The French riots continue once again. The rioting and demonstrations are ostensibly about the government's attempts to deal with high unemployment among people under 26, but the riots are doing nothing except showing the world just how detached the rioters are from economic realities. And the unions joining along with these demonstrators are showing their own economic detachment.
Those unions have essentially shut down the country - disrupting train and air travel throughout the country. That's just grand for a country with a stumbling and fumbling economy.
Economies grow not because of rigid requirements on who can or can't be fired and limiting employers abilities to change their employment structure on the fly, but because employers are able to fire incompetent and poor workers regardless of age. Economies grow when businesses can adapt to change quickly and are not as restrained and constrained by onerous regulations. Businesses that can adapt better to the changed circumstances do far better than those that do not.
That's why companies like Toyota are doing better than companies like GM, which is saddled with tremendous health care and pension requirements that Toyota does not have. An employee and a union employee would much rather want to work for GM under the old pension and health care benefits rules, but that does little good if those benefits bankrupt the company and cause massive layoffs.
Of course, there's the not insigificant question of whether anyone want to actually hire any of these rioters? What is gained from rioting, except maybe some cache at the next anarchist meeting?
All this doesn't mean that there isn't some place for regulation of the business environment.
Others covering the story: No Pasaran, LGF, France Echoes, Gateway Pundit.
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