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Category Archives: France.

THE BEADY SAYS: HAVE WE ALL GONE SENILE OR IS IT THAT WE JUST DON’T GIVE A BOLLOCKS.

29 Monday Jan 2024

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in #whatif.com, 2024 the year of disconnection, Civilization., Climate Change., Collective stupidity., Disaster Capitalism., Environment, European Union., France., How to do it., Human Collective Stupidity., Human Exploration., Human values., Humanity., INTELLIGENCE., Life., MAN MADE CHEMICALS., Modern day life., Natural World Disasters, Our Common Values., Populism., Purpose of life., Renewable Energy., Social Media, Social Media Regulation., State of the world, Sustaniability, Technology v Humanity, Telling the truth., The common good., The essence of our humanity., THE NEW NORM., The new year 2024, The Obvious., The state of the World., The world to day., THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , Unanswered Questions., VALUES, We can leave a legacy worthwhile., What is shaping our world., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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Capitalism and Greed, climate, Climate change, Environment, Global warming, Sustainability, The Future of Mankind, Visions of the future.

(Four minute read)

2024, Global climate trends are cause for both deep alarm, and our continuing denial of the absurdity of the verbal discussions on the subject, a task which is now monumental.

“We have built a civilization based on a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“We are conducting an unprecedented experiment with our planet,”

We have now unmoored ourselves from our past, as if we have transplanted ourselves onto another planet.

Without immediate action, we are at grave risk of crossing irreversible tipping points in the Earth’s climate system. +2.0C+3.6F with our current policies is the reality by around 2050s.

The world has already heated up by around 1.2C, on average, since the preindustrial era, pushing humanity beyond almost all historical boundaries,

AND WE STILL CANNOT EXCEPT THE INEVITABLE.

The enormous, unprecedented pain and turmoil caused by the climate crisis is often discussed alongside what can seem like surprisingly small temperature increases – 1.5C or 2C. 

“The difference between 1.5C and 2C is a death sentence”.  No amount of global warming can be considered safe and people are already dying from climate change.

A severe heatwave historically expected once a decade will happen every other year at 2C.

The fingerprint of climate change on recent extreme weather is quite clear, In fact, extraordinary, with the oceans alone absorbing the heat equivalent of five Hiroshima atomic bombs dropping into the water every second.  The oceans have heated up at a rate not seen in at least 11,000 years.

—————— 

These temperature thresholds will again be the focus of upcoming UN climate talks and Climate Summits

Thirty years of climate summits:  Where have they got us?

All have proved that its nearly impossible to achieve any coordination, with the whole process becoming too business-friendly, to the detriment of other perspectives and voices.

It is important to look at the bigger picture.

By most standards the world’s governments are currently failing to avert a grim fate.

To COP28 UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, was the biggest of its kind. Some 85,000 participants, including more than 150 Heads of State and Government, were among the representatives of national delegations, civil society, business, Indigenous Peoples, youth, philanthropy, and international organizations in attendance at the Conference from 30 November to 13 December 2023.

Given these problems and repeated failures, why continue with the COP meetings?

Because we are arriving at tipping points that represent thresholds which, when crossed, will trigger abrupt and self-perpetuating changes to the world’s climate and oceans.

They are threats of a magnitude never before faced by humanity – one-way doors we do not want to go through.

Governments are more concerned about Energy and food price rises mean that governments face a cost of living and energy security crisis, with some threatening to respond by returning to fossil fuels, including coal.

The climate disaster is here. There is no huge chasm after a 1.49C rise.

Superimposed on top of these long-term warming trends overshadow the real-world hazards they amplify: Heat waves, floods, droughts, wars and mass migration. 

Meaning that people and ecosystems are dying, that people are losing their livelihoods, that agricultural land will be unusable.

For climate scientists, this is the “I told you so” moment they never wanted. 

So what we’re seeing now is only a foretaste of what could happen if efforts to reduce emissions aren’t successful. 

​I hope that maybe more people will realize that this is really happening and put pressure on their representative to put actions on the top of their agendas. Our individual choices can challenge the status quo, and force things to change.

Like cleaning up the Advertising Industry to sustainability rather then consumerism across all their out lets – Main Stream TV, Socially Media, Bill Boards and the like.

To cut out the hypocrisy in Trade deals that are not Green, along with home grown policies to grow the economy above genuine climate demanding Projects.  To push for a consumer chapter to be included in future deals which reflects the issues that are most important to consumers.

So what’s stopping us from getting there?

The rules governing global trade policy mean that powerful countries and corporations escape accountability.

One of the biggest examples of hypocrisy is the EU’s common agricultural policy – or CAP – established over 50 years ago and currently under reform. This policy, thanks also to the support of highly protective tariffs and agro-chemical companies, has allowed destructive intensive practices to become the default way European food is produced. 

Why are French farmers protesting? Their slogan reads “It doesn’t make sense” ~Shat Upon by Regulations, on environmental protection.

They are not being paid enough TO FUCK IT UP.

Perhaps our slogan should be: # ITSALLBOLLOCKS. 

We can challenge the myth that we have to choose between protectionism versus free trade, and end the myth that free trade brings any meaningful benefit to the average consumer.

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Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

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THE BEADY EYE PUTS: A SPOTLIGHT ON WHAT NEEDS TO BE REFORMED IN THE EUROPEAN UNION.

04 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Brexit v EU - Negotiations., Brexit., European Commission., European Union., France., The New year 2017, The Obvious., Unanswered Questions., What needs to change in European Union.

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European Union

 

( A eighth minute read)

We all know that the Union is in need of reform, but what exactly are we talking about.

Nobody would seriously argue that the EU doesn’t need to evolve, to do so it must fundamental reform.

It has not delivered the prosperity and growth it promised; the euro has turned out to be part of the problem rather than the solution; the EU’s share of world GDP is set to fall sharply. Moreover, no one is clear what the EU is for, or how ever closer union can be matched with expanding borders and huge disparities of income and culture. The European Union project has been rocked by a series of scandals

Here are a few reforms that are blatantly obvious and need  implementation to save millions of euros.  

The First Reform:

According to a report from the EU’s own internal Audit Service (IAS) an estimated £4.5 billion of the EU’s annual budget is wasted each year. The administrative budget of the IAS totals €18.77 m in 2016 and €19.22 m in 2017.

Although the Commission remains responsible for the implementation of the EU budget, the actual management and control of EU funds and programmes is delegated to Member State authorities, which select beneficiaries and distribute funds.

Cohesion policy accounts for 37 % of spending from the EU budget and is to be some 350 billion euro for each of the periods 2007-2013 and 2014-2020.

It is the Member States’ responsibility to detect, correct and prevent errors in the first instance.

Better regulation is a pressing problem.

Next:

It is time that the blatant absurdity and farce of the EU travelling circus, that requires the moving nearly four thousand trunks of documents between Luxembourg and Strasbourg ever month – stops.

It is perhaps the most outlandish of the European Union’s excesses; a £130 million travelling circus that once a month sees the European Parliament decamp from Belgium to France.

The problem is simple:

The French government, which has a power of veto, will not budge.

The French insist on maintaining Strasbourg’s role because of the substantial amount of money the travelling circus brings to the region. Its status is set in stone under a European treaty signed in 1992,  which can only be revoked should all member states agree it. 

In all, the EU admits that the monthly Strasbourg sitting, which lasts just four days, costs an additional £93 million a year.

A recent study by the European Parliament shows that €103 million (£85 million) could be saved each year if all European Parliament operations were transferred from Strasbourg to Brussels.

It is beyond comprehension that this state of affairs is tolerated.

If Emmanuel Macron France’s new youngest ever president, who says the country had chosen “hope” and promising to relaunch the flagging European Union doing away with this gross misuse of EU funds would show he is serious.

Next: 

MEP’s > “gravy train” salaries and perks.

MEP perks receive free haircuts and 52 gallons of petrol a month.

Maltese MPs get 240 litres of petrol a month.

Two Conservative UK  MEPs have each pocketed over £1 million in taxpayer salary and expenses payments in just five years.  Both men receive a salary of £76,292 a year, plus £2,670 in pension contributions.

Over five years, on top of this figure, Mr Ashworth claimed: £181,705 for subsistence; £164,627 in travel expenses; £222,560 in UK office allowances and £116,000 for his wife’s salary between 2010 and 2014, when the practice was banned.

Mr Karim claimed the same salary and pension contribution package as well as: £159,858 in subsistence allowance; £189,420 in travel expenses and £289,038 in UK office costs.

Both men also have offices provided in Brussels. Both men took home over £1 million over the five-year period, over £200,000 a year.

Nigel Farage claimed over £15,000 in expenses to pay for his bodyguards. The EU has been billed for their services, which include arranging food and drink. One bill for just five events came to almost £60,000, covered by expenses paid to Mr Farage’s Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group, which receives £2.5million a year in EU funding. 

French MEPs earn 740% more than average French citizen Lavish, expenses and allowances – entitlements that are worth over £415,000 a year each. 

As well as staff allowances, MEPs are able to earn up to £91,000 a year in “daily subsistence” and “general expenditure” expenses without having to provide any receipts or proof of expenditure. MEPs still vote on their own salaries and perks.

The EU pay divide

The “subsistence allowance” or “per diem” of £258 is paid in cash without any proof of expenditure, when MEPs sign an attendance register in Brussels or the Strasbourg seat of the parliament.

The annual cost of a MEP sitting in the EU assembly is £1.79 million each a year. The European Parliament, with 766 MEPs, cost £1.3 billion in 2012.

Here is the breakdown of an MEP salary:

[The standard monthly payment for all MEPs is 7,957 euros (£6,537). MEPs also get a flat-rate monthly allowance of 4,299 euros to cover office expenses, such as office rent, phone bills and computer equipment.

In addition, MEPs can claim for travel related to their official duties in Brussels and Strasbourg. In the past they could claim for an expensive flexible economy class flight even if they flew low-fare. But under the new rules they have to submit their ticket (which can be business class on air, or first class on rail) and will be reimbursed for what they paid.

A separate annual travel allowance – 4,243 euros maximum – covers official trips to other destinations. And they can claim for up to 24 return journeys in their home country.

MEPs also get a daily subsistence allowance – now 304 euros – for attendance at parliamentary sessions. It is intended to cover things like hotel bills and meals.

And they are entitled to reimbursement of two-thirds of their medical expenses.]

Then there are the 28 EU Commissioners, all of them on a basic salary of

€20 666 per month.

Jean-Claude Juncker, 61, President of the European Commission  Salary: £245,629 plus a residential allowance of £36,844 and a monthly expense allowance of £1,135. Pension of £52,500 for life from age 65.

The salaries and allowances of the MEPs of the 27 EU states now total £137 million.

The figure is almost ten times higher than the average EU wage of £18,617 a year.

But this does not include the cost of the £217,000 office allowance available to each MEP.

The receipt-free allowances system must stop. 

Next reform:  Is the Euro.Résultat de recherche d'images pour "pictures of Euro"

Only by changing the eurozone’s rules and institutions can the euro be made to work.

To achieve the more radical – but necessary – reforms for the Euro, a new treaty will be required.

A major priority for this new treaty would be to create a single fiscal authority for the euro area and to change the ECB’s mandate, so that it could become a full lender of last resort in extreme circumstances.

Euro area citizens need to be given a real choice between continued fragmentation (which leaves the euro exposed to structural weaknesses and recurrent crises), and greater integration (which pools more sovereignty at the same time as it strengthens the governance of EMU).

Abandoning the convergence criteria, which require deficits to be less than 3% of GDP.

Change the mandate of the European Central Bank, which focuses only on inflation, unlike the US Federal Reserve, which takes into account employment, growth, and stability as well.

Lastly, the high rates of unemployment in many euro-area countries are a source of concern. Reforms to harmonize employment protection legislation and integrate outsiders in the labour market should be implemented.

The EU employs more than 55,000 staff from its 28 member states. The majority work for the European Commission which employs about 33,000 officials, temporary staff, contract staff, and special advisers.

Last Reform:Image associée

It is no good just taking the standard nation-based model of representative democracy and applying it to the unique contours of European governance

‘Democracy’ explicitly recognises that the EU lacks a coherent, unified ‘people’, and should therefore encourage the participation of separate ‘peoples’ within the European structure.

If the EU is truly a democracy then the best way of closing the gap between citizens and institutions is to empower the demoi. Finding new ways for the national public to discuss, engage with and interact with the EU is the best way of enhancing their role. To do so, the European Parliament should be made more representative, but by increasing the role of citizens and national parliamentarians in the EU structures the EU can be made more open to bottom-up influence.

Multiple levels of engagement should be created so as to give citizens the maximum capability to engage with the EU’s structures. Such a structure would not be perfect. No democratic structure is. But it remains the best way of creating a more democratic European Union. Make European structures more open to national influence; and give citizens a more direct involvement in EU policymaking.

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https://youtu.be/PZz3dXCG3Oo?list=PLO1bi4VeyTW7iLDXBKYxh_rG_ovxGkihz

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THE BEADY EYE SAYS: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS NOT A SETTLED SCIENCE;

05 Sunday Feb 2017

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in Artificial Intelligence., Big Data., France., Google Knowledge., HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, Humanity., Innovation., Our Common Values., Technology, The Future, The world to day., Unanswered Questions., What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage.

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Artificial Intelligence., Technology, The Future of Mankind, Visions of the future.

 

( A seven minute read)

I HAVE WRITTEN ON THIS SUBJECT IN PREVIOUS POST : IN WHICH I ADVOCATED THAT THERE IS A URGENT NEED TO GET A HANDLE ON WHAT I CALL COMMERCIAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

ALL FORMS OF AI WHETHER THEY BE APPS OR PRODUCTS CONTAINING ALGORITHMS SHOULD BE VETTED BY AN INDEPENDENT WORLD ORGANIZATION TO ENSURE THEIR TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY.

Like all threats in the world the threat that Artificial Intelligence poses to the world will only be recognised when it is too late.Afficher l'image d'origine

WHY?

Because:  We live in a world where there is very little left that is biennial.

We can rest assured that the world of technology will follow suite, creating more inequality than anything we have seen to date.

In the old days, you would need a rule set to say ‘if this happens, do that.

With AI there are no such mantra. It’s a free for all in sundry, irrelevant of any legal system or ethics. 

Because: We are only beginning to scratch the surface with AI chatbots.

The sudden surge in interest in AI is closely linked to big data a more recent tech trend that has breathed fresh life into commercial AI development for profit.

General-purpose AI is still, at least for now, the domain of science fiction.

Real life AI software, tends to be much more purpose-driven and limited in its applicability. But that doesn’t mean businesses can’t see real value from more modest AI applications.

The market for AI applications is white-hot with huge potential, but that potential needs to be tempered by a heavy dose of realism about the capabilities and business value of artificial intelligence technology.

It’s sort of captured the imagination of the world in general, but the danger we have with AI is expectations getting too high.

What’s different this time is cheap storage, which has allowed companies to stash huge troves of data, a critical need for training machine learning algorithms — the “brains” behind artificial intelligence. Computing power has increased to the point where algorithms can churn through all this data nearly instantaneously.

Facebook announced this month that it would allow businesses to build chatbots using the AI engine in its Messenger app.

Microsoft made a similar announcement last month.

IBM has been one of the bigger players in the AI platform space ever since it made Watson available to developers.

So far developers have used it to build smarter travel planning assistants, shopping recommendation engines and health coaches.

Google, Facebook and other technology giants are racing to apply the technology to consumer products. All are placing serious bets on deep learning, neural networks and natural language processing.

The social media maven recently signaled its commitment to advancing these types of machine learning by hiring Yann LeCun, a well-regarded authority on deep learning and neural nets, to head up its new artificial intelligence (AI) lab.

Insurance companies are looking at applying it to the process of approving medical claims.

Retailers are applying it to customer service and marketing with enterprise technology companies like Salesforce looking to embed it in their software.

But even as businesses are finding real value in AI applications, there’s a widening pitfall.

Success breeds hype, which itself leads to inflated expectations. Should burgeoning AI software fail to live up to unrealistic expectations, it could brew disappointment and stain the technology.

In fact, artificial intelligence has come so far so fast in recent years, it will be pervasive in all new products by 2020.

So we are at a tipping point …

Artificial intelligence belongs to the frontier, not to the textbook.

Artificial intelligence is expected to be ubiquitous within just five years, as developers gain access to cognitive technologies through readily available algorithms.

Artificial intelligence chatbots aren’t the norm yet, but within the next five years, there’s a good chance the sales person emailing you won’t be a person at all.

All of this is proceeding without much scrutiny: So in this post I will perforce analyzed the matter from my own perspective; given my own conclusions and done my best to support them in limited space.

Let’s start with a useful definition of artificial intelligence.

The term “Artificial Intelligence” refers to a vastly greater space of possibilities than does the term “Homo sapiens.” When we talk about “AIs” we are really talking about minds-in-general, or optimization processes in general. It is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence.

While cognitive technologies are products of the field of artificial intelligence.

They are able to perform tasks that only humans used to be able to do.

Organizations in every sector of the economy are already using cognitive technologies in diverse business functions.

If current trends in performance and commercialization continue, we can expect the applications of cognitive technologies to broaden and adoption to grow.

Billions of investment dollars have flowed to hundreds of companies building products based on machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, or robotics suggests that many new applications are on their way to market.

We also see ample opportunity for organizations to take advantage of cognitive technologies to automate business processes and enhance their products and services.

If you look at technology we have to-day you could say that it is the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.

We must execute the creation of Artificial Intelligence as the exact application of an exact art.

And maybe then we can win.

I suspect that, pragmatically speaking, our alternatives boil down to becoming smarter or becoming extinct.

Historians will look back and describe the present world as an awkward in between stage of adolescence, when humankind was smart enough to create tremendous problems for itself, but not quite smart enough to solve them.

We are for the moment subject to natural selection which isn’t friendly, nor does it hate you, nor will it leave you alone.

The point about underestimating the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence is symmetrical around potential good impacts and potential bad impacts.

When something is universal enough in our everyday lives, we take it for granted to the point of forgetting it exists.

It may be tempting to ignore Artificial Intelligence because,of all the global risks but we do so AT GRAVE RISK OF CREATING A DIGITAL DIVIDE WORLD.  Afficher l'image d'origine

We cannot query our own brains for answers about nonhuman optimization processes— whether bug-eyed monsters, natural selection, or Artificial Intelligences.

DUP-1030_WP-intro-image

How then may we proceed?

How can we predict what Artificial Intelligences will do?

The human species came into existence through natural selection, which operates through the non chance retention of chance mutations.

Artificial Intelligence comes about through a similar accretion of working algorithms, with the researchers having no deep understanding of how the combined system works. Nonetheless they believe the AI will be friendly,with no strong visualization of the exact processes involved in producing friendly behavior, or any detailed understanding of what they mean by friendliness.

Friendly AI is an impossibility, because any sufficiently powerful AI will be able to modify its own source code to break any constraints placed upon it.

This does not imply the AI has the motive to change its own motives.

Sufficiently tall skyscrapers don’t potentially start doing their own engineering.

Humanity did not rise to prominence on Earth by holding its breath longer than other species.

Humans evolved to model other humans—to compete against and cooperate with our own conspecifics.

Robots will not.

It’s mistaken belief that an AI will be friendly which implies an obvious path to global catastrophe.

Artificial Intelligence is not an amazing shiny expensive gadget to advertise in the latest tech magazines.

Artificial Intelligence does not belong in the same graph that shows progress in medicine, manufacturing, and energy.

Artificial Intelligence is not something you can casually mix into a lumpen futuristic scenario of skyscrapers and flying cars and nanotechnologies red blood cells that let you hold your breath for eight hours.

A sufficiently powerful Artificial Intelligence could overwhelm any human resistance and wipe out humanity. (And the AI would decide to do so.)

Therefore we should not build AI.

On the other hand.

A sufficiently powerful AI could develop new medical technologies capable of saving millions of human lives. (And the AI would decide to do so.)

Therefore we should build AI.

Once computers become cheap enough, the vast majority of jobs will be performable by Artificial Intelligence more easily than by humans.

A sufficiently powerful AI would even be better than us at math, engineering, music, art, and all the other jobs we consider meaningful. (And the AI will decide to perform those jobs.) Thus after the invention of AI, humans will have nothing to do, and we’ll starve or watch television.

So should we prefer that nanotechnology precede the development of AI, or that AI precede the development of nanotechnology?

As presented, this is something of a trick question.

The answer has little to do with the intrinsic difficulty of nanotechnology as an existential risk, or the intrinsic difficulty of AI. So far as ordering is concerned, the question we should ask is, “Does AI help us deal with nanotechnology? Does nanotechnology help us deal with AI?”

The danger of confusing general intelligence with Artificial Intelligence  is that it leads to tremendously underestimating the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence.

The best way I can think of to train computers to be able to get them watch a lot of videos and observe what they Predict.

Prediction is the essence of intelligence.

All scientific ignorance is hallowed by ancientness.Philosophy of A.I. Searles strong AI hypothesis: "The appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs & output...

Here is a closing thought.

When a Super Intelligent Robot returns to earth from a voyage in space how can it be trusted to tell us the truth.

Exactly how AI systems should be integrated together is still up for debate.

With every advance, and particularly with the advances in machine learning and deep learning more recently,we get more tools to fuck up the world we all live on.

Ours is a less than excessively age.

We know so much and feel so little.

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THE BEADY EYE ASKS: Is François Hollande Re-Electable?

29 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by bobdillon33@gmail.com in France., French Politics.

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Community cohesion, Distribution of wealth, French poltics, The French forthcoming Presidential Election 2017

(One minute read)

At the moment, it seems as if he had only one overriding goal:

The most unpopular French leader in postwar history.

To run for re-election in 2017 — despite everything.

He still has 18 months left to shed his reputation as the most hapless president of the Fifth Republic.Afficher l'image d'origine

When government spending accounts for nearly 60% of the economy, the private sector goes about business in a straight jacket faithfully following rules, regulations and edicts handed down from socialist leaning politicians and professional bureaucrats.

The idea that France will crawl out of its economic coma is sheer fantasy– a virtually impossible mission.

The elite of the bureaucrats and politicians, including Mr Hollande attended the Ecole Nationale d’Administration which manufactures a ruling class with a firm political grip on the country.

About 5 million Frenchmen are now out of work,a figure that would have been much higher had the French statistics office not revised its method of calculation.

His achievement that Le Pen has managed to turn the Front from a protest party into a real political force. Instead of opposing Le Pen’s nationalism, he has continued the policies of his predecessor, Sarkozy, a policy of empty promises and hollow words.

The Front National now has twice as many seats in the European Parliament as his own Socialist Party.

In a perfect world both Hollande and Cameron will be prosecuted by the ICC for destabilizing Libya and Syria, killing 300,000 Syrians, making millions refugees, and causing the terrible refugee/migrant crisis in Europe.

By tying his reelection bid so clearly to the unemployment rate, which has risen almost uninterrupted for the past 33 months, Hollande has given himself an exit.

HERE ARE A FEW HARD FACTS WHY FRANCE IS IN SUCH A MESS.

Every year thousands of foreigners are tempted to set up a business in France. Unfortunately, what were dreams often turn into nightmares and the number of foreigners who have succeeded in business is remarkably low.

Even for the French, setting up a business is renowned to be incredibly tough.

Compared to the U.K. and the U.S. there is an enormous amount of complicated paperwork, not just to set up the company, but also to run it afterwards, never mind to close it.

The only solution is to “waste” money on lawyers and accountants in the hope that they do a good job, or do the best you can yourself.

Apart from the natural drawbacks of cultural and language differences, foreigners have an enormous disadvantage when it comes to the limited extent of their contacts:

French business thrives on personal contacts. “Most deals are done as a result of friendship rather than the quality or price of a product.”

Unfortunately, foreigners are unlikely to have networks here, so unless you have the means to recruit someone with hundreds of pals in high up places you may find it very difficult to expand the scope of your business beyond the Anglophone community.

Something else to bear in mind is that successful businessmen in France are regarded by the public with a mixture of awe, jealousy and suspicion.

This might explain why France is so short of people raring to create their own companies and so full of people dying to get careers in the civil service.

Unfortunately it also means that as an employer you’re never right. Employees who are sacked are always right, as is the “fisc” (or tax office).

If your company eventually fails, you may well end up being responsible for the liabilities, even though the structure of the company appeared to offer “limited liability.”

In spite of all this, LIVING IN FRANCE unearthed a few survivors.

“I think it’s extremely important to know French people, to have French friends who can help you to approach the system with the right attitude.” It is all about understanding the system, trying to cooperate with the authorities and filling out the forms correctly.

In France paperwork is much more important THAN EARNING A LIVING.

Without serious labor reforms and easier entry into the marketplace by French entrepreneurs and policies that make it better for them to be in France and not emigrate elsewhere for better business tax climate, he is wasting his time and the French public’s as well.

I would describe him as tactician president so well suited for internal party politics and so inadequate as a leader will avoid any meaningful reform and claim that success as his own.

He has become a joke.

He keeps making promises which have no chance of ever materializing, refuses to see reality even when it hits him in the face and his administration is the most incompetent since World War II. Piketty, the famous economist, is so disgusted with him (the way we all are here in France) that he turned down the Legion of Honor.

Pathetic president, government. The country slides further towards Greece.

France needs a President without tunnel vision.

Hell will freeze over before the French established order cedes real support to its home-grown, fledgling commercial talent/wealth creators. That’s why most leave.

Tow the line i.e. ‘do as you’re told and work for the government (social elite), or we’ll have ya’ is the French way of things. Great, if you’re one of them.

France tolerates no-one that sits outside the narrow confines of centrist power. No Second Chamber, no Religion, increasingly no EU and definitively not the lowest of the low, some maverick start up businessman with big ideas.

The climate in France is revolutionary – at least according to commentators in parts of the French media.Afficher l'image d'origine

Polls show that there is now a general “ras l’bol” (fed-upness) in France with successive governments’ inability to solve France’s massive problems.

A beautiful country where everything is Interdire ( Prohibited)

France won’t be saved by bureaucracy nor by Le Pen (The Front National created by Jean-Marie Le Pen), which used Vichy legislation as a blueprint for its own anti-immigration programme.

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