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There is no better way to measure the level of apathy in a liberal democracy than watching the government poking the people to get his attention, spit on his face, steal in his pocket and get away with it.Usually, the government steals you but restrain on the poke and spit part. But that's not what I'm talking about.
Here's what I'm talking about:
150 millions of euros for the tobacco resellers(emphasis are mine)This is the expression of the quintessence of the Cartesian™ Country¹: a confabulated abstract thought endowed with a transcendental nature, with no concern for reality and concrete consequences whatsoever.
The government presented a plan of 150 millions of euros to help the tobacco resellers, victims of the rise of the taxes. It will concern the most fraught with difficulties, notably those who are close to the borders.
This is brilliant. This is Oh-so French.
So let's put that straight for the majority of non-French in the audience, shall we?
The bureaucraps (that's © Merde in France) in Paris make a titanic booty stealing the people's money.
However, the same bureacraps (and the rest of the gang in the country) spend that titanic booty roughly twice as fast as they collect it (first of all, to pay themselves with the money they stole you so they can keep stealing you money to get paid) and therefore, always need more.
The bureaucraps tax just about everything here, and the more the better.
"Just about everything" includes tobacco, which, as a resurgence of the good old times of the French state monopoly on cancer flavored lollipops and other nicotinic specialties, is probably among the most taxed products already since they know damn well that taxing the fortune of some in France is symbolic enough to flatter the Leftist, but taxing everybody's fag is what will make you a fortune.
Consequently, the bureaucraps increase regularly the taxes on tobacco but, restraining themselves on the poking and spitting, tell you with tremolos in their fatherly voices and tears beading up in the corner of their benevolent eyes that they have to do it for the collective good: they must incite the irresponsible smokers to quit and stop the carnage.
Indeed, there is no worse nightmare for a French bureaucrap than a dead tax payer that could have been used longer.
Today, the bureaucraps badly need a lot more of cash. I mean more than ever before. They've been reproducing and it's been a bad
There's nothing more fertile in France than bureaucraps and bad politics.
The problem is, the increase on tobacco price is going so high this time (I've just heard a retailer complaining that she was to sell 4.80 a pack of smokes that people can find at 2.60 just 2 km farther, crossing the border with Luxembourg. I don't know the price if you go black market though), that it's starting to compromise the very root of the harvesting system.
Yes, that goes Ouch in Bureaucrappia.
This is serious. So serious that it's no time to play nice anymore. Hence the poke ("Hey pal, lookee here"), the spit ("See how I actually care about your sorry self?") and the necessary larceny.
They are about to raise the taxes on tobacco to supposedly incite you to stop buying it, but seeing that it may hurt the resellers and possibly lead them to reconvert to the 7 inches black vinyl stiletto heels² market or the sale of blue puffy stuffed hippopotamus playing the kazoo, instead of that murdering high evil currently butchering inconsiderately the tax payer cattle, they're going to subsidy them with a part of the money they stole you, so they can keep selling you the product they don't want you to buy anymore.
As the fiscal pressure increases in this country, watch for more manifestation of stunning incoherence like this one.
But don't forget that when all is said and done, what's left is a system that is specifically designed to chow down your wealth more than improve your health.
One last detail: the most regrettable in all of this is that we were warned long ago that it can't work differently. Some 200 years ago. By one of our good old blokes.
Nobody is listening in France, but in Texas, the cowboys themselves are interested.
Coincidences don't explain everything.
¹: Friendly advice to the French teenagers who, like I was, are initiated to philosophy enduring Descartes: the freak is useless and worth nothing. Fuck him. In the ear.
²: Insightful and therefore fearsome connoisseurs of the frogman's mind will appreciate.
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