Jump to content

Logan

Members
  • Posts

    797
  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

Everything posted by Logan

  1. Perhaps you support a cosy world of the nineteen thirties Russethouse? Today is a new world, not a brave one, just different. You may not like it but if you are in business you operate according to the market. Unless you prefer France as a giant theme park living from subsidy and state benevolence? If a business is uneconomical it has two choices. Adapt and change, find a niche market or fold.  
  2. I liked the first contrasting paragraph! Methinks most French people will be in favour of the new law. The rising cost of food is becoming a real problem and the competition between supermarket chains helps to keep prices in check. Try going to a supermarket that's the only one in town. I don't buy the argument that the character of France will change. They have been saying that for years to keep monopolies in place. A good business always adapts to a new situation to survive.
  3. A pessimist is an optimist with experience! Or optimisim is the triumph of hope over experience. Can't recall who wrote those but they knew a thing or two.[:D]
  4. With time your relationship changes toward your new country. It does become mundane. You could not exist in a constant state of excitment. New things become old things, just like everything else. The rose tinted specs become very clear and warts and all become the state of normality. There also can set in a danger of wistfully remembering the old life in UK when the going gets tough. Completely forgetting of course the negative reasons which pushed you to move in the first place. I have long made France my home. I have also tried living in others places since, including a short spell back in Britain. I dislike many aspects of the country and have longed for those things to change. However I personally feel on balance France is the best place to live in Europe if you are financially self sufficient for a long list of reasons. If I was starting out again in business and life I would avoid France and choose a more business friendly country. That would make your life a lot easier and probably with a more financially suitable outcome. Make enough first and then move to France in retirement.   Lots of luck with your move.  
  5. I think you are hair splitting. Social Security contributions are a tax by any other name. It's all tax. Franchise a' retenir is just the latest one.
  6. Your previous financial life in UK or anywhere else is of no interest to French banks. What will matter to them is your current income and the asset base you bring. In a sense you will be stating afresh. However that said the system here is very unforgiving if you transgress outside the rules. Sanctions are severe. French people are very careful with money and so are the banks.
  7. The Bank of England are in discussions with the clearing banks over possible funding through mortgage backed assets. Basically the Chancellor will make available capital for banks to free up the credit market in return for gold standard security. This has given Sterling a slight and in my view temporary up tick.  Market expectation is always out of cinq with what governments do. Especially this hopeless lot. I expect Darling to announce a package of measures way below what the City needs to free up the credit markets. The figure to return the credit markets back to normality is in excess of 300 billion. I expect Darling to announce something between 50-60 billion. Not near enough.
  8. The sentiment in the forex markets is the Euro to climb to 1.65 against the Dollar and stay there until the credit crunch is over or the oil price drops. Parity with Sterling is also a possibility. In 1992 the French Franc rose to 7FF against the Pound! Almost Euro parity. The result will be dire for EU manufacturing and will almost certainly guarantee a deeper recession in the Eurozone. The only concern the ECB seem to have is reducing inflation. They seem to be a bunch of one club players.
  9. [quote user="Will"]  And why should they when they can get a good package of benefits, paid for by those who are in work? [/quote] Because Will the world constantly changes, except in France of course. That's the perception not the reality. Like most institutions who live beyond their means. France is like the boy with his finger in the dam.
  10. This is an old story. The registered and legitimate builders and artisans have oodles of work. They stack it up and give you starting dates of months in advance rather than the alternative of taking on and training new staff and completing the work quicker. Val2 is quite right. The social charges and costs to business of  employing and training more staff are huge. The solution for them is simple, just to make the clients wait. Clients in any given area are all in the same boat so there is effectively no choice but to wait patiently. Meanwhile Bob the Builder uses your large deposit to finance other projects at no cost to himself. The labour shortage is artificial and created by the system. This government has promised to change things. Well I am sure you all know what use a politician's promise is.
  11. Thanks for that link Gluey. Here is an interesting quote for an economist:- Furthermore, the ECB is forbidden by its founding charter to balance the goal of price stability against other aims such as growth and job creation. So now we know some of the realities. These concequences seem not to matter in the ivory towers of the EU.
  12. I agree with all Gluestick has said. Trichet previously was Banque de France governor and was charged with fraud when Credit Lyonnais almost went under along the lines of Northern Rock. The French government bailed the bank out. He had previously become a shoe in for the ECB job so his seat was kept warm until his eventual trial and acquittal. When governor of the B de F he presided over a long period in the early nineties when the DMark reigned supreme over all world currencies. He and the German central bank engineered the ERM into a position where most major currencies including Sterling could not compete. The end result was a lack of competiveness in Europe and economic decline.  That is history. However history is repeating itself once more under his moribund leadership. Italy and Spain as well as France and likely several others are at the start of a cycle of serious economic decline. The strait jacket of the Euro does not allow these countries any room for fiscal or financial movement on their own. I doubt the new Italian President just elected will put up with Trichet for long. I see some political alliance between him and Sarkozy likely. It's well known Sarko dislikes Trichet and wants him gone. Unfortunately, I do not actually believe the Euro will be abandoned. That's a nuclear option and unthinkable in today's EU political climate. However I do think events will force change and Trichet out, eventually. After reading that Forbes article I think he inhabits another planet!  
  13. [quote user="chessfou"]Yes, thank goodness for the difference between taxe d'habitation and council tax. Comparing our 4bed, 2 recep + garage etc. here and there and accepting the fact that there is a difference between small village (here) and medium size town (there), nonetheless we are paying €301 this year against £2,329 (near enough €3,000 even at today's lowly exchange rate). [/quote] Yes, but in France you need a Mutuelle for healthcare and pay high social charges! One thing cancels out the other.
  14. [quote user="Iceni"] Dell France delivers to France. John [/quote] You need to ring them in UK for French deliveries. It's not possible to order on line direct.
  15. I think your analysis Gluestick fits particularly well with the current state of the economies of Spain, in particular Italy and France. Growth has stalled and declining rapidly. Yet their elected governments find themselves in a position where they are unable to take any remedial measures of practical meaning. Germany has always enjoyed a strong currency and is very happy to swagger around the world, stuffing loads of paper dosh up our nose. I await the eventual fall with restored relish. The power to do anything practical lies in the hands of Jean Claude Trichet, the Governor of the ECB. Unelected by anyone, appointed for an indeterminate term, with a nod of the head by past leaders of government, some of them long since departed. He is so well past the usual retirement age and remains with a mind set of 1970’s French economic ideas long since confined to the dustbin of history. He is a man outside his own time. Yet no one has the power to remove him from office. Unbelievable but actually true. As the Euro appreciates constantly against every major world currency, in the face of economic decline, I am left with an overwhelming vision. That of Nero the Roman Emperor fiddling quietly whilst Rome burned.   Unfortunately for the Italians they have in power another former EU functionaire in power who refuses to do anything practical to halt or influence the current slowly emerging debacle. We who are powerless to change anything can only watch from the side lines and rest patiently. Investing our remaining bloated Euros in the currently floored currencies such as Sterling and wait quietly for the sunny uplands of turnaround.[:)]
  16. There is an interesting debate going on in another forum regarding the future of the Euro. This article sparked it off. http://www.forbes.com/opinions/forbes/2008/0421/034.html?feed=rss_opinions I believe that the creation of the Euro was principally a political idea not an economic one. Like all political ideas this one was deeply flawed. A one size to fit all policy is always doomed to failure. However, because it was a political idea, failure does not mean throwing the idea out, as you might expect in any other walk of life. On the contrary. Flawed political ideas can and do last for generations, centuries even. History is littered with them. The writer of the Forbes article is of course quite correct in his wishful thinking. He is an economist and by nature a practical pragmatist. Politicians have none of these qualities. They have the ‘vision thing’. That is shorthand for let’s invent a dogs dinner of an idea, inflict it on millions and tell them it’s great when we all know it’s a disaster. Then refuse to budge or change anything because they believe the medicine will work eventually. Meanwhile Europe’s economy slides ever so gently into the dark abyss of stagnation and depression. The moral of this tale is never let politicians run economies. Markets should and do that very successfully. The Euro is a wonderful example of how political interference creates disaster. The ECB have not learned the lessons of the eighties when the DMark was overvalued and eventually led to years of economic recession in Germany and France. The trouble is this time the ECB have control of the whole of the Eurozone. That is likely to prove extremely difficult to sustain as economies like Spain sink into the mire. Eurozone countries are now going to find it impossible to create growth because of the overvalued Euro. Without growth above inflation you have a recessionary disaster and a backward spiral.   
  17. [quote user="Iceni"] But, Sprogster, why is the market not equally distorted by the sellers ? Surely it takes two to tango ? John [/quote] Sellers can only sell at the price the market allows. A house is only worth what someone will pay for it. Not a Euro more.
  18. You may notice that in my post I made no mention of foreign buyers. Whilst I agree with Sprogster that they have distorted some markets, so have Parisiens and in Spain, Madridillos. In fact you can include anyone who earns a higher income outside the zone in which they are buying. Incomes are always higher in cities and city folk long to live in the country or by the sea. However in bad times the maison secondaire is usually the first casualty. Foreclosures usually start to happen a year after an economic recession first hits. Banks move in and sell off property for their costs. That also sends the market tumbling. I am afraid it's all rather predictable. I did rather well out of the last one in Spain. 1992-1996 were good years to get into that market. Watch this space.
  19. [quote user="Sprogster"]According to an International Monetary Fund report published last week, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Spain have the most over valued residential property markets and the countries most likely to see an appreciable downward correction in property values over the next two years.[/quote] That quote from the IMF should carry a health warning. Yes, in UK generally in almost all regions prices are too high, fuelled by past years of cheap easy credit. In Spain only in coastal regions is there over valued property, mostly owned by people living elsewhere. In France the overvaluation of property is very regionalised. In some departments the opposite is true. Incomes of the population are a principle factor in regulating house prices. If there is a large influx of tourists buying for second homes the market also gets distorted. There are other factors also in play. The bland IMF quote is quite meaningless. However the basic sentiment is correct. House values are on the slide, some will fall more than others and some will stay as they are. That situation will remain until Banks can lend easy money again. When that happens is anyones guess.
  20. http://iplayersupport.external.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/bbciplayer.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=28&cat_lvl1=4 http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1133895/ShowPost.aspx Doh![:(] 
  21. Really, my view is the government are trying to have their cake and eat it too. French insurance or mutuelle companies are perfectly capable of providing all the resources to fund the health care needs of the population. A private system would reduce the burden on the tax payer and allow us all to pay less in social charges. That is the theory of course. In practice I doubt it would happen. The government would just find other ways to spend our money. So in effect we will end up paying more whatever bright idea they come up with. Waste on administration would not be reduced. What would they do with all those functionaries who send us useless piles of paper on a constant basis? The private sector would surely be able to create much efficiency. The social net could remain in place for those on a low income. You have to be pretty poor these days to qualify anyway. I support the idea that the Medicare system of France should either be funded in full by the state or funded in full privately. The current system is to me a complete dogs breakfast.  
  22. The French government are determined to reduce the healthcare deficit by forcing us all to pay higher voluntary contributions. http://www.french-property.com:80/newsletter/2008/4/1/french-health-insurance/  
  23. Yes an interesting article Gluestick, written on 19th March 2008. Stuff has moved on a little since. I particulary enjoyed the readers comments at the end. They seem to be written from an America in denial. Personally speaking, at the moment if there was anywhere to hide I would run to it and sit with a tin hat on. My investments have crashed and my income in Sterling is reduced by 20%. However I still believe in keeping ones nerve and the eventual salvation of the market. Denial. Most probably. [:'(] 
  24. Interesting article here which should meet with Gluey's approval. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/economist-stiglitz-blames-crunch--on-flawed-city-bonuses-system-799869.html When considering world economics I believe it’s important to consider which side of the debate you support. Like politics the subject is vast and there are always two opposing poles to consider. John Maynard Keynes was the founder of the mixed economy practised by governments like France since the end of world war two. He believed that governments and the private sector should have an equal hand in the running of economies. The Labour Party practised such policies especially during the Wilson years. When Margaret Thatcher came to power she changed everything and adopted the ideas of Milton Friedman. He advocated minimizing the role of government in the running of the economy and allowing the market to influence political and social policy. I don’t want to write an essay here on the merits of these two towering giants of economics but it is important to consider their ideas when deciding where your opinions stand. There are acres of their ideas on the web. I am firmly in the camp of Friedman. That should come as no surprise to regulars on these forums. I do not believe in the state running economies. Politicians are the last people qualified to run a company. They simply do not understand markets or their complexity. When governments try intervention it usually ends in a disaster. In recent times Northern Rock is a prime example of that process going wrong. When private management fails the company should pay a price. Banks are no different. Folks loose their money. It’s not the job of government to rescue investors. It is not the job of government to prop up ailing firms with taxpayer’s money. Economic confidence is in any event shaken. Governments bailing out failed firms makes things worse. The world economy is entering a downturn at the moment. I prefer the word correction. Periods of correction are very important. It allows the market to shed the wheat from the chaff. Some markets have become too bloated and need to be trimmed. It is a natural process and part of the economic cycle. When this present downturn is over markets will be fitter and leaner to move forward for the benefit of us all. Yes there will be casualties. That also is part of the natural rhythm of life. When Governments try to be defiant in the face of the inevitable they end up with egg all over their face. As Mrs T. once said, “you cannot buck the market, try it and the market will buck you”.
  25. Excepting this example is a contrived situation, not a free market circumstance, as there is no shortage in reality, thus the laws of supply and demand ought to apply: but don't. Which is precisely why the current incarnation of the oft quote "Market Economy" is total nonsense! I can't agree that the present economic circumstances are contrived. The high price of oil is due to the weak dollar and sustained demand. The weak dollar has been caused by a catastrophic lending policy by US institutions and in part by the US budget deficit caused by military spending and poor leadership. The markets have responded accordingly. I agree there is no shortage of supply but demand is now weakening. Is that not market forces in play? The ECB in my view are exasperating the current situation in Europe by not reducing interest rates. Unless they do so soon the economy of France and Germany will be tipped over a cliff. The recent data released on the French economy looks dire. Stagflation is looming. Markets? It's all markets Gluey.[:D]
×
×
  • Create New...