Why it's good living in France

That's all of Western Europe, these days.

I'm also going to tell you those modern French ideals get just a little watered down if you get much far away from Paris.

 

You're off-hook on this one. The Africans working for the French government are decidedly in the minority. Most are just getting food&accomdations and waiting to find a way to get back home. France is too busy handling Covid at the moment - and it feels it has done what it must with these "hangers-on" for whom there is NO WORK.

You're not wrong - but neither is it the end-of-the-world-as-we-knew-it. France is closed down with a lot of people being paid to not-work. But that depends upon where Covid has struck the hardest. And that means in the northwest coast facing Great Britain. And at the direct opposite end, the eastern coast of the country. Those are presently the hottest of the Covid hot-spots in France. (See here.)

Yes, but that's been true for as long as I have been here. American work-habits are antiquated. But, then again, Americans actually LIKE TO WORK. They find the communal environment attractive. That does not happen in France - I've noticed - except in American companies that had offices here.

All that is history, however. Those American companies - for the most part - are since long-gone. They implemented local-hiring to handle the French-market, and put their headquarters elsewhere in Europe ...

 

While I don't think that a wall prevents much of the illegal immigration (I see the problem in the jobs we offer to illegal aliens - offer jobs and they will come, wall or not; they'll find a way to defeat the wall; don't offer jobs and they won't come even with no wall) I agree with you that Bolsonaro is the biggest idiot ever. I think he may very well be the worst president in office, anywhere. That's the guy who told his constituents that they shouldn't take the Covid-19 vaccines because the vaccines might turn them into alligators. No kidding. It's not a joke or fake news, he did say it.

 

My experience after twenty years here in the South is just the opposite.
The more rural French cling more tightly to their ideals than do those in cities challenged far more by other cultures.

 

No problem here in Europe. Nobody hires anybody here without proper identity papers. By which, anyone with an European Union "identity" can work anywhere in the EU - and no questions asked. You don't have an EU I.D.? Then, you don't work here - and if you do, you get off scot-free but whoever hired you gets seriously fined - and if done multiple times they go to jail.

Food and bed are assured by the state for as long as you don't want to return from where you came. But your existence here in the EU is not the dream you had "back home" from wherever you have come. Without a state-ID, you cannot work. So, you just wait ... and wait ... and wait. For what? (A free trip back to from where you came. Ie, life gets very boring.)

Uncle Sam wants no such thing. So, what you get are the hordes fleeing Central America to come find the "American Dream" - where you work at a ridiculously low "Minimum Wage" that the Senate Replicants once again have voted down* upon the assumption that "now, with Covid, is not the time".

There will never be time for a decent $15 minimum-wage in the US that allows those at the bottom to have a barely suitable existence. Not with Replicants owning 50% of the Senate vote as they do today ...

*But they CAN & DID vote to bring down the level of high upper-income taxation when Donald-Dork asked them to do so!

 

If interested in US Tax Brackets, see here: 2020-2021 Tax Brackets

 

Nope. That's is the difference!

France (and most of Europe) never had states the way the US does. The problem being that a "state" now in the EU is far more independent than a state in the US. Moreover, most have kept their "international standing" by continuing to have offices in countries around the world.

No "state" in the US can rival that because it has no recognition as a "country'" in Europe. Or elsewhere.

And yet, many politicians like to think that their state is unique - for instance, since voters mostly vote Left or Right they think the state is naturally leftist or rightist - and that it attracts individual of that ilk. (Meaning preference.) And maybe that is true?

To get the political preference by state see here: Political party strength in U.S. states - but scroll down to the title: "U.S. state party control as of February 2021" where all 50 states are listed individually. (The blue and red colours delineate the Dem and Replicant parties - surprise, surprise ... ;^)

 

Many Trump-supporting Republicans would not be against a high minimum-wage that applied only to illegal immigrants.

But you know as well as I do that the Left Progressive Democrats would never go for that.

 

The French are still in crises with Covid but in the UK it's pretty much like we're over it already.
I mean that, Covid is pretty much over with on this side of the Channel, but according to French news today, Paris is in crises...

https://www.france24.com/en/video/2...rambling-to-find-icu-beds-as-covid-cases-rise

I guess that's what France gets for politically dismissing the AstraZeneca vaccine.
No one told them to lie about the vaccine, so that's on them.

 

Well, we had 175 deaths and over 6,000 new cases yesterday so it isn't over yet.
Compared to 254 deaths in France and 230 in Germany and both with a lot more cases (25k and 12k) it does look like we are doing well but compared to over 1,500 deaths in the US and over 2,000 in Brazil we're all doing quite well.

 

That does not make sense, only applied to illegal immigrants. They are officially not allowed to work.

Colorado is at $12.32. The official CO minimum is $12.00, but the law has inflation adjustment, each year.

In CO, if you hire knowingly as a business, illegals and get caught, you can be fined $ 50,000, per case. On top of it the Feds will come after you, pay roll tax and that is were it gets real nasty.

 

Not officially. But de facto they are. The law against them not being allowed to be employed is intentionally not being enforced. So enforce the higher minimum wage part.
If such a law were passed, the authorities in charge of that might actually be willing to enforce it, and some of the workers themselves might become informants on their bosses.

 

No Dumper that I know and my county is 73% Dumpers, would consider illegals a reason to raise minimum wage.
Illegals get paid under the table, cash. They have to take what is offered, they can not demand. They live in a shadow world.
If they are skilled, carpenter, harvester and so on, they do $ 10-15, or as harvester get paid by how much and the quality of their harvest and if they brake their backs can do around $15.
Its modern slavery.
Minimum wage increase would not change a thing. Illegals have nor rights, they are a commodity

 

The reality is, in may parts of the US, they don't live as much in the shadows as many people think. They could demand if they knew the employer would get in trouble and the workers would not face any consequences. Already, several US states have policies in place where they will go after the employer with a separate law enforcement unit which will not inform on or punish the workers, when one of them informed on their employer.

Yes, no doubt the working conditions are very much like slavery, but they are still free to return back to their countries, so in that one sense it is not like slavery.

(related thread on that here: Living Conditions of Migrant Farm workers)

 

I have been there, worked on racetracks, farms and ranches. That's how I started out in the US, a illegal. Minimum was some where around $ 3 and we got $2, or were paid by harvest and if the guy felt like it he stiffed you. Up yours. Its a shadow world of which you have no understanding. I was lucky and fell under the Reagan amnesty. Was able to take that chance.

It is slavery, because you leave everything behind, all you have is what you can carry and the "employers" know it and uses it.
It needs one call and you got ICE coming after you. You behave you are fine.
They deport people who have been living in the US for decades, married, even to Americans, children, tax payers, the whole nine yards.

A legal person like me, not a citizens, pays into SSI and Medicare, but will never get a dime.
In Europe if you are legal and you pay into those systems, you will get what is owed to you, even if you move back to your home country.

The shadow world

You have no idea how those quarterly statement of the SSI piss me of, because it reminds, I still live in the shadow world. 65 $1450, 70 NEARLY $ 1800. I maxed out.
That is my fooking money and it goes to some fooking fat ars shiit, who has done nothing.

Have to settle down.

But that brings us back to why it is so good living in France, or Germany or what ever of the 27. They know what is wrong and right when it comes to that stuff.

 

Too facile.
There are quite a few different situations in France.
Down here we have always had the lowest incidence of infection and deaths even considering Bordeaux and Toulouse. I have hardly seen any change in life except for wearing masks. Schools have remained open and so have essential services...like hairdressers...they both closed for a about a month early last year and have stayed open ever since. The situation changes regularly.
Parts of France are worse affected as is the case in every EU country. You just cannot honestly make sweeping statements like this.

 

....but its still a valid point....

 

This is highly unlikely and far-fetched.

 

I live in Germany - just a few miles from the French border.
Sometimes I drive across the border - just to have lunch - and then drive back again.
French food is excellent - that is true.

 

You have a favorite meal ?

 

I have lots of favourite meals!
Usually I take the menue of the day - and there are always fine things.
And it is always a pleasant surprise to learn what the menue of the day is.

 

That's effectively a perfect way to discover something new.

 

I'll agree that, by many metrics, it's good to live in France. But the restrictive stupid laws and politics are not the best, and the economy is just so-so (average by overall Western European standards) and most of the better job opportunities in France are concentrated around Paris, so that makes things more economically difficult with cost of living.

 

So it is good to live in Germany near the French border - then you can have the best of both worlds!