Those French... tsk tsk

I was watching the riots in France a few hours ago on CNN and Fox. France’s Prime Minister and President are supporting a “New Jobs Contract” that is supposed to make their business more “flexible.” I haven’t seen an article that adequately describes what this “contract” does but apparently, it allows employers to fire newly-hired workers within two years with no reason. Here in America, it’s called probation. [sarcasm]Imagine that—an employer can now fire employees![/sarcasm]

It amazes to see the entitlement attitude of Europeans, particularly those from the more western states. They come off as being a people who feel that the world owes them a stable job and an excellent benefits package. I keep asking, “Where are they getting this money to support themselves?” American safety nets are laughable in comparison to the Europeans ones and yet those programs take up so much of our budget (which is F*cking gi-normous already.) If I remember correctly, Medicare and Medicaid alone used to eat up more money than our military. (I’m not sure if it does currently but it’s damn close.)

If Europe is going to increase their competitiveness in the global economy, they are going to have to make some hard choices. With their growth agonizingly slow, high unemployment rates, and a population bust, they are not doing any favors by purposefully stagnating. That combined with the ever decreasing cost of labor, and hot heads like China and India rising, they face becoming even more irrelevant in the global economy.

So what if these students loose their jobs in two years? If they had a booming economy with job creation—then they would get another one. Apparently that’s what this “contract” is trying to create. There’s a big world out there beyond France’s borders and people are getting fired and hired left and right. The lack of job security forces people to excel at their job (decrease their odds of being fired) and attain new skills (increase their odds of being hired.) If I knew that I wasn’t going to be fired, I sure as hell wouldn’t be as productive as I could be.