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Keeping an eye on the French, so you don't have to.

Thursday, January 27, 2011
See, I'm not dead.  Anyway, I think a French survey round up is called for:

Humanité (the Communist Party daily, not the species) has asked the Plain People of France how they view the prospect of doing away with the maximum 35 hour working week,and the results show limited cause for faith in the youth (-ish) of France -46% of 18-24 year olds think it a good idea.  Granted, a majority oppose it,  but the pro figure is higher than for any age group bar the 50+ cohort.  This would suggest that younger folk have made the connection between the difficulties in joining the workforce and the rigid laws surrounding employment on the other side of the Channel. 

However, outbreaks of common sense in those parts are invariably matched by something that deadens the soul, like this from ifop:

'Do you think that capitalism and the free market is a system that...'

-Functions well and should be kept
-Has its problems but there is no alternative
-Functions badly and should be replaced

The French gave the first option 15%.  Yes,15%.  And 33% opt for Year Zero, with the rest hedging their bets.  Note that option one secured 65% support in the 'People's Republic' of China.  We managed 45%/45%/10%, which is also quite encouraging.

A poll on French attitudes to the SNCF provides the opportunity for a joke so obvious that as yet undiscovered civilisations in other galaxies can see  it coming:

'Do you think that SNCF are keeping to timetables better?'

We have voting demographics to hand, so place your bets for the joke...

And, yes, it is the Front National which is among the least impressed with punctuality at 14%.   Perhaps they have in mind an Italian template that could be followed.
Elsewhere, Dominique Strauss Kahn is the runaway leader among possible Socialist candidates for the presidency at 37% to 26% for my old mucker Segolene Royale, and Lille looks likely to suffer Martine Aubry longer (16%).  Perhaps Martine should hire an assassin, as a DSK-less list has her top of the tree at 32% to Sego's 31%.  Cutting to the chase, Sarko would beat anyone except DSK in round one.  Round two would see Sarko lose - badly - to DSK, Aubry or even Francois Hollande.  Sarko Vs Royal, round 2 shows as a tie at 50% each. 

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posted by Croydonian

Strangling small businesses at birth - a handy guide from the TUC

Friday, March 12, 2010
And very simple it is too:

"The real pension problem in the UK is in the private sector where employers are no longer providing pensions to almost two thirds of their staff...That is why the pension reform we need is compulsory employer contributions to pensions for all staff, which will start with auto-enrolment in 2012 as the first step towards winning decent pensions for all".

Just what every business needs - even higher employment costs.  

Elsewhere,  Brendan Barber, for it is he, reckons that gold-plated public sector pensions are a myth, and points to 'just' 1.8% of civil service pensioners and 'just' 2.5% of NHS pensioners having pensions of £40,000 or more.  So one in 25 in the case of the latter are trousering / handbagging double the median wage. 

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posted by Croydonian

How long does it take to come to an agreement on bananas?

Wednesday, December 16, 2009
18 years, that's how long.

It started here:


In July 1991, Costa Rica expressed concern in the GATT Council meeting that an impending EU banana import regime would discriminate against Central American countries. It urged agreement in the Uruguay Round for free trade in bananas. Colombia, Honduras, Peru, Venezuela and Mexico shared this concern....
Nevertheless, within this context the parties continued to work in search of a solution. After more than 100 meetings lasting a total of approximately 400 hours, the parties announced a comprehensive agreement on Tuesday 15 December 2009.


Anyone would think the dispute was over nuclear reactors.


My take on 'Imperial Preference', 'Fair Trade' or whatever they are calling it this week can be found here.

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posted by Croydonian

A handy cut out 'n' keep guide to EU wage minima

Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Borrowed from Eurostat, which I am sure won't mind too much. Original, plus more here.


For those who do not fancy peering at the map in detail, Luxembour leads at €1642, ahead of Erin at €1462. Bulgars are not allowed to get out out of bed for less than €123. The greatest relative difference in minima between two neighbouring countries is the €123 in Bulgaria and the €681 in Greece. If both are applying the rules on mobility of labour, it would be well worth Thracian office cleaners (say) doing a bit of cross-border commuting.

Meanwhile, the next time I hear anything positive said about the Nordic model by anyone left leaning, I will mention the lack of wage minima in Denmark and Sweden, and encourage any readers given the same opportunity to do likewise.

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posted by Croydonian

Where to get your dead duck put on life support

Wednesday, July 22, 2009
An interesting survey over at World Public Opinion, covering interpretations of the recession etc etc. There is a lot of interesting stuff in it, but for now I will focus on this question:

Do you think that, in the current financial crisis:
A - The government should use public funds to help large manufacturing companies in trouble because if they fail it damages the general economy and too many people lose their jobs.

Or B - The government should not use public funds to help large manufacturing companies in trouble, because they are likely to fail anyway and the economy will be more vital if weak companies are allowed to fail.

And the Americans are the keenest on letting the survival of the fittest, with 70% opting for B. We manage a fairly creditable 36%, with hawks to be found in Kenya, Taiwan, Honkers and Indonesia, all at 40%+.

Dead ducks can look forward to a long and fruitful afterlife in Ukraine, Nigeria, Turkey, China and Pakistan, with 70% in favour of bail outs.

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posted by Croydonian

Trade unions for higher prices

Monday, July 13, 2009
From the Unite site:

"Unite had been pressing Heathrow's management at the British Airport Authority (BAA) to withdraw their plans to introduce two private hire concessions in the terminal car parks. The union, which represents licensed black cab drivers operating at the airport, said that the proposed mini cab concessions would spring a war for passenger trade that would clog up the airport's roads causing tremendous disruption for passengers trying to get in and out of the airport".

And would that mean? Without doubt, lower prices.

Unite does not like that prospect at all:

"Peter Kavanagh, Unite senior regional organiser, who led the talks with BAA said: "This was a hare-brained scheme that should never have seen light of day. There is no way that passengers would benefit from a taxi bidding war which would have clogged up the airport's roads and just brought confusion to passengers who want an efficient, easy to access service they can trust".

After all, we have never benefited from price competition in good and services, have we?

I'll leave the last word to the Sage of Kirkcaldy:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices".


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posted by Croydonian

Petition o' the day, or how to miss the point by light years

Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Here goes:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Remove Copyright from any technology that could aid green energy production after 10 years."

I think the petitioner means 'patent' rather than 'copyright', but never mind. Onwards:

"Copyright laws prevent companies producing energy saving products that could benefit the United Kingdom. I ask the government to change the law and allow the removal of copyright from any energy saving product or new technology that could be strongly shown to aid energy saving after ten years from the first day of the production of it's patent, therefore allowing faster development to take place in this sector".


Ri-ight. I suspect that the petitioner has not worked out that folk register patents as they do not work for some nebulous public good, but rather because they seek to have their efforts protected and, with any luck, rewarded. As such, the petitioner would see the exact reverse of what he seeks coming to pass, as all innovation in this area would come to a complete standstill.

Hey and indeed ho. I believe a certain Scottish economist noted "Every individual...generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention".

Sticking with matters of patents and intellectual property, a mate and fellow blogger who likes to keep his professional life private passed this one onto me:

"Thought you might be (vaguely) amused by a letter I had today from the Pyonyang Patent Agency. They had written to us unprompted to offer us help with a client's case (a trade mark rather than a patent, as it happens). I thought it surprisingly enterprising. The Cubans have never offered us such help..... The client makes coffee machines for motorway service stations, I can't imagine NK is one of their main markets!"

See, its not all rockets, nuclear weapons and printing the speeches of KJI that keep the helots of the DPRK busy.


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posted by Croydonian

Hot on the heels of the Euro, the *UNo*

Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The relatively sensible, if not altogether committed to being wholly democratic, president of Kazakhstan (he doesn't erect statues of himself everywhere or rename months after himself) has one of the silliest ideas I have encountered in quite some time:

"A new world currency must be created under the aegis of the United Nations Organization, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev...We need to switch to an absolutely new global currency system based on a legitimate and, from the point of view of all countries, joint monetary unit. All countries must participate in its issuance and regulation".

That's pretty silly, but it gets sillier:

“World currency is de jure not legal because it was never accepted by any communities, any organizations and there is no such law in the world...The procedure of the activity of the world currency issuer is not democratic. The mechanism of the balance of demand and supplies of the world currency is uncompetitive and constrained. The world currency market is not related to civilized markets, whereas the system to issue the world currency is not controllable".


Where to begin? If the Euro is the current gold standard for politicised currencies, imagine a currency where gangster states and non-functioning anarchies - Sudan, Somalia, the DPRK - and micro states in the Pacific and the Windies have as much say over the direction of a currency as the USA and Japan. The mind boggles. Meanwhile, the Americans never asked for the dollar to be the de facto global currency any more than we did - way back - with sterling or the Hapsburg Empire was keen on the Maria Theresa Thaler (qv) be the currency on the western seaboard of the Indian Ocean. There are 208 Kazakh Tenge to the pound at the mo', by the way. It is a convertible currency, but shall we say that money markets do not burn white hot trading it. It has dumped against the dollar over the last year, so perhaps that is why Nazarbayev is acting the way he is.

Anyway, NN could always go back to precious metals if he is so unhappy with the greenback.

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Encouraging signs from Germany

Friday, February 27, 2009
Tempting though it is to think that the CDU-CSU / FDP / SPD split in Germany equates to Tory / LibDem / Labour split in these parts, things are a tad more complex, even if all three sets of twins belong to the 'correct' international groupings.

Anyway, Der Spiegel has noted the acceleration in support for the Free Democrats, up to 18% in the polls now, having barely scraped into double figures for some time. And why is this good news? Because the FDP are the nearest thing to a party properly committed to a free market economy on the other side of the Rhine:

"The party ultimately decided to sign on to the €50 billion stimulus package last week. But even as it changed course, the liberals managed to fill the headlines with its anti-tax, pro-markets message -- the same one it has been delivering for years. Indeed, say analysts, it is the party's consistency which may now be boosting its image. While the political course being charted by both Merkel's CDU and by her coalition partners from the Social Democrats (SPD) have been varying widely as the government attempts to come to terms with the financial and economic crises, FDP leader Guido Westerwelle hasn't had to budge...."There is a growing feeling that there is a lack of competence on the economy in the CDU," [Professor] Herz says. "In these times of economic crisis, the CDU has moved left, meaning that many market liberals in the party have moved over to the FDP."

Further, the successors in title to the DDR's ruling party / Lafontaine's lot (Die Linke) are making no headway at all.

So, encouraging stuff, and should they go into coalition with the CDU after the election in September I trust they will give it some backbone. Mind you, I think they win the prize for the most ill-thought out slogan in history - "Partei der Besserverdienenden" ("Party of the better-earning people"), which the party had coined in a draft manifesto for the 1994 federal elections".

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posted by Croydonian

At last, a politician stands up for the free market

Friday, January 23, 2009
The altogether splendid, utterly sound and sadly missed José María Aznar López, former PM of Spain has been interviewed by Le Figaro, and here are my favourite bits:

"Doesn't the economic crisis signify the failure of the free market?

It is certainly not a failure of the free market, but a failure of the current mechanism of state regulation and intervention in a sector which is already highly regulated, the banking system. It is the same with politics - democracy is not discredited merely because a bad government has been elected.

What would you do to end the crisis?

We have an obligation to save the banks because without a sound financial system, there can be no stability. But economic reforms should be made. More flexibility and freedom in the economy, less taxation, less expenditure, more budgetary stability and less intervention of the State".

Shame he has retired from active politics, frankly. He would be very welcome in these parts to encourage a bit of sinew-stiffening. Just this once I will forgive him for sporting what appears to be a brigade of guards tie.

Some of the comments suggest that our Gallic chums would like him in their corner too.

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posted by Croydonian

France - we need to talk...

Monday, December 01, 2008
In the latest frankly bizarre showing of French opinion, TNS Sofres have asked the Plain People of France about attitudes to sundry prospective acts of dirigisme. Which I have charted.

The first of each set of paired columns represents the attitude of left sympathisers, the second right sympathisers, with blue positive, red negative, and green the shameful don't knows.


As formatting problems with images continues to bedevil me, those who lack the enthusiasm to click on the chart but are prepared to continue reading should note that Gaullists etc are keener on state board members for banks, state equity holdings in French companies threatened by foreign takeovers (like the strategically important yoghurt industry), director pay limits and control of golden parachutes than are Socialists, Trots, Tankies and Greens. Quite amusing that the left is less able to form an opinion on golden parachutes, but I suppose that is ignorance rather than mental sloth.

It is not hugely surprising that opposition voters will not be that keen on anything the government is up to, but I do wonder whether down has become up and black has become white when the Left seems less keen to see the state get its mitts on the commanding heights of the economy than does 'the right'. The Left does manage to redeem itself by being keener on expropriating the banks than do the Gaullists etc.

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posted by Croydonian

How to turn a recession into a depression

Monday, November 17, 2008
As the old joke goes, it is a recession when your neighbour loses his job, it is a depression when you lose your own, says he.

Anyway, the T&GM, Unite has a laundry list of demands for the Sterling Killer:

  1. Freezing repossessions on homes and creating 1 million new affordable homes
  2. The introduction of a fair tax regime to address the poverty gap, including closing tax loopholes and cuts for lower earners.
  3. Increasing public spending levels to create demand
  4. Supporting manufacturing through procurement and investment
  5. A price commission for energy and a windfall tax on profits
  6. Maintaining a commitment to full employment
  7. Restoring and defending collective rights for workers
  8. Advancing investment in public infrastructure
  9. Reducing interest rates to stimulate investment
  10. Introducing a new order and regulation into the finance sector
Where to begin in unpicking this lot?

Point one - this will result in folk not paying their debts, and lenders then being forced to make good losses elsewhere. This does not end the problem, it merely reshuffles it.

Two - What this really means is penal tax rates for higher earners. Cue an exodus offshore and bumper paydays for tax lawyers. Laffer curves anyone?

Three - Is there a connection between these two? It would take money out of the productive parts of the economy thus further deepening existing problems.

Four - Oh dear. One word - Concorde.

Five - E.on, EDF and the rest fold their tents and leave. A less competitive energy market results.

Six - Digging holes and filling them in perhaps?

Seven - Thus making the labour market still less competitive and driving investment overseas.

Eight - What is known as cathedrals in the desert syndrome

Nine - If there's anyone left to invest...

Ten - see eight

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posted by Croydonian

Look what Chavez has made out of the spare wheel

Saturday, November 15, 2008
From Novosti:

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced plans to hold an alternative summit on the global financial crisis to counter the meeting of world leaders currently taking place in Washington....Chavez said that he would invite representatives from the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas trade bloc (ALBA) and members of the Petrocaribe oil initiative to attend the summit. The two groups include a large number of Latin American and Caribbean countries".

ALBA consists of Venezuela, Cuba (fancy...), Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras and some of the small islands of the Caribbean (as a footnote, 'you are from a small island' is a pseudo-insult thrown out by folk of Jamaican extraction). Petrocaribe is Chavez's vehicle for gaining diplomatic etc leverage from selling Venezuela's oil at non-market prices and includes Suriname, Guyana (1), Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Belize, Guatemala and lots of small island states.

And what is he hoping to achieve, apart from getting his face in the papers?

"We will hold in Caracas a summit of small countries to adopt decisions on overcoming the financial crisis," national media reported Chavez as saying at a United Socialist Party of Venezuela meeting".

Doubtless the decisions will revolve around creating a LatAm/Caribbean socialist siege economy. It will end in fraudulent elections, crushing of dissent tears, you'll see.

(1) Given that Venezuela claims well nigh three-quarters of Guyana's national territory, I advise PM Sam Hinds to sup with a long spoon.

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posted by Croydonian

The loneliness of the French free-marketeer

Friday, October 24, 2008
La Croix, the French equivalent of The Tablet or the Catholic Herald, has polled the French on the credit crunch and so forth, and c/o TNS-Sofres, the results are in:

'Regarding the market economy, what do you think?

It is the best possible system and should be kept - *5*%
It is the least bad and should be improved - 61%
It is a very bad system and should be changed - 29%
D/K - 5%


Which of the following would be a good or bad idea?

To further regulate and control the banks, investments funds, pension funds?

Good idea - 92% bad idea - 6%


Set a ceiling on bank director remuneration and block golden parachutes in the case of poor results?

Good idea - 89% bad idea - 8%


Urge companies to focus less on short term profitability and more on long-term results?

Good idea - 89% bad idea - 8%


Crack down on tax havens?

Good idea - 86%, bad idea 11%


Nationalise banks and the finance industry?

Good idea - 45%, bad idea - 48%


Group all the banks in each country into one public service bank?

Good idea - 31%, bad idea - 64%
I wonder which country's nationals would be howling loudest about the collapse of the economy and a tanking in the value of pensions if some of those measures came to pass, eh? Meanwhile, the works of France's very own Frédéric Bastiat are in print. The Candlemaker's petition is here, in English. A good, short read.

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posted by Croydonian

TUC to world - unions should be above the law

Saturday, September 27, 2008
Yes, that's what they are saying, via the European Trade Union Confederation, of which it is part:

"The ETUC therefore calls on Europe to fight for workers' rights, for fair and decent wages, for stable jobs and for strong collective bargaining practice, independent of and not subordinated to law courts and judges".

That is just one part of a frankly extraordinary document to which it has put its mark, 'The London Declaration: a call for fairness and tough action'.

Its laundry list of demands in the face of current market turmoil (which is all down to the markets, not interference by government, natch) includes the following:

"injections of public money into financial institutions that carry with them public influence and control so causing a fundamental change in behaviour"

Or in other words back door pseudo-nationalisation of banks, pension funds, insurance companies and old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.

"much tighter control of financial institutions' ability to leverage their operations, by strengthening the ratios of solid assets to liabilities"

Thus choking of the ability of said FI's to invest, create wealth etc etc. Sounds like a return to a seventies style socialist siege economy to me.

"an international, certainly European, level of effective regulation. This is necessitated by the scale of global financial capitalism which now transcends most individual nations. A European Ratings Agency is necessary"

And how do they intend to force the Swiss into this? If this is pan-EU, the gnomes of Zurich will be the biggest European beneficiaries, although our sensible EU shunning friends in more northerly climes might also be well placed to kickstart serious financial services industries.

"government action to ensure that funds are available for investment in the real economy, helping develop green jobs and technologies and sustainable development"

From the wonderful people who brought us Concorde, British Leyland, the Channel Tunnel and all sorts of other destroyers of capital. I'm sure that Brown and his homunculi would be just as good at picking winners as his fellow socialists in the past. I've always loved the phrase 'the real economy' impying as it does that banking and the like are not as dignified and horny-handed a way to make a living as digging coal. Not that that is very green, is it?

"help provided for workers affected, for householders threatened by eviction, for pensioners threatened with poverty in old age, for entrepreneurs seeking investment capital. (Yes, they did say that. Chutzpah doesn't come close) It is not fair that the main beneficiaries might be those who caused the mess".

So everybody wins, nobody loses. That is so going to happen.

a European-level response to the slowdown that is unfolding in the real economy to prevent the financial turmoil intensifying further as well as to avoid a return to the 'beggar-my-neighbour' approach of competitive wage moderation and reductions in social protection which harm workers and their families;

Thought they didn't believe in zero sum games. Anyway, who's afraid of hyper inflation?

"urgent return of public policy attention to the major issues of income and wage inequalities. It is inequality and poor wage income for ordinary workers that are driving households into ever more debt through risky financial market techniques".

And not people being responsible for their own actions?


Good job they are crying in the wilderness. I hope.

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posted by Croydonian

Nonsense on stilts..

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
with clown shoes, a Jimmy bonnet and a revolving bow tie.

No, I am not exaggerating:

"The President of Eurogroup - the informal Eurozone forum - Jean Claude Juncker, on Wednesday recommended a Europe-wide minimum wage".

He thinks it would be important for the 'social aspect' of the Euro zone (As Eurocrats tend to do, he jumps around between 'Europe', the EU and the Eurozone) and also for 'its economic aspect'.

I don't think I need to spell out the lunacy of treating even the Eurozone economies of being of a similar health / strength (Luxembourg - $104,000 GDP per capita and Malta - $18,000 ) let alone a wider EU that includes Bulgaria ($5186) and Romania ($7697).

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Ex Africa semper aliquid novi

Tuesday, August 19, 2008
(Apologies for the quote overload today...)

Heartening news from the IMF:

"The criteria for an emerging market set out here—growth, private sector–led growth, and investible markets—can be identified in eight sub-Saharan African countries: Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia...This group of African countries compares favorably with the ASEAN countries of 1980 (see table). ASEAN was already experiencing strong economic growth in 1980 but, in many other areas, the ASEAN countries looked quite different than they do today—and the African candidates perhaps have lower vulnerability and greater economic stability than the ASEAN countries had in 1980".

ASEAN members in 1980 were Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, all of which have come a very long way from Skid Row.

And here's the table:

"The rise of some African countries to emerging market status gives them a tremendous economic opportunity. Access to capital markets is a key ingredient to high and sustainable private sector–led growth, and this access had long seemed out of reach for Africa; it is now a reality".

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Failing to learn from the mistakes of others

Monday, August 18, 2008
The good bit:

"Eleven of the 14 countries that are part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) will participate in the free trade area".

The stupid bit:

"plans for a common currency by 2018".

Integrating successes like Botswana with basket cases like Zim would make the efforts of the EU look quite unambitious....

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A *complete* waste of time and money

Monday, July 28, 2008
From the Mail & Guardian, South Africa:

"The Cabinet has approved a draft framework for a national food-price agency, President Thabo Mbeki said on Sunday...."This arises out of the concern about the high and rising food prices and their impact on the poorest in the country," he said. It was necessary to have some institutionalised way to respond to it on a continuous basis, rather than an ad hoc basis. The agency would study the phenomenon so that it could recommend to the government what could be done to produce the desired results".

Could it be that supply and demand are alien concepts to Mbeki? Cutting through the persiflage, this is a softening up ahead of introducing price controls, which sure as night follows day will lead to shortages. If he really wants to do something about the cost of living, he would be better off giving a loaf of bread to everyone he meets.

Meanwhile, they are trying the reverse approach some 100 degrees to the north:

"Preliminary conclusions from a new report show that the uniform price reform has given low income workers in the big towns more money in their pockets.

At the same time, middle-class residents in the smaller settlements and outer districts have seen a worsening of their finances. The conclusions are part of a soon to be published report from the Department of Infrastructure and the Environment, according to knr.gl".

Can't say I am surprised.

As a probably one off, 'only in Greenland' footnote, note this reference by Rasmus Sembach Olsen of the distribution department of the Environment Agency: 'the big towns like Ilulissat, Sisimiut or Nuuk'. Ilulissat - pop. 4,453, Sisimiut, pop 5965 and the great metropolis of Nuuk - 15,047.



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posted by Croydonian

Three cheers for Cape Verde

Saturday, July 26, 2008
I can't say that my top of mind recall of Cape Verde goes much beyond, 'erm, islands off the coast of Africa, ex Portuguese colony', but having seen that it has just joined the WTO, went for a little dig:

"Since 1991, the country has pursued market-oriented economic policies, facilitating foreign investment, fostering the private sector through privatisations, developing tourism, light manufacturing industries and fisheries. Cape Verde has also developed its transport, communications and energy facilities".

And it has worked: "In 2007 the United Nations graduated Cape Verde from the category of Least Developed Countries, only the second time this has happened to a country".

The other country to get promotion is Botswana, also a free market orientated democracy.

As a footnote, the WTO states "Any state or customs territory having full autonomy in the conduct of its trade policies may become a member (“accede to”) the WTO". The UK is a member, but can it be said to have 'full autonomy in the conduct of its trade policies'? Open to debate, isn't it?


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posted by Croydonian