To understand what is going on in Europe and the world.
We can look at France to see on a micro scale what the problem is, and it comes down to the elites always wanting more money and not enough to go around for everyone else.
In France the yellow vests started protesting in November, the police in plain clothes infiltrated the protests as they always do, to promote violence and make the movement look bad, to try to get public support to swing away from the peaceful protesters.
They are not stupid in France, so to avoid the police infiltrators taking control and sending this thing in reverse, they the protestors organized a women only march, that was impossible for the police to turn violent. :-)
Ten people have died in the revolt and over 1400 have been injured, according to the BBC. But several hundred women wearing yellow vests marched through Paris in a bid to restore a peaceful image to the grassroots protest movement, a day after demonstrations veered once more into violence.
This started off with a protest using the yellow vest that is compulsory to carry in any vehicle this side of the pond, to signify the rural communities need to use their own vehicles to get around the countryside, and raising fuel tax (gasoline/diesel) to pay a supposed levy to combat global warming was the straw that broke the camels back.
The list of demands has grown now to represent a lot more things people want including corporations to pay more tax and people pay less.
Here is just a sample, I urge you to click the link to see the rest.
MPs from France, we inform you of the People's Directives for you to transpose them into LAW.
Zero homeless : URGENT.
Income tax more progressive (more slices).
SMIC ( minimum wage for growth) of 1300 euros net.
Promote small businesses, villages and city centers. (Stop the construction of large commercial areas around big cities that kill small business + free parking in city centers).
Large Insulation Plan for housing. (to make ecological savings for households).
That BIG (Macdo, Google, Amazon, Crossroads ...) pay BIG and that small (artisans, TPE,PME– SME and Microenterprises) pay small.
Same system of social security for all (including artisans and self-entrepreneurs). End of the RSI ( the social regime of the self-employed).
The pension system must remain in solidarity and therefore socialized. (No retirement at peak).
End of the tax increase on fuel.
No pension below 1200 euros. Please take a look.
The amount of rural people in France is not large and only around 19%.
81.4 % of the population is urban (53,298,174 people in 2019) Source.
That matters not though, the fact is austerity in France, Europe and a lot of countries in the world is dividing the haves and the have not's to breaking point, with more and more homeless year upon year. I wrote before how the top 1% own more than half the worlds wealth.
The current system of fractional reserve banking and capitalism is at fault.
With there never being enough money in the system to pay off the loaded on debt, this was always going to end badly.
The countries banks are believed to have about a quarter of the cash needed to weather a bank run.
If reports are true in saying 70 per cent of the population plans to withdraw all their euros, it means more than 46 million people will be directly revolting against the system.
This could lead to a systemic banking crisis in the country where almost all the banking capital is wiped out.
HOW COULD IT AFFECT ECONOMY?
France has the seventh largest economy in the world and the second largest in Europe, valued at $US2.58 trillion, according to world bank data.
It relies heavily on tourism and agriculture to sustain this — and boasts being the most visited country in the world.
If a bank run leads to widespread financial crisis it can result in a long economic recession for businesses and consumers who don’t have enough money. Source.
I note this has also now swept it's way across the channel to the UK this weekend.
Meanwhile right-wing, Brexit-supporting activists have signalled their intent to hold demonstrations in British cities, including the capital, under the banner “#YellowVestUK”.
For me Macron was nothing but a elite puppet placed in power to put the final squeeze on people, to get them to breaking point, I see the same thing happening to Canada also, where people will not be able to afford to heat their own home due to massive tax hikes on fuels, though I will leave that post for another time.
How is this all going to play out? Not sure, though one thing I am sure about, is austerity is about to end, and the top 1% are going to have to start paying their share of tax, banks will have to start playing fair and corporations are going to have to adapt to also paying their fair share of tax. Viva le France, big up to the UK for joining in. We only need to keep this peaceful and then we "WIN"....................................
@shepz1 has fingers and toes crossed regards this one.
Images pixabay.
Edit, this is well worth a read too. You really don’t want to piss off the French.