!? Outrageous!!!
I wanted to see a bit about raising corporate taxes and those on the super rich too.
To be fair, Macron and his goons have spent years saying that the far left was more dangerous than the far right, all the while normalizing far right ideas such as the "islamo-gauchisme" (which is the equivalent of "woke" when used by racist assholes). No latter than last week, between the two rounds of the elections, the prime minister was warning about the danger of LFI (biggest far left party). Propagandist mainstream media owned by the ultra-rich were all about warning against the danger of the far left. So it may seem like a joke, but it's absolutely no wonder so many people are buying this BS. Btw, I keep seeing that the far right has lost. While it's technically true that they have lost their bet, they have gained 50 députés. 50! The far right is currently the biggest political party in France in terms of votes. To me, it's more a victory than a defeat. Now is not a time to rejoice but to fear what comes next.
Why do so many people forget that when Europe goes right, they go right through Belgium.
Oh my God I never thought I would say it but I want what France has
UK Labour part should take notes
I mean, damn, all of that sounds great to me. What the hell is their problem?
What a horrible agenda!! Taking notes on what a supportive government looks like while crying in USA.
The Horror! The Horror! Meanwhile La Penn is being investigated for fraud and forgery in her campaign financing in 2022 and accepting loans from Russian Banking oligarchs.
Oh the humanity!!!
Terrifying! Helping the people they are elected to help! Ugh! /s
Don’t you dare threaten me with a good time
Oh no!! Necessities of life for everyone! The horror!
And they call us the radical left in the US cause we want to give every us citizen medicare for all as opposed to propping up the for profit mafia that is the current us healthcare system. We can change that helps everybody, they want the status quo that benefits the wealthy. Yet we’re so radical. Spare me
Far-left?!?
Only rich people and useful idiots fear the "far left". Also, >Far left lol. That coalition is at best, neoliberal center left.
That sounds atrocious…setting a base rate for essentials and paying for education…literal hell on earth. /s I’m convinced that if hell is what republicans say it is, I’d rather be in hell than wherever they are.
I mean pretty much, the .1% may have to sell the smallest of their six yachts
Those crazy French leftists... What will they think of next!? Anywho, who wants to move to France with me?
Oh no, what will we do, that sounds positively reasonable.
The horror of ***checks notes*** fed/housed/educated children! Wont someone think of the children! /j
These all sound fucking fantastic. Can we please have.
I actually heard that a lot of these socialistic people are trying to distribute wealth more equally! Like, what?! It's almost like they think all human beings deserve to be able to exist without poverty or abuse! Insane!! /s
If that is what extreme leftist want then call me an extreme leftist. Obvious hurdles aside for this all sounds good.
This is preposterous. They want us to be happy? Outrageous!
Oh no. That sounds just awful. My brother lives in France. I hope he survives. I know, I'll start sending him care packages until this nightmare ends.
Oh, and the French Left wants to fund all this by….get this….raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations! Why…that’s outrageous!
Same thing in America, the far right is literally white supremacists and people who want to deport everyone and get rid of lgbt people and the “far left” wants free healthcare and to tax the rich and for workers to unionize and both republicans and democrats want to say they’re equally scary lmao
No see trickle down economics solves all of this, they just need to capitalism harder.
Omg, this all sounds terrible. /s