This should be amusing.
Remember, the liberals often use France as a ‘shining example of how things should be.’ Will they still do it when France tanks? Stay tuned...
Why, yes! You can beat the oxen that pull the cart even more. Pile that useless crap up on the cart until its wheels buckle and creak even more. Those oxen will keep on pulling!
You can’t tax a country into economic recovery and lower deficits.
France will remain an economic basket case.
Coming to a country near you...
Gee, even in the good old USA Democrats Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar and Herb Kohl, all senators, are realizing that increasing taxes harms the economy. They’re begging to eliminate the Obamacare tax on medical devices. Of course all three voted for Obamacare.
When it comes to taxes there is a point where they are high enough to be burdensome to those that pay it but not enough to do much about it. This is where a smart government would want to be (personally I think taxes should be as low as possible, but if I was responsible for raising revenue I would want as much as I could get).
When governments go beyond that point, bad things happen to the government.
Overspending has brought down more then one government (or nation). France has evidently forgotten it’s own history. The French Revolution was a direct result of overspending by King Louis XVI.
The laws of economics are as real as the physical laws that govern our lives. Gravity can kill you if you ignore such laws.
Overspending and over taxing a population will kill a nation.
Oh the name for a nation may continue, the people may still exist, but the things that made them great will have been sucked out of them. Look at the Roman Empire or more recent the British Empire. There are many reasons these empires collapsed (as empires) one was the over spending by their governments to provide “bread and circus” to their respective citizens.
People with wealth have options. They can move. There are still plenty of places were someone with money can move where the government is not going to rob them of their wealth.
I predict these taxes will not raise any addition money and in fact may result in a net loss of revenue flowing into France’s treasury.
Visiting travel websites to check one-way ticket prices: 100€
Actually buying a one-way ticket: 1000€
Turning in your passport: 10000€
Asking "Who is Gerard Depardieu?": priceless.
Reminds me of this, via Buena Vista films, “White Wilderness”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMZlr5Gf9yY&t=1m21s