Nobody cares. If you ask someone if they want to pay more tax, they will probably always say no. And there was never a plan to dictate salaries. You can still be paid 1 million euros a year if you find someone willing to pay you that amount. But the tax man would take a bigger cut under the new laws of the NFP.
Some people say they want to leave?
First of all, no they don’t. Secondly, no they won’t. France is not Cuba, and lots of high-income Frenchmen still reside there, just like Canadians still work jobs in Canada despite the proximity to the US. They might complain, and shed crocodile tears about high-income earners leaving the country in droves, but they will stay. Like they always have. The West was most prosperous when income taxation was stupid high †. You can be skeptical about the causation effect, but that’s not the point here: there were still Americans and Frenchies in 1964, and rich ones at that. The West was still a capitalist bloc where capital concentrated, if a bit slower than today. Your argument about people leaving is a very tired one, that just won’t pass in 2024.
I won’t respond to the unhinged talking points about closing off borders or not paying foreign debt because nobody’s proposing that. You brought that to the table.
But I will say this: attractivity does matter. I’m not talking about sharks that bring little value to the real economy, but about engineers, doctors, nurses, farmers, teachers, plumbers… who all contribute something tangible to make France run every day, and require sane public infrastructure and a functioning state, which liberals have consistently been sabotaging in the West since the early 90s. And all that requires funding.
I’m not against their selfishness on moral grounds, and don’t want to punish them for being rich. Heck, I’m well-off myself. But their selfishness is against their own interest, and the interest of everybody else for that matter. If you pull the string too hard, it just breaks, and makes life miserable for everyone through things like public infrastructure/services degradation, far-right rise to power, crime…
Won’t somebody think about the poor millionaires?
Nobody cares. If you ask someone if they want to pay more tax, they will probably always say no. And there was never a plan to dictate salaries. You can still be paid 1 million euros a year if you find someone willing to pay you that amount. But the tax man would take a bigger cut under the new laws of the NFP.
Some people say they want to leave? First of all, no they don’t. Secondly, no they won’t. France is not Cuba, and lots of high-income Frenchmen still reside there, just like Canadians still work jobs in Canada despite the proximity to the US. They might complain, and shed crocodile tears about high-income earners leaving the country in droves, but they will stay. Like they always have. The West was most prosperous when income taxation was stupid high †. You can be skeptical about the causation effect, but that’s not the point here: there were still Americans and Frenchies in 1964, and rich ones at that. The West was still a capitalist bloc where capital concentrated, if a bit slower than today. Your argument about people leaving is a very tired one, that just won’t pass in 2024.
I won’t respond to the unhinged talking points about closing off borders or not paying foreign debt because nobody’s proposing that. You brought that to the table.
But I will say this: attractivity does matter. I’m not talking about sharks that bring little value to the real economy, but about engineers, doctors, nurses, farmers, teachers, plumbers… who all contribute something tangible to make France run every day, and require sane public infrastructure and a functioning state, which liberals have consistently been sabotaging in the West since the early 90s. And all that requires funding.
I’m not against their selfishness on moral grounds, and don’t want to punish them for being rich. Heck, I’m well-off myself. But their selfishness is against their own interest, and the interest of everybody else for that matter. If you pull the string too hard, it just breaks, and makes life miserable for everyone through things like public infrastructure/services degradation, far-right rise to power, crime…
† https://www.liberation.fr/france/2009/03/17/roosevelt-n-epargnait-pas-les-riches_546501/