Since you ignored my last sentence, I chose to play a part in the problem and explain myself once again so the public wont be confused. This was what I said: Now Imagine if I said this instead: Then your post would make some sense, but now they doesn't. Imagine if I made a post that was in a language which the majority didn't speak in this section.. and someone dared to give me the advise to take up the issue within a PM.. I wouldn't really be surpriced and I would not argue about my right to speak it. This is a feather-issue but I want to make myself clear. _____________________ Now back to the real issue. France have had a big problem with unemployment ever since 1970. The french prime minister Dominique de Villepin has made some efforts to combat the high unemployment rate including: # Encouraging unemployed young adults to work in sectors with labor shortages (i.e.: hotel industry, restaurants, etc.) by offering them a 1000 € tax cut per year. # Offering a one-off financial reward of 1000 € to a long-term unemployed person who finds a job. [get-a-job-get-fired-get-a-job-get-fired-get-a-job and so on LOL] # Cutting taxes and Social Security contributions for businesses that hire apprentices. # Cutting taxes and Social Security contributions for businesses that provide "face-to-face" services (i.e.: hairdressers at home, helping the elderly, childcare). [Discriminating against other business IMO] # Removing a "fine" for businesses that fire seniors. [Poor seniors] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_France#Current_economic_issues
Hahahah. Laterhorn, quite honestly, you would best make yourself clear by being clear. However, if I am hearing you right, your issue is over the use of the word "such." As in, my particular brand of rebutting someone who called me a "lazy entitlement minded French", though admittedly not to the timbre of -was nevertheless not to your taste. As was my querying a French person in their tongue. As I have said, from the beginning, you are stepping into something not directed to you. If what I wrote offends you, please direct it to the mods. At any rate, this is a child's game and I have no wish to continue. Your other posts, on the French economy, bear more interest.
i read in a repport by goldman and sachs, that france, and italy are the first to be removed from the G7 after the rising of China and India
Actually, there is some sign that France is seeing a rebound, of a sort: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5388330.stm, but there is no doubt that France has embedded into its institutions a whole host of social protection instruments, designed for those currently working or for those with current businesses, that are extra-market in nature and are skewed when compared to the current reality. Such is the case in a good many national markets in Europe. But I think we need to go deeper. I don't think the social protection programs are necessarily the root of the problem, and I don't think the true root - the continuing push towards services and away from industrial output is all that peculiar to France. I think the same signs are everywhere in industrialized economies, but I may be beating a dead horse on this. It isn't enough to say "increased output" or "increased employment" as a prescriptive to an ailing economy. Economic segments must also be looked at. For years, we have looked to services, and by services, we usually imply "hi-tech" services as the panacean future to today's employment problems, for one. But absent "good old fashioned manufacturing," the services sector is nothing - the two depend on each other to feed not only each other directly, but to create markets for local and logistical feeds (i.e., trucking/transportation). And with a whopping 74% of French GDP in services in 2006 (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_France), this, I would say, is where the problem lies. France isn't manufacturing as it was under the dirigiste model, when French telecom was ascendant. And one lion of its productive capacity - French agriculture - has been for years hit by exogenous price shocks due to EU and 3rd world exports. At any rate, there is a ton of material on the subject. Here's a paper from John Zysman, who I briefly worked for while at Berkeley. May provide an interesting perspective: How do Wealthy Nations Stay Wealthy? Challenges for the European Policy Agenda.
When you get a chance, take a read of Dr. Zysman's paper, Rick - it makes the point you bring up, that social protection programs are not all of the same ilk, and adjustments can be made, even in the French model (as distinguished, I believe, from others such as the Scandinavian model) that will lessen some of their most egregious harmful effects. Re: our 78.7% services...I forgot to put this in for comparative perspective. But this is what I meant - all the industrialized nations of, let's call it the "First Wave," the west - will have their ass handed to them in a sling if they don't return to domestically based manufacturing. "Globalization effects," I would argue, are not inevitable, but the result of national policy that neglect certain sectors over others. And I think for some time now, following England of the 19th Century, the U.S. and other "later" industrial nations have seen the exporting of intellectual and other capital to burgeoning primary producers as ineluctable. It isn't, but believing so will mean, I would say, we only follow France in going down a services-based economic decline. I would agree with you that in France, as with anywhere it exists, no long-run viability and vitality can exist without fiscal responsibility. But, for a long while, France, Germany and Japan were held up as the beacons of a skilled and knowledgeable workforce - while we in the U.S. whined about labor costs and sought to curb them in making short-run accounting sheets pan out better, these three nations generally paid their workforce very well - and earned it back, by educating, adding value, and retooling labor structure so that productivity and flexible response were the call signs of the day. If anything, our high-end management compensation packages are more to blame, I would say, than exorbitant hourly costs - train the workforce, increase their productivity, and pay them well.
You think so? I'd be interest in knowing how we neglect certain sectors over others. I have some theories, but they're mostly focused on the banking system. America, too. Everyone. I don't know. Maybe. Japan has this mindset ie they pay their CEO's relatively just a bit higher than common workers. I would say the best companies are the ones that realize they're dealing with a whole person, not a tool. If they can reasonable meet certain standards, they could compensate everyone descently.
I don't have all the stuff right now, Rick (much of this material was a general trend in the U.S. when I was in grad school, 2 decades ago, and though I believe the general thrust towards services has only grown, the datasources I used are, I'm sure, outdated. However, here's a few current sources - showing the USTR emphasis on services, our declined manufacturing productivity vis a vis other countries (see 1993 on, specifically, when Korea started to stomp the U.S.), and our BOP/Absolute Exports in goods specifically, 1960-2005: http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Sectors/Services/Section_Index.html ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ForeignLabor/prodsuppt01.txt http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/goods.txt Agreed.
Hahahah. Well, I usually take Latehorn's posts with a grain of salt, but this thread picked my interest. Je dis, si vous voudrais répondre en Français, pourquoi pas?