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Macron criticises ‘unbridled violence’ after days of unrest and 2,000 arrests across France
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2026
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On the ground in France for Lemmy News International right now.
France is kind of fucked. Politically, the centrist president is termed out of office, and there is no charismatic centrist replacement. The alternatives are the left under a very unpopular candidate and the right under an extremely unpopular candidate.
France has been running a massive deficit for decades and has some of the hightest debt burden on earth. It also has, right now, one of the highest interest rates of any major economy. The only way out is either massive increases in taxation or massive austerity measures.
The centrist government tried tepid austerity measures a short while ago (increase the retirement age from 62 to 64) and was met with absolutely massive protests. Parliament tried to pass a wealth tax (Zucman tax, named after a famous economist) but failed.
The left and the right both plan massive increases in spending if they win the election. If the left wins, that means the wealth tax is back; if the right wins, that means services are going to be cut.
The French political class is absolutely terrified of increasing taxes on the wealthy, because it is afraid wealthy people will leave the country en masse. It is the only realistic way out of the mess, though.
They're always saying that if America, or one of its states, institutes a Wealth Tax, the Sociopath Oligarchs will all leave that state, or the country (as if that would be a bad thing), and now they're using that excuse in France.
But if ALL the moral countries do a Wealth Tax, where will the Sociopathic Oligarchs go? The only places for them will be scummy countries that will welcome them, and then the Sociopathic Oligarchs become their problem.
Let's just make the whole world inhospitable for Sociopathic Oligarchs.
I find this so strange, wealthy people actually bring very little into an economy, and most will live wherever the fuck they want, they see taxes as just the price of doing business. It’s only right wing politicians and right wing wealthy people that keep this myth alive.
They cannot take their factories, mines, shops, etc with them. They may take their money, but their money is usually tied to their business. If their business is nationalized, because they left it behind, their wealth suddenly is backed by nothing.
They won‘t leave. They never do. Maybe a hand full of them but they contributed nothing to society anyway but en large the rich never leave in droves over taxes. Their businesses are in this country and they simply can‘t just move it someplace else without huge upfront costs. Even the centrists know this. They‘re just afraid to not be welcomed at lavish events anymore I guess. And some of them are straight up bought I assume. But yeah, tax the rich god damnit. They‘re all bark and no bite.
Remember when "experts" said they'd all leave NYC if Mamdani put on his Pied-a-terre Tax? The result was that more of them actually moved TO NYC.
Actually they didn't. Most of them had other homes in states with no property taxes, and they called THAT their primary residence, instead of NYC, where they'd have to pay State and City taxes. Most of them didn't want to leave NYC, so they just owned up to the fact that their NYC home was their primary residence, and now they'll have to pay a tiny bit of tax.
They could always do that, but given a choice, they'd rather not. Mamdani just removed the choice.
for one, i don't think that they actually mean "wealthy individuals" but "big companies", like adidas producing shoes or sth. basically there is absolutely not a single reason why such a big company would be located in country X and not country Y besides economic incentives. realistically, they could produce equally well everywhere in the world, they're just gonna go wherever labor costs and taxes are lowest. these jobs would be lost if the company leaves.
then again, these companies probably already moved to china 30 years ago. and who's left probably has a hard time leaving.
also it should be noted that this kind of analysis lacks vision. sure, jobs would be lost. so what, we're gonna have mass unemployment one way or another. better to accept that and deal with that, instead of clinging to an old economic system that is doomed to fail anyways.
anyways to solve problems, one needs to patiently think about them. since being patient is not spectacular, few are inclined towards it, and even fewer succeed. so we're not gonna get good answers to any of the world's problems until somebody who (1) cares and (2) has a good understanding of the world bothers to actually make up meaningful solutions, i figure.
Yeah that ship has probably sailed. And who wants to live in a sycophantic corpo dystopia anyway!
I love the example of adidas because like literal Nazis… but I didn’t know they produced statement handles
They bring very little in compared to their wealth, and comparatively very little tax wise, but lets not pretend like they bring little to the economy itself.
They do spend money where they are. They dine in fine restaurants, they hire private chefs, they have staff for their houses, they buy fancy cars etc. They probably employ thousands of people in various personal support roles (I'm not talking jobs like they run a business and have 10,000 employees, but the cleaning people, the personal assistants, the chauffeurs etc. Things they would have wherever they are even without a business.)
There are entire industries that even cater to them, like if they purchase a mega yacht and france has that industry.
The do something for the local economy, they just pay little taxes besides any local consumption taxes, but taxes is not the entire economy.
Edits to better express what i was trying to say.
Suppose that is all true. At every juncture I would reject the notion that they are creating an opportunity or job that would not otherwise exist (nor, on the whole, paying those workers any better).
There are more than enough restaurants, gardens, houses, private hire vehicles, shipbuilders etc to support those chefs, gardeners, cleaners, drivers and shipwrights without ever having to do with anybody with any wealth.
More expensive items, such as fancy cars, do not create the same number of jobs commensurate with the price increase, they generally make less of them, and increased profit margins go to the benefit of investors, not workers.
I’m not an economist or AI BS user, so there are probably words for these phenomena that idk sry
Staff wise you're probably right that they don't get paid much more than the middle/high wages of that area. Like if a personal chef is typically $80k, maybe this one get $100-120k kinda thing, but I doubt it'd suddenly become $200k if we used these as example numbers.
But the businesses like the restaurants that cater to the HNW individuals will bring in more profits as they can charge stupid amounts for the meals. Their staff probably get tipped better, at least if it's a tipping country, which then ends up in the economy even at the lower staff levels.
For things like the cars, like you said that probably employees less people job wise and the wealth concenrates into the owner of the fancy car shop and a small amount of sales staff, but they also will be able to spend their higher earnings at more expensive places too.
I'm not saying things would just collapse from all of this kind of spending going away, I'm just saying it's not nothing and it does have an impact.
just as a note, the kind of people to buy mega yachts is mostly those who have maybe €10M laying around because they got lucky sometimes. the truly rich who have billions, barely spend anything, they often live extremely frugal. so they're not spending and contributing to the economy that way.
The truly rich who have billions definitely still spend money in their economy in other ways I described (fleshed out more in edits as well) but yes they might not all buy the ultra expensive things like mega yachts specifically. They aren't just sitting at home in a condo alone though.
The hire fancy decorators to decorate it, they buy fancy couches, they most definitely don't clean it themselves and probably rarely cook for themselves etc.
We can take everyones most hated billionare of the moment Musk - He's spent hundreds of millions on election stuff alone. I doubt others spend that much, but they will spend millions on things like that. That money does end up in the pockets of things like radio stations, television stations, people going door to door, helps keep people in those areas employed etc. Not for a great cause in this case, and he of course likely paid 0 taxes on it since it's borrowed money, but its still money being spent that circulates in the economy.
that’s just trickle down but shittier
just tax them, if they leave, take their shit in country and ban their buisness working there
if you want to participate in the benefits pay your fucking share of the cost
I'm not saying don't tax them. I'm saying the person who said they provide very little to the economy is wrong, because the economy is more than taxes.
liter trickle down economics, we have years of study on this
they get more in subsidies and cost more in externalities than they bring in
tax them heavy or eat them
Notice how my post wasn't about their actual businesses, but just if they were living their own personal lives?
ok and?
i’m talking about the individual as a whole
they distort markets in their personal lives too
this shit isn't positive, go look at what Elon is doing outside his business as we speak, so like i said, externalities
Is Elon spending $150 million to support Paxton good? Absolutely not. But to say $150 million will have no impact in the Texas economy is also just putting on blinders, even if it is for a bad cause.
that makes it worse, that isnt some positive lmao
Money spent on a bad cause is bad ya, but it's still money in the economy. My initial reply was around OP's comment of "wealthy people actually bring very little into an economy,"
ok but money spent in bad ways does not benefit the economy as a whole, often it doesn't even interact with the majority of the economy
op isnt wrong
again this is pretty standard trickle down economics and not new, there are decades of studies on this
it generaly gets lumped as an externality cost and market warping and not a benefit
Trickle down as a reason to lower taxes doesnt work.
It doesn't mean that things still dont go down.
This isnt about should we or should we not tax them. Yes we should tax them.
no i'm saying money isnt some magical positive in the economic sheet, not all expenditure is the same
money spent can actually hurt economies
ie lobbying for tariffs is the classic example
That's fair, but 'can' doesn't always mean it will, and I imagine most of these cases come down to politics?
What if Paxton loses? Also are you saying that everyone with lets say > $100 million is personally spending more money that will harm the economy rather than just regular spending which helps it?
Not taxing them in hopes they will spend more is wrong, but the do spend.
And not everyone is as bad as Musk when it comes to this and there are counterparts to him supporting the other side in similar (but maybe not as much) ways.
again decades of study on this topic
not new, outliers im sure exist but as a rule bad
rather we just eat them to be sure
Decades on trickle down economics as a reason to keep taxes low yes.
Decades of studies on how much people spend in general with no relation or links to their taxes?
im confused on the separation here
im talking about trickledown as again part of the individual billionaire but its just one way they distort markets
in case you were reading and already replying to what I wrote, i made a meaningful edit with net negative/very little. My bad on that one. Sorry if I put you down the wrong path on a reply!
Correct me if I'm wrong here, and excuse my completely made up numbers, this is just an example and they have no bearing on what actual values might look like.
You're saying that not taxing the ultra rich means were losing out on a hypothetical $100 billion dollars a year. That $100 billion we lose out on, doesn't make up for the $10 billion they spend, and it never catches up. If we taxed them more, we'd always come out ahead.
And you're right, and thats why we should raise taxes and close loop holes. Trickle down does not work.
Further, of that $10 billion they spend, you're saying its ~~a net negative~~ adds very little to the economy.
I'm just not convinced thats the case, and if there are (edit decades of) studies out there that say this is the case that have no relation to how we should tax them more because that would be better, I'd be curious to see it.
If they just all hypothetically vanished, and the world moved on without them and that spending stopped, the economy would notice it. Again, it wouldn't be this catastrophic thing, but it would be noticed.
Edit: Actually to be fair, net negative isn't right and wasn't either of our arguments, "very little" is more appropriate. My bad on that one.
Oof, so you're about to enter the arena the US did in 2016, huh? Reminds me of Clinton vs. Trump.
(Not to say that Mrs. Clinton is in any way a "leftist" politician but Democrats get a pass as being "left" because of our abysmal education over here. The thread is that they were both deeply disliked by large sections of the voting populace, leading to even worse outcomes.)
I guess all the new rich people moving into New York City isn't enough proof to them that the wealthy actually like where they live and their whole "we'll pull up and leave!" is the biggest load of horseshit.
ALSO I would love for these governments just to fucking call that bullshit for what it is, and if they try to fucking leave because of taxes take every fucking penny and piece of property they own in your country and tell them to get fucked and figure it out when they get where they're going but they're not taking the wealth they built in this country with them.
Isn't France's pension system to also blame for this mess? And doesn't France already have pretty high taxes on the wealthy?
The pension system thing is complicated but there is a simple answer to your second question: the ultra wealthy pay very little tax, all across the West, because they have no personal income and instead hold stakes in legal entities that buy everything they want.
Zucman has written a bunch of articles on the subject, including one on the US
Cutting public spending is still an utmost priority but stuff like expanding the road network (increasing budgets for construction, road maintenance, emergency services and healthcare) still don't have moratoriums.
Wait what the fuck isn't this exactly what hsppened before they stormed the damn bastille?
History repeats itself ig