What is the difference between a "Yank" and a "Frog"? At 50, an American buys a $300,000 house in Florida; At 50, a Frenchman takes to the streets to protest an extra €50 per month

In just a handful of sentences, plus one cartoon, Sebastien Laye takes down the French public deficit:

France’s 2025 public deficit: €152.5bn.

The government’s extra €3bn in annual savings equals just 2% of that gap. At that pace, reaching zero would take 51 years.

France needs structural reform—not budgetary symbolism.

On the other hand, Sebastien is more loquacious when discussing America's 27th state, in which the founder of Eudokia Wealth is spending more and more of his time:

Wow, Florida has truly impressed me with its extraordinary economic momentum. I am struck by how the Sunshine State has surpassed Australia and Mexico to rank as one of the world’s top economies if it were a sovereign nation (14th rank). With a $1.8 trillion economy in 2025 and on track to reach $2 trillion this year, Florida stands nearly the size of Brazil at $2.1T, Spain at $2.1T, and Canada at $2.4T — effectively doubling its GDP in just eight years. This achievement underscores the power of principled leadership and a dynamic business environment. 

You don't know me? I am Sebastien Laye, an American citizen born in France. After spending a decade in Europe, I have returned to the United States. I am an entrepreneur specializing in artificial intelligence and data centers, as well as an economist and author. My international experience provides me with a distinctive transatlantic perspective, combining European insight with a deep understanding of the U.S. market. 

This leads the entrepreneur to point out that

The biggest economic story of the last two decades isn’t China.

It’s the widening gap between the U.S. and Europe.

Americans can afford homes, investments, and global travel increasingly out of reach for Europe’s middle class.

You don’t notice decline when it happens slowly.

In that perspective, what is the difference between an American and a Frenchman? 

At 50 years old, an American buys a $300,000 house in Florida.
At 50 years old, a Frenchman takes to the streets to protest an extra €50 per month.
Same generation. Two very different outcomes.
I am an American citizen but was born French and just spent 10 years in Europe.
I see this difference everywhere.
It does not come from salary levels.
It comes from a fundamental mindset.
Americans invest. The Europeans save and fear the future.
In the U.S., your retirement savings are automatically invested in stock funds by default.
You do not have to do anything. Your employer often matches contributions.
In France, your money sits in a Livret A savings account earning 3%.
Your bank takes its commission along the way and tells you that the stock market is “too risky for you.”
Over 25 years, with the same monthly effort:
→ $500 per month invested at 7% ≈ +$400,000
→ $500 per month in “safe” savings at 2% ≈ +$190,000
Same effort. Double the capital.
At retirement, this changes everything.
I am not saying everything is better here. It is just different.

 

Double Standards: How Can One Insist That Illegals and/or Anchor Babies Are U.S. Citizens If "We Live on Stolen Land"?!

If we are to be believe the "truthful" statement that it turns out that "we live on stolen land" — Why is it ever always and only about the USA? Why never about Canada? Why never about Mexico? How about South America? How about innumerable countries in Europe? And Asia? And the entire planet? — then how can one insist that it is unfair if illegal aliens are not rewarded with American documents and that it is unfair if anchor babies are not treated as de facto U.S. citizens? 

How on Earth does that make sense?! 

It is Saturday, so Instapundit's Ed Driscoll is linking to Powerline's memes in its Week in 

pictures — something you should also check out every week on Sarah Hoyt's personal website. (This week, check out the mirror on the wall and Schrödinger's cat while the blackest humor is found at the answer to the question, "Why Is It Easy to Stay Thin in Japan?"; Update: thanks for the Instalink.) 

 

RIP Jesse Jackson: The Reverend and the Obama Birth Controversy

RIP Jesse Jackson, whose life and career you will be reading about in all the usual media outlets (such as Instapundit [combining reports from The Times of London, PJMedia, and NRO] and The Daily Mail). FYI, I met him at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2001. (There were no camera cel phones or selfies at the time, so I handed my camera to one of the young students accompanying JJ on the Mediterranean beach asking her to use it to take a picture of us; Jackson duly obliged, and I don't know what happened, maybe she just pretended to snap the button — a girl I had met in Brazil did the same, and after I noticed that the number of photos remaining in the camera had not changed, this Karen-like ungrateful @#$$^&@ was unceremoniously dumped — but in any case when the negatives were developed in Paris, that photo did not show up.)

Nine years after Cannes, in July 2010, as the Obama birth controversy was raging, the reverend was part of one of the longest posts on this blog in 22 years, The JournoList Issue No One Is Bringing Up.  (A shorter summary, from the 2016 election campaign, is The 4 Key Facts About Obama's Birth Certificate Issue that Nobody Tells You.) The following is an extract from the one of those key facts, the point being that when have a father from a foreign country (Kenya) and when you have spent a major part of your youth abroad (in Indonesia), it is far from racist, twisted, and/or simply abnormal — whatever the color of your skin and whatever the name of your party — to be asked to provide reassurance of your birth place and whom you swear allegiance to. (Thanks for the Instalink, Sarah.)

Indeed, since then, it has transpired that two presidential candidates, both of them white, have been born abroad. 

Imagine, if in 2008, someone raised questions about John McCain, pointing out that he spent a lot of his youth outside the United States. Indeed, it turns out that the senator from Arizona was born in Panama. What if, in 2016, someone raised questions about Ted Cruz, pointing out that he seems to have spent a lot of his youth north of the border? And, indeed, it turns out that the senator from Texas was born in Canada. (Still, it turns out that both men qualified, or qualify, as natural-born citizens and thus as U.S. presidents — as, presumably would… Barack Obama (!), even if he indeed had been born abroad!)

From a combination of The JournoList Issue No One Is Bringing Up and the two updates of 2016 and 2018:

3. A Dispassionate Examination of the Facts, of the Nutjobs, and of Obama's Youth

May we be allowed to examine this issue — what MSM outlets like The Economist want us to dismiss instantly and categorically as "the absurd “birther” controversy" — fairly, coolly, and dispassionately?

[Update: Not until April 2011 did the White House finally release Barack Obama's original birth certificate.]

Let us find out to what degree it is demented, ludicrous, and/or offensive to put into doubt the Hawaiian birth of Barack Obama — a man who has complained that he can't spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead (something no one has asked him to do and thus turns out to be a(nother) straw man of his)…

Why are there some Americans who doubt the narrative that Barack Hussein Obama was not born in Hawaii, or elsewhere in the United States? After all, no one ever doubted that George W Bush was born in the United States or that John Kerry or Al Gore or Bill Clinton or Bob Dole or Ross Perot were born in the United States.

So, isn't this proof that only Obama's color is the only reason for these nutjobs, these racists, these birthers, to claim, preposterously, that Obama was born abroad — or that he is a Muslim, or a socialist, or indeed a communist?

But then, again, neither George W Bush nor John Kerry nor Al Gore nor Bill Clinton nor Bob Dole nor Ross Perot had a foreigner for a father (or for a mother) nor did they spend numerous years of their childhoods abroad — many years, if not most, of which were in a Muslim country.

Should Allen West, or JC Watts, or Thomas Sowell [or Herman Cain, or Ben Carson] run for president, no one would ask where they were born or demand to see their their (original) birth certificate as proof. But perhaps that is because those black men are Republicans (proving thereby that conservatives are biased)?

Hardly. That is because those African-Americans (emphasis on the "Americans" part) are known to have grown up in the United States and are known to have had parents who were not foreigners — certainly not at the time of their birth (i.e., if either of the parents was born abroad, he or she had become an American citizen by the time of his or her famous offspring's birth). And indeed, it is the same for left-leaning blacks (as it is for whites, left-leaning of otherwise).

Recall that Jesse Jackson tried running for president twice (in 1984 and 1988), and although he did not manage to become the Democratic Party's candidate, no one suggested that he was born abroad, and that for the simple reason that the Greenville, SC, native did not have a foreigner for a father (or for a mother) nor did he spend numerous years abroad. [Nor did Herman Cain or Ben Carson have to deal with such charges in their respective elections about a quarter century later, be it by Democrats or by the supporters of their GOP competitors.]

Similarly, it is unlikely that Al Sharpton (who grew up in Brooklyn) would ever be asked for his birth certificate. Neither Baptist minister would be likely accused of being a Muslim, although both might very well be described as socialists, or as communists — and that, for reasons that, in the final analysis, are pretty valid…

 … But in the event that Jesse Jackson, or Allen West, or Bill Gore, or George W Bush should be asked for their birth certificates — what is the big deal? Provide the (original) birth certificate and put the controversy behind you (and behind us — behind us all) … The very fact that they (i.e., the promisers of an era of transparency) refuse to provide something so simple, as James L Lambert points out, and get the controversy over with, once and for all, tends to be — whether you like it or not — suspicious.

After all, Barack Obama is not being asked to provide his tax statements or medical records (both of which actually turn out to be the norm for politicians to provide to the public and each of which is a far more intrusive document than a simple statement about an infant's birth location), nor is he being asked to provide some sort of far-fetched Jim-Crowe-era certificate, such as, say, the birth certificate of a grand-parent.

Besides, there are many basic things that a president, that any president (whatever the pigment of his — or her — skin), owes his populace, i.e., the people who are his "masters"…

 … to believe that an American citizen (whatever the color of his skin) born to a foreign father who lived much of his childhood abroad may indeed have been born in a foreign country turns out not to be that far-fetched at all.

Indeed, the difference between the Truthers and the Birthers is that in the first case, we are being asked to believe that 1) hundreds, if not thousands, of government officials were approached with a view to conspire to kill thousands of their fellow citizens, all (or most) of them innocent civilians, that 2) hundreds, if not thousands, of government officials agreed (apparently without a moment of hesitation) to conspire to murder thousands of innocent civilians, and that 3) none of these hundreds (thousands) of government officials has ever had a single, even fleeting feeling of remorse, or let the cat out of the bag, say while having too much to drink (no remorse?) during a Saturday outing to a local bar.

In the second case, we do not even have a conspiracy, but basically one single man hypothetically telling a falsehood — although it might even be termed a lie of omission — a lie about what offhand is a personal matter, but has turned into the only thing (allegedly) keeping him from power (Update: The New York Times' Double Standard on Conspiracy Theories).

Most damning of all, when you pause to think of it, the castigators' proof — if it can be called that — all lies in one fact (beyond the recently released certificate of live birth): and that fact is that Obama is a man, a person, a saint whose word should never be doubted, who is capable of no lying, no evil, no chicanery. If he tells you that, say, he is a Christian, then how dare you deny he is a religious man?! How dare you imply that he is a Muslim?! How dare you state he is a socialist?!

The person who ridicules the "Birther" theory as inane has no more proof than the born-in-Hawaii skeptic of where Obama was actually born [or didn't have any more proof until over two years into Obama's presidency]: his only argument — beyond the contention that the certificate of live birth and the newspaper clipping are incontrovertible proof that are not, can not be, fakes, bureaucratic mistakes, or misinterpretations — is the indisputable "truth" that Obama is someone whose honesty should not — should never — be questioned. (Whether in regards to his private life or to his political plans for America's future.)
[Update: As it happens, we would learn in 2012 (over four years after Obama was first a candidate and over three years after he entered the White House) that a "New Book Raises Questions About Obama's Memoir" (The New York Times' Michael Shear) and that, indeed, it turns out that Obama's memories were a "fantasy (like most of the President's own memoir)" (The Daily Mail). Adds Toby Harnden: "'Barack Obama: The Story' by David Maraniss catalogues dozens of instances in which Obama deviated significantly from the truth in his book 'Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance'. The 641-page book punctures the carefully-crafted narrative of Obama’s life."] 

[Moreover, as Lloyd Billingsley writes, there does seem to be quite a number of snags, significant or not (the reader will have to decide that for himself), in the former Barry Soetoro's past:

Clinton factotum George Stephanopoulos, one year ahead [at Columbia University in the early 1980s], and Matthew Cooper of Newsweek, a year behind, had no memory of the future president there. On that score, the pair had plenty of company. 

Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party candidate for vice-president in 2008, was in Obama’s 1983 Columbia political science and pre-law class, the identical course of study, and graduated on the same day. As Root told Matt Welch of Reason,  he “never met him in my life, don’t know anyone who ever met him.” 

In similar style, class of ’83 Columbia grads included a group of  25 lawyers, a doctor, several engineers and other professionals living in Israel. “Not one of us remembers Barack Obama . . . from our undergrad years, nor do we know anyone else who does,” explained Judy Maltz.]

When you think about it, it might be less worrying that some do not believe Obama was born in the United States (because of the circumstances linked to his entire childhood, much of it abroad) than that some are utterly convinced he must be born in the United States (because the Chicago pol is allegedly a sainted figure who can do, who can say no evil, who is incapable of or of lyingor of falsifying documents). Again, remember the desires of some of his followers who want(ed) the constitution to be changed, only so Obama could win one election after another and end up, in one way or another and in the best of all possible outcomes, as (de facto if not de jure) president-for-life? Let me ask everybody a simple question: Who is the truly terrifying fanatic, here?

 … There have been rumors that Obama may have attended college as a "foreign student" and that his book editor listed him as born in Kenya. Even if they are piddling issues, occasionally proven false, the point has nothing to with Obama per se. (As Breitbart states, "It is evidence — not of the President’s foreign origin, but that Barack Obama’s public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.") The point is that the mainstream media never bothered to devote even a minute to investigate the issue (or the strategy behind the different public personas); only new online media (Breitbart and Snopes) did so.

Indeed, the last point — and the kicker — of all three posts (2016, 2016, and 2018) is as follows:

Here comes the kicker: the so-called "Birther" charge (whether brought by a Democrat or a Republican) was never a charge leveled primarily at a man called Barack Obama or, for that matter, against a member of a minority or a person of a particular race.

It was a charge against the media. 

Indeed … the "birther" charge was, and is, an entirely justifiable charge against the mainstream media. It was never about birth certificates per se. It was about the double standards that the MSM demonstrate again and again, first, between a Republican and a Democrat, and, second, between the other members of the Donkey Party and the media's preferred (i.e., its "dream") candidate.

 … It was not by accident that the title of my "lengthy, in-depth, and dispassionate examination of the facts, of the nutjobs, and of Obama's youth" was The JournoList Issue No One Is Bringing Up. 

Barack Obama, Why Are You Calling Africa a Racist Continent? And You, AOC: Why Are You Calling Denmark a White Supremacist Country?

Voting in a Danish school's baseball court: the white paper in the voters' hands is their IDs, 
and thus the proof of their identity (those dirty scoundrels must all of 'em be racists!) 

What to you mean, No Pasarán, with those provocative questions, "Why are you calling Denmark a white supremacist country, Joe Biden? Why are you calling Africa a racist continent, Barack Obama?"?! 

[That quote was the original title of this post, which first appeared in March 2021. An argument that has not been made enough regarding the 2026 SAVE act is that just about all the European countries — who, remember, are invariably being held up by Democrats as outstanding models that America should emulate — request voter ID, without their minorities or the recently-married EU wives (of whichever race) seemingly losing their power to vote. Back to the question in the title:]

When have AOC, Joe Biden, or Barack Obama ever said that?! Are you bonkers?!

That's just the problem, dear reader: they have not said that. 

But they should. According to the Democrats' own logic.

Actually…

Actually, scratch that: it turns out that, according to the Democrats' own logic, they have in fact said that, or, if you prefer, they have implied it… 

After all, if demanding voter IDs is symptomatic of racism and indicative of a Jim Crow culture, then Denmark is one hell of a racist (and rotten) kingdom, because it is a nation in which — horror of horrors! — you cannot go into the booth on voting day and vote unless… (wait for it) you produce… a special voting ID.

For each election (national, regional, and/or local) in the land of Hamlet, the voter gets a card in the mail, valid for that election day alone, and it must be presented when you go to the polls — in person, of course — and after being handed over, the voter's name is ticked off on the voting rolls before he enters the booth.

Further South, in France, the nation's electoral card lasts for 12 elections (national, regional, and/or local), duly stamped, after which it must be renewed. In addition, in any town or city with more than 3,500 citizens, the voter must also present a regular ID.

The details, and the specifics, may change, but in all cases, there is some sort of an ID to be presented in order to vote.

Aren't you outraged, drama queens?! 

 Aren't you outraged by the hatred, locofocos?! — by the bigotry?! — by the racism?!

Indeed, there is scarcely a country in Europe, as well as in Africa (including the Obama family's ancestral Kenya), Asia, Oceania, and South America — nor, for that matter, is there one among either of the USA's immediate neighbors, Canada and Mexico — where you do not have to present some sort of ID when you go to the polls. (And here I include even the autocracies and the pretend democracies…) 

And therefore it stands to reason that every single country in Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas is forever embroiled in the era of Jim Crow relics. 

Because there does not seem to be a single place on this planet — those rotten spitbowls, all of 'em! — where ideas akin to those found in HR1 are even entertained.

Lack of voter ID: No thanks.

Mail-in ballots: Non merci.

Acceptance of ballots up to eight days after the polls have closed: Nein danke. 

Etc: Nej. Nei. Nyet. Non.…

The only place where there are attempts to make those thing happen turns out to be… the United States of America.

It is the dreamers' attempt to "fundamentally transform the United States." (See The Leftist Worldview in a Nutshell: A World of Deserving Dreamers Vs. Despicable Deplorables.)

There is a caveat — one humongous whale-size piece of a caveat — to all this, a caveat which the reader (whatever his or her nationality) must absolutely become aware of:

Offhand, it might sound like the USA alone is in the process of turning into a banana republic (if it hasn't done so already), while every other country has more or less common sense voting laws (whether they reflect the reality of the situation in the particular country or not).

In a sense, yes, that is true. 

But a deeper truth is that there is one thing we must not forget: most other countries have no such things as the electoral college. And other countries have no such thing as the filibuster. (Or equivalents thereof.)

What this means is that is that the (more populated) city vote always prevails over the countryside vote. And what does "the city" mean? What does it entail? It means dependent (helpless?) citizens, it means a greater need for assistance, it means a vaster bureaucracy, it means anonymity, it means corruption, it means inside deals, and it means lots and lots of bureaucrats who "are here to help" (aka compassion (sic)).

In other words, these countries, whatever their names (la République française, the German Democratic Republic, etc…) are functions of (at best) democracies rather than republics. 

This is why the vast majority of other nations have no organization with the strength of the Republican Party (or of the Libertarians), certainly not at the level inside the U.S.A. (even when naïve RINOS dilute the strength of their own side).

This, in turn, explains why foreigners always oppose the USA's GOP (see November 2020 election) — often religiously — why foreigners always join Democrats in criticizing, ridiculing, and demonizing the flyover Americans, and why foreigners always support Democrats in their dreams to "fundamentally transform the United States." 

Foreigners support making the USA not into a one-party nation per se, but into a nation like their own, a democracy where the drama queens of basically some kind of (more or less rigid) pro-government party are always at the helm and where élites rule over the respective nations' unruly deplorables — whose youngsters are invariably being indoctrinated by the respective school systems.

I will end this post by saying that, needless to say, there is nothing new about this and by quoting a nine-year-old post where I said much the same as above, but while using slightly different language and arguments. If you have the time…

In July 2012, the Economist ended an article on voter fraud with the sentence: 

it would be awkward, to say the least, if Mr Romney won because new laws kept some of Mr Obama’s supporters from voting.

And I had the following reaction: 

Would it not be far worse if Barack Obama — or if either candidate, really — won because the absence of a voting law allowed fraudulent voters from his party (with or without the candidate's consent) to steal the election?

In the latter case, a candidate might win as a result of a crime — a crime which election and law officers were deliberately prevented from detecting. In the (hypothetical) case you mention, his adversary might win because of the unintended consequences in the fight against crime, which is surely a distinction worth making.

To take another (far worse) crime, how prevalent is murder? Not very, if you take the statistics in percentage (something like 0.0048 %). Well, no matter how rare murder is, you still need to criminalize it as much for justice — to bring perpetrators (however rare they may be) to justice — as for prevention — to prevent people from being tempted to use it.

The last I heard, one needs some sort of poll card to cast a ballot in Britain, as indeed one does in every other democracy on this planet. Due to the Democrats' hysterical race-baiting, we have been subjected to the (absurd) spectacle of being the only country where having this (common-sense) requirement can only be viewed as vile, outrageous prejudice. Well, if it is racist to require voter ID in America, then Britain and every other democracy on the planet (including, of course, in Africa) can only qualify as racist as well.

The height of ridicule occurred when Democrats organized hearings in Washington to hear the sob stories of these oppressed masses. Except that in order to get out-of-state to DC, the wretched martyrs who find it such a hardship getting around their home towns managed to board an… airplane by showing an… ID.

Related: • Of the 47 countries in Europe today — the nations and the continent that the Democrats are always telling us to emulate — 46 of them currently require government-issued photo IDs to vote
• Voter ID: Apparently not allowing minorities to cheat is a form of racial oppression
• In America, we learn from the French newspaper Le Monde (in July 2013), 
Most of the 39 Million African-Americans Do Not Have an ID to Vote  
• If the Democrats learned anything from their 2016 debacle, 
it’s that they didn’t cheat nearly enough (May 2017) 
• Let’s dispense with the myth that liberals are really against voter fraud;
Voter fraud is actually an essential part of their election strategy (from April 2014)  
• Democrats don't support voter fraud;
they just worry about disenfranchising the deceased
• Voter ID: Apparently not allowing minorities to cheat is a form of racial oppression 
• Isn't America Being Governed by a Mafia Family Dynasty, setting things up so that there will always be Democrats in power?
• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party
• Voter Fraud: A Note to Leftists Who Claim that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced" 
• Dennis Prager: The Numerous (and Sweeping) Anomalies Regarding the 2020 Election That Cannot Be Ignored

And, evergreen: 

• The January 6 Protest Summarized in One Single Sentence 
• What the January 6th protest actually reveals is the criminal determination of the Democrats to establish a one-party state at whatever the cost 
• Let's Stop Using the Words "Trump Tried to Overturn the 2020 Election"; It's Unprofessional Journalism