Expressing Themselves
by Bill Bonner
"They need to express themselves from time to time..."
Thus did the friendly lady at the Budget Rent-a-Car counter analyze the cause of yesterday's strikes and demonstrations in France. Which is why your editor was at the counter in the first place: the strike had brought to a halt much of the country's rail traffic; we were obliged to travel by automobile.
Our clerk's casual explanation differed little from others we've heard: "It has been 40 years since the last major student uprising," said a Parisian friend. "They don't really have anything to demonstrate against, but that doesn't stop them."
In the opinion of their learned elders, the young people raising hell in France are selfish, shortsighted and dumb. "They have no ideals," said the president of the Sorbonne, "they only have illusions."
The biggest illusion they have is that they won't have to compete with two billion Asians working at a tenth the price.
"The stupidity of youth..." begins a column in the Times of London. But the tadpoles really aren't so stupid. What they want is no different from what most Americans want - protection from the real world. A little longer in the fish tank before they get thrown into the river to struggle upstream.
At issue in the French brouhaha is a minor piece of quack legislation - which would soften up some of the bad consequences of still other quack legislation. In France, employers are reluctant to employ. And little wonder. There's no one worth employing. Take our mason...Monsieur Goupil. He is a gem of an artisan; a master worker whose plaster and tile work is flawless. Now in his 60s, he continued to tote heavy bags of plaster up three flights of stairs all by himself until he retired last year. Now in the small town in which he lives, there is no one to replace him. No one else knows anymore how to do that kind of work.
"Why don't you get a young assistant?" we once asked him, "Someone to carry the heavy bags of plaster...and someone to whom you can teach your trade?"
The question seemed to us a logical one. France has a lot of young men with time hanging on their hands. "Immigrant groups" - code language for newcomers from Africa - have unemployment among their young people that runs as high as 40%.
"What! Are you kidding?" Monsieur Goupil guffawed. "Young people don't want to do this kind of work. It's too hard. And it takes too long to learn how to do it right. Besides, I wouldn't want to hire anyone anyway. Too expensive...and too much trouble. You have to do all that paperwork. And then you can't get rid of them if it doesn't work out."
What triggered the riots and demonstrations was a new law that would make it easier for Monsieur Goupil to hire someone. It would give him two years to train his apprentice without having him for life. During those two years the young employee could be fired without his boss having to justify himself in front of a labor tribunal or pay a heavy severance.
You'd think young people would be in favor of such a law; it would after all make it easier for them to find work. But that just shows how out-of-touch you are. Young people in France don't want to find work...at least not the kind of work where there's a risk they might fail. They want well-paid, fail-safe jobs - with the government, of course - with six weeks' paid vacation...and lush benefits. And if they can't get a job like that, then they don't want any job at all. Just keep those unemployment checks coming!
How can anyone expect such things anymore in an economy that has become globalized...in a world where millions of Asians are ready, willing, and able to do the same work as Europeans and Americans for 10% of the pay - and none of the safety net?
In France, at least, it is only the young who cling desperately to such illusions. In America, on the other hand, practically everyone grabs for them. How else to explain the mounting talk of protecting U.S. industry from foreign competition...as if the United States could prosper by pretending the rest of the world did not exist. No people ever got richer by denying itself whatever others are willing to offer - whether cheaper labor rates or finer products. We might as well board up all our Italian restaurants, dump out our French wine, and send back the Mercedes. Let's all just buy inferior products at higher prices. That's sure to make everyone's standard of living go up, right?
There is probably no need to explain why protectionism is imbecilic. Everyone already knows it is. If you could really get richer by refusing to trade with the rest of the world, North Korea would be the richest country on the planet. Instead, its people are starving.
But here at The Daily Reckoning, we don't quarrel with the facts of life. We take the world, and its people, as they are. Things degrade and degenerate, no matter what we might think or what we might want. It is in the nature of them. A free, robust republic pokes its head up like a tender bamboo shoot and prospers at first. Then, if it is lucky, it begins to age, like an oak. And finally, not too much later, it becomes infested with worms, bugs, vermin and parasites, all of which have a keen interest in keeping it going as long as possible - in its senile, decaying form, of course.
The logic of degeneracy runs much the same way as the logic of imperial finance.
As we noted once before, the process of financing an empire practically guarantees that at some point, the United States will put up trade barriers. As it is, America pays the costs of globalization by providing security through hundreds of military bases all over the globe. She can kick butt on any continent - it's too bad she can't make a sale. Not with all those competitors willing to work longer and harder for less money. So while the foreigners' incomes rise steadily, America's own working class struggles. It gets further and further into debt just to stand still in the same place. And who holds the debt? Why, the very same foreigners! Is it any wonder Americans cry for protection? Is it any wonder their craven politicians promise it?
Meanwhile, the logic of degeneracy points in exactly the same direction. As the great oak begins to totter, more and more dependents, cowering under its branches, have a stake in making sure it doesn't fall down. Yes, the forest might be a much better place if only the old fossil would get out of the way and make room for new saplings. Yes, if only the old dinosaur would keel over, newer, brainier species might crawl out of the bog. But that will never be. There are simply too many pensions, benefits, and bribes dangling like swamp moss from the old tree. Labor wants its jobs protected. Business wants its markets protected. Politicians want their careers protected. It is amazing that the Bush administration - which can't seem to resist a bad idea - has so far resisted the notion of protectionism. But it probably won't resist much longer...
More on the culture of dependency later...
And back in Paris, we saw no burning cars. If there were any mobs, we didn't see them either. Then again, we didn't stay long in the city. Instead, we went out to Normandy to inspect our money pit...er...chateau.
"Well, yes, it is taking a lot longer than we thought," explained the architect. "But we have a problem. It's the same problem we've had for months...we're caught between two bureaucracies. The one insists that the building be safe. The other insists that it be historically correct. One insists that we put safety bars in front of all the windows. The other insists that we don't. What am I supposed to do?"
The question was not a rhetorical one. It was a practical request aimed at your editor.
"This problem is not going away. I had them both out here last week. One said we had no choice but to put on the window restraints. The other said we couldn't do it. One of these bureaucrats is going to be disappointed. Which one do you want me to disappoint?" asked our architect.
"Which one can shut down the job?" we wanted to know.
"Both."
"Oh...hmmm..."
Might be, George, that your view of what unions do and what programs they offer (against unemployment and for the unemployed) is focused on the US-situation.
Here, it's a bit different.
(I'm no member of a union, left them, btw.)
I've attended local Labour meetings in the UK, and I'm friendly with Labour memberd from normal members up to cabinet level.
I've a different view about that as well.
(I'm no member of the Labour party, since the constituion allows only UK-residents and persons living in Ireland to get Laboumembership; thus, I'm a member of the Fabian Society only.)
:wink:
We do indeed have different perspectives of unions. Mine are shaped by the experience of managing partially unionized companies and overseeing the negotiation of Collective Bargaining Agreements with the Building Trades, Machinists, Steelworkers, and Laborers Unions. My description fits them all very well. It also appears to fit what is happening in France.
Unions are in sharp decline in the United States in every industry except for government workers. It is absurd, but our government allows them to unionize.
georgeob1 wrote: It is absurd, but our government allows them to unionize.
"Absurd" - why? I would think, government workers have the some rights as any other citizen.
Quote:Why students like me abhor these French protests
By Clémentine Gallot in Paris
Published: 07 April 2006
To the outside world, the name of the Sorbonne is synonymous with academic excellence and prestige. But to those of us who, like me, have to study there, the reality is sickeningly different.
In the historic Latin Quarter buildings, you're lucky if you can find a chair to sit on during lectures, let alone a computer to write essays.
Doors to tutors' offices remain firmly shut for most of the academic year. It's not uncommon to have to take an exam without a desk to write on. One of my tutors has resorted to taking seminars in the Luxembourg gardens.
To make matters worse, for the past month I have had no teaching whatsoever, despite the fact I'm a third year philosophy student and have important exams approaching. As soon as the protests against the CPE (Contrat Première Embauche) youth jobs law began last month, our classrooms were taken over by students and, for the first time since 1968, the Sorbonne has been occupied day and night by protesters campaigning for change.
More than half of France's 84 universities have been blocked off. My university is constantly surrounded by riot police and a metal barrier to protect our venerable institution. Which is all well and good, unless you're a student who actually wants to study.
We don't know when the wall will come down. There are rumours that exams could be postponed until later in the year, in which case, my studies may never be completed. The students protesting against the jobs law have picked the wrong battle - and certainly the wrong way to fight it. I'm not against demonstrations. But I just don't see how blocking access to our universities in support of such a weak attempt at reform as the CPE will help make the changes that the system so badly needs.
The attitude of the state towards its young people and their education, its abysmal lack of funding for the university system, is revolting. French universities are given even less money by the state than secondary schools. In a speech last Friday, President Chirac said the country's universities were "places of excellence". Well, M. Chirac, you only get back what you put in. And when I look around me and see decrepit lecture theatres overflowing with students scribbling notes on their knees, this kind of " excellence" is difficult to distinguish from abject mediocrity.
Difficult too to see how students are supposed to pay their way through university with the paltry amount of money they receive from the state. True, registration fees are minimal (140 [£100] per year), in keeping with the idea that French education is a public service which should be free and open to everyone. But loans are rare, scholarships highly prized but few and far between. Students are expected to live at home and depend upon their parents. There is, other than for the privileged few, no other option.
I'm just not convinced it's worth it anymore. When I started at the Sorbonne I believed that anyone should be able to attend university. In France, as long as you have the bac (A-level equivalent) you are entitled to a place. But now I've seen the result of the selection-free system - disproportionate teacher:student ratios, soaring drop-out rates - I've changed my mind.
When politicians talk about youth unemployment, they should ask themselves why does France need 65,000 psychology students - a quarter of Europe's total student number in that subject? What use is training to become a sports teacher when 45,000 other people graduate with the same degree and there are only 400 job openings per year?
The protests of the past few weeks, while I disagree with their tactics, have crystallised the anger and fear that is gripping young people at the very age when they should be making plans and building futures. I went to university with high hopes. But it will take much more than a half-hearted attempt like the CPE to give us back some confidence.
I leave next term to study abroad. I've had enough of France and its peculiar brand of "excellence".
Clementine Gallot, 22, is a third year philosophy student from Paris
Source
This reminds me a lot of the days, when I studied in the early 70's
Announced since a couple of days (I mentioned that previously, too), 'Le Figaro' [owned by Chirac's friend, the industrialist Dassault] actually wanted to print today a long interview with the UMP (party) leader and interior minister Sarkozy.
With a tiny notice, however, they notified their readers that Sarkoty had withdrewn his allowance to print this interview:
Later today, the news anchor of the French tv LCI [owned by the building contractor and Sarkozy friend Bouygues] said in the national news with a smirk that Villepin had "brought his political weight to bear" and hindered that the interview was broadcasted.
Walter Hinteler wrote:georgeob1 wrote: It is absurd, but our government allows them to unionize.
"Absurd" - why? I would think, government workers have the some rights as any other citizen.
They do - hence the unions. However here government workers are protected by an elaborate system of government administrative and judicial review. It is virtually impossible to fire one, even for incompetence or misbehavior on the job. Their wages are set by law, not by collective bargaining with the unions. In effect the unions have no real function or role for them. However the unions collect their membership dues directly from the government and most of it goes directly to the Democrat Party.
In a famous case in the first years of Reagan's first term he broke the back of the Air Traffic Controller's union, which called an illegal strike to extort even higher wages from the government. Reagan applied the law and fired them all. He assembled some air controllers from the Air Force and Navy who, together with the managementm kept the air traffic control system running -- an at a higher level of safety and efficiency than had existed previously.
This union had convinced the public that its members work was exceedingly stressful. This became in part the basis for widespread fraud as 60+ % of the controllers got disability retirement by age 50 for the accumulated "stress" of their job, sitting in air conditioned comfort at a computer station. The union had significantly impeded the management of air traffic control centers and the service quality had been degrading markedly. I recall once sitting in the cramped cockpit of a single-seat A-4 on a bad weather night over the Rocky Mountains - I asked the controller for some vectors around a line of thunderstorms ahead of me. His curt response was that they don't do that anymore. I contemplated for a moment the relative degrees of stress we were facing - me alone in a dark cockpit being knocked around by heavy turbulence, and him in a comfortable room in Denver. Later I was delighted when the President destroyed this retrograde union and fired its self-serving members.
I later had occasion to deal more directly with unions and learned that their officers treat it as a business with the membership as merely units of revenue, They succeed by creating problems with management and by cultivating the complaints and manipulations of their worst members. Three generations ago there was a real need for unions and organized labor. However, that time is now long past.
Thanks, Georege.
-----------
Back to France:
In Paris a driver ploughed yesterday his car into hundred of pupils and students who blocked a street in central Paris (Boulevard St. Michel), leaving seven seriously injured.
Scores of students swarmed on the car, turning it on to its roof and dragged the man out before police interbvened.
None of the injuries was life-threatening it was confirmed today.
Photos are from various airport, railway and street blockades yesterday:
Images of well-cared for, but spoiled, children, afraid of life and looking for the government to protect them in the future as their parents have in the past. Hardly an encouraging picture of the future of France. This does not appear to be a generation that willl be able to meet the competitive economic challenges of the modern world.
georgeob1 wrote:Images of well-cared for, but spoiled, children, afraid of life and looking for the government to protect them in the future as their parents have in the past. Hardly an encouraging picture of the future of France. This does not appear to be a generation that willl be able to meet the competitive economic challenges of the modern world.
Yes, and apparently cannot compete with the billions of Asians in labor power who are willing to do everything for less pay and barely any "job security".
The French have become the perfect example of what happens to socialistic societies: this attitude of entitlement, afraid to compete, and dependent on the State.
Anonymouse wrote:The French have become the perfect example of what happens to socialistic societies: this attitude of entitlement, afraid to compete, and dependent on the State.
Like in Germany (and in the UK) this system was intraduced by conservatives. (We Germans call it 'social markez economy' and its still one the sibjects, the conservatives are proud of to have "ibvented" (Adenauer and especially his minister for economics and successor as chancellor Erhard).
Socialistic societies lokk diferent ...
Walter Hinteler wrote:Anonymouse wrote:The French have become the perfect example of what happens to socialistic societies: this attitude of entitlement, afraid to compete, and dependent on the State.
Like in Germany (and in the UK) this system was intraduced by conservatives. (We Germans call it 'social markez economy' and its still one the sibjects, the conservatives are proud of to have "ibvented" (Adenauer and especially his minister for economics and successor as chancellor Erhard).
Socialistic societies lokk diferent ...
I don't know about you, but I don't live by silly labels such as "conservative" or "socialist". They are too limiting and in fact, create the sort of intellectual Berlin Walls that are not conducive to a healthy mind.
Whether one is conservative or liberal matters not as a society that is socialistic can be from any stripe. After all, Hitler was indeed a National
Socialist. There are right wing and left wing socialists and all the same as far as I'm concerned.
Thanks.
(But perhaps you read a bit the history of the National Socialistic Party and why and how "socialistic" is in there.)
<
Before someone jumbs on the term "liberalism" in above article:
georgeob1 wrote:
He is correct that everywhere but the United States the term 'Liberal' refers (properly in an historical context) to free market capitalist views.
>
While Villepin gets now support from the ultry-right Le Pen, commentators expect that hte law will be completely changed next week, the ordinary French hopes for a nice, sportif weekend:
(That's not a demonstration but the marathon de Paris on the Champs d'Elyssees :wink: )
Speaking about demonstrations: I suppose, these will calm down from now onwards, due to a very simple reason: the Easter holiday started this weekend, schools and univerities are closed and many French are away on vacations.
Walter Hinteler wrote:Anonymouse wrote:The French have become the perfect example of what happens to socialistic societies: this attitude of entitlement, afraid to compete, and dependent on the State.
Like in Germany (and in the UK) this system was intraduced by conservatives. (We Germans call it 'social markez economy' and its still one the sibjects, the conservatives are proud of to have "ibvented" (Adenauer and especially his minister for economics and successor as chancellor Erhard).
Socialistic societies lokk diferent ...
And they don't last very long.
The initial implementation of social security systems should not be confused wirth the odd mixture of state capitalism and government regulation of every aspect of the econbomy that has grown up in France, or even the labor market regulation and unemployment benefiuts that developed in Germany. Many successive governments in both countries were involved in the creation of those illusions. No matter how they developed, however, the facts rather clearly indicate that they are the cause, noit the cure, for the present difficulties.
The economic stagnation and high unemployment that pervades on the continent alone is sufficient reason to dismantle this dysfunctional system. The now visible emergence of a generation of young people in France who, instead of looking forward confidently to the challenges and opportunity of life, rage against the government because they face the unnerving prospect of making adult decisions in an adult world, is proof positive of the destructive, enervating effects of this system on the social structure of the society.
The French academic, philosopher and essayist Luc Ferry suumed it up in an interview in the Dutch paper 'De Volkskrant' today:
"The French youth is the avantgarde for the fear of everything"
Just to look back at the riots in France of last year - the ones in the suburbs that involved the multi-ethnic youth of those impoverished districts - one of the questions that kept coming up back then was: could it happen elsewhere?
Here's an article that I thought provided a pretty striking look at the situation in Berlin-Neukolln, one of the poorer (perhaps the poorest?) neighbourhoods of the Berlin. I translated it from the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and posted it on the Press Interpreter site:
Berlin-Neukölln and the Rütli School: A World that has Nothing to Offer
Alone in the Slipstream of Violence
Actually, there are three schools altogether which have radioed SOS.
Quite funny, though: from what I know personally from schools in the London area and in Berlin, the situation in London is - partly - worse, but considered to be normal ... ...
