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Back to reality?

Back from Hastings with a satisfactory joint 3rd spot in my section of the weekend chess congress, I worry about what news I’ve missed since Friday. I shall report on this later in the week.

Today I discover from the French Socialist Party’s website that they have a new, improved, cunning five-point plan to tackle unemployment:

  1. Support economic growth and boost it, hence the necessity for increasing spending on government officials.
  2. Reform payroll taxes to penalise further those businesses that make money with money, without really creating jobs.
  3. Put into place jobs with social utility at regional level, or nationally, if possible.
  4. Put into place a contract to find work for the long-term unemployed after two years out of work.
  5. Draw up a training plan for the long-term and youth unemployed.
    [my translation]

I would go so far as to admit that for government job centres to call in their long-term unemployed, find out what they are doing to find work and even suggest re-training can produce results. But proposals 1 and 2… which incidentally contradict each other… I seem to recall that Jacques ‘Superliar’ Chirac proposed something like this in the 1990s when he stood for the presidency, but I and all the people I know that voted for him at the time were sure that he was lying.

6 comments to Back to reality?

  • Sandy P.

    Didn’t the commies want to put in writing that if a firm made a profit, no employee could be fired??

  • Sandy P.

    Oh, yeah, and those are a recipe for success…

  • Shawn

    “Support economic growth and boost it, hence the necessity for increasing spending on government officials.”

    In one sentence we have in essence the reason for the failure of France since the revolution, and a perfect example of the stupidity of socialism.

    That one had me laughing my head off for a good ten minutes.

  • Matt

    Shawn,

    If you want some real laughs, try living here.

    For some reason or other nobody has yet understood that making people difficult to fire, getting rid of 57 year olds on pre-retirement, and paying more in dole than they would receive working is counterproductive to the economic well being of a country.

    Maybe Sarkozy will change things when he’s president. Maybe I’m just hoping for some intelligence in French politics. Maybe I’m just simple.

  • Shawn

    Well theres always the hope that Sabine Herold could spark a real liberty revolution in the future.

  • Joe

    My goodness – they truly are smoking crack.

    Please, someone talk to them – save them.