The return of "miracle" ideas: wealth tax and wealthier taxes

Exactly. So, first of all, a clarification: a "Ségur" is exactly like a "Grenelle" ... Yes, it's a bit abscond. But now, since May 68, each social crisis must lead to a Grenelle. That is to say, on a kind of high mass, a conference during which the unions (who love it) play their role, the employers' own, and where the government arbitrates and decides everything, at the end. The Ségur is the same thing, except that it concerns the hospital and that it does not take place at the headquarters of the Ministry of Labor, rue de Grenelle, but at that of Health, avenue de Ségur. Shade…

All the same, it will be an important moment for the relaunch of the hospital plan!

Of course, and on the means that will be devoted to it. We already know that complex piping will be put in place to transfer deficits (and therefore debt) from one account to another. Except that, whatever the tips, in the end, you have to pay ...

And there, precisely, who will be the payers?

This is the favorite subject of the French political class, the one on which opinions are the most decided, where we find the vestiges of a good old left-right divide, embellished with a division between the populist parties and the others. And the real star of this debate is the ISF. Not a day without a political figure from the left demanding the return of the ISF. And not for a moment without economists (of the left, of course) explaining that the rich can pay. The most emblematic of these ISF fans is Thomas Piketty. We knew Pavlov's reflex (an automatic reaction, always the same, to a stimulation of the organism). There will now be the Piketty reflex: a problem, an ISF; budget expenditure, a wealth tax; a need for public money, an ISF. ISF everywhere. It's simple: this activist-economist has only this concept in his mouth…

But he is not the only one. This is a highly defended subject on the left ...
Yes, with clear reasoning, there too: the health crisis has devastated our public finances and deepened the debt. And since it will be necessary to reimburse, the rich can pay. It is an old concept like the class struggle, which, as far as we know, has not produced excellent results. But it does not matter: for activists of the ISF cause, a health crisis, even if it has nothing to do with the distribution of wealth, even if capitalism or liberalism have no responsibility in this drama, it is an opportunity to tax fortunes. And too bad if France is already the country that taxes the most, both its households and its businesses, the one where the redistribution is the strongest and reduces the wealth gaps the most. Too bad if these fortunes which cloud Piketty have melted by a few hundred billion euros or dollars, with the fall of the stock market. Since there are some left, take them. It is no longer economics, it is demagoguery.