[Time] Paris Police Clash With Demonstrators Protesting Rising Fuel Taxes

So some alt-right frogs are complaining about gas prices - not surprising.

Can you imagine what will have in 20 years when the world's food supply starts to really shrink. Will Os be posting the threads around that? And claim that Climate Change is for liberals who can't afford air conditioning?

 

It is a high tax, but it isn’t the same as it is here. We drive more often and a lot further than they do.

 

They need more African migrants.

 

Definitely. This will fix their economy according to our resident econonists who think more people = better econony! It is science after all.

 

the price was already rather high, equivalent of about $5.50 a gallon, but the tax increase is really only about 30c a gallon on diesel and 18c a gallon on gas, they have a lot of diesel cars, lots of soot all over the place around europe from that, annoys me to no end though it was better with newer cars the last time i was there.

A price increase on anything but ferraris is going to disproportionately harm the poor, so that's not really much of an argument, it's more an emotional anchor, and besides The european mentality tends to be you pay taxes so you get services and they accept the poor will disproportionately benefit from those services (e.g. sales taxes), however these taxes aren't for that, they're designed to reduce consumption through punitive measures, and the ones who suffer the most from that are the ones least responsible, southern europe also has a rather unique set of economic conditions which have squeezed the population.

Tbh Europe is the main reason why i lost faith in most of the neoliberal ideals, that continent is the embodiment of neoliberalism (completely free trade, free markets, free movement of capital and labor) and for a hundred million people or two are being utterly screwed even with their fabled "welfare states" in ways american crony capitalists could only dream of.

 

France already has higher taxes on high earners, which is why so many rich leave the country. There are far less loopholes than the US, for citizens and corporations, in which many high earners pay far less than they should.

Why not tax a commodity that will be gone eventually and hurts the environment the French care so deeply about? Macron is doing something with a long term vision in mind, something liberals wish Trump would do.

Everything has trade offs.

 

Who are these hundred million people, what do they do for a living? Are they first gen immigrants?

 

I checked the numbers and you're right, it's "only" 30 cents per gallon on diesel, I was just going off of the numbers suggested here that it was 50 cents a liter, clearly those numbers were WAY off.

A fuel tax also disproportionately harms the poor too though, the stated goal is to make buying fuel too expensive for the people so that they won't be able to drive which is bad enough, but on top of that increasing fuel prices makes pretty much all products more expensive. Now that's no big deal to wealthy investment bankers like Macron, but it hits the poor pretty hard. On top of directly hitting the poor, when you hit the rich with a tax, they'll always pass that on down to the poor to pay indirectly so they get hit twice.

 

Didnt want to start a thread about this but i really wanted some thoughts. A serious question.

Is the pompous royal couple in the Bud Light commercials supposed to be French and if so should the French take offense.

Also got criticized rightfully so about talking about the Fench losing to Germany in both world wars in his criticism of some of their trade policies a few weeks ago.

Americans do perpetrate a stereotype of the French being weak and arrogant.

Edit: Trump was criticized for being critical of the French about their efforts in the world wars

 

Fun Fact -

Paris has those big, wide open, well lit boulevards that it is famous for in large part because Napoleon III wanted to make sure he could match a calvary brigade down the streets for riot control, as both his uncle and the Bourbon/Orleans kings had soldiers get lost in what was an urban maze while trying to quell riots.

 

climate change alarmism is just a vehicle for wealth redistribution, as evidenced by the proposed remedies

the giveaway is that they never push for more nuclear power

 

The French lost in WWI?

Interesting. Perhaps someone should have notified the Germans.

 

Interesting take would love to read more about this.

 

They needed help because they didn't do well militarily against the Germans. That is what i meant and i figured people would just understand that.

Edit: i guess i do need to brush up on my wwi history

 

I misread the first time, you are correct, the French weren't entirely conquered in WW1 like they were in WW2

 

Carbon taxes sure are awesome!

 

The French have this odd habit of electing reformers to rule them, and then vociferously rejecting those leaders when they try to implement the reforms that they were elected to undertake.

This is entirely irrational and unreasonable. It is not clear how France will ever be able to undertake any sort of meaningful reforms as long as they continue to exhibit this pattern of behavior. They appear to be quite stuck.

 

No i don't actually disagree with you, but what i was saying was that the price increase on anything, except specifically products that only rich people can afford (which i was using ferraris as a metaphor to represent) will do so, so its not really an argument as much as it is an emotional anchor, as its really just a natural rule of abundance in the universe (high abundance means a reduction has less impact).

Prices will go up, taxes need to be raised, but this thing in France doesn't exist in a vacuum, these sort of things never do, it's the dam breaking on an economic system that has been especially harsh on the people in southern europe, they're fed up, and i can't blame them one bit for it.

 

winning an election is not a free pass to hit people with anything... esp. in a split political race like France where most people did not want Macron initially.