Are the French hit especially hard by fuel taxes?

From the Guardian: Are the French hit especially hard by fuel taxes?

Short answer: No, not more than some other European countries.

Long answer (click above link to see EU country-cost graphics) - excerpt:

They are at the same level as Sweden, and - ok, it's pretty cold up there - but the Swedes are not wrecking downtown Stockholm. Yes, the Italians are at the same price level, and Rome IS warmer than Paris, but neither are they wrecking the Colosseum.

Only in France are some young nerds causing damage that is reckoned at more than 3M€. About three hundred will be passing before a judge this week ...

 

Many of France's rural areas are destitute. And it's the rural areas where driving distances are often longer and big farm machinery is used.

Why are so many French farmers taking their own lives?

Taxes in general are already quite high in France, and now this.

 

I live in a farming area of France. I know PRECISELY what is happening to farmers. They are my neighbors.

Firstly, there are far too many on too small plots of land. Secondly, they have some very sophisticated machinery that has cost them a lot of money - and with agricultural commodity prices at a low-point, they can no longer make a decent living.

In 1955 there were 6.3 million farmers in France. Today they are not more than 500,000. They thus passed in the last 6 decades from 27% of the working population to around 3.5%, whilst the farmed surface of France has gone from 10 hectares to around 55. Thus, the profession is highly automated.

Those farmers today around me are living well-enough. They all have new cars and no house mortgages (having inherited the "family house"). It's not an easy life, and I gather those that are committing suicide are those who tried to particularize their production (for example, wheat is farmed only to feed bred cows that are sold to meat processing companies).

That does not always work ... so many are turning to bio-farming. Meaning no spraying of farm crops to kill parasites. That is paying off somewhat but the produce is on average 20% more expensive than otherwise.

I nonetheless see a good number of Bio-markets opening up where I live. Farmers here tend not to send directly to the public.

 

I think this is a good article explaining the multiple dimensions to what is happening in France. The bottom line though is,

https://diem25.org/what-next-for-the-gilets-jaunes/

The question is how is France going to respond to this....and of course it is not just France, a pretty Western problem today.

Talking of public services deteriorating I was told today that in my nearest town all the Drs have closed their lists. They will accept no new patients.

 

The French ricochet from one problem to the next, half-solving it each time. So, it tends eventually to come back.

Moreover, the current concoction of dissatisfaction is intractable. Too many different “causes” for too many people. And when Latins of any southern European country get pissed, they take it out on their government. They don’t really understand how lucky they are.

But, let’s compare what’s worth comparing. Would you rather be in the US paying $65 to see a doctor or 22€ in France. And should you need a meniscus knee-surgery in the US it would cost you $5000, whilst in France it’s less than a tenth of that price.

It should be obvious that if one wanted to practice medicine they should do so in the US. But, to my mind, there are two key services that should be free, gratis and for nothing.

They are Health Care and Tertiary Education. The EU understood that a long, long time ago. (England had a National Health Service as of the 1950s. And I will never understand why the Brits increased postsecondary costs as much as they did.)

Until mentalities change in the US, the cost of basic services necessary to a decent lifestyle will be horrendous …

 

I think it is more serious than that...and I do not feel the West is lucky at the moment as our standard of living and democracy gradually go down and inequality and things we had believed were the norm disintegrate.

the problem with Drs closing their lists was in a town in Scotland. We can't get Dr's to the country in Scotland. Last time I looked at my own local surgery almost all the available appointments were with Locums. No doubt not helped by Brexit....and if you are one of the people who will not be able to find a Dr, it will be as bad as if you were living in the US...or will the Government need to pay for them to go private?

 

I would not want to be living in the UK. Not with the shambles of a governance that exists presently.

I would like to say, "Well, change governments!". But, I have personally no faith in the leadership on the Left at the moment.

Then again, neither am I a Brit. I did live (once upon a time) in Dulwich and it was fine, decent. And a lot more habitable than Brixton just down the road. That dichotomy is something very particular to Britain. But even now ... well, I understand the very good school in Dulwich is overrun with kids from the Russian plutocracy!

 

Its fine apart from the fact that its raining....again...can't remember the last time the sun shone.

That's politics for you. Don't you have lots of talking heads all vying for prominence and power within France? The UK is experiencing "politics"; people with egos and overinflated opinions of themselves with more to say than they can actually achieve, so lack of achievement manifests itself in impotent rage and meaningless gestures. Its a theatrical experience akin to Disneyland with all its rides and emotions, its ups and downs, however, eventually you leave, calm down and move on back to normality and the reality of everyday existence. The world will continue to turn and the UK will be fine - there will be ups and down but the UK will not descend into some form of a living embodiment of a Hollywood dystopian melodrama. Governments are ten a penny in this day and age.

 

Fuel taxes and sales taxes, apart from being too high (another question) are regressive and, therefore, weigh heaviest on the lowest income groups. This is reprehensible.

 

Sun or no sun, it's fine for whom?

You (plural) are about to leave the most functional market-aggregation in Europe since the dawn of its history, where there is mutual benefit for all involved. Recent Economic History has proven such. All Britain had to do is get rid of the pound and accept the Euro. Whyzzat?

Because in this brave-new Information Age of ours, your manufacturing might is no longer of any consequence whatsoever to GDP!!! And the Euro is a massively larger market that decides international exchange rates - much larger than GB's could ever be!

GB's exports are doomed if you (plural) go it alone because of that simple fact.

The economic forecasts have got it right - Brexit's all bad. Bad for Britain but good for Scotland. Go for national independence and take it! (And that's advice from a Yank who's country "has been there, done that" ...)

PS: Is the US not a lesson-learned for you Scots? You can do one helluva lot better inside the EU and without the British parliament on your backs. Which is what Uncle Sam learned more than two-centuries ago. (The larger the "common-market" the better off are those within it!)

It's the usual blah-blah-blah from presidential candidates who haven't the first effing idea of what to do with their lives. So, why not become President?

If you are indeed a Scot, then I do hope that you will press on as a "nation". You have a separate second-language for which you (plural) merit that option. Especially if you want to "keep" that identity well into the future.

Which is factually an aside from the boon that a Common Market brings to Scotland. What has happened in the UK that all the good-reckoning for joining the Common Market many decades ago seems to have all evaporated as the result of a stupidly devised "Brexit vote"?

(No wonder Cameron is not showing his addled-head all that much on TV!)

 

wrong thread

 

Ouppps ....

 

Very good point. That though was necessarily the prime motivation for this march

https://diem25.org/what-next-for-the-gilets-jaunes/

 

sorry meant not necessarily!

 

Typically, overall taxation is much lower at the bottom than either in the middle or the top.

The poor are, yes, obtaining public services just like the not-so-poor. And, actually, paying less for them.

The point being: They should not be so poor, and in the US they are about 48.2 million men, women and children who live below the Poverty Threshold. (Which is about $25K for a family of four.)

That number (48.2M) who live below the Poverty Threshold in the US is equivalent to the combined populations of California and Maryland!

So this is my premise: We increase the Minimum Wage to $15 an hour, and we reduce the number living below the Poverty Threshold. These ultra-poor will most certainly spend their additional income on their families and live more decent lives (better living premises, better foods, etc.)

That expenditure will enhance GDP and stimulate Demand, which will be the stimulating force for employing them to meet the enhanced Demand.

The premise above is damn simple to implement, and it is the economy that will provide the jobs thus lowering the Federal funding of those living below the Poverty Threshold (and receiving food-stamps or other subsidies.)

Seems like a good idea to me. Now tell me how it wont work in America ...

 

..which I am...a teuchter.......

we will....as part of a union of nations....

....I think not...I'm not a great fan of devolved government....less government is better than more

 

That depends. When someone or thing drops a ton of bricks on your foot, you'd want to ask a "government" to do something about it.

Because that is the only entity that will ...

 

I’m sorry but you’ll have to expand on that and explain your reasoning.

 

Well, you did say your were no fan of government. And I was prompting to you with a comment that said sideways, "When someone or something comes crashing down on you, where do you go?"

Just wondering where you might have thought that "the government stops, and personal initiative begins".

 

No. I said I was no fan of devolved government. I think we have too much government.

Good question. Not wanting to sound trite but it stops when I want it to stop...I can shout at the TV screen and yell at some politician "what the fcuk has that got to do with you!!" everyone has their own ideas of where and when government should stop or cease to legislate so all I can say is when circumstances arise that for me...where I think government has no right to intrude.

 

This appears to be getting really serious.

France is apparently going to deploy armed vehicles against its own people tomorrow expecting more violence. Is that their army? Presumably it is or they have an extremely militarised police.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/07/armoured-vehicles-deployed-paris-combat-gilets-jaunes

I remember in the 2011 riots in the UK, Theresa May, then Home secretary, wanted to bring in the army. The army said no so they brought the police from all over the UK to hotspots. Even then many people thought it was the response of a father who had lost one or was it two children who got the riots to stop.

Of course in France the motivation is different. There is a mixture of people. Some are just working people not finding they can make ends meet as we have now all over Europe and the US. However there are also many of the far right on these marches and possibly their intention is different. Let's hope the far right is not doing what a poster here is forever saying is going to happen in France - trying to start a civil war.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/07/armoured-vehicles-deployed-paris-combat-gilets-jaunes

 

I don't know this woman but here is her take on what is going on in France

As far as the symbolism of the yellow vests, apparently every car must have one so that in an emergency they can be seen and will not be run over - they do not want to be run over in this socio economic emergency.

We were speaking about health care. Not so good as some people imagine

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/05/yellow-vests-rise-against-neo-liberal-king-macron/

which really puts Frnace in the same position as everyone else, with the extreme right keen to explooit - from the Guardian article I put in earlier

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/07/armoured-vehicles-deployed-paris-combat-gilets-jaunes

Climate Change of course must be dealt with but that does not seem like something either neo liberals or the extreme right are interested in.

The article talks about how climate change reforms have been stopped due to too much expense and then

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/05/yellow-vests-rise-against-neo-liberal-king-macron/

The bit about the far right and fascism is interesting as Diem 25 do seem to believe that they are involved.

https://diem25.org/what-next-for-the-gilets-jaunes/

 

Governments write the law and they execute the law as well ...

 

Indeed but do you think that gives them the default of competency....they are given the right to write the law but are qualified to do it?

 

France, as the U.S., has representative government. It is evident on both countries that the majority are not well served. Whom, then, do these governments serve?
When a crime is committed, the police search those who could profit from it.