France gives Britain a run for its money by Sam Fleming

[Joe Chi Minh]

This is the title of an item in today's Daily Mail. A few brief quotes from the article, which I could not find on the Daily Mail or the BNP Paribas website, which was apparently the source of the information.

"They take longer holidays than we do, work shorter hours, and go on strike every time their leaders make a faux pas. But despite a range of apparent handicaps, the French are managing to turbo-charge their economy.

Figures released yesterday showed French gross domestic product expanded at its fastest quarterly pace in five years - far exceeding growth in the UK, Japan and the US. GDP jumped as much as 1.2pc in the second quarter, leaving Britain's 0.8pc increase in the shade."

(snip)

"The recovery is down to a fast-growing property market, improving job opportunities and surprisingly firm consumer spending. The French also produce far more during their truncated working hours than their colleagues in the UK.

(snip)

Continuing to quote the spokesman of BNP Paribas (the largest bank in the Eurozone by market capitalisation) :- "There's no disputing that the growth outlook is improving. This looks like a fundamental acceleration rather than a one-quarter blip, because we are seeing similar evidence in other (eurozone) economies as well."

Well, well. The "surprisingly(!!!) firm consumer spending" wouldn't have anything to do with people having more money in their pockets and feeling more secure, generally, could it?

The Rheinland school of economics (as I believe it is called), favoured by the EU, seems to hold that the mass of the people and the small companies in a country actually count. The inevitable upshot of this is that the citizenry of the continental Western European countries, generally, feel less stressed than their Anglo-American counterparts, imo the sole indicator of a country's health and well-being. The figure for the man-hours lost to industry in the UK through sick leave due to stress is apparently enormous.

The greater the power wrested from the people by our corporatist oppressors, the more numerous and more onerous the stresses they pile upon us, from blaring TV ads to bill payments, to the social anomie that breeds so much violence, to failing or non-existent health care, to mortgage foreclosures and home repossessions, etc, etc, etc.

[TwentyFive]

1. Socialism works!

Under capitalism, all improvements in society filter up to the top .0005% of the population.

An Administrative Assistant is 20 times more efficient than 40 years ago....yet this person makes no more money in today's dollars. In fact, their job is less secure, and the person is more likely to have more debt. Meanwhile, the CEO of the campany has gone from about 40 times the salary, to over 500 times her salary.

You'll never get ahead under stinky capitalism....but the illusion is that you will. And that is the big fallacy.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. You betcha! As Peace Patriot says, a mixed economy, but social

justice.

[Peace Patriot]

2. This is what the Latin American countries are going for--a mixed

capitalist/socialist economy with a strong component of social justice. We could have it here, too, if we could get this fascist cabal off our backs, restore our right to vote, outlaw the Republican Party (just kidding-but doesn't it sound refreshing?), make peace with the world, cut the military budget back by, say, 90%, to a true defensive posture (what is this humongous military machine FOR, hm?--except unjustified, OFFENSIVE wars of choice), and get on with dismantling these bad actor global corporate predators that are a poisonous growth on our society, sucking us dry and destroying our democracy.

A tall order. It's heartening to see some examples of good government around. I hope and pray for a gigantic leftist (majorityist) reaction here to six years of the most abominable rule we're ever known--so that we can CATCH UP with the most progressive countries. We've been badly beaten up, and we are not going to recover with some namby-pamby, bought and paid for, corporate-lite Democratic COMPROMISES with fascist theft, murder and rampant lawlessness.

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. "....global corporate predators that are a poisonous growth

on our society....".

I often think of such greed as a cancer on our societies; a metaphorical description, yet extraordinarily close in its meaning and effects on society to the literal condition of the human disease.

It's not even as if Chavez were an atheistic Communist; while Castro seems to be ambivalent about his earlier atheism, these days. He and Pope John Paul II seemed to have a high regard for each other.