Another Socialist Outed As Wealthy

[RockX]

France's new Socialist president owns three holiday homes in the Riviera resort of Cannes, it emerged today.

Francois Hollande, 57, who “dislikes the rich” and wants to revolutionise his country with high taxes and an onslaught against bankers, is in fact hugely wealthy himself.

His assets were published today in the Official Journal, the gazette which contains verified information about France’s government.

To the undoubted embarrassment of the most Left-wing leader in Europe, and a man who styles himself as “Mr Normal”, they are valued at almost £1 million.

It will also reinforce accusations that Hollande is a “gauche caviar”, or “Left-wing caviar” — the Gallic equivalent of a champagne Socialist.

Among his other assets are three current accounts in French banks — two with global giant Société Générale and one with the Postal Bank.

But it is the fabulous property portfolio which is causing the greatest stir among millions of ordinary French people who voted for Hollande over the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy last Sunday.

Mr Hollande regularly attacked the “bling-bling” presidency of Mr Sarkozy, whose multi-millionaire lifestyle with Italian-born heiress Carla Bruni contributed to his humiliating election defeat after just one term in office.

As well as the spacious Paris apartment he shares with his lover Valerie Trierweiler, Mr Hollande owns a palatial villa in Mougins, the hill-top Cannes suburb where artist Pablo Picasso used to live.

It is valued by the Official Journal at 800,000 euros (£642,000), and is just a short drive from Hollande’s two flats close to the promenade in Cannes. They are priced at 230,000 euros (£185,000) and 140,000 euros (£112,000). Mr Hollande has promised to cut his pay by 30 per cent after he is officially sworn in as president next week, but he will still be on 156,000 (£125,000) a year, plus fabulous expenses and other perks.

He intends to set a top tax rate of 75 per cent, and to increase France’s wealth tax — moves which have already seen rich people threatening to leave the country and move abroad including to London.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/...-owns-three-homes-on-the-riviera-7737519.html

LOL

 

[apple0154]

France's new Socialist president owns three holiday homes in the Riviera resort of Cannes, it emerged today.

Francois Hollande, 57, who “dislikes the rich” and wants to revolutionise his country with high taxes and an onslaught against bankers, is in fact hugely wealthy himself.

His assets were published today in the Official Journal, the gazette which contains verified information about France’s government.

To the undoubted embarrassment of the most Left-wing leader in Europe, and a man who styles himself as “Mr Normal”, they are valued at almost £1 million.

It will also reinforce accusations that Hollande is a “gauche caviar”, or “Left-wing caviar” — the Gallic equivalent of a champagne Socialist.

Among his other assets are three current accounts in French banks — two with global giant Société Générale and one with the Postal Bank.

But it is the fabulous property portfolio which is causing the greatest stir among millions of ordinary French people who voted for Hollande over the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy last Sunday.

Mr Hollande regularly attacked the “bling-bling” presidency of Mr Sarkozy, whose multi-millionaire lifestyle with Italian-born heiress Carla Bruni contributed to his humiliating election defeat after just one term in office.

As well as the spacious Paris apartment he shares with his lover Valerie Trierweiler, Mr Hollande owns a palatial villa in Mougins, the hill-top Cannes suburb where artist Pablo Picasso used to live.

It is valued by the Official Journal at 800,000 euros (£642,000), and is just a short drive from Hollande’s two flats close to the promenade in Cannes. They are priced at 230,000 euros (£185,000) and 140,000 euros (£112,000). Mr Hollande has promised to cut his pay by 30 per cent after he is officially sworn in as president next week, but he will still be on 156,000 (£125,000) a year, plus fabulous expenses and other perks.

He intends to set a top tax rate of 75 per cent, and to increase France’s wealth tax — moves which have already seen rich people threatening to leave the country and move abroad including to London.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/...-owns-three-homes-on-the-riviera-7737519.html

LOL

There's nothing wrong with being wealthy and he is raising the tax rate on the wealthy.

Let the wealthy people move to London. I'm sure the United Kingdom will appreciate the tax received as the money is transferred. As the old saying goes, "If we can't get them coming we'll get them going."

 

[SmarterthanYou]

There's nothing wrong with being wealthy and he is raising the tax rate on the wealthy.

Let the wealthy people move to London. I'm sure the United Kingdom will appreciate the tax received as the money is transferred. As the old saying goes, "If we can't get them coming we'll get them going."

help me understand something about your mindset. why do you think increasing tax rates to enrich politicians and their friends, so the poor can get a meager pittance more in food stamps, is better than providing those poor with a better opportunity to increase their skillsets and allowing them to make more money on their own?

 

[apple0154]

help me understand something about your mindset. why do you think increasing tax rates to enrich politicians and their friends, so the poor can get a meager pittance more in food stamps, is better than providing those poor with a better opportunity to increase their skillsets and allowing them to make more money on their own?

I'm all for the latter. Let the wealthy provide the poor with a better opportunity. For example, they could adopt a family. Say, a father, mother and one child. The wealthy individual could pay for the couple's education and child care and the "donation" could be written off their tax bill. So, if the wealthy individual owed, say, $50,000 additional tax and they paid $5,000 for each adult to attend college (total=$10,000) and another $3,000 for child care (total=$13,000) and $12,000 for rent (total=$25,000) and $5,000 for a year's supply of groceries (total=$30,000) and $2,500 for incidentals (total=$32,500) they would only owe the government ($50,000 - $32,500) $17,500. Furthermore, the couple receiving the $32,500 would pay a "small" portion of that in tax so the government would receive money, save money on welfare/food stamps AND, in a few years, the poor couple would be employed and paying taxes.

Or, the government could designate a surtax on wealthy individuals and use that money strictly for retraining programs. As time went on more and more people would be employed and paying taxes resulting in a lower tax rate for everyone. In either case it's a win-win situation.

Sound good?

 

[gui1tars]

President Hollande is the obvious choice of the French people. Other than agreeing with their choice, as an American I don't have a dog in the game.

 

[SmarterthanYou]

I'm all for the latter. Let the wealthy provide the poor with a better opportunity. For example, they could adopt a family. Say, a father, mother and one child. The wealthy individual could pay for the couple's education and child care and the "donation" could be written off their tax bill. So, if the wealthy individual owed, say, $50,000 additional tax and they paid $5,000 for each adult to attend college (total=$10,000) and another $3,000 for child care (total=$13,000) and $12,000 for rent (total=$25,000) and $5,000 for a year's supply of groceries (total=$30,000) and $2,500 for incidentals (total=$32,500) they would only owe the government ($50,000 - $32,500) $17,500. Furthermore, the couple receiving the $32,500 would pay a "small" portion of that in tax so the government would receive money, save money on welfare/food stamps AND, in a few years, the poor couple would be employed and paying taxes.

Or, the government could designate a surtax on wealthy individuals and use that money strictly for retraining programs. As time went on more and more people would be employed and paying taxes resulting in a lower tax rate for everyone. In either case it's a win-win situation.

Sound good?

LOL WUT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

 

[Airstrip One]

There's nothing wrong with being wealthy and he is raising the tax rate on the wealthy.

Let the wealthy people move to London. I'm sure the United Kingdom will appreciate the tax received as the money is transferred. As the old saying goes, "If we can't get them coming we'll get them going."

Meaning the nations they depart from will lose out.

 

[apple0154]

LOL WUT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

You wrote,

help me understand something about your mindset. why do you think increasing tax rates to enrich politicians and their friends, so the poor can get a meager pittance more in food stamps, is better than providing those poor with a better opportunity to increase their skillsets and allowing them to make more money on their own?

I don't think it's better for the government to get the money, HOWEVER, the poor people will never get help if it's left up to the discretion of the wealthy. We saw that regarding SS and medical care. Free markets, charity, etc. are fine, to a degree, but they don't solve all the problems. They never solved the problems and they are/were in operation since the country was founded. That's over 200 years. Surely it's reasonable to say a different approach is necessary.

 

[apple0154]

Meaning the nations they depart from will lose out.

Short term, yes. But nations are slowly coming to realize the necessity of doing what they're doing. Like medical care. If we go back 50 or so years we see nation after nation adopting government medical. One by one they realized that was the way to go.

 

[SmarterthanYou]

You wrote,

I don't think it's better for the government to get the money, HOWEVER, the poor people will never get help if it's left up to the discretion of the wealthy. We saw that regarding SS and medical care. Free markets, charity, etc. are fine, to a degree, but they don't solve all the problems. They never solved the problems and they are/were in operation since the country was founded. That's over 200 years. Surely it's reasonable to say a different approach is necessary.

oh, you mean something like, say.........removing most of the barriers to small business that get placed there as obstructions by big business lobbying?

 

[christiefan915]

President Hollande is the obvious choice of the French people. Other than agreeing with their choice, as an American I don't have a dog in the game.

Exactly! It's not even our country, who cares what they do? I think Americans throw around the word "socialism" without really understanding the meaning, and people who actually live in that kind of system are happy with it. Think social democrats of Sweden, or big tax capitalists of Norway, those two have very a high quality of life and standard of living.

 

[NOVA]

Exactly! It's not even our country, who cares what they do? I think Americans throw around the word "socialism" without really understanding the meaning, and people who actually live in that kind of system are happy with it. Think social democrats of Sweden, or big tax capitalists of Norway, those two have very a high quality of life and standard of living.

Fun to watch the French though.....now will the rich flee the country ??

 

[NOVA]

Fun to watch the French though.....now will the rich flee the country ??

.

 

[christiefan915]

Fun to watch the French though.....now will the rich flee the country ??

Possibly. Some of the American rich are fleeing our country and we're not socialistic.

May 11 (Bloomberg) -- Eduardo Saverin, the billionaire co- founder of Facebook Inc., renounced his U.S. citizenship before an initial public offering that values the social network at as much as $96 billion, a move that may reduce his tax bill.


Facebook plans to raise as much as $11.8 billion through the IPO, the biggest in history for an Internet company. Saverin's stake is about 4 percent, according to the website whoownsfacebook.com. At the high end of the proposed IPO market capitalization, that would be worth about $3.84 billion. His holdings aren't listed in Facebook's regulatory filings.

Saverin, 30, joins a growing number of people giving up U.S. citizenship ahead of a possible increase in tax rates for top earners. The Brazilian-born resident of Singapore is one of several people who helped Mark Zuckerberg start Facebook in a Harvard University dormitory and stand to reap billions of dollars after the world's largest social network holds its IPO.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...rticlesM3TJ7R6S972901-M3VRS.DTL#ixzz1us5c0lp5
​

 

[apple0154]

oh, you mean something like, say.........removing most of the barriers to small business that get placed there as obstructions by big business lobbying?

Yes and no. While I don't condone obstructions I do support rules and regulations on small businesses. I've seen and heard about too many small businesses opening, ripping off customers, then closing. From home improvement/renovation businesses to dairy bars people obtain businesses knowing little or nothing about the business.

For many, their main intention is to get in and get out leaving the customers with a failed job and a guarantee worth nothing as the business goes bankrupt.

Did I tell you about the dairy bar that opened a few years ago at the local strip mall? My wife and I went in and I ordered a milkshake. The guy put some milk in the steel cup, a bit of syrup, soft vanilla ice cream and then proceeded to drop in ice cubes. My wife asked him what he was doing. Being an immigrant he shows my wife the recipe for a milkshake. The last ingredient says one scoop of hard ice....the rest of the typing was cut off. It should have read, "One scoop of hard ice cream." The reason being hard ice cream is colder than the soft ice cream making the shake thicker/colder. Amyway, he had no idea how to make a milkshake and pointed to the "one scoop of hard ice" and concluded ice cubes are "hard ice".

Should that guy have been permitted to buy that business, a dairy bar business, not even knowing how to make a milkshake and not having anyone supervise him? In the case of large companies a person may buy a business not knowing anything about it, however, they have people on staff running things who do know.

The way things work is a person can open a small business and offer anything they want and claim whatever they want. Let's take a roofer, for example He offers a 20 year guarantee. He does a number of jobs over the spring, summer and fall and makes a good money. Next spring the complaints start coming in. No problem. He declares bankruptcy. Business assets consist of a rusty pick-up and a nail gun. That's it. Let the 20 or 30 customers fight over that.

Meanwhile, he's driving a new car which the proceeds of the faulty jobs paid for and he gets to keep it. He's living in the house whose mortgage was paid from the proceeds of the faulty jobs and he's not moving. All the money he ripped off from the customers is his to keep.

Are you suggesting we should make it even easier for people to rip off others?

 

[SmarterthanYou]

Yes and no. While I don't condone obstructions I do support rules and regulations on small businesses. I've seen and heard about too many small businesses opening, ripping off customers, then closing. From home improvement/renovation businesses to dairy bars people obtain businesses knowing little or nothing about the business.

For many, their main intention is to get in and get out leaving the customers with a failed job and a guarantee worth nothing as the business goes bankrupt.

Did I tell you about the dairy bar that opened a few years ago at the local strip mall? My wife and I went in and I ordered a milkshake. The guy put some milk in the steel cup, a bit of syrup, soft vanilla ice cream and then proceeded to drop in ice cubes. My wife asked him what he was doing. Being an immigrant he shows my wife the recipe for a milkshake. The last ingredient says one scoop of hard ice....the rest of the typing was cut off. It should have read, "One scoop of hard ice cream." The reason being hard ice cream is colder than the soft ice cream making the shake thicker/colder. Amyway, he had no idea how to make a milkshake and pointed to the "one scoop of hard ice" and concluded ice cubes are "hard ice".

Should that guy have been permitted to buy that business, a dairy bar business, not even knowing how to make a milkshake and not having anyone supervise him? In the case of large companies a person may buy a business not knowing anything about it, however, they have people on staff running things who do know.

The way things work is a person can open a small business and offer anything they want and claim whatever they want. Let's take a roofer, for example He offers a 20 year guarantee. He does a number of jobs over the spring, summer and fall and makes a good money. Next spring the complaints start coming in. No problem. He declares bankruptcy. Business assets consist of a rusty pick-up and a nail gun. That's it. Let the 20 or 30 customers fight over that.

Meanwhile, he's driving a new car which the proceeds of the faulty jobs paid for and he gets to keep it. He's living in the house whose mortgage was paid from the proceeds of the faulty jobs and he's not moving. All the money he ripped off from the customers is his to keep.

Are you suggesting we should make it even easier for people to rip off others?

what you're suggesting is making it too difficult for anyone to open a business because a small handful of people decided to be thieves, and since that's too easy to do to people, lets require a college course on how to make a milkshake. no wonder our economy is in tatters and getting worse.

 

[Rationalist]

President Hollande is the obvious choice of the French people. Other than agreeing with their choice, as an American I don't have a dog in the game.

Thank you for admitting that you're a Socialist. That's something \\\\()/// has cowered away from doing...

 

[USFREEDOM911]

Yes and no. While I don't condone obstructions I do support rules and regulations on small businesses. I've seen and heard about too many small businesses opening, ripping off customers, then closing. From home improvement/renovation businesses to dairy bars people obtain businesses knowing little or nothing about the business.

For many, their main intention is to get in and get out leaving the customers with a failed job and a guarantee worth nothing as the business goes bankrupt.

Did I tell you about the dairy bar that opened a few years ago at the local strip mall? My wife and I went in and I ordered a milkshake. The guy put some milk in the steel cup, a bit of syrup, soft vanilla ice cream and then proceeded to drop in ice cubes. My wife asked him what he was doing. Being an immigrant he shows my wife the recipe for a milkshake. The last ingredient says one scoop of hard ice....the rest of the typing was cut off. It should have read, "One scoop of hard ice cream." The reason being hard ice cream is colder than the soft ice cream making the shake thicker/colder. Amyway, he had no idea how to make a milkshake and pointed to the "one scoop of hard ice" and concluded ice cubes are "hard ice".

Should that guy have been permitted to buy that business, a dairy bar business, not even knowing how to make a milkshake and not having anyone supervise him? In the case of large companies a person may buy a business not knowing anything about it, however, they have people on staff running things who do know.

The way things work is a person can open a small business and offer anything they want and claim whatever they want. Let's take a roofer, for example He offers a 20 year guarantee. He does a number of jobs over the spring, summer and fall and makes a good money. Next spring the complaints start coming in. No problem. He declares bankruptcy. Business assets consist of a rusty pick-up and a nail gun. That's it. Let the 20 or 30 customers fight over that.

Meanwhile, he's driving a new car which the proceeds of the faulty jobs paid for and he gets to keep it. He's living in the house whose mortgage was paid from the proceeds of the faulty jobs and he's not moving. All the money he ripped off from the customers is his to keep.

Are you suggesting we should make it even easier for people to rip off others?

How did I suspect that you were eventualy going to try to bring this back to a LLC.

You got fucked over a roofing job, get over it.

 

[Airstrip One]

Short term, yes. But nations are slowly coming to realize the necessity of doing what they're doing. Like medical care. If we go back 50 or so years we see nation after nation adopting government medical. One by one they realized that was the way to go.

Also midterm, long-term, distant future...

 

[apple0154]

what you're suggesting is making it too difficult for anyone to open a business because a small handful of people decided to be thieves, and since that's too easy to do to people, lets require a college course on how to make a milkshake. no wonder our economy is in tatters and getting worse.

It's not just people being thieves. Some folks think they can run a business and they can't.

People like to talk about taking personal responsibility. Fine, but don't live off the profits and then declare bankruptcy and keep the profits.