Great drive from Croatia, through Slovenia and Italy, then into the South of France, where I'm renting a $1 million villa for an absolute fraction of what the "owner" pays. Yes, this stupidity is worldwide. The fundamentals are so out of whack, it's hilarious. And a damn nice time to be renting.
I recommend all of you get to Eastern Europe while it's still Eastern Europe. No Starbucks, no Wal-Mart, no McDonalds. And the people seem to have a sense of optimism and appreciation that is sorely missing in the US and Western Europe. I'll be heading back in a bit.
So now I'm in France, where people work less than 35 hours a week, and feel they're entitled to prosperity. Memo to France - change or you're f*cked. Great food, great wine, great architecture, beautiful women, great landscapes, but you're all about to lose your jobs. And aspiring to be a government worker like most of you do is sad. Really, really sad.
(Oh, man, the French are gonna hate me)
So, been off HP for two days. Just checked my portfolio which is flying (in dollar terms) - thank you Bubbles Ben Bernanke! I hope other HP'ers took the clues and started deploying your saved up dollars into Bernanke's New Bubble. Cash WAS king.
So, what did I miss?
February 01, 2008
I'm back
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17 comments:
Funny, because the owner of the tailor shop I used to use in Phoenix is from France. She told me she left and moved to the US because French workers are so completely lazy and demand more and more pay and benefits for less and less work.
Although now that description fits the majority of US workers as well so I guess she's f*cked here too!
Hey Keith, if you're in St. Tropez, check the nightclub "Les Caves du Roy", which is located inside the Byblos Hotel. I dare you.
That's the way I roll in the South of France...
Oh, and all those pretty girls you see around are usually from Eastern Europe...they're freaking expensive.
French Canadian women are the hottest. They have the looks of the French women, but they also shave and don't smoke.
Keith, could you describe your portfolio a bit to the rest of us transients? You don't have to give us the details just a general idea would be real nice of ya.
Seconding Caves du Roy. I got thrown out once, which is not easy!
Yes, France is very sad because young people crave a government job - and who can blame them. . .the aristocracy in Europe is a "government minister." I remember being at a nice restaurant in the South of France when a bunch of limos pulled up . . I thought it was a movie star, or Donald Trump. . .no, just the agriculture minister and his friends. Basically Royalty is gone in Europe, but the old families just moved into "ministry" positions. . .
As for "Bernake Bubbles" . . .yes, I did buy some cheap stocks last week, as I realized Bubbles Bernake is re-inflating the market. . .housing is dead, so back to the stock market!!
My Wife & I thought about buying a house in Romania where real estate is a little more reasonable & they have old school carpentry skills. You can get real wood for the price of this veneer crap from China.Wonder what home are going for in Croatia?
No, we all followed your earlier advice and cashed out. Waaaaaah!
(Just kiddin'!)
It's a fake bubble, I hope you did not get out of cash my friend.
Eastern Europe is beautiful, at least the Romanian countryside was. The people are optimistic? Definitly not they are really bitter actually mostly from communism and a history of invasion and poverty. But I don't think optimism is a Romanian trait anyways. I haven't seen the rest of the region so maybe you met the optimists in Croatia. I was there two years ago by the way.
i work with so many french people who hate french people. the french in the private sector must work far more than 35 hours a week. Unemployment is high and decent jobs are scarce, so anyone with a good job works 50+ hours a week just to keep it.
they are the ones who finance the 35 hour a week lazy government workers.
Every French waiter or waitress think that they are intellectuals, too good to be serving patrons. However, the Muslim invaders in France are the worst waiters evahhhh, always pissed off and with a huge chip on their shoulders.
Who decided that 40 hours was the optimal work-week?
They used to say the same thing about the 40 hour week back when they were working 60 hours per week.
Oh, and surprise - if you're in a 'professional/ managerial/ supervisor' position, then you're most likely working 50 to 60 hours per week. Which if you think about it, AmeriLosers (I'm an AmeriWinner), makes your earnings per hour go down by 1/3rd.
Throw on top of it ridiculous commutes because of AmeriLosers letting corportions dictate our society:
REIT and Financials pumping up real estate near the city so we have to live farther from the city.
The automobile corporations paying for destruction of public transit to be replaced by roads and cards; the HMO's opposing univeral healthcare so that we have to use employer- based insurance, thus enslaving us that much more.
Pensions being discarded in favor of 401K's.
And all of it enabled by corporations having too much influence.
But I'm not here just to complain - I'm here to provide a simple 2 step solution:
1. Publicly funded elections - removes the eternal churn of our politicians begging for money from Big Money.
2. A corporation is no longer regarded as an entity in regards to being able to lobby the goverment. This is a relatively new development in our history, and obviously has not worked out well.
Folks, I'm old enough to go back in to the 70s when the word to describe the coming economic collapse of Europe was Eurosclerosis..all over the biz media and econo forums of the time and was young and naive enough to believe it.
Since then I've traveled, worked and lived in those "doomed" countries as well as a few places in the US.
Here's the real story: The Europeans are doing just fine and will continue to do so..quality of life is much better than average American, more security, more stability, stronger societies and families by far, and YES MORE FREEDOM. For the vast numbers of the American masses, a European way of life would be much better..the only people getting over in the USA are the top 10% elite who put the old French aristocracy of the Luis and Antionettes to shame. The American elite political and corporate establishment thru their media ownedlackeys are the ones pushing the story that the European system is about to "collapse"...I've been reading and hearing this BS movie for the past 40 years....
since the cliches are all over the place here, I would just encourage some of you to watch again the movie of Michael Moore, "sicko", (which is a cliche on its own..)and let all the good US hard working citizens keep wondering where they should settle down to have at last a descent life. This is not realy a froggy concern ...
oh come on keith. beautiful french women? gads man, they stink, furry armpits and hairy legs . no thanks....
Blogger Frank@Scottsdale-Sucks.com said...
Funny, because the owner of the tailor shop I used to use in Phoenix is from France. She told me she left and moved to the US because French workers are so completely lazy and demand more and more pay and benefits for less and less work.
Although now that description fits the majority of US workers as well so I guess she's f*cked here too!
February 01, 2008 8:47 PM<<<
yeh frank, she came to az so she can get wetbacks to work all day for chump change now.....of course that might be changing so she will move to a sanctuary city of course.
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