[ire]

I thought this article was funny, it reminded me of O'Grady on Velonews
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1843168,00.html?cnn=yes

We've always dismissed the French as exquisitely fed wards of their welfare state. They work, what, 27 hours in a good week, have 19 holidays a month, go on strike for two days and enjoy a glass of wine every day with lunch — except for the 25% of the population that works for the government, who have an even sweeter deal. They retire before their kids finish high school, and they don't have to save for a $45,000-a-year college tuition because college is free. For this, they pay a tax rate of about 103%, and their labor laws are so restrictive that they haven't had a net gain in jobs since Napoleon. There is no way that the French government can pay for this lifestyle forever, except that it somehow does.

 

[Samirol]

that's pretty good

We're now no different from any of those Western European semi-socialist welfare states that we love to deride. Italy? Sure, it's had four governments since last Thursday, but none of them would have allowed this to go on; the Italians know how to rig an economy.

 

[Damo]

And one more thing: the food snob French love McDonalds, which does a fantastic business there. They know a good freedom fry when they taste one.

The nearest Macca's is 45 minutes away from here I live. The next nearest is an hour away. Macca's here is full of kids and juveniles... There are no KFC's in France. There are no Burger Kings in France. France is not a 'fast food nation'. I hope it never will be.

Sorry, I'm turning this into the F&B forum...

 

[rockwool]

One of the things that I love with Greece is all that fastfood that is everywhere in their major cities, it's soo much more varied than Stockholm it's silly.

 

[rockwool]

U.S. farmers would never resort to such behavior. They don't have to: they're the most coddled special interest group in U.S. history, lavished with $180 billion in subsidies by both parties, even when their products are fetching record prices.

This is the bit that pisses me of the most when the EU and the US is forcing their "free markets" upon developing nations, both are subsidizing their farmers with more money than half of Africas nations make combined in a year.

 

[wantsBU2wint]

it's pretty cool