Political Polarization in EU [& USA] Based on Economic Issues

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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The French Farm union is protesting in France over economic issues. Previous farmer protests have occurred in Poland Romania. And now a farmer protest has arisen in Germany.
The farmers protest are based on economic concerns. And political parties hope to cash in on that anger.
Charges of the protests are being co-oped by radical extremists are being levied by the German present government.
You may remember the yellow vests protest in France based upon income inequality. Macron managed to deflect the anger by having local meeting to hear the b*tching. It was a very long drawn out affair to let the anger ebb and let economics force the workers to return to their occupations. The protest did last a year though. And little was done to ameliorate the economic basis of the protest. And so the embers remain to enflame the people.

It is very hard to separate economics and politics. Politicians set the table on how the economic system is run and hopefully the table is level.
Unions were originally formed so workers could protest a business entity’s leadership.
And now it seems more & more people within the US & the EU view the economic table as tilted and rigged. And that it continues regardless of which political party’s hand is on the tiller. In fact, it seems to be getting worse as more homeless people appear on the streets of the USA & EU[1].
So now their protests are aimed at disrupting national economies and governments.
So what happens now? Or what does the unrest portend for the future?
An End of Times[2]?

France24 has reported upon the protests and has indicated that far-right French political parties hope to take advantage of the anger of the farmers.

Politico covers the protests but claim they have been co-oped by far right political parties who have the intent to disrupt and perhaps even overthrow the present government.

“Right-wing extremists and other enemies of democracy are trying to infiltrate and instrumentalize the protests,” a spokesperson for Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, said in Berlin. The country’s federal police, Faeser added, believe these groups want to foment a “general strike” or even rioting to trigger an “overthrow” of the government.

The above is quite a charge. Or is it the government’s attempt to tarnish the protest?

In any case we know there is now a far left [my opinion] political party is being formed in Germany which supports the farmers strike.

Wagenknecht, who maintained her seat in Germany’s Bundestag parliament when she abandoned the Left Party in October, said BSW would work toward overcoming the “incompetence and arrogance” of Berlin’s current coalition government, claiming many voters “feel left behind.”
“Left behind” in an economic connotation.

In outlining the party’s policies, Wagenknecht and her colleagues said BSW will focus on establishing “social justice” by advocating left-leaning economic policies — job security, higher wages, generous benefits and a revamped tax system; combined with restrictive migration policy.

Wagenknecht: ‘Left’ has become an empty label

Wagenknecht said the party would avoid calling itself “leftist” as the term has been reduced to questions of “gender and lifestyle,” becoming devoid of any real meaning.

She also voiced support for the aggressive farmers’ protests playing out across Germany, saying, “They [the farmers] see a government that has no plan other than to take the money that has already become tighter out of their pockets.”

[1]

[2]https://peterturchin.com/

When the equilibrium between ruling elites and the majority tips too far in favor of elites, political instability is all but inevitable

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Opinion polls signal EU election result could hamper climate action
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/opinion-polls-signal-eu-election-result-could-hamper-climate-action-research-2024-01-23/
EU citizens are set in June to elect a new EU parliament - the body of 705 lawmakers which, alongside member countries’ representatives, passes new EU policies and laws. The election is expected to yield more seats for populist, right-wing parties, and losses for centre-left and green parties, producing an “anti-climate policy action” coalition in the Parliament, according to a study commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank…

To demonstrate the potential post-election shift, the researchers compared a recent EU Parliament vote on a law to restore nature against how the same vote could play out after the 2024 elections.

The EU Parliament passed the law in July by just 12 votes. If the same vote was held after the 2024 elections, based on the projected outcome, the researchers said parties opposed to the law could reject it by 72 votes.

DB2

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As long as people vote against their economic interests, there will continue to be chaos.

The only reason someone making less than $300,000/yr should be voting GOP, is because they like the dog whistling on black & brown people, or they’re anti-abortion. The economic policies favored by the Party are killing them.

intercst

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iirc, the beef in Germany is the government is considering cutting the subsidy on diesel fuel that farmers enjoy. We would see a much larger “outrage” in the US, if the fuel ethanol mandate was repealed, because it creates a huge market for corn.

Steve

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As in "get all the “others” off welfare, and I can have a tax cut (they think), and “get all the “others” out of the country, and maybe I can get a better job”.

There was a piece on PBS a few days ago about the rise of the Bund in the US, and the seeds of division they sowed, to attract members.

Steve

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Well, there’s a lot of those people.
The anti-abortion people are pretty intractable - religion don’t you know.
Some of the dog whistle listeners can be swayed at times - especially if the brown/black people aren’t visible living in their part of town.

Not much to be done about it and still be a democracy.

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The “others” don’t need to be living in their neighborhood, because some demagogue will be telling them about “young bucks on food stamps”, “welfare queens” and “the Octomom”.

Steve

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Food stamps = most low-income states. Lots of stories in the news, so it is something “everybody knows”.

Welfare queens = the wealthy. The only way they can STAY wealthy is if the govt gives them LOTS OF WELFARE.

Octomom? DUGGARS !! 19 and Counting (remember?). 2+times that many kids. Public info again. Supposedly “Christian”, so looks like the label is on the wrong race (again). Or deliberately applied to distract the public.

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The Duggars were white, Christian, and married. The “Octomom” already had six children by the time she had the eight, for a total of 14. But, she is not white, father was Iraqi, and had the eight after her divorce, via IVF. The narrative was that her brood would become a burden on the taxpayers.

Steve

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Would that be the Greens of Portugal?

DB2

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Germany saving the planet is killing Germany. Who is benefitting?

Follow the money (Based on Economics)

The Captain

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So what? Those are excuses to do nothing about them.

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Right or left for economic issues matter to the health of an economy. We had these debates in the 1980s as we moved to supply-side economics.

The fight is over the traditions in the exchange of power. Those traditions being badly damaged are a horror show.

Right or left themselves are not the problem.

Nuff said

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In response to farmers’ threats over the weekend to lay “siege” to Paris, the government ordered the deployment of 15,000 police and gendarmes.

Paris under siege.

Who make up the French farmers.

The turmoil has reopened a sensitive debate in France, the EU’s leading agricultural producer, which has seen the number of farmers shrink from 2.5 million in the 1950s to fewer than half a million today

France’s farming population has not only shrunk dramatically; it is also older than ever before. According to the latest available census, farmers averaged 51.4 years of age in 2020, up from 50.2 in 2010.

Of the 496,000 farmers counted in 2020, almost 200,000 – two fifths of the total – will be eligible for retirement by 2026. Meanwhile, aspiring younger farmers are being priced out of the industry, unable to invest in land and property.

The corollary of a shrinking workforce is an almost symmetrical decline in the total number of farms, down by almost 21% between 2010 and 2020 – a loss of around 100,000 businesses in the space of a decade.

Seems France is moving toward US system of large corporate farms receiving the welfare of agricultural subsidies.

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Tractors block major roads in Europe as farmers begin ‘siege of Paris’
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-europe-68126373
At the heart of the European Green Deal, which sets out how to make Europe climate-neutral by 2050, is a scheme called the Farm to Fork Strategy.

The approach aims to:

  • Halve pesticide use by 2030
  • Reduce fertiliser use
  • Devote at least 10% of agricultural areas to non-agricultural uses (for example by turning it into fallow land, planting non-productive trees or creating ponds)
  • Ensure 25% of the total EU agricultural land is used for organic farming by 2030

These targets are seen by many farmers as unrealistic and expensive.

DB2

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