On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher and CNBC co-host Sara Eisen said that the vicious debt cycle in France illustrates the problems of very generous socialist welfare states.
Eisen said, “I would say, France, though, actually, particularly, has a number of problems right now, like, I cover the markets on CNBC, and the market is telling them that they have a major debt problem, and it’s getting worse. And what happens is, these people are what started as protesting schools, they’re — they want more public spending. The problem is, France is broke. They’ve done public spending for decades on a welfare state. This is what happens. And then they bring in these prime ministers who have to make budget cuts. And, guess what? They get rid of them very soon after. So, it’s kind of this debt spiral. And I think the lesson for America out of this — because we have a debt problem, too, is, you want to embrace growth. France doesn’t have economic growth, they have high unemployment, we have growth in this country, we have capitalism in this country. Now these are the things that are getting, I think, France in particular, in trouble right now, and…there’s a lesson there for the U.S.”
Later, Maher stated that “they do have a very generous welfare state. I remember Michael Moore doing that great movie about how great things are in socialism, and some of it is great, but the punchline of the whole movie was the people from France — from the government doing your laundry. Remember that? Well, maybe a little too much doing your laundry, and this is what happens.”
Eisen then said, “Well, right. And then they protest when they want more spending, which they can’t afford.”
Maher agreed and said, “[I]t’s this vicious cycle, because the people don’t want to give up their perks, so now you have to borrow more money.”
Eisen added, “You have to borrow money to service the debt, that’s what they call a debt spiral, and that’s a problem. Luckily, in the U.S., we still have the dollar, the world’s reserve currency, so people want to buy our debt. But I think there’s a lesson here, and, if I could, part of the solution — and I mentioned this — is economic growth. And, in this country — and what Europe doesn’t have is, we have an AI revolution.”
Maher countered that AI could be a bubble.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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