Why are France and the EU in a Death Spiral?
By John Shoemaker
France is on fire. So are the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.
Other European Union countries are also strained by massive protests.
Violent clashes started with High School Students protesting their educational facilities and started burning them. Then, the Leftists, Socialists, Radical Islamists, and Communists took advantage of the chaos and joined in the mess that is spiraling out of control.
No question the French national debt is a huge problem, as it is in the US and other Western countries. France would not make draconian cuts. Politicians want to please. For years, French leadership bent over backward to appease left/socialist demands, and after more than a decade, they are left with no corporate growth, high unemployment - especially for the youth, flawed government hiring policies that encourage non-hiring by employers, little to no research and innovation, high taxes, a high influx of needy people, while welfare/social expenses keep climbing and people demand more and more!!! They are caught in an unsustainable governance spiral that will end in economic collapse, much like Greece, which went into a decade of depression.
Similarly, the US Congress and both political parties fail to address such entitlement spending because it means cuts. France and the EU have a revenue-and-spending problem. The US doesn’t have a tax revenue problem; we have a spending problem. Entitlements take up well more than half of the Federal Government budget.
Entitlement programs (classified under mandatory spending) make up approximately 59% to 60% of the total U.S. federal budget. Major US entitlement and mandatory spending categories account for the vast majority of this share, according to the Peterson Foundation and USAFacts:
Social Security: Around 38% of mandatory spending (roughly 21% to 22.5% of the total federal budget).
Medicare: Around 24% of mandatory spending (roughly 14% of the total federal budget).
Medicaid: Around 16% of mandatory spending.
Other Mandatory Programs: Income security, food stamps (SNAP), unemployment insurance, and federal civilian/military retirement benefits make up the remaining mandatory outlays.
In contrast, discretionary spending (which requires annual congressional appropriations, such as national defense and non-defense agency operations) accounts for roughly 27% of the budget, and net interest on the national debt makes up about 14%.
What politician will say retirement has to start at 68 or 70? That we need to stop all the FRAUD! That we have to reduce expenses by 30%! Trump thinks he can address it with tariffs. But without lower interest rates, interest on our debt exceeds our entire annual military budget.
At the same time, Left Liberal Socialists in the US are crying for free medical care for all, including non-citizens. The cost for this is in the Trillions. The US is already over $35 Trillion in national debt, and there is no stopping it anytime soon.
The quandary: Politicians get votes by giving freebies. They lose when they cut free stuff. This is the weakness of democracies that will eventually move to socialism, which will fail over time with OPM dwindling, and then it moves to a totalitarian situation with a strongman taking control.
I see it as a death spiral, sped up by people who won't work when they can get it for free. Muslims in particular have kids instead of jobs. They expect to be taken care of while they demand more as privileged leeches on society. 80% of first-generation migrants are on welfare after three-plus years in their chosen country and expect to be taken care of for the rest of their lives.
Even worse, the EU has been waging a war on energy…fossil fuels…by closing oil- and coal-fired plants, ordering gas from Russia (that was later cut off), focusing on the Green Climate scam, Globalism, and embracing EVs that were later undercut by cheaper Chinese EVs. The EU's deindustrialization has crippled economic growth. Electricity costs have skyrocketed. Companies and manufacturing plants have closed. Opportunities lost. France avoided some of the electrical issues by maintaining a focus on nuclear energy.
Aggravating all this is a massive transitional change expected by migrants who bring the cultural beliefs that failed them but want to re-establish them in their new country. It makes no sense to repeat/renew a flawed society. It is a recipe for disaster. Western cultures in the EU are under assault, and virtue-signaling, compliant politicians allowed massive, unvetted migration totaling millions of immigrants, many of whom are Muslims, who will be overthrowing the existing cultures, and the process will lead to war.
How long will it take for the same spiral to gain speed in the United States?
The process has started. Muslims are now in control of many US cities where Sharia Law is practiced.
Such diversity is not constructive. Without assimilation, diversity enables division.
Division creates unrest and can slide into sedition.
Our future is in danger.