I too think it will fail spectacularly. But it is good that someone's doing it so we can see how things would play out.

Even if you think that this is the right economic strategy, the really rich people can easily just move to Belgium or England (London, of course) to avoid the huge taxes. Such is the reality of the current European Union. I think a fiscal union isn't too far off so this loophole may be closed shortly, but there's always Switzerland.

As I've said here before, Europe needs to either become a proper federation on the lines of Canada or revert to a simple free trade area, without the bureaucracy and democratic deficit. This current half-way situation is what's making the eurocrisis so much worse.

Yeah, I'd bet it'll work quite well considering their government is 100% different than ours. That's about all you have to consider.

100% different? It may be a unitary state with a semi-presidential system, but it's hardly entirely different from what America has. It's also a democracy, for one.

And economic truths are universal. the Soviet Union was much closer to being "100% different" than us, but it still crapped out economically by the 1970s since a command economy doesn't work. China, also approaching "100%" difference, took off when it started applying capitalist principles and Deng Xiaoping talked about how glorious it was to be rich.

If taxing the rich so hard works for France it's because that's generally the right thing to do. If it fails it's because it's generally the wrong thing to do.

I see that last paragraph contradicts my first post a bit. France's failure may not necessarily prove entirely that taxing the rich is generally bad (due to their being easily able to flee in the European Union), but its success certainly would show that taxing the rich through the nose is generally the right way to go.

By name, yes, France's government is a republic, but it elects mostly between two parties, one of which is socialist and another of which is close to soft fascism (sounds worse than it is; I don't know how to explain it). They've also got the world's best healthcare and manage to keep it free. They also have much more paid time off work than America does. Maternity leaves can sometimes last years. It's a lot less business-driven and more comfort-driven. Maybe that's why they are stereotypically unkind to tourists, specifically Americans. They are used to their comfort and I like that kind of approach.

That's not to say things are perfect, they are far from it. That's not to say America is bad, it is far from it (if Putin responds, I'll rescind this statement because he's right in every way that America is the reason that the world sucks right now). I'm not criticizing or appraising either system. That's just how France is.

The UMP is soft fascism? That's wrong enough to ignore the rest of the post.

And it's that kind of response that makes me lose hope in humanity. If you want to be politically correct, call it gaullisme and make your conscience happy.

It's not a matter of political correctness, just correctness.

I mean really. If the UMP is fascist then American Democrats are Space Nazis. It's a ludicrous thing to say.

Yeah, austerity is working well in Greece, isn't it.

Obama in SPAAAACE :)

So wait, the UK's austerity induced double-dip hasn't already proven that austerity has failed? What? Ditto Greece & Spain? What needs to happen before you recognize it as a failure? Norway already showed stimulus works in Europe.

The soft fascists in the FN are probably preferable to the wannabes in the UMP anyway, so it doesn't really matter.