French

April 10, 2006 9:18 PM

In Defense of French Dirigisme.
posted by semmi (60 comments total)

Tierney and Friedman are moronic (especially Friedman, who I saw on the street once and wanted to punch), but so is this guy.

Whatever the plight of immigrant Muslims, the French are graduating, on a percentage basis, twice as many students with bachelor's degrees in science, math, computer technology, and engineering as we are in America.

Sentences like this are so meaningless I don't know how to respond. By comparing two completely unrelated things, how does that make the first fact more relevant?

"Whatever the plight of American forces in Iraq, the Americans still produce the highest grossing films worldwide, vastly outpacing the French film industry's output." That is an obviously meaningless sentence, and it has the same form as the one taken from the article.
posted by Falconetti at 9:32 PM on April 10, 2006

He lost me as soon as he implied that Tierney is pro-Bush.
posted by Kwantsar at 9:47 PM on April 10, 2006

Falconetti, I think he was trying to say that although the French do some bad things (and things that they have been slammed for recently in the media), there are also things they do well. Your sentence works the same way, in that although America has been slammed for our actions in Iraq, we do have a good side of our movie industry being thriving.

I get the impression, both from the media and from some of the people I talk to, that a lot of people thing that France is collapsing. I don't think the evidence is clear cut in favor of that; that's what MacArthur is trying to say with those statements.
posted by thethirdman at 9:55 PM on April 10, 2006

"This might be mildly funny but for a 2005 French government study that found that the 35-hour week created about 350,000 jobs, from its application in 1998 through 2002, and that the affected businesses enjoyed productivity gains of 4 to 5 percent during the same period."

4 to 5 percent over 4 years is just normal. And of course you're going to hire more people, since you have fewer hours out of your existing people. That doesn't mean it's what those businesses needed... it's just another form of tax.

Overall unemployment in France is hovering around 10%, and youth unemployment is close to 30%. 350,000 jobs represents about a 1% unemployment reduction over four years.... if nobody was born or died. In other words, it's almost statistical noise.

Even more damning of this guy's numbers is the fact that the law, while passed in 1998, didn't take effect until 2000... so he's letting the government take credit for two years of "growth" when the law wasn't actually in place.

In other words, the only actual number in this entire article that has anything to do with his argument .... is bogus.

Nothing to see here. It's pure, unalderated bullshit.
posted by Malor at 10:13 PM on April 10, 2006

For comparison:

Nuclear power reliance by country
Life-expectancy at birth by country

posted by gsteff at 10:22 PM on April 10, 2006

Malor writes "4 to 5 percent over 4 years is just normal."

Actually, isn't it kind of slow by contemporary standards? The US has been seeing typical productivity growth of 2%/year recently....
posted by mr_roboto at 10:27 PM on April 10, 2006

How's American economic growth doing over the past six years, when measured in euros?
posted by I Love Tacos at 10:28 PM on April 10, 2006

France is such a wonderful place to visit, and much of that is because its a place where the past disappears slower than it does elsewhere is the West. But what works for cuisine is death for society as a whole. France thinks its still the 1960's or 1970's. It has become a place of greater and greater economic denial and delusion. I really can't see the place getting its act together without some kind of social/political explosion. But I can't see that happening because the country is so politically and economically incestual, uncreative, risk-adverse, geriatric. How is it that Jacques Chirac is still in politics?!
posted by ParisParamus at 10:30 PM on April 10, 2006

French gross GDP per capita per hour: 38.16
American gross GDP per capita per hour: 35.42
posted by I Love Tacos at 10:30 PM on April 10, 2006

Uh, Tacos... that's 'cause of the 10% unemployment.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:31 PM on April 10, 2006

USD to EUR:
1/20/2001: 1.07030
4/11/2006: 0.82610
posted by I Love Tacos at 10:32 PM on April 10, 2006

"How's American economic growth doing over the past six years, when measured in euros?"

Taco, my friend, growth is measured in the host currency or as a percentage of the starting figure. Are you asking to reduce the $ figure by exchange rate fluctuation? Why?
posted by ParisParamus at 10:33 PM on April 10, 2006

Uh, Tacos... that's 'cause of the 10% unemployment.

Which is about the same as the true unemployment rate in the United States.
posted by I Love Tacos at 10:34 PM on April 10, 2006

Are you really trying to claim that the French economy is stronger than the US economy? They had GDP growth of like 1.5% last year.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:36 PM on April 10, 2006

Because US economic figures only look acceptable if you put on blinders and pretend that dollars have the same value that they did several years ago. They don't.

It's a global economy, pretending otherwise ranges from disingenuous, to misguided.
posted by I Love Tacos at 10:37 PM on April 10, 2006

I Love Tacos writes "Which is about the same as the true unemployment rate in the United States."

I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but the 10% measurement in France is by the same standard that measures ~5% in the US. If you use a more liberal standard, you'll get a higher number in France, too.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:37 PM on April 10, 2006

I Love Tacos, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics for his paper Why US Unemployment Rates Are Actually BS, and Why the True French Employment Rate is Really Lower
posted by ParisParamus at 10:38 PM on April 10, 2006

So which side gets the layoffs?

Touché suckaz!!
posted by pwedza at 10:39 PM on April 10, 2006

I promise you, there is at least as much fakery in the French unemployment rate as there is in the US figure.
posted by ParisParamus at 10:40 PM on April 10, 2006

Tacos, where'd you see those numbers?

IMHO, the article's best points are about France's extensive reliance on nuclear power and their educational emphasis on science and engineering. But the article does nothing to address the biggest reason to be pessimistic about the French economy (and system): the demographic turbulence that's looming over all of Europe. America is justifiably going through some defecit angst right now, but it often goes unmentioned that Europe's balance sheet problems are just as bad; France, Germany, Italy and Belgium all have higher debts as percentages of GDP than we do. IANAEconomist, but it would seem that when Asia eventually (right?) decides to curtail its foreign investments, its going to cause distress for the U.S. and most of Europe, possibly magnifying the effect on each other.
posted by gsteff at 10:45 PM on April 10, 2006

The GDP per capita of the united states has increased from $35524 to $42080 in the past five years.

Or to measure it in euros, it decreased from 38021 to 34762.

A 1.5% increase sounds fan-fucking-tastic in comparison.
posted by I Love Tacos at 10:46 PM on April 10, 2006

mr_roboto: by current standards, yes, it's low. But our numbers are also bogus, mostly driven by the computer industry. Some brainiac at whatever department counts these things decided that if Dell was shipping a 486-66 this year, instead of the 486-33 they shipped last year, they were twice as productive. And the same applied to memory and hard drives... everything that got better every year.

So, naturally, they got absolutely insane productivity-growth figures all through the 1990s... the numbers from computers were so enormous that they dragged the whole report much higher. They have the temerity to call this 'real dollars', too... so while Dell might have shipped, say, twenty billion dollars' worth of computers... the economic geniuses count that as like '250 billion real dollars' because the computers are so much better than they used to be. That argument had a certain limited merit at one time, but it hasn't been a good measure of productivity since, geeze, '97 or so. But as far as I know, they're still using it. Dual core machines are twice as productive as single-core machines, you know.

I think sustainable productivity growth rates in most mature economies are supposed to be around 2-3%, but I don't have any references handy to check that. Treat that number with suspicion.

So, yeah, 1% annualized isn't very good, but back when we were still sane about our economic measurements, we wouldn't have considered it unthinkably bad.
posted by Malor at 10:48 PM on April 10, 2006

Although the link I provided only measures public debt, and ignores America's probably uniquely low private savings rate.
posted by gsteff at 10:48 PM on April 10, 2006

Except, tacos, we don't use Euros in the US; we buy things in dollars--did you know that?
posted by ParisParamus at 10:49 PM on April 10, 2006

Tacos, where'd you see those numbers?
Which ones?
posted by I Love Tacos at 10:51 PM on April 10, 2006

Actually, I have some Euro coins, but they're black licorice from Holland. And they don't even work in vending machines here.
posted by ParisParamus at 10:51 PM on April 10, 2006

Except, tacos, we don't use Euros in the US; we buy things in dollars--did you know that?

We import things.

Everyone invests globally.

People who invested in Europe since 1/20/2001 have an enormous head start over those who invested in America. (looks at his ADR results over the past few years... can't possibly fathom why anybody thinks the US economy has been doing well.)
posted by I Love Tacos at 10:55 PM on April 10, 2006

Except, tacos, we don't use Euros in the US; we buy things in dollars--did you know that?

I'm more inclined than most MeFi members to treat your comments seriously, Paris, but statements of that level of idiocy give me second thoughts. Look on the tag on the back of your shirt; what country does it say it was made in? Now pick up your keyboard and look for the manufacturer label underneath; what country was it made in? Your shoes? Your television? Although we don't pay for things using pesos, the companies that sell the things we buy do.
posted by gsteff at 10:56 PM on April 10, 2006

Which ones?

The national GDP per capita per hour...
posted by gsteff at 10:57 PM on April 10, 2006

(especially Friedman, who I saw on the street once and wanted to punch)

It's the moustache, dude.
posted by Afroblanco at 10:58 PM on April 10, 2006

gsteff, I may have bought some French creme fraiche for $3.75, or something, but not much that I buy is from the Eurozone.. And the US inflation rate hasn't soared. So where are you going with this? Yes, the US Dollar has fallen against the Euro (primarily because of low US interest rates), but so what?
posted by ParisParamus at 11:01 PM on April 10, 2006

The national GDP per capita per hour...

I got it from this Wikipedia article, which is sourced from this data.
posted by I Love Tacos at 11:02 PM on April 10, 2006

Why would anyone measure US GDP in euros? Craziness! To account for depreciation of the dollar, go on the US Treasury site and look at real GDP figures.

I'm inclined to believe the figures that put France's GDP per capita per hour ahead of the US's - I'll try and dig out an old article I found in the Economist all about this particular subject.
posted by matthewr at 11:07 PM on April 10, 2006

Intuitively, that figure can't mean much since it suggests the Swiss are poorer than the Belgians and French.
posted by ParisParamus at 11:13 PM on April 10, 2006

I Love Tacos writes "Or to measure it in euros, it decreased from 38021 to 34762."

Why in the world would you do that? American workers are paid in US dollars, and they make purchases in US dollars. If they had to make purchases in Euros, you'd have a point.

If we're picking arbitrary currencies to measure US GDP growth in, why no pick the Yuan, which has barely budged against the US dollar, or the Iraqi Dinar, which has plunged....
posted by mr_roboto at 11:14 PM on April 10, 2006

The dollar is dropping because they are printing too many of them. The only reason it didn't happen sooner was because China and Japan have been willing to soak up many hundreds of billions of excess dollars. They do this by printing lots of their own currencies... in essence, we 'export inflation'. It becomes a race to the bottom, where everyone is competitively devaluing against everyone else.

'Helicopter Ben' Bernanke looks to continue the Greenspan legacy... the only acceptable economic outcomes are "boom" and "less boom", and the solution to all problems is liquidity.

(hint: this is very similar to improving personal productivity by using methamphetamines. It works really well for awhile.)

Gold broke $600 today.
posted by Malor at 11:14 PM on April 10, 2006

So where are you going with this?

Only noting that the U.S. dollar is currently suffering a minor decline, and there's plenty of reasons to expect that its going to accelerate over the next ten years (the trade defecit being the most obvious one). Most people are worried about the dollar declining relative to the currencies of the countries we buy stuff from (i.e. Asia), but if its even declining against countries we don't even have as large of a trade defecit with, that's probably worse news, from the perspective of American purchasing power and quality of life in the mid-term.

By the same token, you're right that we probably don't have to worry so much about the unemployment rate in the near term, but Tacos is perfectly correct to note that the French are able buy more stuff than they could 5 years ago, and we're able to buy less.
posted by gsteff at 11:15 PM on April 10, 2006

Quick question: You can (through whatever magical method is neccessary) make an investment in a stock on 20 Jan 2001.

You have no irrational national or regional allegiences. You have 1m USD. Your goal is to maximize profit.

American stock returning 10%
2001 1000 USD - 1070 EUR
2002 1100 USD
2003 1210 USD
2004 1331 USD
2005 1464 USD
2006 1610 USD - 1330 EUR

European stock returning 5%
2001 1070 EUR - 1000 USD
2002 1123 EUR
2003 1179 EUR
2004 1238 EUR
2005 1300 EUR
2006 1365 EUR - 1652 USD

As such, the European investment would've returned 42,000 more than the American investment, despite getting a 5% annual return, instead of a 10% annual return.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that this has negative consequences for the United States.

The idea that the dollar is the ideal measuring stick for all things American is misguided, and isolationist. It's a global economy, and a smart investor will put his money in the country where it is likely to serve him best.

That country is not America, and it hasn't been so for a long time.
posted by I Love Tacos at 11:20 PM on April 10, 2006

Also, given the high value of the Euro, that chart would seem to give a major boost to the EU countries, since the denomination of the list is GDP in $s.
posted by ParisParamus at 11:21 PM on April 10, 2006

Tacos, stop being so angry, and spend some more energy on economics. There's a flaw to your contention. Lets see if you can figure out what it is....
posted by ParisParamus at 11:24 PM on April 10, 2006

Tacos, what you're seeing is the result of currency abuse. The US dollar is not a good store of wealth. It's likely to go a very great deal lower, because we have written checks we cannot possibly cash. America isn't just bankrupt, it's in so far over its head that it will not survive the coming fiscal crisis in its current form.

There will be something called the United States, much as there was a Holy Roman Empire for a long time after Rome fell, but but it won't be the same entity.
posted by Malor at 11:30 PM on April 10, 2006

Good job, I Love Tacos. You've found data that support the following conclusions:

1. An individual's productivity per hour drops as he works more hours.
2. An economy in which older workers work more hours than do teenage and twentysomething workers has higher hourly productivity.

You've also managed to:
1. Somehow use foreign exchange data to imply that the US economy has contracted for five years.
2. Pretend that the construction of the US employment rate is somehow fishy, while that of France is methodologically pure.
3. Suggest that favorable exchange rate movements are a bedrock of economic prosperity.

That last one's especially a doozy. By your logic, someone in China could stare longingly at the Italians, and reckon that his economy was doing poorly in comparison. I suggest you enroll in an Econ 101 class-- maybe brush up on interest rate parity-- and come back when you know what the hell you are talking about.
posted by Kwantsar at 11:32 PM on April 10, 2006

The figures I Love Tacos quotes above are GDP per capita per hour. Therefore, they represent labour productivity (nothing directly to do with wealth, ParisParamus).

To compare two economies directly, you're generally better off with multi-factor productivity measures (i.e. TFP) than labour productivity. Using multi-factor productivity, France is actually ahead of the US and Britain when it comes to productivity. As an aside, TFP is undoubtedly hard to measure, but there's no reason to suspect it unfairly favours France over the US.

America's average multi-factor productivity growth is about 0.8-1.2% from the mid-90's until now, but France's has been faster since 1996, at 1.4%. France is also ahead on labour productivity growth.

This is only one component of the economy - you certainly can't look at these figures in isolation and come to any conclusions about whether France is doing "better"
than the US or vice versa.

To read more (it's actually quite an interesting article, if you're into economics), go to this economist page. It might be behind the paywall.
posted by matthewr at 11:34 PM on April 10, 2006

Kwantsar: so I'm taking it that you would've rathered put your million dollars into the American economy at 10%, then?

I guess you hate money.
posted by I Love Tacos at 11:38 PM on April 10, 2006

Tacos, what you're seeing is the result of currency abuse. The US dollar is not a good store of wealth. It's likely to go a very great deal lower, because we have written checks we cannot possibly cash. America isn't just bankrupt, it's in so far over its head that it will not survive the coming fiscal crisis in its current form.

That's long been my opinion too, but, annoyingly, the liberal Max Sewicky has recently convincingly argued that our debt problem isn't as bad as it seems. He doesn't go into much of the why's in that post, but I believe his general argument is that what matters isn't the deficit, but the deficit as a percentage of GDP. I find it hard to believe that any entity can spend 2% more per year than it earns, for eternity, but that's the argument.
posted by gsteff at 11:39 PM on April 10, 2006

gsteff, I'll go read that. But realize that our debt, as measured by GAAP, is wildly worse than the government admits. In late 2003, our debt by GAAP standards was about 37 trillion dollars (as opposed to the 6 or 7 they were claiming).

The games the government plays with its books would make Enron blush.
posted by Malor at 11:43 PM on April 10, 2006

For what it's worth, I don't have any interest in America showing up poorly. My only interest is in making the smartest possible investments.

For years that place hasn't been America, and I'd like to see that change, because I really do like the US. But it's not going to change by having a bunch of partisan know-nothings pretend that the American economy is magically superior.

It doesn't take a genius to understand that the bear dollar was, and still is, a good long-term bet.
posted by I Love Tacos at 11:43 PM on April 10, 2006

Yeah, that post just flat isn't true. Those numbers are absolute lies. GAAP is where it's at... the standard to which all corporations are required to adhere in their financial reporting.

The cash-basis accounting the US government uses has no basis in reality whatsoever. You can use that kind of accounting for a Mom and Pop store, but for a the goverment of a ten trillion dollar economy, the only way to get an accurate picture is with accrual accounting, to GAAP standards.

They don't do it that way for a reason; the reason is because we are already bankrupt, and they're trying to keep the game going as long as they can. The mass looting of the public treasury by Halliburton in Iraq is probably not a coincidence.
posted by Malor at 11:47 PM on April 10, 2006

Oh, and for what it's worth, most of my recent (past five years) investments have been in Europe, Brazil, China, India and Russia. Largely through the use of ADRs, with a smaller amount of direct investment.

Those investments total about 2/3 of my holdings.

Just sayin', I might be an asshole, but my money is where my mouth is. My big concern at this point is what sort of global effects will occur as the US economic situation gets less tenable.
posted by I Love Tacos at 11:49 PM on April 10, 2006

Malor, I just a read an article that claimed 3.7 trillion dollars of GAAP debt in '03. "37 trillion" is a heck of a lot - are you sure a decimal point didn't go missing?
posted by matthewr at 11:55 PM on April 10, 2006

matthewr, that's 3.7 trillion of new GAAP debt in just 2003. At the end of 2003, we owed 36.2 trillion dollars by GAAP standards. (not 37 trillion, I either typoed or misremembered). In 2004 alone, we increased that debt by over 11 trillion dollars, with the expected costs of the Medicare drug benefit plan. (that's not listed in the article I link below, that was a separate source I can't find now.)

I know I've seen sources that claim it's over 50 trillion now, but I haven't been able to find those either. I'll keep looking.

Source for 2003 data: Walter Williams, via PrudentBear... he includes links to the original sources so you can go see for yourself.
posted by Malor at 12:49 AM on April 11, 2006

2004 figures.
posted by Malor at 1:02 AM on April 11, 2006

Here's the actual text of a recent report from the GAO:

"Including these items, the federal government's
fiscal exposures now total more than $46 trillion, representing close
to four times gross domestic product (GDP) in fiscal year 2005 and up
from about $20 trillion or two times GDP in 2000. About one third of
the approximately $26 trillion increase resulted from enactment of the
Medicare prescription drug benefit in fiscal year 2004. (See table 1.)
The federal government's current fiscal exposures translate into a
burden of about $156,000 per American or approximately $375,000 per
full-time worker, up from $72,000 and $165,000 respectively, in 2000.
Furthermore, these amounts do not include future costs resulting from
Hurricane Katrina or the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. "

(bolding mine)
posted by Malor at 1:06 AM on April 11, 2006

One final note.... when they tell you we have '50 trillion in unfunded liability', it doesn't just mean we'll have to come up with 50 trillion dollars over time. Rather, if my very limited understanding of GAAP is correct, it means we have to have 50 trillion dollars in the bank right now, earning about 6% interest, to be certain we can pay these debts.

Real accountants, please chime in if I'm wrong on that last bit.
posted by Malor at 1:26 AM on April 11, 2006

[a few comments removed]
posted by jessamyn at 5:41 AM on April 11, 2006

(hint: this is very similar to improving personal productivity by using methamphetamines. It works really well for awhile.)

Thanks for this analogy, it's quite apt imho.

The dollar is dropping because they are printing too many of them.

Is this one of the things that declining to publish M3 anymore lets them hide?
posted by beth at 6:30 AM on April 11, 2006

Is this one of the things that declining to publish M3 anymore lets them hide?

M3 mostly consists of repos, off-shore electronic dollars, and something else that I'm forgetting.

Physical banknotes are M0.
posted by I Love Tacos at 7:14 AM on April 11, 2006

beth: that's most likely why they're doing it. M3 is the measure that matters most; it's the closest to what most people consider 'money'.

If they stop publishing those figures, it will give them more latitude for inflation. For awhile. Mr. Market will figure it out eventually, and his punishment can be both swift and savage.
posted by Malor at 1:24 PM on April 11, 2006

Oh, and ILT.... by 'printing money', I don't mean physical banknotes, I mean electronic balances. Most money injection is done through credit entries in the Federal Reserve system.... physical banknotes are _so_ passe. They actually cost something to create, you know.
posted by Malor at 1:45 PM on April 11, 2006

I still have about 40-something Euro left over from a recent trip to Rome that I haven't changed back into dollars.

Maybe I'll keep them, and retire on them when the dollar drops further. :D
posted by beth at 2:10 PM on April 11, 2006