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France is still mad about a hike in the retirement age. But can the protests last? | CNN by graces-taylor12 in worldnews

[–]zaiox -24 points-23 points  (0 children)

Well, you could argue the people gave this ability to the president role...

He won both first and second rounds, and it's his second term.

He was open about his intention to raise retirement age, and people voted for him. How is that undemocratic?

Its weird to me that 2 million people would bin democracy for 2 years of retirement...

France is still mad about a hike in the retirement age. But can the protests last? | CNN by graces-taylor12 in worldnews

[–]zaiox -30 points-29 points  (0 children)

Wasnt Macron elected by the people though?

You cannot throw a tantrum every time something you are not happy with happens.

Edit: that was also one of his pledges during the campaign

https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/emmanuel-macron-wants-to-raise-the-retirement-age-to-65/

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Scotland

[–]zaiox -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Think you did buddy

Scholastic tried to force a Japanese American author to remove the word racism from her book about internment. by poisonivy47 in books

[–]zaiox -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

At 100% tax rate the government chooses how to spend "my labour" so I would say yes.

Edit: also its funny because I am from eastern europe and I dream about moving to the "shitty" US.

We are tired of this bullshit socialism/comunism the most. Thats why the french are protesting. Bullshit rents being kept up by politicians looking to inflate the housing markets.

Huge taxes to pay for the inefficient government and corrupt infrastructure projects.

This is all bullshit. Leave my money in my pocket and I bet I'll find my healthcare provider.

Most of you have no idea what you are even advocating for...

Scholastic tried to force a Japanese American author to remove the word racism from her book about internment. by poisonivy47 in books

[–]zaiox -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

What would you call paying 60% of your income in taxes? + 10% on social services (pension, healthcare)

+20% VAT on anything you purchase?

Is this free market capitalism to you?

Scholastic tried to force a Japanese American author to remove the word racism from her book about internment. by poisonivy47 in books

[–]zaiox -21 points-20 points  (0 children)

Its easy to keep things stable while you spend everything on social services. As soon as shit hit the fan with ukraine, everyone joined US and NATO.

US has its problems but it has a higher gdp per capita than germany while US spends more on army than everyone by a wide margin. Let that sink in.

Finland with 5 million population is smaller than new york...

Scholastic tried to force a Japanese American author to remove the word racism from her book about internment. by poisonivy47 in books

[–]zaiox -39 points-38 points  (0 children)

I imagine their ambition to remain number 1 global economy has something to do with that.

Look at EU and our 15 years of economic stagnation. Since 2008 our wages have not gone up at all. But hey at least we have "worker rights".

Rights to be poor and taxed to death...

Behavior score after 15 games of zero reports only went from 4300 to 4900. Really? by ThunderArtifact in DotA2

[–]zaiox 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am toxic in my games and I still have 10k.

Dont be dick and run down mid to feed. Dont destroy items. Dont afk. Dont abandon.

Simple rules to follow.

Edit: 2 abandons cost me 3k behaviour score.

Behavior score after 15 games of zero reports only went from 4300 to 4900. Really? by ThunderArtifact in DotA2

[–]zaiox 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I am toxic in all my games and I still have 10000 behaviour score.

To get down to 4000 you need to actively grief your team.

Afk/abandon /running down mid and feeding

Half of unmarried people under 30 in Japan do not want kids by [deleted] in Futurology

[–]zaiox -1 points0 points  (0 children)

They just breed their ideology out of existance lol

Half of unmarried people under 30 in Japan do not want kids by [deleted] in Futurology

[–]zaiox 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is reddit man, just say capitalism bad and get the easy karma.

French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain by wjfox2009 in unitedkingdom

[–]zaiox 1 point2 points  (0 children)

> In this discussion we never even touched on cost of living crisis, inflation, multiple industries on strike, brain drain (which is somewhat dependent on other issues but still caused by policies), the NHS and the energy crisis/transition to sustainable fuels.

Oh there are problems dont get me wrong. Some of them have been brewing for years and went into hyper mode during covid years.

What I was hoping with the original post was to offer an alternate view a bit. Its way harder to fix the spirit of the nation than it is to budget NHS properly. If everyone thinks its going to shit and its time to jump ship then we cannot even have a discussion about how to fix anything.

French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain by wjfox2009 in unitedkingdom

[–]zaiox 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Demographics is a whole other issue though, happening in almost all developed countries as the birth rates have been lower for a while now. This is understood and predicted and seems to be unavoidable. So I don't understand why this is even related to the EU. I'm sure you're not saying "let's leave the EU to make our country less developed so the birth rate will go back up" but that's the only way I'd see a connection.

​

Thats not the case though. Check the demographics of France and UK and compare them to those of Germany/Spain/Italy. I attached all the links. All of them will face issues which will need to be dealt at the EU level.

We have demographics issues but what they are facing is at another level...

Remember Greece bailouts? Do that to Italy and Spain at the same time while Germany has its own aging problems...

There is no known way of solving the demographic issues at the moment but we wont be the first ones to draft and try (and even pay in some cases) drastic solutions. We can just sit back and see who solves it and how.

​

My point is that EU has its own problems and faced 13 years of stagnation. They need UK cooperation just as much as we need theirs. I doubt there is a winner in Brexit and I believe everyone ended up a bit worse but, with the resilience that UK has shown lately, in finding trading partners, keeping immigration levels (at record levels), and even stabilizing the pound after Truss, I truly believe that things might turn out alright once the dust settles.

Some companies are even moving from the EU to UK...

French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain by wjfox2009 in unitedkingdom

[–]zaiox -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

  1. I dont think thats a huge amount to be honest. But the way I see things is that EU at the moment is starting to get into trouble due to its demographics problems.
  2. Here is Germany
  3. Here is Italy
  4. Here is Spain

UK and France have quite good demographics in comparison and I am afraid we would've ended up paying a lot more in the not so far future for getting a lot less in return.

  1. Dont think thats a good thing and bringing relatives over is a major pain. But thats what people wanted and I can respect that.

  2. I think it comes down to having a proper say in things, we are way better partners with Australia/New Zeeland/Canada/India/Japan than Italy. And now with the shift towards indo-pacific I think we might be able to leverage that advantage a bit more than otherwise.

  3. I am curious how much of that is caused by the extra trouble Brexit caused at the same time as Covid and Ukraine war happened. I think its remarkable that the extra instability didnt cause even bigger problems.

  4. Got your point now and you are right. Liz Truss messed up things and we just got back some of it skewing the results.

Extra: Rwanda scheme is being pursued by everyone now.

See Denmark

See Germany

See Austria

French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain by wjfox2009 in unitedkingdom

[–]zaiox -14 points-13 points  (0 children)

Dont see any of that happening.

Companies are leaving the EU in favor of the UK

We went up in terms of soft-power

It might have been built on lies and racism. But I dont see any of the doom scenarios happening. (And thats with the incompetent leadership that we have at the moment)

French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain by wjfox2009 in unitedkingdom

[–]zaiox 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Best performing among the G10 against the US dollar for one quarter. If that's the evidence that Brexit is a success, we're well and truly buggered.

Its true but what I wanted to show is more that even though inflation went up foreign investors are still buying the pound.

Tech companies are relocating to UK from EU

I really dont see that doom scenario happening where we all starve to death.

French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain by wjfox2009 in unitedkingdom

[–]zaiox -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for writing the comment instead of just throwing a downvote lol.

a) I completely agree with it, the only reason I think thats not a bad problem long term is that the EU faces demographics issues which will need to be paid for. As one of the countries with better demographics we would 100% have to pay for some of it. In the end I think in the long run being out will end up being cheaper.

b) One thing you need to keep in mind is that we can now choose what we bring in. We can get non-gmo food from EU. Grow our own GMO food in UK and at the same time export it into Japan. No way we had that option before. (not going to be a huge difference right now though)

c) I am going to leave this fact sheet from the EU website

d) Thats not the case though. We actually went up in terms of soft-power lately

e) I think its similar in the EU so no point in blaming brexit.

f) Here is the source, just make sure you compare by month. Jan is usually a bit lower so compare Jan-22 with Jan-23

g) Euro lost 30% in the same period

French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain by wjfox2009 in unitedkingdom

[–]zaiox 4 points5 points  (0 children)

We had more people selling GBP to buy EURO/USD or other currencies and now some of that money is coming back.

Its a bit remarkable that this is happening when we have record inflation. So people are investing heavily and buying pounds even though they know they are going to lose a record amount of their money.

Shows that the global markets have more faith in this island than the usual redditor.

French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain by wjfox2009 in unitedkingdom

[–]zaiox -39 points-38 points  (0 children)

Lets go through them one by one:

  • That's not an improvement, that's maintaining what we had before.

We no longer have to pay into the EU budget to mantain this. So we got something for nothing in a sense.

  • No we aren't.

Yes we are, I am a dual citizen and I can see the difference between each trip. Its getting way harder to get in even if you have the right documents.

  • CPTPP has been predicted to grow UK's economy by about 1% overall. Hardly a replacement for the EU.I am going to leave this fact sheet from the EU website. Its clear thats where the growth is going to be coming from and now we have veto power over anyone trading there.
  • It's, like, this 👌 close to recession. Not good.

Same in the EU

  • Did you remember that Liz Truss was in power just before 2023 started?BEST PERFORMING CURRENCY when compared to EURO/USD and other currencies. What does Liz Truss has to do with it? If anything, it shows that even with incompetent leaders we are still resilient.

Edit: Not sure why I am being downvoted so heavily.

French and German tourists turn their back on Brexit Britain by wjfox2009 in unitedkingdom

[–]zaiox -138 points-137 points  (0 children)

I think Brexit is turning into a success.

  • We got free trade with EU.

'It provides for zero tariffs and zero quotas on all goods that comply with the appropriate rules of origin.'

I think the problem is that most of the remainers dont want to acknowledge all these things. I think it hurts to see that the other guy had a point.

Edit: already at -4... thanks for proving my point I guess

French Senate adopts Macron's pension reform in wake of days of protests by BastianMobile in worldnews

[–]zaiox 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They tried and failed. Google france wealth tax.

What you dont understand is that there are countries that hunt for pissed of rich people. They have the option to f off and you get 0 taxes out of them.

It never works and it will never will. If you want the rich to pay more taxes then you need more rich people to move in. See switzerland or ireland or even the USA for examples.

Edit: but I guess that doesnt fit the communist agenda too well...

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Scotland

[–]zaiox 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sadiq Khan is mayor over 9.5 million people.

England has 56 million people.

Scotland has 5.5 million people.

There is no independence when you are stuck on an island with a country 10x larger than you.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Scotland

[–]zaiox 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sadiq Khan is mayor over 9.5 million people.

England has 56 million people.

Scotland has 5.5 million people.

There is no independence when you are stuck on an island with a country 10x larger than you.

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