Politics of the Day

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You would think that as an opinion editor for a campus newspaper that I would have a lot of opinions on the politics of a day. I do, but a little thing called "senior project" gets in the way. While I have already presented, there's the matter of the final product where I have to dot all my i's and cross all my t's. I do have some quick thoughts about the politics of the day...

Domestic

• Immigrant situation seems to be yet another application of realistic vs. idealistic thinking. Realism says we have to deal with the over ten million "undocumented workers" living within our borders. Idealistic thinking says we can pass laws to solve the problem. The thing is that each party wants to control who these illegal immigrants will vote for down the road (if they aren't already voting).


• The Bush leaks have caused some consternation among certain members of Congress. The only thing is that this isn't anything new...just more public thanks to advent of the Internet. I wonder if the Bush administration will increase the time for released gov't documents (currently 30 years) in an effort to improve national security.


• Sixty-two percent of students who identified themselves as Republicans said religion was losing its influence on American society, while 54 percent of Democrats said it was increasing its influence. Most agreed, however, that a candidate's religion wouldn't affect how they voted.

Foreign

• Iran wants to play ball with the big boys. The big boys are going to play ball back. Gotta love the "we came here first" mentality. Even if Iran is discouraged from continuing its nuclear program, it will win many favorable concessions as a result of doing so. Why wouldn't Iran stay on its current path? America is too outstretched to invade and nobody else is going to want to invade Iran.


• Prodi wins Italian elections. The boon of coalition politics is that it gives you a lot of choices. The downside is that it's difficult to create a stable and coherent direction. It's a razor thin coalition though, so I don't expect this setup to last more than two years.


• France back downs on youth law. One Fox News commentator said that the French just want cushy jobs where they can't be canned and that doesn't work under capitalism. I don't know just how true that is, but something tells me that's what a lot of Americans think. No, don't give me all that high end theoretical economic theory, I'm talking about your average American here who watches Fox News. You know there are a lot of them because otherwise we wouldn't have elected our current president otherwise.

Comments

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

Steven Pearstein is having an on-line chat at washingtonpost.com right now if you wish to call shenanigans on his article. :-)

Even if you don't get to the site in time to participate, the Q&A is an interesting read. He even states that not only could France benefit from adopting a more Scandanavian economic model, but the US could learn a thing or two from them as well.

The CDI has a maximum trial period of six months, after which employers must justify any firing in detail and employees have extensive rights to appeal their firing and get compensation for it.

Reading this, I see: "it would be a bigger pain in the ass to fire an incompetent person than it would be to keep that person on the payroll...and potentially be less expensive to keep the person on in the long run."

A French journalist friend of mine had offered her opinion on the matter, and quoted another friend of hers:

"Employers who take on new staff know that they are stuck with them for life, after an initial trial period of usually three months. One of my best friends has ended up in the employment court every time he has sacked anyone (he says for gross incompetence) and has had to pay some gruesome compensation."

Now, I'm just an ugly American, so I can only take her friend at her word.

It reminds me of government jobs here. While there isn't an explicity "you're here forever" law, it is a self-fulfilling concept because employers aren't willing to undertake the time, effort, and expense (and potentially bad pr) needed to fire even the most incompetent people.