From J-B's Gospel..

[Peter_Puget]

Will the French vote in down?

 

the French "feeling sick of Europe", asked Eric le Boucher in Le Monde.They regret the enlargement of the EU. They detest the idea that their public services are open to foreign competition. They complain about the liberal For discussion Selkirk's "Liberal" or JayB's "Liberal" slant of the union." And they are peeved that the prosperity enjoyed by Britain, Scandinavia and eastern Europe has not been seen at home, he said. In France, the benefits of the EU are unclear, Le Boucher noted - "economic growth has stalled, unemployment is rising inexorably" - and pessimism reigns.

 

link

 

 

EU unemployment stands million and youth unemployment is 18 percent.

 

 

Next time Jim and J_B wax on incoherently about progressive social programs consider this. The next sound we will hear is Canada as its income falls further behind ours. Sadly for the Great White North if oilprices continue to rise their asses will be covered by the oil revenues and possibly shale oil development. Alas, natural resources are a curse.

Edited April 14, 2005 by Peter_Puget

[wdietsch]

 

 

They regret the enlargement of the EU. They detest the idea that their public services are open to foreign competition. They complain about the liberal slant of the union. And they are peeved that the prosperity enjoyed by Britain, Scandinavia and eastern Europe has not been seen at home, he said. In France, the benefits of the EU are unclear, Le Boucher noted - "economic growth has stalled, unemployment is rising inexorably" - and pessimism reigns.

 

be carefull what you wish for, you just may get it ... however the true costs are often unforseen

[Norman_Clyde]

There seems to be something extra satisfying about the schadenfreude when the victims are French. (I'm not speaking for myself, mind you.) Conservatives just don't express the same glee when bashing, say, Brits or Germans. Why is this so? What does it say about our individual cultures? Discuss.

 

I've only taken two trips to Europe, only one to France this past fall. I did notice that most people in Paris are cranky in comparison to Londoners. Also, though I was fully prepared to be dazzled by the overwhelming sexiness of all French women, in general the average unencumbered Parisian female, if reading face and body language counts for anything, appeared less prepared to enjoy herself than the average London mom pushing a stroller.

[rbw1966]

Further in the article:

 

"In France, the benefits of the EU are unclear, Le Boucher noted - "economic growth has stalled, unemployment is rising inexorably" - and pessimism reigns. But that general malaise - rather than genuine Euroscepticism - explains the antipathy towards the EU, reckoned François-Xavier Piétri in La Tribune. The polls really reveal France's dissatisfaction with its own "unaccountable political leaders", he argued. And it should come as no surprise that the constitution has become a scapegoat for French woes, agreed Les Echos ' Françoise Fressoz."

 

Nice selective quoting there Mssr. Puget. Perhaps you should have read the entire article.

[Peter_Puget]

Further in the article:

 

"In France, the benefits of the EU are unclear, Le Boucher noted - "economic growth has stalled, unemployment is rising inexorably" - and pessimism reigns. But that general malaise - rather than genuine Euroscepticism - explains the antipathy towards the EU, reckoned François-Xavier Piétri in La Tribune. The polls really reveal France's dissatisfaction with its own "unaccountable political leaders", he argued. And it should come as no surprise that the constitution has become a scapegoat for French woes, agreed Les Echos ' Françoise Fressoz."

 

Nice selective quoting there Mssr. Puget. Perhaps you should have read the entire article.

 

Ouch The personal attacks begin. Isn't quoting by its nature selective?

 

Maybe the french are thinking: "Meet the new boss; same as the old boss" Except the new boss will be even further insulated from the French people and by that logic less responsive.

 

[rbw1966]

I have a hard time seeing how I made any personal attack whatsoever. I just pointed out that your omission undercuts your argument.

[Dru]

oooh some one was posting from the wrong avatar there! PP your slip is showing!

[Peter_Puget]

I have a hard time seeing how I made any personal attack whatsoever. I just pointed out that your omission undercuts your argument.

 

Well it is certainly a put down. Besides being silly as I wrote before quoting is by its nature selective.

[b-rock]

oooh some one was posting from the wrong avatar there! PP your slip is showing!

Oooops!

[Peter_Puget]

oooh some one was posting from the wrong avatar there! PP your slip is showing!

Oooops!

 

Will the personal attacks ever stop!!

 

[b-rock]

Oh give it up, you always play the 'personal attack' card then go and dish it out...

 

I just think it's funny how folks spray spray away with their multiple avatars. Where do you find the time?

[j_b]

well, the guardian isn't my gospel (for i have none) but as can be shown by your quoting it fairly often, it appears the rag has a greater plurality of opinions than the immense majority of our mainstream media. so perhaps if it was anyone's gospel it wouldn't be a bad thing.

 

as for the economy, it doesn't appear to be well in europe but it's not like the picture is rosy here either. how does one measure prosperity? with blackbox-type numbers for unemployment or % of population living below the poverty line? ("prosperous" britain has nearly 30% of its children living in poverty, nearly twice the rate of many so-called welfare states). whose income is PP talking about? the average income or that of those making less than a $100,000 a year?

 

the inconsistency between the pictures painted by unemployment and poverty numbers suggest a couple of possibilities: a) the published unemployment figures of so-called prosperous nations don't account for scores of people who are completely marginalized and fall through the cracks or/and b) unemployment is indeed low but many so-called employed people don't work many hours and for low wages without benefits.

 

i hate to put it in these terms but for the sake of argument what would you choose if you had to (or could): a) being unemployed and your basic needs (food, lodging, heathcare, ...) more or less taken care of or b) working for miserly wages in subpar conditions, without benefits, and not being able to make ends meet?

[Peter_Puget]

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2005/01/index.htm

Check out this report.

 

If government policies reduce our growth rate we will end up with a very small piece of pie to fight over. We will limit our ability to respond to changing conditions. We will see the best and the brightest of the world go elsewhere.

 

Take the average forecast per capita GDP growth rates for the US and EU for 2005 and 2006 and extend them into the future. What is the impact for a child born today? The projected per capital GDP for the child born in the US will be approximately twice that of the child born in the EU. Remember too that the growth rates for the EU include the faster growing countries of Eastern Europe. In which area would you want to be born?

 

J_B citation of poverty statistics in Britain is interesting. Sometime ago I posted a comparison of various statistics each of which could be used as a proxy for standard of living. (eg living space, owns a refrigerator, owns tv) What was being compared was the average statistic for a person considered to living in poverty in the US and the average person in France. The practical threshold for poverty in France seems far lower than here.

[j_b]

GDP is expenditures which here is afforded by borrowing. how long will it last?

 

poverty is computed the same way for all nations by the UN:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/4307745.stm#map

 

see the bar graph at the bottom of the page. see the "welfare states" on the left of the plot, and the "prosperous" nations on the right?

 

edit: the UN numbers are different than the 30% i mentioned in my previous post. the 30% figure comes from the british government as computed according to european norms.

Edited April 14, 2005 by j_b

[Dru]

computed the same way, but relative rather than absolute - from your own link,

The child living in poverty in the US is clearly not as badly off as the child in Mexico," he said.

[j_b]

good catch dru!

[Peter_Puget]

Oh J_B -

 

Check out this quote:The figures refer to relative poverty defined as households with income per head below 50% of the national average.

 

First I will note that I was writing not just of child poverty in my last post. Second, the BBC article defines (well really the UN) poverty in such a way that a if a country was rich enough a person in poverty could have the purchasing power of a person in the US earing a million dollars today. We would all consider such a defintion silliness but for the UN and you it is important. I would note that the study I refered to actually was an attempt to compare the actual lifestyle of people across borders.

 

 

By the way you did not answer my question about where one would wish to be born.

[Peter_Puget]

Thanks dru you posted that as I was posting my reply. It reinforces the position I take two posts ago.

[Jim]

As always, relying on just one indicator to measure social well-being is disingenuous. While the US unemployment rate is generally higher than the EU, even taking into account the differences in how unemployment is calculated and our world-record prisoner population (which is subtracted from the labor pool caculations), there are other items to consider.

 

The US infant mortality rate is the lowest among industralized countries and is comparable to that of Costa Rica and Cuba (which has 1/20 the per capita income of the US and has been under economic blockade for some time). Other measures including life expectancy, vacation time, stress-related illness, and lack of health care can make one wonder if there is not a middle ground. And if you look at other economic indicators such as productivity, the US tips out on top because we work so much more than everyone else. Per hour productivity is comparable.

 

So- in the US we have lots of money, no time to spend it except on all the expensive medical procedures and medicine we need for a stressed out life, we have lower life expectancy and higher child mortality, less access to health care and not as much time to spend with our families. Money, money, money. Oh - and more fat people and better bombs.

 

I'm sure the EU would like a better employemnt picture but I don't think they would take that compromise. And the US? We're on borried time - literally. Think our massive debt will have no economic reprucutions?

[Jim]

Opps - that should be highest infant mortality rate for US, not lowest.

[marylou]

funny how folks spray spray away with their multiple avatars.

 

Heh, your avatar is your picture.

 

Funny ppl on this site still use that term that way.

[j_b]

no, no PP. dru's remark attenuates the point i am making but i don't think it invalidates it. the key is "income per head below 50% of the national average ". national averages result from ranges of income that are very different from one country to another (like multiple orders of magnitude different). what you need to do is compare the real income (after benefits) of say, the bottom 2 quintiles.

 

i don't know where one should want to be born. it's a function of one's location in the pecking order and of one's priorities as well (quality of life, etc ..)

[j_b]

just a simplistic and extreme example of how national averages mean different realities:

 

country A: 10 people make 20k per year, one person makes 2millions per year. average: 200k

 

country B: 2 @ 20k, 2 @ 40k, 2@ 60k, 2 @ 80k, 2 @ 100k, and 1 @ 200k. average: ~73k

 

country A has ~3 times the average income of country B yet it is obvious which has most below the poverty line.

[Peter_Puget]

As always, relying on just one indicator to measure social well-being is disingenuous. Do you really mean disingenuous? Here is a perfect example of attacking. It is clearly impossible to provide a comrehensive arguement here. I did post a link to a boatload of data. Interested parties can checkit out on their own. Especially with regard to your unemployment comment down below. For a minute I thought you were going to show how eveyone can be making more many and yet the averag falls. While the US unemployment rate is generally higher than the EU, even taking into account the differences in how unemployment is calculated and our world-record prisoner population (which is subtracted from the labor pool caculations), there are other items to consider.

 

The US infant mortality rate is the lowest among industralized countries and is comparable to that of Costa Rica and Cuba (which has 1/20 the per capita income of the US and has been under economic blockade for some time). Other measures including life expectancy, vacation time, stress-related illness, and lack of health care can make one wonder if there is not a middle ground.

here I am quite certain your evidence will not, in the end prove your point. This is something I was able to pull off a file on my hardrive: "Among women who are diagnosed with breast cancer, only one fifth die in the United States, compared to one third in France and Germany, and almost half in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Among men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer, fewer than one fifth die in the United States, compared to one fourth in Canada, almost half in France, and more than half in the United Kingdom."

 

How does the abortion rate in uba compare to the US?

 

Comparing international health outcomes based on "average" longevity is relatively meaningless. In effect what you are comparing across countries is a combination of their current rates of infant mortality and the state of care of the elderly shortly after World War II. Such comparisons say very little.

And if you look at other economic indicators such as productivity, the US tips out on top because we work so much more than everyone else. Per hour productivity is comparable.

I posted a study sometime ago about productivity especially with regard to growth rates and capital investment. I believe it was a Fed reserve Study.

So- in the US we have lots of money, no time to spend it except on all the expensive medical procedures and medicine we need for a stressed out life, we have lower life expectancy and higher child mortality, less access to health care and not as much time to spend with our families. Money, money, money. Oh - and more fat people and better bombs.

Not only is there greater permanent unemployment in the EU but every study I have seen suggests that those in the unemployed group express a very high level of dissatisfaction with their lives.

I'm sure the EU would like a better employemnt picture but I don't think they would take that compromise. And the US? We're on borried time - literally. Think our massive debt will have no economic reprucutions? Certainly the reprucutions of our "massive debt" are less like to be as devestating as the EU's social/economic policies.

[Peter_Puget]

no, no PP. dru's remark attenuates the point i am making but i don't think it invalidates it. the key is "income per head below 50% of the national average ". national averages result from ranges of income that are very different from one country to another (like multiple orders of magnitude different). what you need to do is compare the real income (after benefits) of say, the bottom 2 quintiles.

 

i don't know where one should want to be born. it's a function of one's location in the pecking order and of one's priorities as well (quality of life, etc ..)

 

Just to clarify I neverr said that Dru's post "invalidates" your point. What I said was it reinforces mine. And guess what it does.