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The benefits of Brexit - the future of the United Kingdom

notimp

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Macron in france is about to launch the second set of his political/economic reforms.

France

Emmanuel Macron's Act II
PARIS

The president kicks off a second big round of reforms

Six months ago Emmanuel Macron was facing the most serious political crisis of his presidency. Gilets jaunes (yellow-jacket protesters) marched on the Elysee Palace, vowing to invade the presidential office. Tear gas hung over the wreckage of torched vehicles and smashed windows. Mr Macron's time as a credible reformist leader, it seemed, was up.

Today the French president has a fresh spring in his step. His poll ratings, though low, are back where they were before the protests began. Mr Macron may have come in second to Marine Le Pen in the recent European elections, but only by a fraction. And the vote confirmed the collapse of the traditional French right and left that the young leader helped to engineer. Now, after months of crisis management, Mr Macron is launching “Act II" of his presidency. This second round of reforms, unveiled by Edouard Philippe, the prime minister, on June 12th, is designed to match in scale and ambition the shake-ups to the labour market, railways, education and fiscal policy that marked the first 18 months of his presidency. Besides a fresh emphasis on greenery, three structural reforms stand out: reorganisation of the public sector, reform of unemployment insuranceand welfare benefits, and rationalisation of the French pension system.

On the first, a bill to "transform" the public sector is already going through parliament. The purpose, says Olivier Dus-sopt, the junior minister in charge, is "to modernise management in the public sector, and make it more responsive—both for the careers of public-sector workers and for users of public services.” France's mighty civil service employs 5.5m people, most with jobs for life. These are secured by passing an entrance exam, after which “management" is a generous term for what happens to careers. Bosses have little say over recruitment, let alone promotions, which depend on approval by committees, on which unions occupy half the seats. Teachers, for instance, need the committees' approval even if they want merely to change schools. The system cramps mobility and demoralises all concerned.

The new rules will enable managers to hire more easily from the private sector for short-term projects and longer contracts. The promotions committees will be relegated to judging contested cases. The idea is to give managers more freedom and responsibility, a change that Mr Dussopt calls “very profound". For French civil-service culture, these amount to "very radical changes", says Ross McInnes, the chairman of Safran, an aeronautical giant, who cochaired an official public-sector efficiency review last year.

A second reform, of benefits, is two pronged. The government will soon unveil new rules for unemployment insurance which will, among other things, involve taped ng payments and lowering payouts for higher earners. France is unusually generous. An employee on average earnings gets 68% of previous income if he loses his job, compared with 59% in Germany and 34% in Britain, according to the OECD. The reform will be controversial; talks between unions and employers on this subject collapsed earlier this year. Even more so will be the government’s bill next year to merge housing and a tangle of other welfare payments into a single “universal benefit". The underlying principle of all this, says a presidential adviser, is “to make work pay".

Perhaps the boldest of all is pension reform, designed to merge 42 existing regimes into a single, fairer and more transparent system. The idea is to encourage job mobility and, implicitly, to delay retirement. The French currently spend more time in retirement than anybody else in the oecd, and the state pension system is in deficit. Mr Macron says he will not raise the legal retirement age, which would help meet that shortfall. But the merged system, when its rules are unveiled in the autumn, may end up encouraging later retirement anyway. The reform is as politically sensitive as it is ferociously complex. “It’s probably the most ambitious reform of Macron’s presidency,” says Jean Pisani-Ferry, an economist who co-ordinated Mr Macron’s campaign manifesto in 2017.

The president's newfound confidence will not in itself be enough to make these reforms work. Some in government worry that they involve a big political effort for little budgetary gain, at least in the short run. The government has already pushed its budget deficit back above the 3% of gdp Maastricht limit this year, partly becauseof income-support measures designed to calm the gilets jaunes. Others fear that Mr Macron has let slip his campaign promise to trim the size of the civil service. Detractors of a different sort accuse Mr Macron of wanting to privatise it, and to dismantle the welfare system. After the gilets jaunes have monopolised the airwaves for so long, unions are keen to make their voice heard.

If anything, the gilets jaunes protests showed that public policy cannot be decreed from on high, and Mr Macron claims that he has heard and understood this message. Yet his reputation also rests on a willingness to enact unpopular reform, at a time when his earlier policies are now starti ng to show promising results, notably in terms of job creation. Act II of Mr Macron's presidency will test whether those two objectives can be reconciled.

The Economist June 15th 2019 (tomorrows issue)
 

H1B1Esquire

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Lets talk

OMFG; G, WTF I.T.???!!!!!

My dude, I didn't even hire you yet. I damn well know you can type, but, shit! I can't even....

We all know you can type words, but fuck! This is not how you go about it.
We will talk soon™.

I liked what you said for the sole reason that's how you go about it, for now.
 

mattytrog

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Putin wants chaos in the West. His minions pushed Brexit in the UK and Traitor Trump in the US. In the UK, even after violating legal spending limits and flat out lying about things such as the "$350M per week" that was allegedly going to the EU" and having Putin's bots run never-ending anti-immigrant memes on social media, Brexit barely won 51.9 to 48.1. It's (exposed) supporters are scared to death of another referendum because they no there is no chance it would pass.

In the US, Putin's Puppet got three million less votes than Hillary Clinton and won only because of illegal interference in our election and outright voter fraud. The Traitor in Chief is the most hated president the country has ever had with the worst polling numbers in recorded history. Even Putin can't save him from a landslide loss now.

But Traitor Trump has done everything Putin has asked of him, allowing the Russian dictator to get out of arms agreements with the West and make his top lieutenants billionaires with one-sided arrangements with American companies that want to lobby the Trump administration. Trump also praises Putin at every meeting with either Putin himself or his henchmen. He has no choice, of course. Putin can send a deputy to Congress any time he wants to admit that his people own Trump so he blackmails him with this.

It's really quite amazing that Putin was able to install a puppet government in Washington. I would not have thought it possible before the career corporate criminal and admitted serial sexual-assaulter took office (illegitimately).


Haha You sound like a demoprat.

Guess you voted for Killary.

You democrats make me laugh. The REAL enemy isn`t Russia...

It`s a place in the Middle East... Like chopping body parts off... We sell billions of £$ of arms to them.

Them poor sods in Yemen know what arseholes the Saudis are. But (I include Trump in this, same as I include our Tory govt) we apparently "need" their oil, so we are "friends" with these stone-age neanderthals completely obsessed with Western money...

But yeah... Russia the enemy.

How many heads have Russia chopped off in public because someone wants to leave their Christian religion?
How many women has the Russian regime lashed to death for having a fling with another man? None.

Putin isn`t perfect by any means. But he IS a leader and acts as such. Take a look at Russian economy overall. Very encouraging.

You leftist globalist fools are delusional and YOU pose the biggest thread to nationality and democracy.

Expecting Mr wall-of-text to pop up about now... Evening @notimp .
 
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Xzi

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You democrats make me laugh. The REAL enemy isn`t Russia...

It`s a place in the Middle East... Like chopping body parts off... We sell billions of £$ of arms to them.
Whataboutism. Russia is a threat to free and fair democratic elections around the globe. So is Saudi Arabia. Only problem is that the US president and other global power players are beholden to both. Not to mention Israel. The one thing that all three want is the US to start a war with Iran, and right now our government is trying to find absolutely any excuse to start said war under false pretenses.

Putin isn`t perfect by any means. But he IS a leader and acts as such.
A dictator is not the same thing as a leader. Putin does not care about the well being of Russian citizens.
 
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mattytrog

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Whataboutism. Russia is a threat to free and fair democratic elections around the globe. So is Saudi Arabia. Only problem is that the US president and other global power players are beholden to both. Not to mention Israel. The one thing that all three want is the US to start a war with Iran, and right now our government is trying to find absolutely any excuse to start said war under false pretenses.


A dictator is not the same thing as a leader. Putin does not care about the well being of Russian citizens.

Those "isms" again that the left wing seem to love.

They ARE beholden to Saudi. Thats my point. Saudi Arabia`s regime is evil and barbaric. Yet we continue to buy their oil and sell them our arms.

Unfair to single out Israel. Wonder what your feelings on Palestine are? Genuine question.

But WHY is Russia a threat? Are they against our religion? No.
What makes them a bigger threat than Saudi or Iran, or China?

They annexed Crimea. Most of Crimea are Russians. The Crimeans were hardly kicking and screaming were they?
 

Xzi

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Those "isms" again that the left wing seem to love.
It's the right that loves to use them, they just don't like getting called out on it.

Unfair to single out Israel.
I didn't single them out, I also mentioned Russia and Saudi Arabia.

But WHY is Russia a threat? Are they against our religion? No.
They're a threat because they're good at weaponizing and spreading misinformation. Comes with the territory of having a KGB agent ruling the country. Ultimately their goal is to erode trust in our longstanding institutions and the rule of law, as well as to create a deeply divided American populace. They want to see America become a failed state like Russia did after the Cold War.

What makes them a bigger threat than Saudi or Iran, or China?
Russia isn't necessarily a bigger threat than Saudi Arabia or China, but that's largely irrelevant. They're still a threat. And as I said, a combination of Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Israel are trying to use the US for their own gain by manipulating us into a war with Iran. Not that there aren't warmongers in the Trump administration happy to cooperate, of course.
 
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mattytrog

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It's the right that loves to use them, they just don't like getting called out on it.

It is strange that the first "ism" stone is always cast by the left, wouldn`t you agree? You don`t see many GENUINE centrists or centre-right throwing the Waycism or Seckcism card around do you?

Ultimately their goal is to erode trust in our longstanding institutions and the rule of law, as well as to create a deeply divided American populace.

That doesn`t answer the question. I want to know WHY. Lets pretend that Russia are trying to do those things. Could you explain to me the purpose?

Why would they want a divided populace? Is it for world domination? If so, whats the reason for this world domination?

You say they want to see a weak and divided America. But WHY?

Is it to overthrow Christianity? To replace with what?
Overthrow democracy? To replace with what? A constitutional monarcy? We have one of those.

Do they consider their religion superior, for example?

Same with NationalISM. The left throw this word around like it is a bad thing. What is bad about wanting to protect and be proud of your history and not lose your national identity?
 

Xzi

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It is strange that the first "ism" stone is always cast by the left, wouldn`t you agree?
If the right would simply engage in intellectually honest discussion without constantly trying to change the subject at hand, it wouldn't be an issue.

That doesn`t answer the question. I want to know WHY. Lets pretend that Russia are trying to do those things. Could you explain to me the purpose?
We don't have to pretend, this isn't a hypothetical. Russia engaged in misinformation campaigns in 2016, and they've already begun ramping up efforts in that same vein for 2020. As to why: there are several reasons. If the US and other democracies around the world are paralyzed from in-fighting, Russia can get away with a lot more operations, both covert and overt, without being noticed. Russia is also finding it easier to knock their global adversaries down a peg rather than attempt to fix all their own internal issues, having the net effect of giving Russia more power on the world stage. Lastly, Putin simply hates democracy and wants to see it fail, just as the USSR and Russia have been failures. That way he can point to his own dictatorship as somehow being successful.

Is it to overthrow Christianity? To replace with what?
Overthrow democracy? To replace with what? A constitutional monarcy? We have one of those.
Big fat negative there. The largely ignorant Christian population in America is just another tool for Putin, used to widen the divide between us. And he doesn't care about replacing our current system with something else, as an adversary he only wants to see our current system crumble.

Same with NationalISM. The left throw this word around like it is a bad thing. What is bad about wanting to protect and be proud of your history and not lose your national identity?
“The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility, but the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to war." - Sydney J. Harris
 
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D

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Feel free to ignore everything above as this perfectly sums up your whole post.

Why didn't I joined this thread earlier, your posts are pure gold !



Economist also says - neh - Italy is still fine. :)

Like france, Italy is suffering an abundant blood loss due to overevaluated money. Germany doesn't give a ****, cause the euro is almost a renamed deutschmark (under evaluated for them, which artificially boosts their exportations).


Euro Overevaluation for several countries-
average/max/difference with Germany min-max

France 11,0% 16,0% 26-43%
Italie 9,0% 20,0% 24-47%
Espagne 7,5% 15,0% 22,5-42%
Belgique 7,5% 15,0% 22,5-42%
Pays-Bas – 9,0% – 21,0% 6-6%
Allemagne -15,0% – 27,0% –

Source IMF - External Sector Report 2017



Thanks to its hinterland politic blended with insane EU decisions on 'foreign workers', germany can legally exploit eastern slaves, like they did during the war, then during the iron curtain period (yes, only people couldn't circulate, but services, goods and funds could), nothing has changes.

Not mentionning the ridiculously low interest rates on their bonds since the 50s and all the foreign help to their internal production, their reconstruction skyrocketted thanks to these. But I digress.


No biggie Merkel and her goons suck the UE ba**s dry, they don't care pushing million of untermench to starvation. History taught us that Europe is at peace only when germany is weak. Should only the US stop exploiting this insane thirst for domination to weaken Europe since Woodrow Wilson (if we entered Berlin in 1918, it is almost certain that nothing of that would have happened). On a side note, Trump is the first US president not to play this card, thankfully !
 
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Doran754

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Whataboutism. Russia is a threat to free and fair democratic elections around the globe. So is Saudi Arabia. Only problem is that the US president and other global power players are beholden to both. Not to mention Israel. The one thing that all three want is the US to start a war with Iran, and right now our government is trying to find absolutely any excuse to start said war under false pretenses.


A dictator is not the same thing as a leader. Putin does not care about the well being of Russian citizens.

Is Putin chopping his own citizens heads off and imprisoning them illegally or sending them to forced work labour camps. What evidence is there to say he doesn't care about Russians?

Also I'd argue war can be a necessary evil, Iran IS a rogue state, why on earth would you appease them by sending them billions. Its backwards, stuck in the 17th century, just a shithole, the people of Iran need liberating. I'm not advocating war here, and I hope it doesn't happen as I certainly wouldn't want my son or daughter dying there. I'm just playing devils advocate, if any place needs an invasion it sure as hell is Iran, It's easy to say otherwise though when you're not a female. Iran in the 1970s compared to now is night and day, It's disgusting how females are treated there.

Now compare Iran to Russia or generally any middle eastern state compared to Russia, but Russia is the easy target so you do you.
 

mattytrog

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Is Putin chopping his own citizens heads off and imprisoning them illegally or sending them to forced work labour camps. What evidence is there to say he doesn't care about Russians?

Also I'd argue war can be a necessary evil, Iran IS a rogue state, why on earth would you appease them by sending them billions. Its backwards, stuck in the 17th century, just a shithole, the people of Iran need liberating. I'm not advocating war here, and I hope it doesn't happen as I certainly wouldn't want my son or daughter dying there. I'm just playing devils advocate, if any place needs an invasion it sure as hell is Iran, It's easy to say otherwise though when you're not a female. Iran in the 1970s compared to now is night and day, It's disgusting how females are treated there.

Now compare Iran to Russia or generally any middle eastern state compared to Russia, but Russia is the easy target so you do you.
Tell you what... Iran IS a rogue state...

So different when it was Persia in the 1970s with the Shah in charge... Tehran was (albeit with poverty issues) a forward thinking free, cosmopolitan city.

Then the Islamic Revolution came. People actually WANTED this revolution?
 

FAST6191

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Is Putin chopping his own citizens heads off and imprisoning them illegally or sending them to forced work labour camps.
Their approaches to religion in their borders is very suspect (between that pokemon go in church dude and the recent stuff with the Jehovah's Witnesses you get the worst of both approaches from where I sit), the press freedoms are not great, political opposition has a nasty habit of taking two in the back of the head while falling down some stairs (possibly in public, and despite Moscow being second only to London in CCTV cameras they happened to stop working right then. Mind you they did find some Chechens that were... persuaded to confess.), their bodily autonomy stuff is not what I would call nice and free (see the rules on getting a vasectomy there), along with the police their court system is a bit of a farce really, corruption is a way of life (until you cross the wrong person then not much life)...

Stalin was probably a bigger cunt but Mr Putin will probably not being vying for a World's nicest man award any time soon.
 
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Xzi

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Is Putin chopping his own citizens heads off and imprisoning them illegally or sending them to forced work labour camps.
It's not like anyone outside of Russia would know either way, their media is entirely state controlled. Putin is known to have political opponents and protesters poisoned/killed on a regular basis, though. It's also very dangerous to be openly LGBTQ in Russia. Russian citizens basically have no inherent rights, they're just playthings for the oligarchs.

Also I'd argue war can be a necessary evil, Iran IS a rogue state, why on earth would you appease them by sending them billions.
I assume you're talking about Iran's own assets that we had seized, and then gave back when they agreed to allow full, thorough inspections as part of the nuclear production freeze deal. The deal Trump tore up because he wants them to start working on nuclear weapons again in order to have an excuse for war. There is no benefit to the US in starting another war, and for the moment at least, the "threat" of Iran is entirely fabricated by the bad actors I listed previously: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia. I have no problem with it if they want to do their own damn dirty work instead of trying to use the US military as their puppets.
 
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mattytrog

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It's not like anyone outside of Russia would know either way, their media is entirely state controlled. Putin is known to have political opponents and protesters poisoned/killed on a regular basis, though. It's also very dangerous to be openly LGBTQ in Russia. Russian citizens basically have no inherent rights, they're just playthings for the oligarchs.


I assume you're talking about Iran's own assets that we had seized, and then gave back when they agreed to allow full, thorough inspections as part of the nuclear production freeze deal. The deal Trump tore up because he wants them to start working on nuclear weapons again in order to have an excuse for war. There is no benefit to the US in starting another war, and for the moment at least, the "threat" of Iran is entirely fabricated by the bad actors I listed previously: Saudia Arabia, Israel, Russia. I have no problem with it if they want to do their own damn dirty work instead of trying to use the US military as their puppets.
The main dangerous nations are China and Saudi.

Excluding the little fat bond villain in Pyongyang.
 

Xzi

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The main dangerous nations are China and Saudi.
Again, it doesn't really matter who the biggest threat is, ignoring any threat to the US for the purposes of political expedience would be a huge mistake.

Excluding the little fat bond villain in Pyongyang.
Oh, but he and Trump wrote beautiful letters to each other. They fell in love. So NK can't possibly be a threat. /s

Anyway, that's enough de-railing, let's stick to Britain in this thread.
 
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JoeBloggs777

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mattytrog

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Anyway, that's enough de-railing, let's stick to Britain in this thread.

Good idea.

By hook or by crook, the 2016 vote result will be implemented.

The limp d!ck lefties can swing.

I wonder why Blair scrapped the death penalty for treason in this country in 1998...
 

Xzi

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By hook or by crook, the 2016 vote result will be implemented.
Indeed. No matter how much lasting damage is inflicted upon the country, at least the citizens can take pride in knowing they inflicted it upon themselves. But who knows, maybe Boris will surprise me and manage to somehow avoid a no-deal Brexit.
 
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mattytrog

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Indeed. No matter how much lasting damage is inflicted upon the country, at least the citizens can take pride in knowing they inflicted it upon themselves. But who knows, maybe Boris will surprise me and manage to somehow avoid a no-deal Brexit.
Lasting damage?

Do me a lemon.

Tell that to all the manufacturing firms that have moved abroad via EU funding.

The amount of jobs lost due to socialist labour governments making this country uncompetitive, exacerbated by the EU actually assisting the firms to relocate, and our own government now forbidden to help bail out struggling domestic firms by EU law eg British Steel (due to past socialism and trade unions thinking they own the country).

We are out of this joke political union.

Leftists... Off you trot to Belgium. Take comrade commie Corbyn with you.
 
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Xzi

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Tell that to all the manufacturing firms that have moved abroad via EU funding.
They've moved abroad because manufacturing is exponentially cheaper and/or automated elsewhere. The US Midwest is seeing the same thing happening. You're deluding yourself if you think those jobs are coming back, Brexit or no. Just another feelgood lie for the leave campaign to stick on the side of a bus.
 
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