French president says Peugeot layoffs are unacceptable

[Crazed Rabbit]

I'm talking about real estate which does not produce anything, of course.

If you have a spare million today, the answer to what to do with it is "buy houses". We need to make it so the answer is "invest in a business".

And buying tenant houses and taking the profits from that into production is what we want. We are not there, however. If you buy tenant houses, the only logical choice for where to put the profits is buying another tenant house.

Gee, maybe then you need a President who insists on second guessing every big business decision and then 'not accepting it' if he doesn't like it (how much legal power does the French President have in this regard, anyway?). Maybe you need to get rid of stupid laws that make it hard to fire workers, and oodles of regulations that drastically increase the cost of doing business. Like in Washington state, to start a liquor distillery, you have to rent the commercial property where you'll make the booze and then apply for the permit. Getting the permit takes 1 to 2 years, during which you have no income and have to keep renting the commercial property and paying rent. So the cost can easily be one million dollars.

The government has to accept they can't pick winners and losers in the economy and simply make it easier for everyone to succeed by getting out of the way.

while house ownership should be made less profitable

For crying out loud, why would you want to make something less profitable and lower the GDP?

This sort of meddling is what causes the most issues in the first place. Economically ignorant ministers decide they want to force their whim onto the economy and they end up hampering it.

What companies would be so stupid to invest in France when there's going to be a 90% tax on salaries above 1.25Million and so many business constricting regulations?

Its reasonable because left to their own devices, almost any large corporation will reach a point where the best course of action (in order to generate more money) runs contrary to what is good for the people and the nation.

(Barring regulation on workers rights and the environment and the like) - Who determines what's good for the people and the nation? Some small cadre of government officials deciding among themselves what is good for the nation? This is (supposedly) a free nation, where other people don't get to tell you how to invest because they say your plan isn't 'good for the nation'.

CR

[HoreTore]

For crying out loud, why would you want to make something less profitable and lower the GDP?

This statement has so little thought put into it that I lost the will to comment on your post.

Which isn't all that bad, since the rest of your post seems to argue against points I have never made...