Franceâs economy,â it writes, âhas been less hard hit than many. Its GDP is expected to shrink by 3 percent this year ... against 4 percent in Britain, 4.4 percent in Italy, and 5.6 percent in Germany. It is less dependent on exports than Germany, and consumer spending in the first quarter of 2009 was up on the same period last year. The government ... is set to have a deficit in 2009 (6.2 percent of GDP) well below those in America (13.6 percent) and Britain (9.8 percent).â They are comparing more to Germany than to the US, so why the anglo-saxon bashing? Germany is more like France. America's deficit is a singular gift of Obama and crew. I gotta ask why -3%GDP growth, 6.2%GDP deficit is 'shining'? Are you kidding me? Notice the dismal french unemployment rate is not mentioned because it doesn't quite fit with the author's bias : http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aSCPYPBac.r4&refer=economy French household debt is half that in America, no bank has failed, none has been nationalized, executive pay is reasonable, and âthe income gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent is far smaller than in Britain or America.â The country is crisscrossed by 230-mph TGV trains, 80 percent of the power is nuclear (and more is exported), its auto producers are in reasonably good shape, Air France is the most profitable airline in the world, and French-dominated Airbus sells more planes than Boeing Airbus is subsidized at taxpayer expense, the household debt and banks are good points, trains are irrelevent except to a communist, nuclear power half irrelevent. I would be asking why it is that with no bank failures the French are not doing better. They sucked for the last 10 years, now when they suck just a little less, someone comes out and proclaims their system better. What a brazenly dumb attempt at socialist chest beating.
"The French are uncertain of what to make of this tribute, since self-denigration is (oddly enough) a national characteristic" I think William Pfaff has not met many French people.
The article is full of shit. The OP is one of the stupidest fucks on ET. Soc Gen was the number one recipient of AIG bailout funds.
You are correct. http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/15/AIG.banks.list/index.html They received $4.1 billion or a staggering 2,9 billion Euro's today. No idea how they would have solved that if AIG didnt come through.
That must be some kind of country over there if property ownership is not a fundamental right. And just who the hell is going to lend money to a company if it becomes subordinate to labor interests? We're about to find out in Obama's grand transformation of the US. But, why wait? Anyone with an ounce of sense knows that the only lenders to those kinds of companies are going to be gov't or gov't owned banks. What a dismal state of affairs awaits this country.