Free trade, and how it is understood by Anglo-Saxons

[Kuciwalker]

I'm not clear on one point: why aren't Europeans allowed to own more the 25% of an American airline in the first place? That's silly...

[Lawrence of Arabia]

non mais dedieu if faut que t'arrêtes avec tes conneries.

1. il y a un grand malaise en france
2. c'est à cause d'un taux de chômage élevé, surtout parmis les jeunes et dans les banlieues.
3. ce taux de chômage est dû au système actuel en france qui fait qu'il est impossible de virer les collaborateurs qui ne fouent rien.
4. hereusement pour ceux qui ne veulent pas travailler, il y a les étudiants qui font la grève dès qu'on essaie de libéraliser le marché du travail pour doper la croissance et faire en sort que les jeunes diplômés puissent facilement trouver un boulot (et non un CDD qui contribue au malaise)

tu ne vois donc pas que ton système ne marche pas??? ton système mène à un taux de chômage élevé, à un taux de croissance inférieur à la moyenne de l
OCDE, à un PIB par habitant inférieur à celui d'Irelande, et finalement aux émeutes, et au malaise. faut que t'arrêtes de dire que le système en france marche bien, et que le néolibéralisme est mauvais, parcqu'en réalité, c'est votre système qui est le pire des choses. vous les français, vous vous faites larguer par tous les autres pays de l'occident, mais vous continuer à insister que votre système économique est le meilleur au monde.

faut pas exagérer quand même.

et puis il y a Arnaud Montebourg, qui ouvre sa grande geuele et s'en prend à la suisse pour des raisons qui n'intéressent personne. il le fait seulement parceque c'est plus facile d'attaquer un pays qui n'est pas membre de l'UE. quel lâche. c'est toujours plus facile de montrer du doigt qqun d'autre que d'assumer la résponsabilité du malaise en france.

[Kuciwalker]

Even more at myself for being able to read a little bit of that. I thought I'd forgotten it all

[DAVOUT]

Lawrence

I would like, by courtesy, to answer in French, but Apolyton does not allow not to use English.

Anyway, I do not believe that I have to comment your post since it has a subject different from this thread.

As it seems to be related to French problems (many thanks to a Swiss citizen interested in our difficulties), I think Spiffor will be perfectly qualified to quiet your anxiety, although I am not sure that he is a supporter of Montebourg.

[TheStinger]

Davout,

The problem with your postion is that your dislike for all things British and American misses the point that in this case the French and others in continental europe were in agreement with the US wheras the UK wanted more free trade.

Therefore your point that all anglo saxons ( a particulary silly over simplification when categorizing the US and the UK) want free trade at all costs is wrong.

My positionis that free trade is a goal to aim for and in general the UK push for it more than others, we are not haowever perfect in that respect.

further I actualy believe that free trade will bring benefits for all, not just my country its not in my opinion a system that is designed to reduce culures of the worls to an amporphopus sludge

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by TheStinger
Davout,

The problem with your postion is that your dislike for all things British and American misses the point ...

I confess that this could be seen as slightly provocative ... but not less that Oerdin's argument that free trade with eastern euro countries justifies the enlargement before adapting the institutions.

... that in this case the French and others in continental europe were in agreement with the US wheras the UK wanted more free trade.

Regarding the Heathrow monopoly (or rather ologopoly), I cannot see the UK showing an enthousiastic desire to reach real free trade

Therefore your point that all anglo saxons ( a particulary silly over simplification when categorizing the US and the UK) want free trade at all costs is wrong.

My point is that my prefered Anglo-Saxons (US and UK) want free trade at all costs for others, not for them.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I do like the French Drake better then the Yankee jingoist Drake.

The French Drake is silly.

-Arrian

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

At any rate, we are they're *****es now...

If you're going to "fix" something, you could at least make sure the grammar is correct. Christ, I speak your native language better than you do...

Same here

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Arrian
The French Drake is silly.

-Arrian

Um, duh?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
non mais dedieu if faut que t'arrêtes avec tes conneries.

1. il y a un grand malaise en france
2. c'est à cause d'un taux de chômage élevé, surtout parmis les jeunes et dans les banlieues.

I guess I'm expected to answer. So much is true.
Though unemployment is not the only reason for the French malaise. IMO, one of the reasons is that there is a conflict between our "passion of equality" (as would put Tocqueville), and a current system and culture that emphasizes egotism and egoism. As a result, we got plenty of people who want it all while not giving any (I'm not only talking about welfare leechers and bad faith employees, far from it. We have plenty of rogue bosses as well, who see their employees as mere tools not worthy of respect). That certainly doesn't help getting a cohesive society.

3. ce taux de chômage est dû au système actuel en france qui fait qu'il est impossible de virer les collaborateurs qui ne fouent rien.

Bull****.
Our labour laws do contribute to unemployment a bit, but not because they prevent an employer from firing a lazy employee: they partially prevent employers from using employees (even the hardworking ones) as an adjustment variable.

4. hereusement pour ceux qui ne veulent pas travailler, il y a les étudiants qui font la grève dès qu'on essaie de libéraliser le marché du travail pour doper la croissance et faire en sort que les jeunes diplômés puissent facilement trouver un boulot (et non un CDD qui contribue au malaise)

The anti-CPE protests basically united the French society. They were the biggest protests since 1968, and there were students, unemployed, workers, employees, housewives and even retirees in them. The French society as a whole , not just the students, doesn't want to see its youth as tools to be used and then thrown away.

tu ne vois donc pas que ton système ne marche pas??? ton système mène à un taux de chômage élevé, à un taux de croissance inférieur à la moyenne de l
OCDE, à un PIB par habitant inférieur à celui d'Irelande, et finalement aux émeutes, et au malaise. faut que t'arrêtes de dire que le système en france marche bien, et que le néolibéralisme est mauvais, parcqu'en réalité, c'est votre système qui est le pire des choses.

Unbacked ideological incantation.
Also, Ireland's GDP/hab is one of the biggest in the EU.

vous les français, vous vous faites larguer par tous les autres pays de l'occident, mais vous continuer à insister que votre système économique est le meilleur au monde.

Except that it's been at least 5 years that there's a near-consensus our model is broken. Despite quite a few successes (France is consistently one of the most attractive EU countries for foreign investments), there's a "declinology" speech that has infected the whole political debate about economics.
Sarkozy wants to emulate the American model (though he avoids to say the word, he'd lose votes), while Royal avowedly wants to emulate the Danish model.

et puis il y a Arnaud Montebourg, qui ouvre sa grande geuele et s'en prend à la suisse pour des raisons qui n'intéressent personne. il le fait seulement parceque c'est plus facile d'attaquer un pays qui n'est pas membre de l'UE. quel lâche. c'est toujours plus facile de montrer du doigt qqun d'autre que d'assumer la résponsabilité du malaise en france.

I don't care about Montebourg, as he's an opportunist of the kind I quite dislike.

However, I wonder what those attacks against Switzerlanbd were. During this campaign, the only reason why Switzerland was mentioned is because superstar Johnny Hallyday moved there to pay fewer taxes, despite earning huge sums of money from his music. Hallyday publically supports Sarkozy, and many French people don't like tax dodgers, especially the rich ones. If his "attacks against Switzerland" are about those tax dodgers (Sarkozy has several among his public supports), then it means Montebourg is just trying to score cheap points.

[Dinner]

Our labour laws do contribute to unemployment a bit, but not because they prevent an employer from firing a lazy employee: they partially prevent employers from using employees (even the hardworking ones) as an adjustment variable.

That's still a huge problem. Businesses need to adjust constently in order to match output with demand and labor is a huge chunk of that. French laws are extremely hard on employers making it fairly difficult to fire someone and even after you lay someone off the business can be stuck paying very generous unemployment or retraining benifets for years after.

This drives up the real cost of labor for employers and makes them less likely to hire. Let's say your company comes up with a new design which is more popular then expected; should they hire new people and increase production? That's risky because demand might not be as high as they think and then they'd be stuck with excess workers who they'd later have to lay off and pay fat unemployment and retraining payments for. So the wise French company doesn't hire new employees and tries to maximize the output with existing employees (meaning they won't produce as much so they won't make as much profit especially since paying overtime wages costs more the standard wages) or they move production outside of France were the total cost of labor is lower.

At the end of the day this is the heart of France's economic problems. It's to hard and to expensive to lay off workers. That's why companies keep going with temporary contract workers and do everything they can to not hire new people. Until this fundamental problem is fixed then France's economy will continue to be an under performer.

[Dinner]

The anti-CPE protests basically united the French society. They were the biggest protests since 1968, and there were students, unemployed, workers, employees, housewives and even retirees in them. The French society as a whole , not just the students, doesn't want to see its youth as tools to be used and then thrown away.

They first protest for jobs and then when the government makes its first timid efforts to make the hard changes which will result in more jobs the nutters protest that. Either they want more jobs or they don't. It's a trade off; less security for more jobs or more security and a crap economy.

I doubt anything meaningful will be done so huge numbers of young French will continue to leave the country in order to find work. These laws which make it hard/expensive to fire workers only protect current workers at the cost of all future workers not getting a chance to work.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Oerdin
That's still a huge problem. Businesses need to adjust constently in order to match output with demand and labor is a huge chunk of that. French laws are extremely hard on employers making it fairly difficult to fire someone and even after you lay someone off the business can be stuck paying very generous unemployment or retraining benifets for years after.

This drives up the real cost of labor for employers and makes them less likely to hire. Let's say your company comes up with a new design which is more popular then expected; should they hire new people and increase production? That's risky because demand might not be as high as they think and then they'd be stuck with excess workers who they'd later have to lay off and pay fat unemployment and retraining payments for. So the wise French company doesn't hire new employees and tries to maximize the output with existing employees (meaning they won't produce as much so they won't make as much profit especially since paying overtime wages costs more the standard wages) or they move production outside of France were the total cost of labor is lower.

There are some things wrong with your analysis.
1. Flexibility does exist in small businesses, which is the size it is most critical to be flexible. The CNE is a contract where you can fire or leave at will for two years, and all small businesses can sign a CNE.
The effect of the CNE has been very small. Plenty of them have been signed in the 1,5 years since it's been implemented, plenty have been ended as well. Most of the remaining employees would have been hired anyway without the CNE: Among the minority of small businessmen that use the CNE, only a third say they wouldn't have hired if not for the CNE.
The net gain is only a few dozen thousands (ISTR 35k).
This is despite the fact it immensely relieves a small business from the legal difficulties of firing an employee: basically, no difficulty at all for the two first years such a contract is signed.

2. Unemployment benefits are paid for by the state. Employers contribute to it through taxes, but don't pay their laid-off workers directly, except the severance package.

At the end of the day this is the heart of France's economic problems. It's to hard and to expensive to lay off workers. That's why companies keep going with temporary contract workers and do everything they can to not hire new people. Until this fundamental problem is fixed then France's economy will continue to be an under performer.

There are temp workers that last a very long time. Being a temp is very frequent among workers, in factory lines and construction especially. Not because the employers there are especially small and would be overwhelmed if a downturn in demand meant they had too many employees (they're generally large enough to compensate such downturns by inner mobility, not-hiring after retirements etc). Not because the market is highly volatile: consturction is booming, if anything. But because it allows them a greater control over the workers, and acts as an HR scarecrow. Temp workers are constantly under pressure if they don't want to be fired un-hired.
For example a factory is currently experienceing a strike, and it has sent a letter to all its temps workers (at least one of them has been there for a year) threatening them if they strike. Something they'd never dare with hired workers.

[Fake Boris]

The French passion for "equality" probably originates from that they are a society of contests; just about any public job is handed on the basis of anonymous exams. This specy of meritocracy, to be fair, requires that every step be ensured so that people can live in material conditions that don't affect the preparation of such exams.

Even private employers seem to give enormous credence to an applicant's academic performance. Things are much different in North America, where it's more important to fare well in interviews and demonstrate a dynamic personality.
Heck, even medecine faculty applicants (in Quebec) are evaluated half for their academic performance, the other half being personality points awarded in individual and collective rounds of interview.

As for labor laws, I wouldn't blame them for the most part. Quebec's laws are amongst the most pro-workers in NA, and yet our unemployment curve seems to follow that of other states and provinces. Even in the 50s, when nearly no labour protection existed, unemployment was higher than in other provinces. It seems to be a structural problem.

[Solomwi]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
My point is that my prefered Anglo-Saxons (US and UK) want free trade at all costs for others, not for them.

As one of your preferred Anglo-Saxons, I'd agree, but add that where we do so, we do so to our own detriment. I'd love to see an American administration take Milton Friedman's advice and unilaterally eliminate the current barriers to free trade, inviting (but not coercing) other countries to do the same. I don't see it happening anytime soon, and probably not in my lifetime. There's too much political hay to be made in protectionism and ***-for-tat sniping for that.