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French can stay in their own damn country. The US doesn't need any more chain smokers.
I may get a little off-topic, but even though I have no French blood in my veins, I get tired of the way the French are bashed by some in this country.
France is a very important country in Western Europe who's citizens enjoy a very high standard of living. France is located in a geographical area that makes their country important to us and America important to them.
If we want to dredge up the past we can find points of disagreement. France didn't support our invasion of Iraq, but look how well that turned out? If you go back to the 1960's, French President Charles De Gaulle didn't like America much, but I think it was mostly a question of envy on his part.
More importantly, though we can find situations where France and America needed one another. Lafayette, a French Nobleman, came to America and gave critical support to our country during the American Revolution. Universities in Paris educated many Americans over the years. The French have made great contributions to science and medicine. Louis Pasteur was one of the first people to identify bacteria with a microscope and help to develop serums to treat diseases like rabies. Madam Curie did much work with radium and helped enormously with the development of nuclear physics. We, of course, were there to support Franch during World War I and World War II. Finally, it was the Pasteur Institute that discovered the AIDS virus, not Americans, even though some tried to take credit for it.
The point is that both America and France are great nations. I've known French people in this country whom I thought were first rate people that I would have been glad to have as fellow citizens. I have been treated wonderfully during the vacation time I have spent in France.
What France is currently going through is not much different than the challenges all developed nations currently face. All of us have aging populations and we are struggling to maintain our identity, culture, and standard of living despite challenges like immigration and competition from lesser developed nations.
In the end, we can all sneer at one another, or we could recognize that we all have strengths and weaknesses and try to support and learn from one another. The latter makes most the sense.
Go search for it on google. You can find lots of articles on the topic. The New York Times ran several stories on it too.
Because French bashing is very popular on English speaking media.
Facts are often exagerated and even untrue.
The number of articles doesn't prove the veracity of an information, especially when those come from the same source.
I may get a little off-topic, but even though I have no French blood in my veins, I get tired of the way the French are bashed by some in this country.
France is a very important country in Western Europe who's citizens enjoy a very high standard of living. France is located in a geographical area that makes their country important to us and America important to them.
If we want to dredge up the past we can find points of disagreement. France didn't support our invasion of Iraq, but look how well that turned out? If you go back to the 1960's, French President Charles De Gaulle didn't like America much, but I think it was mostly a question of envy on his part.
More importantly, though we can find situations where France and America needed one another. Lafayette, a French Nobleman, came to America and gave critical support to our country during the American Revolution. Universities in Paris educated many Americans over the years. The French have made great contributions to science and medicine. Louis Pasteur was one of the first people to identify bacteria with a microscope and help to develop serums to treat diseases like rabies. Madam Curie did much work with radium and helped enormously with the development of nuclear physics. We, of course, were there to support Franch during World War I and World War II. Finally, it was the Pasteur Institute that discovered the AIDS virus, not Americans, even though some tried to take credit for it.
The point is that both America and France are great nations. I've known French people in this country whom I thought were first rate people that I would have been glad to have as fellow citizens. I have been treated wonderfully during the vacation time I have spent in France.
What France is currently going through is not much different than the challenges all developed nations currently face. All of us have aging populations and we are struggling to maintain our identity, culture, and standard of living despite challenges like immigration and competition from lesser developed nations.
In the end, we can all sneer at one another, or we could recognize that we all have strengths and weaknesses and try to support and learn from one another. The latter makes most the sense.
I agree with everything you just said and I do have some French blood in me and from New Orleans originally. However, there are many French including some that have posted on this thread that are very rude and derisive towards Americans....so a little turnabout is fair play. So whether it's French/Europeans that think they have everything right are redneck America that thinks they have everything right...guess what, we can learn a few things from each other.
Normandy is one of the places I would like to visit. Unfortunately it is too darn expensive. Even Quebec has become very expensive.
I'll bet that the US is suffering from its own form of "brain drain". We are educating huge masses of foreign students that are either displacing US students in high tech jobs while sending their money home or taking their educations back to India or China and flooding the US with their cheap products. Either way they are transferring wealth from here to there at great cost to the US.
I may get a little off-topic, but even though I have no French blood in my veins, I get tired of the way the French are bashed by some in this country.
France is a very important country in Western Europe who's citizens enjoy a very high standard of living. France is located in a geographical area that makes their country important to us and America important to them.
If we want to dredge up the past we can find points of disagreement. France didn't support our invasion of Iraq, but look how well that turned out? If you go back to the 1960's, French President Charles De Gaulle didn't like America much, but I think it was mostly a question of envy on his part.
More importantly, though we can find situations where France and America needed one another. Lafayette, a French Nobleman, came to America and gave critical support to our country during the American Revolution. Universities in Paris educated many Americans over the years. The French have made great contributions to science and medicine. Louis Pasteur was one of the first people to identify bacteria with a microscope and help to develop serums to treat diseases like rabies. Madam Curie did much work with radium and helped enormously with the development of nuclear physics. We, of course, were there to support Franch during World War I and World War II. Finally, it was the Pasteur Institute that discovered the AIDS virus, not Americans, even though some tried to take credit for it.
The point is that both America and France are great nations. I've known French people in this country whom I thought were first rate people that I would have been glad to have as fellow citizens. I have been treated wonderfully during the vacation time I have spent in France.
What France is currently going through is not much different than the challenges all developed nations currently face. All of us have aging populations and we are struggling to maintain our identity, culture, and standard of living despite challenges like immigration and competition from lesser developed nations.
In the end, we can all sneer at one another, or we could recognize that we all have strengths and weaknesses and try to support and learn from one another. The latter makes most the sense.
Smokers aren't people though. Their just sources of foul smells.
My employers are a French couple who fled France. They tell me it's horrible over there, and not just for business, the crime is totally out of hand too, and you would have to be crazy to be a cop there.
I think Germany is in a tough spot because they're bonded to Europe and Europe is bonded to them.
Germany really isn't in that tough a spot; they have a healthy high-value manufacturing economy (luxury cars, high-end commercial manufacturing) with both global conglomerates (Siemans, Daimler, VW Group) and the highly productive "Mittelstand", small-medium sized companies.
Of course, they went through painful economic reforms in the 90s to liberalize their economy, and are benefiting from the most flexible labor market in Europe. On top of that, Germany benefits from a Euro that is cheaper than what the Deutschmark would be, and that helps it exporters.
What lots of people on the left don't get is that the argument is for a healthy dose of market mechanism and government regulations. What's happening in some European economies and much from the American left is an overdose of government intervention, the living above ones means, the abusive approach toward a society's money, and the childish elitist attitude.
All of that, in the context of the competitive global economy, is damaging and unrealistic to this economy. It's ironic that many advocates for these welfare state policies talk about the commonwealth of a society while abusing it to a great extent.
Everyone ends up paying for their unrealistic idealism. It's as if reality is out of fashion. The privilege to dream at the cost of others became justified.
Germany really isn't in that tough a spot; they have a healthy high-value manufacturing economy (luxury cars, high-end commercial manufacturing) with both global conglomerates (Siemans, Daimler, VW Group) and the highly productive "Mittelstand", small-medium sized companies.
Of course, they went through painful economic reforms in the 90s to liberalize their economy, and are benefiting from the most flexible labor market in Europe. On top of that, Germany benefits from a Euro that is cheaper than what the Deutschmark would be, and that helps it exporters.
Would rather be Germany than Greece.
See Germany has a better approach. The American far left doesn't want to look at this. They seem to just want to push for if or ideological stands regardless of reality. Ignorance.
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