[witek]

Hilarious. It baffles me how this country continues to operate given the massive public spending/benefits, delightful reforms (e.g. proposed 80% tax rate for high-earners) and pretty xenophobic view on immigration. ALL of my (highly-skilled) French friends do not plan to return in the foreseeable future.

[simias]

While the situation in TFA is spectacularly ridiculous and shameful for me as a french I don't think it warrants this kind of gratuitous french bashing. Unless of course you want to explain to us what the french taxation laws have to do with this particular court decision.

Also it's 75%, not 80%. That might not be very significant overall but it makes me doubt you really know what you're talking about.

[rguillebert]

And it's the marginal tax rate (beyond 1 million €).

[throwaway092834]

Worth noting the US top marginal tax rate has been above 90% at several points in history.

[Tloewald]

Including during the sainted Eisenhower administration.

[witek]

I guess my comment wasn't strictly limited to this court decision but I wouldn't consider it as French-bashing. I have nothing against your country and compatriots, and I have enjoyed many fun moments there. However, I and my two French flatmates are genuinely curious how France can continue on its current public-spending/entrepreneurship-throttling trajectory.

[simias]

It's an interesting discussion and I have mixed feelings about the current french "trajectory" as you put it. However I don't think this is the place to discuss politics so I'll refrain from engaging in this debate.

However I think from a hacker perspective it should be interesting to see a country that tries to do things differently from what appears to be the norm in most of the western world and whether it'll succeed or fail utterly. I know that most people on HN are big on "laissez-faire" and business deregulations but it's a bit disingenuous to present it as the solution to all problems.

We value thinking out of the box for engineering, why not for politics? "Look, a new economic system in 30 lines of socialism!".

I wish people were less adamant and more level-headed when it came to politics and economy, it's hard to have a reasonable discussion on those subjects.

[vidarh]

> However, I and my two French flatmates are genuinely curious how France can continue on its current public-spending/entrepreneurship-throttling trajectory.

Look at a graph of GDP per capita for France vs. other countries (Google will happily draw one for you if you search for "gdp per capita france" - for me it shows comparisons to UK and Germany)

As it happens, it turns out that the rather substantial aggressive changes to things like working hours and tax laws over the years in France that have caused predictions of doom and gloom have had little to no noticeable impact on GDP per capita - the trajectory for France, UK, Germany and other major European countries are only very minimally differentiated based on their economic policies.

That is how France can continue this.

[mtrimpe]

>ALL of my (highly-skilled) French friends do not plan to return in the foreseeable future.

You are aware that there might be a tiny hint of selection bias at play there... right? ;)

[JoeAltmaier]

Sure! All skilled folks that leave France, don't want to go back. That's the point.

[bausson]

ALL of my (highly-skilled) french friends still in France do not plan to leave in the foreseeable future.

All my (highly-skilled) foreigner friends do not plan to leave either.

So with your argumentation, France is probably the best country in the world.

[JoeAltmaier]

Except the ones in the USA have knowledge of both worlds.

[bru]

I'm not surprised by such a comment, but finding it on HN saddens me.

xenophoby? Oh USA, building a wall to keep your neighbours out of your lawn, please tell me more!

Our economy? Of course American governement-sponsored 'liberalism' is a beacon for the free world, and dissidents are morons. Please have a look at this recent article by Paul Krugman: The Plot Against France[0].

Your high-skilled French friends? I have the luck to be put in that population. What I see around me is that we travel and work world-wide, until we start a family most of the time.

0: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/11/opinion/krugman-the-plot-a...

[witek]

I don't live in the US, I'm much closer - in London (apparently, the sixth largest French city). I'm not arguing the fact that it can be a lovely country for a French citizen and that you may want to retire there, given the generous benefits you'd be receiving.

However, I know from a few of my friends, who were settling in France for personal reasons, how painful the immigration process can be, especially if you're not white/caucasian.

[bru]

>you may want to retire there

Having kids and retiring usually do not happen at the same time.

>a few of my friends, who were settling in France for personal reasons

So they're not French. Your first comment is definitely wrong then.

I believe they were referencing the circulaire Guéant[0], which comes from the previous government, wronged many skilled workers & French companies as well -- it sets a 'national preference' for hiring.

0: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulaire_du_31_mai_2011

[witek]

Apologies, different sets of friends :]

Set nr 1: French people in London Set nr 2: Non-French people trying to settle in France

Yes, I heard French support for families with children is spectacular. That's what I meant. I just don't understand how it can continue. I lived in a few countries and the French "balance sheet" just doesn't make intuitive sense to me.

[judk]

Europe has an ocean to keep most of its poorer would-be neighbors away. You can't wave away geography. The US is comparable to Europe, not one country in Europe.

[mavroprovato]

Which is this ocean you are talking about? Because Europe has only the Atlantic Ocean on its West and the nearest countries on the Other side of the Atlantic are the US and Canada.

[jff]

Perhaps the Mediterranean? They call it a "sea" if you want to be pedantic.

[mavroprovato]

Yes they call it a sea, because it is not an ocean, I don't understand why you call me a pendant. More importantly though, you might not be following the news in Europe, but many immigrants try to cross the Mediterranean in order to get into Europe, and many unfortunately die. So it is not that it keeps anyone away.

[jff]

I brought up the Mediterranean specifically because of the news reports I have heard about all the people dying while trying to cross. If "many unfortunately die", it sure as fuck seems to be keeping some people away, by killing them. I'll also assume that the serious danger of crossing the sea prevents some people from doing it.

[bausson]

It is pedantic because their are no sea where he lives, so making the distinction is (from his point of view) somewhat useless

[judk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean

PG's scale of levels of disagreement in discourse, that's like a negative 4.

[doe88]

That baffles me how some people are so much bitter toward France they take any occasion to take a cheap shot.

> xenophobic view on immigration.

Given this ranking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-bo... I don't think we have any advice to receive from anybody on the question of immigration. Granted there are some problems ampiflified by the economic crisis but given the rates of immigration we had to absorb in the previous decades I would say the situation is not that bad.

[bmelton]

Why does one have to be in a free-bordered country to critique another nation's immigration policies?

As an American, I disagree with American immigration policies, and also disagree with France's. Is my opinion discounted because I'm an American?

[doe88]

> and also disagree with France's.

I would have said the same thing if he was French, to say France has xenophobic views on immigrations is plain wrong. And yes no direspect to you but I don't think you can rightly evaluate the situation in France by reading comments on internet or articles in the news, you have to live here and see by yourself. I would say two things: there is much more immigration than what the numbers suggest at least in my area (I live in a big town in south of france) and secondly there are a lot less problems and much more integration than what is reported in the news. And BTW, I consider myself as liberal (US meaning of the term) and I'm not bothered by immigration I even welcome it, it's good for diversity, but there is no denying that France has welcomed in the past decades a lot of immigrants so maybe in these difficult times there is a bit more friction than usual.

[bmelton]

> you have to live here and see by yourself

Living somewhere doesn't give you as much insight to a place's immigration policies as attempting to emigrate to that place.

Regardless, it's not imprudent to question the efficacy of broad social benefits while simultaneously supporting open borders.

It is equally okay to believe that your country should benefit from the diversity that can only be achieved with easy immigration laws, and be willing to accept an increase in taxes to support that objective.

It's also okay to view the other position as negative based on your views, and a person's country of origin or current residency does not affect the validity of their opinion.

[DenisM]

>my (highly-skilled) French friends do not plan to return in the foreseeable future

Selection bias alert! You're more likely to meet people who swore to never return than those don't mind returning.

[epsylon]

Not to mention the fact that software engineering salaries are notoriously low in France compared to the US. Thus most people who have emigrated have strong financial incentives to stay there. (Well, at least until they have cancer and crappy insurance or they have to send their kids to college)

[jstalin]

Printed money is a helluva drug.

[Symmetry]

France is part of the Euro, and it's pretty much the Germans who decide when new Euros get printed. They haven't proven sympathetic to the idea of printing many recently.

[rguillebert]

Since when does french-bashing need to be factually correct ?

[jstalin]

11% growth of Euro M1 in two years begs to differ...

The world is awash in printed money, not just the Eurozone and not just France is taking advantage of it.

[Symmetry]

There's a reason central bankers are always so concerned with anchoring expectations. In deciding how much money to hold onto, people and businesses make a trade off between liquidity and the cost inflation imposes on them of holding a given quantity of money. But if people's expectations regarding future inflation change, that tradeoff changes in a positive feedback cycle. If people expect more inflation then they'll want to hold less money than otherwise and in most cases this will cause more inflation[1]. If people expect less inflation than previously they'll now want to hold more money, causing further deflation.

Now, inflation expectations have clearly come unanchored because the GDP deflater, the measure of inflation most relevant to this particular effect, has been stuck closer to 1% than 2% since the financial crisis and the price spread between inflation protected and normal bonds means that the people who hold most of the M1 think this is likely to continue.

These effects are both self-limiting, the desire for liquidity isn't that strong so we only saw an 11% growth in the money supply despite inflation falling by 30%. And the inflationary spiral will quickly (but painfully) stall out if the central bank doesn't keep printing money to match demand.

Which is to say that sure, there's more cash floating around, but it's not just washing around it's being stored in people's pockets. It might be liable to cause excess inflation if the ECB ever manages to convince people that it will be able to hit its targets in the future, but it's not particularly benefiting France at the moment.

[1] In the mainstream economics sense of a rise in the price level, not the odd Austrian school definition.