Stefan Schubert on X - "Astonishing chart showing that since 1995, average Spanish pensions have grown 1.9%, while average salaries have grown 0.2%. Over time that's added up to pensions growing ~65%, while salaries have barely grown at all in real terms. A problem in many countries."
France is slipping into anarchy - "The aviation metaphor was apt given that 24 hours earlier Michael O’Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, had said France, particularly its air traffic controllers, was “the byword for inefficiency and incompetence”. President Macron would disagree. He believes the Republic is in fine fettle and on Monday he expressed his excitement at the forthcoming “Choose France” summit at which businesses will be encouraged to invest. Why would anyone wish to invest in France right now? The country is on its fourth prime minister in a year and the National Assembly resembles what one MP described recently as a “psychiatric hospital”... France’s business leaders are in despair. Dozens signed an open letter at the weekend begging the political class to show some leadership, and not just simply impose more taxes. The National Audit Office is also at its wits’ end, warning that France has “lost control over the trajectory of social finances”. The social security deficit is forecast to reach €23bn this year, which the Office said was neither healthy nor sustainable. An increasing number of French accuse their president of being in denial. Macron refuses to accept responsibility for the chaos he has unleashed on the country by calling a snap election in June 2024. He carries on as normal, convinced that he is the cleverest man in the room. Last week Macron hosted the Paris Peace Forum where conflict prevention and peacebuilding were high on the agenda. Instead of worrying about international conflicts, Macron should perhaps focus his attention closer to home. A couple of days after the Forum there were a spate of shootings in the capital which left one dead and three wounded, believed to be linked to the increasingly violent drug cartels whose deadly trade is stretching into every town and city in France. Rarely does a week go by without news of another killing: in Marseille, Paris, Dijon, Rennes, or sometimes in quiet backwaters such as Audincourt, close to the Swiss border. The Louvre heist may have grabbed the global headlines for its audacity (and incompetency) but there have been other brazen attacks before and since. In September, a lone thief broke into the Museum of Natural History in Paris and stole gold nuggets worth €1.5m euros from a display case. Last month a 24-year-old Chinese woman was arrested in Spain in connection with the theft. At the start of last week, saboteurs destroyed a section of railway line between Lyon and Avignon. The vandalism affected services between the south of France and Paris for 24 hours. Police suspect that it may be the work of the same anarchist cell which attacked the country’s rail system on the eve of last year’s Paris Olympics. On Thursday, men brandishing assault rifles blew the doors off a gold refining laboratory in Lyon and helped themselves to 306kg of precious metals worth €28m. They were later caught but police in Paris are still looking for the thieves who on the same day stole €200,000 worth of jewels from the Swarovski store. Robberies against commercial targets have increased by 15 per cent in the last four years. Most crimes are on the up in France, including assault, rape and attempted murder. There is a power vacuum in France. The country has no stable government, no coherent strategy and a president whose approval rating has plunged to a record low of 11 per cent."
The French have just endured their most embarrassing week yet - "Even Macron can’t brush off his 14 per cent approval rating or the fact his prime minister had resigned and been reappointed in the space of four shambolic days. The PM, Sébastien Lecornu, narrowly avoided losing a vote of no confidence last Thursday, but on Friday there was more humiliation when a third ratings agency downgraded France’s credit in the space of a month... France’s economic mismanagement has not gone unnoticed among its neighbours. The “Pigs” – Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain – were until recently held up as the example of European countries incapable of putting their financial house in order. But all have made solid progress in bringing their public finances under better control. Not so the French, whose debt continues to rise and is predicted to reach 121 per cent of GDP by the end of 2028. As the centre-Right Le Figaro remarked last week: “From Portugal to Italy, everyone is mocking a country mired in deficits and deadlock.” Spain’s El Mundo newspaper recently warned that France has become “chaotic and dangerous for Europe”, and it pointed the finger at the president, saying Macron “no longer has any control, and worse still, he has no plan for France, he has nothing to offer.” Macron certainly seems like a man without a plan when it comes to mass immigration. Despite repeated promises to tackle an issue that preoccupies the vast majority of the French, legal and illegal immigration continues to soar. There are now 7.7 million immigrants in France, which is more than 11 per cent of the population. Last Thursday, Guillaume Larrivé resigned as head of the Office for Immigration and Integration. He had been in his post for a month. In that short time he had concluded that his job was hopeless because the government has abandoned “any ambition to reduce immigration”. That was the gist of what Britain’s border security commander, Martin Hewitt, told a committee of MPs last week. He said he was “frustrated” by France’s delay in introducing new tougher tactics to stop smugglers launching the small boats across the Channel. On Saturday 369 people in seven boats crossed from France to England, bringing the number this year to nearly 37,000. Don’t expect the small boats to stop any time soon. The new interior minister is Laurent Nuñez, a centrist and Macron loyalist, who has replaced the Right-wing Bruno Retailleau. In his first interview Nuñez distanced himself from his predecessor’s hardline rhetoric. “We must be careful about the words we use,” he said, rejecting the idea that France was being “submerged” by immigrants."
France can't stand another humiliation like this - "It is not just the Socialists who are cock-a-hoop. So are two-thirds of the French, who objected to the reform from the moment it was tabled in 2023 because it raised the age of retirement from 62 to 64. Most European countries have increased the retirement age in recent years to between 65 and 67, a recognition of demographic changes with the population ageing and the workforce shrinking. France is going in the other direction to the horror of business leaders. Patrick Martin, the president of Medef, the country’s largest employer federation, warned recently that returning the retirement age to 62 would send “a terrible message to the financial markets, signalling that France is unreformable”. The Ministry of the Economy estimated earlier this month that the cost of suspending the pension reform bill would be €400m in 2026 and €1.8bn in 2027. The cost to France’s credibility is incalculable. The business-friendly Le Figaro newspaper wrote a despairing editorial on Tuesday in which it lamented the fact that “France continues to believe in the old ideas that are leading it to ruin. Inoculated nearly 50 years ago, the socialist poison continues to wreak havoc.” France’s state debt stands at €3.5tn and two-thirds of this sum comes from social benefits. The debt began to soar in the 1980s, the decade in which François Mitterrand came to power, the first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic. In 1982, one year after his election victory, Mitterrand reduced the age of retirement from 65 to 60. He also appointed a minister of free time. The French were living the Socialist Dream. At the start of 2000 Socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin introduced the 35-hour week. Within four years the government admitted it was a “disaster”. The then finance minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said it had saddled the State with €11.4bn a year in additional social charges, explaining: “The Socialists made a decision which is not compatible with our responsibilities.”"
France and Britain are in thrall to pensioners - "What do Theresa May and Andy Burnham have in common with Michel Barnier, François Bayrou and Emmanuel Macron? All five were admirably honest with the public about the trade-offs inherent in financing an ageing society, and all five were duly punished for their candour by the public, the press, opposition politicians or all three. The past two decades of French and British politics are a graveyard of proposals to slow the upward ratchet of spending on growing elderly populations. The same two decades of French and British fiscal balances show the results. Public disbursements to older citizens have climbed higher and faster than in peer countries, and debt-to-GDP ratios have followed suit... In the UK, the problems are twofold. First is the trashing of both major parties’ attempts to move some of the eye-watering costs of elderly care on to those most able to afford it. Britain’s health and care bill for over-65s has doubled since the turn of the millennium, and absent commensurate increases in revenue is both squeezing out spending on infrastructure and increasing borrowing. Second is the “triple lock’” on the state pension, which guarantees that payments rise each year by whatever is the highest out of inflation, wage growth or 2.5 per cent — an extraordinary deal which guarantees that pension spending growth outpaces pensioner population growth, and ensures elderly living standards increase at a faster rate than everyone else’s. In addition to slowly suffocating Britain’s public finances, this has created a society where children are now more likely to live in poverty than their great-grandparents. The picture across the channel is even more extreme. Not only do French pensioners receive larger cheques from the government than their counterparts anywhere else in the west, they start getting them several years earlier. The result is a situation in which over-65s now have higher average incomes than the working age population — unique both internationally and in France’s own history. Even the rumour of threats to this arrangement is met with mass public outrage and opposition from left and right... In a particularly stunning statistic highlighted by French political analyst François Valentin, pensions play such an outsized role in the country’s public finances that they accounted for one-sixth of the ministry of defence budget last year, and without them France would not meet Nato’s 2 per cent target for military spending. It is a mark of how untouchable pensions and pensioners have become that French opposition parties have instead taken to proposing ever more creative and poorly-thought-through taxes on ever smaller slivers of the population, with the hoped-for receipts nonetheless falling short of what would be saved from barely-perceptible moderations to pensions. In the UK, meanwhile, even the most optimistic estimates for the proceeds of a wealth tax come in at less than the annual excess cost that the triple lock imposes over and above a pension indexed solely to earnings growth. There is little sign that generational turnover will help, either. Hopes that baby boomers’ grip on Britain’s public finances would be weakened following Labour’s victory in last year’s general election — the first time boomers had been on the losing side in a UK vote since they were born — proved naive. The chancellor was quickly forced to reverse plans to make pensioners’ winter heating subsidies means-tested, and voters declared Labour’s poor treatment of pensioners the low point of their start to government. Voters often accuse politicians of fiscal sleight of hand, but here they are complicit in presuming ever larger pension cheques can be conjured like rabbits from a hat. At some point, both groups must confront mathematical reality."
France and Germany are the eurozone’s new basket cases - "Germany’s finances have looked considerably more strained ever since 16 federal states approved a historic loosening of the country’s debt borrowing rules in March. The vote tore up Germany’s “Schuldenbremse”, which limited borrowing to 0.35pc of GDP a year, and paved the way for up to €1tn (£830bn) of debt-fuelled infrastructure and defence spending over the next decade. The move, which marks a serious departure from Germany’s historically conservative fiscal policy, was described by Deutsche Bank economists as “one of the most historic paradigm shifts in German postwar history”. Still, the constitutional tremors that have shaken Berlin are almost nothing compared to the political and economic earthquake that has rocked France to its very core, leaving it at risk of becoming the new sick man of Europe. Engulfed by political turmoil and battling spiralling debts, Paris has had to contend with speculation long considered unthinkable. Will La République ultimately have to beg for an IMF bailout? Amid suggestions that France could become the new Greece, or indeed the new Italy, Rome-based national newspaper Il Messaggero mocked: “So where is the grandeur now?” The deteriorating fortunes of these two stalwarts are just one half of a major shift in which the eurozone’s financial landscape has been flipped on its head. While Germany and France are gripped by varying degrees of fiscal uncertainty, other countries that were once considered Europe’s basket cases are being lauded for their financial restraint. Economists point to Spain’s rapidly improving budget deficit, which is on course to be smaller than Germany’s for the first time in almost two decades. Spain is by no means a paragon of economic virtue. Brussels estimates that the Spanish economy is already on a decelerating course, with growth of 2.9pc this year tipped to slip to 2.3pc next year, then 2pc in 2027, according to the autumn economic projections published today. What’s more, the commission lists it as the European Union’s country with the highest unemployment rate, with forecasts putting it at 10pc this year. But some of Spain’s big data compares very favourably to that of the bloc’s bigger economies, particularly when you consider that it was one of the most high-profile casualties of the eurozone debt crisis. In 2012, Spain was granted a €100bn bailout from member states, though it only drew down €41bn from the package... During the eurozone meltdown, Spain’s debt levels ballooned from about 35pc of GDP in 2007 to more than 100pc as it clocked up deficits of up to 11.5pc of GDP a year. Germany, by contrast, ran budget surpluses of up to 1.9pc of GDP in the six years to 2019. Comparisons with France are even more flattering. Bond markets will now lend money to socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s government more cheaply than they will to France – a country long regarded as one of the safest eurozone borrowers – and Italy, Europe’s third-largest economy."
Meme - "Oasis Aqualounge. 4.0. 504 Google reviews. Social club"
"Mary. 1 review. 10 months ago. My kids hated it here, terrible mac n cheese."
Response from the owner 10 months ago: "We believe that you are leaving a review for the wrong business. We are water-themed, sex club in downtown Toronto that welcomes adults 19+. It is not a restaurant- nor is it child friendly"
Nayib Bukele on X - "To Western nations: You can’t build, or even fix, anything on top of societal disorder. Take traffic, for example. The most logical solution is public transport. But without order, anyone who can afford a car will avoid it, simply because they don’t feel safe using it. In El Salvador, we lack a lot of things, but we have achieved societal order. You, on the other hand, have almost everything, but you're quickly losing your societal order. You can now predict where things are heading in the near future. There’s still time to save your nations, but not much."
Wild footage captures massive Carnival Cruise ship brawl that erupted over 'chicken tenders'
Dad Jokes on X - "I said to my wife, "My Olympic condoms have arrived. I think I'll wear gold tonight." She replied, "Why not wear silver and come second for a change?""
Allie Beth Stuckey on X - "Some of y’all have completely outsourced your critical thinking to influencers and it shows. You’ve lost the ability to ask simple questions. You’ve shut your brain off and allowed yourself to be swept up by compelling narratives that don’t actually add up. And the rot is so deep that you reflexively assume anyone who does ask questions is being paid off, manipulated, etc. You’re not as smart as you think you are. Start there."
Meme - The Unahugger @nea_flaczynski: "In Beyond Words: How Animals Think and Feel [well researched and cited-highly recommend] ecologist Carlo Satina speculates that the lack of orca and wolf attacks on humans are bc they recognize us as social and vengeful creatures like them, whose relatives would seek revenge"
Nature is Amazing: "I honestly believe this is one of the biggest mysteries there is, Orcas are the most efficient predators on earth, yet they have never attacked us in the wild. They know something we don't."
My friend landed a great job in this brutal market. Here's the simple LinkedIn trick he used. : r/torontoJobs - "A buddy of mine was in a seriously toxic work situation; the whole department was a revolving door. It was taking a massive toll on him, and he knew he had to get out ASAP. He started firing off applications around April, assuming his experience would land him something fairly quickly. But, as we all know, this market is something else entirely. He’d even taken a resume workshop a couple years back and was following all the best practices, but was just getting radio silence. His field is Marketing Analytics, and he was really gunning for a mostly remote role. Here's the trick that completely changed the game for him: He started using the "fewer than 5 applicants" filter on LinkedIn. He'd check it a couple of times a day, and the results were wild. Suddenly, he was seeing all these hidden gem jobs. Posts from smaller companies that don't have a huge following, roles with slightly odd titles that he would have never searched for directly (think "Audience Insights Coordinator" instead of "Marketing Analyst"), or jobs that just weren't being sponsored by the algorithm. More importantly, the brand new listings would pop up there first, letting him be one of the very first to apply. This strategy led to some high-quality interviews where he was consistently one of the top candidates. He ended up being one of the first three people to apply for a role at a company he'd never even heard of, but the job description was a perfect match. HR reached out to him within 24 hours. He was so stoked that he told three of our other friends who were also stuck in their job searches. All of them started getting way more traction and interviews, and two of them have already landed new jobs. I know this might not be some groundbreaking secret for everyone, but I figured there are people here who haven't tried it and are feeling demoralized. My buddy is now working a job that's almost fully remote—he only goes into the office every few weeks. He's been there for about four months now, and honestly, it's been a total 180 for his quality of life. Hope this helps someone out there feeling stuck."
Battle of the Arctic by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore: Testimonies from the 1942 Arctic campaign - "Which campaign of the Second World War was fought in the most hostile natural environment? There are plenty of contenders. From the caves of Okinawa to the windswept steppes around Stalingrad; from the fetid swamps of New Guinea to the searing desert of North Africa. Each was horrific in its own way. But for sheer, unrelenting hostility, surely nothing was more gruesome than the Arctic convoys."
Noisy padel courts will give us diabetes, villagers claim - "The residents of a Hampshire village are in revolt over “intolerable” padel courts which they claim could give them diabetes. Villagers in Grateley are opposing plans for three courts over fears that the noise produced by the sport will “make people ill”. Objectors claim noise pollution from facilities will affect their mental health and claim there is “a link between noise exposure and an increase of metabolic disorders like Type 2 diabetes”... Other locals said they would no longer be able to use their gardens because of the sport. “The close proximity of residential houses will mean the occupants will undoubtedly have to endure the continual noise of this sport,” said Rob Hudson. “Sitting out in and enjoying the garden will be a thing of the past.”... A Test Valley borough council planning officer has recommended the plans, saying they would be “of benefit to the local economy” and “attract visitors”."
Pensioner ‘killed by robber for cottage pie’ - "A pensioner was fatally attacked by an alleged robber who took his cornflakes and cottage pie, a court has heard. John Mackey, 87, was allegedly kicked, punched and stamped on by Peter Augustine, an unemployed 59-year-old, in Manor House, north London, on May 6."
Meme - "*Samwise Gamgee*
>defeated Shelob, an immortal creature even Sauron knew to leave alone
>carried The One and gave it up willingly
>stayed by Frodo until the very end to assure his quest was completed
>went back home and had 14 children
Has there ever been a side character as based?"
Why Young People Say "No Problem" Instead of "You're Welcome" (and Why Older People Hate It) - "“Dear Every Cashier in America: the proper response to ‘thank you’ is ‘you’re welcome,’ not ‘no problem.’ And *you’re* suppose to thank *me*” He received a number of responses, the vast majority mocking his attitude, but it one person’s detailed and thoughtful reply makes a lot of sense. Bottom line? It’s not about being polite, it’s that our views on gratitude are evolving... " “Actually, the “you’re welcome/no problem” issue is simply a linguistics misunderstanding. Older ppl tend to say “you’re welcome,” younger ppl tend to say “no problem.” This is because for older people the act of helping or assisting someone is seen as a task that is not expected of them, but is them doing extra, so it’s them saying, ‘I accept your thanks because I know I deserve it.” “No problem, however, is used because younger people feel not only that helping or assisting someone is a given and expected but also that it should be stressed that your need for help was no burden to them (even if it was).” “Basically, older people think help is a gift you give, younger people think help is a requirement.”""
Labour mayors ran up £11k taxi bill despite having full-time chauffeur - "A Labour-run council spent almost £11,000 on taxi fares for its mayor and deputy mayor despite it employing a full-time chauffeur... The council, which covers Sir Keir Starmer’s constituency of Holborn and St Pancras, overspent its budget by £22.8m in the 2024-25 fiscal year. The authority, which increased council tax by 4.99 per cent, said it used the taxi company on an “ad hoc basis” and that it was cheaper than hiring a second full-time chauffeur."
This is the same council that created a guide to exposing history of ‘white male oppressors’
Meme - Marshal Bohemond: "It's kind of crazy how in 1982 they made a movie where the easiest way to spot infiltrators in your midst was to ask to ask them simple, hypothetical questions and they would freak out and attack you."
"How would you feel if you hadn't had breakfast this morning?"
Meme - Horse Arsha: "The concept of discovering cheating through your internet connected bathroom scale"
Andiedonia: "Noooo babe! That was just Tiny Steve"
"AIO for assuming my husband had someone over at our condo after I saw a 120 lb weigh-in when I wasn't there?"
Woman accused of using racial slurs against young boy in viral video sparking controversy - "Regarding the incident at the park, the user wrote, “I recently had a kid steal from my 18-month-old son’s diaper bag at a park. I called the kid out for what he was.” The person recording the video, later identified as Sharmake Omar, alludes to the child being targeted as having special needs."
Woman faces charges for calling Black child a racial slur in Rochester - "Rochester’s city attorney has filed a draft complaint against Shiloh Hendrix, who was caught on camera earlier this year calling a young Black child a racial slur at a local playground. Hendrix faced three counts of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor charge that carries a maximum of 90 days in jail and/or $1,000 fine... A video of Hendrix hurling the N-word at the child quickly circulated online last April. Hendrix said she received threats, and she started an online fundraiser that raised hundreds of thousands to help her move to another place. The incident prompted widespread calls for legal action in Rochester, and the local chapter of the NAACP and others launched an online campaign for the child targeted with the slur. But the investigation was muddied when several different people came forward to law enforcement claiming to be related to the child in question, apparently in attempts to claim the money for themselves."
Trent on X - "Do you know why movies are so horrible now, dialog is simple, or in some cases nonexistent? Or worse the only words spoken are simply used to describe what the characters are doing? The reason for all of this is so that Hollywood can make movies that are easy to translate so they can sell them in China. If China blocks USA Hollywood produced films then Hollywood film makers don’t need to worry about making movies that appease a Chinese audience which means they can go back to making movies for just Americans again. Movies used to be made for an American audience first. That’s why the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s were full of interesting movies that touched on everything from AI to spirituality, morality, and even fantasy. In the past 15 years or so everything has been completely removed of substance for an international audience. If Hollywood doesn’t have to pander to China we will get American made movies for Americans again."
