Socialism

When Bernie Sanders was in the middle of his 15 minutes of fame, his critics often pointed to Venezuela as an example of a failed socialist state but there is another state that is also failing and that is the country of France. Hollande was elected in 2012 with a promise reminiscent of Obama’s pledge to Joe the Plumber saying he would redistribute the wealth. Hollande made similar promises and they didn’t work. Since President François Hollande entered the Elysée in 2012, France hasn’t managed two successive quarters of economic growth. The former Socialist Party leader’s programme of more regulation, higher spending and punitive taxation – not least his 75 per cent top rate of income tax, which has seen a flood of wealthy French professionals move to London – is being widely blamed for this dismal French growth performance. Throughout history political leaders have won office by promising to take money from the rich and give it to the poor but when the dust settles the poor are worse off and a few people walk away with the money. Hollande just made headlines when it was revealed that he pays his barber $11,000 per month. This is paid by the taxpayers and the irony is that he is half bald. Just like the members of the communist party in the Soviet Union got the best of everything and Chavez family in Venezuela became rich as the country went broke, the people of France are now feeling the effects of socialism. The greatness of America is founded on the premise that an individual can succeed with hard work and that work ethic has been lost in the flood of government programs designed to make people less dependent on their own initiative and more dependent on government largesse. The old concept of welfare as a helping hand has turned into a way life. When a young mother with a dead beat dad needs assistance that is a helping hand but when a 16 year old has a baby because her mother had her at 16 and the grandmother had the mother at 16 this has become a way of life. Are these people really being helped?A