Italy and France on the path to Trumpism: a growing popular revolt against the elites. + Upcoming elections in Europe

[Princeps]

Mass migration to Europe started in the 90s.

Let's not confuse things and throw in random stuff like climate change.

Climate change is hardly irrelevant to the refugee crisis.

Let's break your lies:
http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/20...V35-I1-P69.pdf

24% increase in inequality.

Or:
http://www.fairus.org/DocServer/rese...Report2013.pdf

Also lovely Chinese researchers who aren't affected by the ideological bias of the West also find that immigration causes inequality.

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/201...rse-in-the-us/

Which quite frankly overrules a study based on the single malfunctioning state of California.

But even if we wanted to stick to it:
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_299DRR.pdf

Which translates to: if you take in mostly poor people, inequality increases (makes too much sense amirite).

I told you that this excuse ''no empirical evidence'' was baseless.

Economics isn't natural science, hence speaking of ''empirical evidence'' is overreaching. You can find dozens of studies on anything supporting or disproving the same thing.

Your links are mostly think tank garbage and speculative.

Borjas and David Card are the leading experts in this field and their work is much better in keeping "all else equal".

David Card, for example, uses natural experiments to analyse the issue. Here is his famous study on the mariel boatlift:
http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf, which analyses the effect on wages by a sudden influx of migrants and compares the earnings there to other cities which did not see similar inflows.

Here is another one that is absolutely awesome in that uses the rich body of data from Denmark: http://ftp.iza.org/dp8961.pdf

It finds "robust evidence that less skilled native workers responded to refugee
immigration, mainly composed of low-educated individuals in manual-intensive
jobs, by increasing significantly their mobility towards more complex occupations
and away from manual tasks. Immigration also increased native low skilled wages
and made them more likely to move out of the municipality. We do not observe an
increased probability of unemployment, nor a decrease in employment for unskilled
natives."

In other words. Immigration enhanced incomes and allowed people to find better paying occupations, which makes sense.

These are studies conducted in an environment of a natural experiment. They are, insofar as we have such a thing, a gold standard in social science. This is what I mean by empirical evidence. Your sources are basically speculation about a larger economy with multiple factors affecting things like wages.

Given that the seller's income is halved

it'd require prices to be halved, but we just saw he didn't halve his own prices.

Something isn't corresponding there.

Ok fine. Let's ban competition. Let's create monopolies everywhere and ban all imports.

I mean, high prices are good, right?

Prosperity bad.

I mean, if I spend 10 bucks less on a haircut, I can use that 10 bucks to buy additional groceries. Lower prices encourage additional consumption, which in turn increases demand, which in turn creates more jobs.

Their income is also halved so there's no ''higher purchasing power''. And there crumbles your whole reasoning.

You're saying my purchasing power wasn't increased by having more money?

And business will outsource to China so that they don't have to deal with your unions, or employ illegal immigrants thanks to your trade deals and your immigration policies.

Ok. Service sector jobs are not being outsourced. Even within countries, service sector jobs tend to be local to the cities where they consumers are found.

If you lose your service sector job to an illegal immigrant, you're a really awful at your job and should search for something else to do.

http://www.sirjamesgoldsmith.com/wp-...-Goldsmith.pdf
http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/05...lity-pub-55531
https://www.citizen.org/documents/me...inequality.pdf
http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147

I don't deal with think tank garbage.

Think tanks are institutions whose sole purpose is to lie to you. Even if they are left wing.

Most studies on job losses indicate that technology is far more likely to take away middle income jobs than outsourcing. Thus, the process is pretty much inevitable and not the result of some sinister trade pacts. The solution is redistribution, service sector unions and, in the US especially, healthcare reforms.

[Diocle]

Italians voted NO (59,9%), Renzi and his Leftist government have been defeated. Now, we have just to wait for French election, go Marine, go!

[Princeps]

So, what was so "left-wing" about the reforms proposed by Renzi? Both the supporting parties and opposing parties seem to be all over the place.

[Ludicus]

In practice (observed since the 60s at least) it's making women in workforce a demanded social norm, and forcing women..

Forcing? Nobody forces you to work. Sure, it's possible for a man to live without a job: prostitution, theft, or have a relationship with an independant woman(rich or not rich) and even marry them.In your opinion, the "perfect" woman is supposed to stay home, a caring mother, a diligent homemaker and, above all, an obedient wife- without money, the obedient slave obeys.TINA.
Have you got the picture?

[Basil II the B.S]

Climate change is hardly irrelevant to the refugee crisis.

Yes refugees aren't escaping civil wars unleashed by the Obama administration, they are escaping climate change.

Not on this planet, but sure.

Your links are mostly think tank garbage and speculative.

Borjas and David Card are the leading experts in this field and their work is much better in keeping "all else equal".

David Card, for example, uses natural experiments to analyse the issue. Here is his famous study on the mariel boatlift:
http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/mariel-impact.pdf, which analyses the effect on wages by a sudden influx of migrants and compares the earnings there to other cities which did not see similar inflows.

Here is another one that is absolutely awesome in that uses the rich body of data from Denmark: http://ftp.iza.org/dp8961.pdf

It finds "robust evidence that less skilled native workers responded to refugee
immigration, mainly composed of low-educated individuals in manual-intensive
jobs, by increasing significantly their mobility towards more complex occupations
and away from manual tasks. Immigration also increased native low skilled wages
and made them more likely to move out of the municipality. We do not observe an
increased probability of unemployment, nor a decrease in employment for unskilled
natives."

In other words. Immigration enhanced incomes and allowed people to find better paying occupations, which makes sense.

These are studies conducted in an environment of a natural experiment. They are, insofar as we have such a thing, a gold standard in social science. This is what I mean by empirical evidence. Your sources are basically speculation about a larger economy with multiple factors affecting things like wages.

''Waaah I don't like your empirical research, you should only believe mine''.

Live by lies, die by lies. 3 researches on immigration that I posted were done within the academia. Only one is a think thank.

Same goes for the research on trade.
Dismissed.

Ok fine. Let's ban competition. Let's create monopolies everywhere and ban all imports.

The US is pretty much an oligopoly economy. Big media, big pharma, big banks, big tech. Most absorb 90% of their respective markets.
Want through competition? Then they need to be crushed.

I mean, high prices are good, right?

Then why the ECB is desperately trying to cause inflation, and failing to do so and we are in deflation? Oopsie.

Prosperity bad.

I mean, if I spend 10 bucks less on a haircut, I can use that 10 bucks to buy additional groceries. Lower prices encourage additional consumption, which in turn increases demand, which in turn creates more jobs.

You're saying my purchasing power wasn't increased by having more money?

The day your income is 1/10 of what it was, then your prosperity certainly isn't increasing.

You are advocating a race to the bottom economics, which indeed has failed.

Other than that gigantic mess of ''strong union/strong legislation/outsourcing/mass migration''. That simply doesn't work.

-----------------------------------------
Moving on and more on topic with the thread, the globalist traitor Renzi has been defeated and he's resigning.

Hopefully we can move on with new elections, M5S government and referendum on the Euro.

[fkizz]

Forcing? Nobody forces you to work. Sure, it's possible for a man to live without a job: prostitution, theft, or have a relationship with an independant woman(rich or not rich) and even marry them.In your opinion, the "perfect" woman is supposed to stay home, a caring mother, a diligent homemaker and, above all, an obedient wife- without money, the obedient slave obeys.TINA.
Have you got the picture?

That's a perfectly rational conclusion from male point of view. From female point of view, if they have wealthy enough husband and stay at home, they will be slandered 24/7, and gossip for them is a big thing.

Conclusion being some of them working do it to save face and prevent intrigue rather than for "freedom" or "money". So in their female logic a life of ridicule/slander from their social circle is the alternative to not work.

This "machist reactionary" idea was introduced to me... by women again.

[tgoodenow]

If you lose your service sector job to an illegal immigrant, you're a really awful at your job and should search for something else to do.
.

Factually incorrect. Illegal immigrants are given jobs to reduce costs. 99% of times this is not a situation where the labor is being replaced at equal value. It's funny how liberals whine about wage gaps between men and women, but if janitor Bob loses his job to someone who he can not legally compete against because of minimum wage laws the response is "LOL thats what you get for sucking at your job."

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Personally I think that Marine Le Pen will have a hard time with the election. Though she is the closest of the Front National or perhaps even the alt-right to win such an election in France. Historically conservatives have done well in the polls after a liberal/leftist presidency. Whenever a member of the alternative right such as FN went up against the traditional conservative party the FN would get beaten mercilessly.

Though President Hollande of the Parti Socialiste has done a decent job in stopping terrorism in recent months the fact remains that they are largely blamed as enablers (and honestly with good reason) and Francois Hollande is not running for office either. No one really knows why; it could be the economy, it could be the Islamic question or it could be because he expects to get destroyed in the election (perhaps it is also a personal reason).

What exactly does this mean? Well basically that Marine Le Pen's main opposition will come from Les Republicains and the former Prime Minister Francois Fillon. The Republicans have dropped Nicholas Sarkozy as a potential candidate because lets face it the man has become unpopular since before 2012. Now Francois Fillon is generally conservative and similar to Marine Le Pen with many of his view points. The key difference is that Le Pen is somewhat anti-establishment but re-branded the Front National as being a secular Republican group. She has also done a decent job to appeal to the populace so in that respect she may be viewed as a populist. Though she has also changed from a strange alt-right fringe group/Catholic reactionary/monarchist to a secular party and more or less purged the ranks of extremists that would not support her after 2006.

In some respects Fillon actually appears to be more socially conservative than Le Pen, or at least to me. In her policies Le Pen seems to fit right in (pun intended) with what is usually considered to be the establishment. France usually going towards some kind of form of secular conservatism and socialism but not that far left except for a few times in their electoral history and almost immediately after reverting back to the traditional. Aside from her hard anti-immigration stance she really isn't that different from the rest and has brought the party away from just being those anti-immigration guys as she has addressed other issues.

So the real question is will anti-establishment sentiments beat out the establishment? Or is Le Pen still too much of an outsider and why get the cheap brand when you can have the official brand of Conservatism? Or does anyone think that the Parti Socialiste still has a leg to stand on?
Personally I see this mainly as a battle between Les Republicaines and Front National although it is possible for Front National to still get third place behind Parti Socialiste, even with a victory for the Republicaines.

[Basil II the B.S]

What's left that votes French Socialists are public sector employees.

If the second turn is Marine Le Pen vs Fillon, are you sure they'll vote the latter, who wants to fire 500k of them?

[Garbarsardar]

There is a thread on Austria, here, a thread on Italy here and feel free to open a thread on France. This one is now closed.