Ten things we should steal from France (or from the French). I have to admit this idea comes from Bill Mahar. I am not a fan of Bill Mahar. He is clever at times, but too often is seems like the un funny version of John Stewart. John Stewart is unnecessarily crude, but always funny. So I watched a video of Bill Mahar who had a monologue about the French Health Care system. The point he made that stuck with me is that we ought to steal it. I guess it is more palatable to suggest we steal something than to say that someone has outperformed us and we ought to try and do better. Stealing is us being on top. So in that vein I want to nominate the 10 things (so far) that I think we need to steal from France.
1) The Bread
I don’t know what our problem is, but you would think that we could figure out how to make French Baguettes. We are a clever people. If the problem is the flour (which some have suggested that it is) then import the flour or figure out how to mill the same flour. If the problem is the water, figure that out. We will pay $3 for a baguette that is only comparable in shape to the 50 cent baguette here. I remember telling Kim that the baguettes in Spain would surprise her. She didn’t believe it then, but once she got there she realized that there was a significant difference. This is not exclusively a French thing for I remember getting equally good bread in Spain. We looked in Germany and Austria for the same bread and did not find it. So why Albertson’s or somebody cannot figure this out is beyond my comprehension. This is not my opinion exclusively. The kids will go to the store to get a baguette if we are out. They know there is a difference.
2) Health Care
I can’t have a list of things we must steal from France without including the Health Care. It is almost surprising that we have not figured out how to do this. I haven’t got to the bottom of it, but I am pretty sure that I pay more in taxes (including health benefit expenses) and I get A LOT less. I know people like to say things they believe are true when in fact they are not, but here are things that are not true. The French hate their healthcare, the US has the best medical system in the world, the French pay a lot of taxes for their health system, the socialist system is not as good because it does not promote competition. There are a lot of variables, but bottom line we need to steal the French Health Care system from soup to nuts. How they educate their doctors to how they provide universal healthcare. Once we steal it, we can make it better. The clunker we have is killing us.
3) Better Shopping Carts
Ok not so serious now. I have yet to see a shopping cart out of place in France. The reason is that they have a simple system wherein the shopping carts are chained together in the shopping cart stalls. You put a coin into the shopping cart and it stays there until you put the chain back in place. It is simple and convenient. I will have to get pictures. Think of the money that could be saved from having an employee going out to retrieve shopping carts. The carts are all under overhangs so retrieving a wet shopping cart is never an issue. The second thing I like about shopping carts is that they have magnetic wheels so that when you put them on the inclined moving sidewalk (think of an escalator with an incline instead of stairs) they stick. I know there are not a lot of places where shopping carts need to go up stairs, but if they ever do need to do so, this is a pretty slick system.
4) Roundabouts
We have a few roundabouts in the US. We need more. There is not a single stop light in our town. Everyone knows how the roundabout works and it works quite well. I rarely find myself waiting as long as I might at a stop light. Traffic flows really efficiently. I love them. We need them. My sister DeeAnn’s town put a roundabout at the bottom of her hill. I loved it before coming to France. I just had no idea that you could practically eliminate street lights.
5) Speed Bump Replacements
Ok these things are pretty clever. I know on streets where we need people to drive slowly we install speed bumps. Curiously in AZ they are called humps. Here in Geveze they have another way of slowing cars down. At different intervals they have a part of the street blocked off so that only one car can pass. We drive on such a street a lot. You are forced to slow down because you will have to cross over to the other side of the street or run up the curb. There has never been a problem knowing who should have the right away. Very clever and much better than driving over speed bumps which by the way are a lot more comfortable the faster you drive. Try it sometime. Drive over a speed bump going 20 MPH and then drive over a speed bump going 50 MPH. The faster drive will be more comfortable.
6) Hidden Taxes
At first I didn’t understand how this works. I thought there were no taxes on things you bought. Finally I learned that the taxes you paid are on the bottom of the receipt. So when a liter of milk says that it cost $1 that is what you pay at the cashier. This is so wonderful for adding up what your grocery bill may be because most items are priced to round numbers. I see no advantage to seeing something priced at $10 and wondering if I am going to pay $10.70 or $11 because I don’t know what all the taxes are for that store (federal, state, city, county). The price advertized should be the price you pay. This would be really helpful when buying things online like airline tickets. I don’t know who would be opposed to this. Let’s pass a law now.
7) Closed on Sundays
Another law that I am not sure on the details is that stores cannot be open on Sunday. Evidently there was a store that tried to be open on Sunday and there were demonstrations. I think I see the logic. If your store is open on Sunday, then my store will have to open on Sunday in order to compete. Make the competition fair by outlawing stores being open on Sunday. France is not a religious country so there seems like a way to make the argument that it would be better for society without talking about religious beliefs.
8) Toilette rooms
I did not like the toilettes here at first and even though there are some things I still do not like there are some things that the French seemed to have got right. First is that the toilette is not in the bathroom. I thought that was not good at first, but now that we have lived that way it makes a lot more sense. I like not having to worry if someone is going to jump in the shower before I need to go the bathroom. Toilette rooms (what else would we call them?) are used quickly and therefore are more frequently available. Then there is the public restroom scenario. Believe it or not there are quite a few restrooms where there is no difference between the girls and the boys. That makes sense if you see the way it is laid out. Do we really need separate sinks? Again, I am generally not fond of the bathrooms here, but there are some things we could steal.
9) Competitive Education
Say what you want about socialism vs capitalism, but almost all education is socialism and education is a good thing. I benefit when others are educated. The more educated our society the better off we all are. Where we seem to have lost our capitalistic free market tendencies is in education. I am not talking about making the schools more competitive, but the students. Now France goes a little overboard, but the education is very competitive. Becoming a doctor is not about getting into medical school as much as it is getting into the right high school. When students don’t measure up they are not coddled into the next grade. It is not unheard of to have a 17 year old in junior high. The students feel the pressure and I think they raise the bar for everyone. I have problems with some of the aspects of the system, but I like that doing well in school actually means something. No one will coast through high school knowing they are going to get through like everyone else. The only coasters are those who realize they are not going to get to the next level. Passing the BAC (which is like a High School diploma) means something here.
10) Posted Prices
I have more, but I will let this be the last entry. I do not know if it is required by law or if everyone does it in order to compete, but in every store where you see a window display, the prices for those items displayed are posted. So when I look at a mannequin and it is wearing a sweater, pants and a jacket, below the mannequin are the posted prices for each of those items. Why can’t we do that? The window displays become much more practical and interesting knowing what each item might cost. It is sometimes done in a cheap Walmart sort of way, but more often it is done nicely adding to the attractiveness of the display.
That is all I have for now. I think I need to take pictures of my top ten because it is hard to comprehend what I mean in some cases. I could come up with a top 10 things they should take from us, but while I am here I think it is better to think of things they are doing better than us so that post will have wait until post France.