To justify the inadequacy of education funding, and in particular the decrease in spending per student, the government and its supporters argue that France cannot afford to invest more. They are making two reasoning errors. Public debt has indeed risen from 20% of GDP in 1970 to 120% today. But at the same time, private wealth has grown much more dramatically: It has gone from 300% to 600% of GDP, with extreme concentration among the wealthiest financial fortunes. In other words, France’s national wealth – the sum of private and public assets minus private and public debts – has never been so high, not only in absolute terms but also as a percentage of GDP (which itself has never been higher).
I sense a trend here.
and rising non‑financial assets, with average wealth growing faster than global economic output. However, gains were uneven, with differences across regions and wealth segments.
More at link.
As of January 1, 2026, the collective net worth of America’s top 12 billionaires now surpasses $2.7 trillion. Their combined wealth has more than quadrupled, up from $608 billion on March 18, 2020, according to Institute for Policy Studies analysis of Forbes Real Time Billionaire Data.
Comparing the wealthiest Americans in 1918 and 2025, economist Paul Krugman finds that today’s top fortunes represent a significantly larger share of both national wealth and economic output than they did during the Gilded Age, an era commonly associated with the extreme concentration of wealth.
The weird (?) part of it all is that French government spending is already 55-60% of their GDP. It would appear the government needs to shift its spending, not spend more.
I do. I have a neighbor who is a doctor. Plenty of money. Doesn’t spend a dime, house looks like crap, yard overgrown, etc.
When he’s visiting his kids I feed his cats, and the inside of the house looks like the outside. The kitchen is from the 1950’s even though it’s an 80”s house. Stuff piled on an ironing board because the dining room table is already full. Etc.
Yeah he hoards money, but everything else, too. (Broken down car in the driveway, hasn’t moved in 8 years,) Yeah, I criticize
It’s not propaganda it’s a Rand chart illustrating just how massive the spending is in France compared to communist countries at their peak to GDP. It is in fact a dire warning for the US as well. What it tells us is that high spending paired with diminishing economic growth does not work long term. Despite the fact that they have free college, free health care, generous pensions and so on, it is never enough, even when it exceeds the spending of full blown communist countries. “The more the govt spends the worst the conditions get for people”
it’s the worst kind of ignorance when someone else’s politics prevents you from seeing the truth. But, this has become the insidiousness of the left and the narrowness of their Overton window, to only agree and listen to those that also share their ideology. By the way, I would hardly call him a super supporter. Of course, the Rand research group is agnostic politically and is the source of the chart.
The chart is pretty meaningless without including something about “what it pays for.”
For example, there’s a huge chunk in the “big” numbers - like public health care, that isn’t in the US number. You could argue that the US system is superior, except that every independent study says it isn’t, that we pay more, receive less, and have lower life expectancies than lots of countries with “public health”. But you could make the argument, I guess.
Also in some of those other numbers are things like “free or highly subsidized higher education”, a more generous social safety net, and so on. On the other side, we spend a higher percentage on defense and military than do most comparable countries.
The podcast referenced it as a Rand research. Does it matter? It doesn’t to me only what the data seems to show. France is spending more as a % GDP than communist countries at their peak. It is unsustainable and people still are unhappy and riot. What does it say about the ineffectiveness of continued govt spending?
