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breizh

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Everything posted by breizh

  1. You are correct Clair, the missis has the day off. Seems a bit random, who gets to work and who doesn't. Dominique is a teacher in a prive, and for APEC. YCCMB, I suspect that the UK day is not a statutary Public Holiday, therefore is not technically a day off. At least people who work will get paid! I don't! In Germany, like everyone, I paid a Surchage Solidarity Tax for the Ossis (Solidaritätszuschlag) 5.5%, now I get to work for free for the OAPs (yeah,, right). So it is cheaper here!
  2. I doubt many 2nd home owners or retirees will be aware, but I will not be paid today. What I earn goes straight to the Govn. After the thousands of deaths in 2003, I get the priviledge of working for nothing. The foncs are OK, they get it as a public holiday! Now, deep joy, reading between the lines, we are probably going to have more Solidarity Days! http://www.leparisien.fr/politique/en-direct-financement-de-la-dependance-delaunay-evoque-la-solidarite-nationale-28-05-2012-2020484.php  
  3. We had a party for 40 today, at the petanque club, we supplied Brit food, and drinks. Made lots, and substituted where appropriate. The missis wanted to have a party. 4 hours later, the revellers staggered home. I was the only Brit, mostly Magrebis. 'cuse the typing.....................mildly inebriated.
  4. breizh

    Facebook

    [quote user="Quillan"] Yes but how many of the 400M views turned to sales? Most people on facebook are kids (even though it's illegal for them to have accounts according to something I saw on the BBC a while back) or unemployed who have nothing better to do. [/quote] I doubt, in my lifetime, anyone has bought anything directly due to an ad., in deed they will actively push back against the message. Brand awareness/brand enforcement/brand positioning/image/etc. Stuff the consumer will not even necessarily be aware. Repeat enough times and when you give consumers a choice, even though they are not consciously aware, the ads kick in. Cyncsm and pofaced denial is no defence, that is why so many Physciology Phds are used, to ensure you are NOT aware, and if asked would deny it!! I'd guess the idea of using ads to sell went out when consumers became so cynical.
  5. breizh

    Facebook

    As an example. Last year Ford launched their new Explorer in the US. Spent USD15million on Facebook. Gained 400million individual views of their page. 400million viewers by choice! Not 400million people who went and got a beer when the TV ads came on. Including a few million who couldn't even buy the d*mn thing! TV ads won't go away, they are very good for imbedding aspirational messages to tap into at a future date. Good exampel would BMW. Few of the audience can afford now, but 1 day......................
  6. breizh

    Facebook

    Very simple. Marketing. Hundreds of millioms of people have given details about themseves to Facebook. I can use that info to target my advertiing, instead of paying for TV ads which only apply to 1-2% of the population! I can hit EXACTLY my target market straight! 90% of our direct advertising goes on Facebook........it is very effective. Easy to get word of mouth and direct recommendations. Easy to get get virals. Outlook is a Microsoft product. Anything earnt there goes to Bill and Paul.
  7. Oh well. Nice of Mr Peston to explain cashpooling and TARGET2. Biggest elephants in the romm, which the usual Media Studies graduates seem to have completely missed. Never agree with his conclusions though.
  8. At 1 level it comes down to it being cheaper for the Germans to provide the funds required by Greece to continue to meet it's domestic and international commitments. The private French and Germans banks have sold all their Greek debt to the ECB, roughly EUR 250billion, TARGET2 transfers (Google it!) due from Greece, about EUR150billion, funds already committed EUR128billion, chuck in a few ad hoc loans, etc...............call it EUR600billion. That will ALL be lost by the EUR taxpayers if Greece goes bust. Therefore cheaper to bail them out!!!! At a political level. Looks like Merkel is a dead duck after the RW-P State result. German taxpayers are tutored by Bild, which makes The Sun look bipartisan. Any funds slipped to Greece have to go under Dietmann's radar! If Grrece leaves EZ, that leaves Italy, Spain, Portugal, and probably France to dangle in the wind. France finances itself almost entirely from foreign funds, funds which completely evaporate if Greece goes. The ECB will have to print EUR3-5trillion, on top of the EUR1.5trillion. This is starting to make QE looking pathetic!! So many parts of the EZ financial system are interlinked. At levels that UK media completely misses, that this is way, way beyond moral hazard, punishing the Greeks, or want's fair. Like every other big company in Europe, we planned a potential break up of EZ last year. We, like just about everyone one in EZ, cashpool (Google it!) in the UK. Software rewritten. T&Cs rewritten. Contracts tendered in USD/GBP., etc, etc........... Personally, I don't think it will happen. However, looking at the current share prices, I doubt PSA/CA/Commerzbank shareholders agree! Another guess. If it all goes t*t's up. I bet the Brits will use their AAA rating to bail out Ireland. Like Greece and Germany...........
  9. [quote user="Quillan"] [quote user="NormanH"]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sarkozy-or-hollande-france-prepares-to-choose-its-future-7715652.html Has got the two candidates about right. [/quote] Good article, I have been trying to read it all day but so many interruptions. [:'(] The bit that makes me wonder is the comment "The problems begin with the fiscal discipline element. The Socialist candidate has pledged to reduce the French state deficit to zero by 2017". I am wondering how he intends to do this as like Labour in the UK he is yet to come up with an actual plan or pass any real comment? It suggest to me that perhaps French public sector workers are in for just as much pain as they are under Sarkozy. [/quote] Hollande is relying on the tax multiplier effect. There is a quirk in Deficit v GDP calculating which I understand, but struggle to explain very well in simple terms, but I will try[:P] The private economy generates EUR X amount. The state taxes that economy, and collects EUR Y, and spends it. The GDP of a country is EUR X+Y. So if you increase taxes, and state spending, you have an increase in GDP. There are ancillary effects, more state workers paid for by taxes, is more tax revenue for the state, when they in turn pay taxes. Higher spending by the state increases the private economy, leading to more workers, higher profits, more taxes. As GDP increases, any state deficit in spending, becomes a smaller %age of GDP. Seems like a virtuous circle[:D]...............effectively you are spending the same money twice, thrice, four times. To an Anglo-Saxon mindset, the obvious flaw is if higher taxes lead to a reduction in EUR X, leading to a reduction in Y[:D] However, it worked in Sweden, for a long time, but crashed and burned in the 90s. France already has the highest level of overall taxation in the OECD, and the plans are to increase that! The flaws are obvious, but he could make it work for a few years.  
  10. Must admit we live a prodominantly muslim area, and as far as I know I am the only Brit. It's a commuter town for Paris, so not standard Brit property owning terrority!! We voted for Melanchon, though my dearly bewildered voted for Hollande...............and will again. Being a typical Brit, I have tried to explain the the financial mess that is France, and he's going to just bring the train crash forward. Old joke about building the Channel Tunnel. Mitterrand said "Great idea. Let's do it". Thatcher said "Great idea. How much will it cost?". Neatly sums up why the Brits will never understand the French! I gave up on colloquial French. I will never get the culural, historically, media references. Colouse completely passed under my radar. Just as DB will never get English references. I doubt she will ever be able to use fill up/fill in/fill out in the right context. She just picks at random................"I'm just going to fill out the car with petrol"............always makes me smile. (Though the 'Allo Allo accent does grate after all these years.)  
  11. The FN seem to have done well across the Med coast and the unemployable Nord. Very pretty and easy to use map........by Dept, and commune. If you live in Gard, chances are your neighbors are slightly to the right of Genghis Khan. http://fr2012.election-maps.appspot.com/results/embed?hl=fr I've said it before about the xenophobia, and open racism, of French people. MiL is a UMP maire, previously Gaullist. Some of things she says, and the rest of the family, would get you locked up in some other countries. Also, when we're doing the mad supermarket dash for the week, we talk English between us. I never pick up the snide remarks from other shoppers, though my French is very good, but my wife has gone ballistic at some comments, when people are not realising one of us is a native. Ears like GCHQ, and a 100% command of her native language, leads to some rather fruity exchanges! As I said, I don't pick up the remarks, and I doubt any non-native would...............the locals are talking behind your backs about you!!
  12. Please note. The total UK consumer debt figure is calculated on the last working day of the month. If you settle your account in full on, or about, the date it falls due (14th?), then your card amount WILL be included in the UK consumer debt figure. Anyone spot the anomoly?!! At least though an effort is made to quantify. No such effort in France whatsoever. However a personal insolvency rate 5-6 times the UK rate would suggest there is an issue! For all purchases CC companies deduct 2.25-4.75%, from the seller, of the amount charged to the card. That is where the money is made. Not in acting in a consumer lending capacity. Anyway that is all bye the bye, it has nothing to do with credit revolving. I have never been asked for proof of income when having credit revolving pushed at me, thatm was the point, it isn't covered by the same legislation as an unsecured loan.  
  13. I work in the credit field (corporate), and have worked in a number of EU countries. The levels of personal, and corporate insolvencies, are easily the highest in Europe. The legislation is amazingly biased in favor of the debtor. Recovery rates are 24% personal and 48% corporate, in France, versus 73% and 92% in the UK. I work on a Bad Debt rate of 1.2%, in the UK, and 13% in France. Hence cash in advance, and higher prices, for France, these costs can't be passed onto the corporate customers. It becomes a viscious cycle of lost sales, leading to lost production, leading to insolvency, and lost jobs. Les Echos was playing the "What if?" game last week regarding the Pressy eclecu. They reckoned that job losses, and insolvencies will skyrocket afterwards, as so many companies have been leant on, not to release bad news for the last few months, but the cork will hit the ceiling over the next few months!
  14. I do the shopping in our house, my dearaly bewildered, is a bit too French (needs to spend more time in the UK..........hopefully soon). I find it bizarre that anyone bothers to following this up. I thought it was common knowledge, and every single offer I've ever seen in InterClerc has been fraudulant! The German hard discounters are much more trustworthy.
  15. The format of the loans is indentical to credit card debt, as Anglo-Saxons would understand. Borrow an amount, no fixed term, high interest, very low min repayment amount per month. There is no such thing as Equifax/Experian in France. There simply is no record of who owes what. When our Dear Leader stepped into the the Elysee, one of the things on the agenda was to impose a central database of all secured and unsecured credit. Quietly dropped by Princess Lagrande. Without any way to check, people simply lie on their aplication forms. I know people who have as many as 10 loans, repayments amounting to 100% of their salary! And they pay rent, food, ultitities, cars, etc on top. Credit revolving has been the elephant in the room for many years, and in line with standard French thinking, if you are scared of the answer to a quaetion, don't ask it. I always chuckle to myself when Brits talk about the amount of household debt in the UK. Well, at least the UK has statistics on these things...........the French don't...............!! No one has a clue!!
  16. The forex, debt and equity markets would have built in the widely expected Hollande win. Very bad EZ manufacturing data, and collapse of the NL budget talks, meaning an election in Tulipland, hammered the EZ markets, and rattled the GB markets. The EUR forex rates are all red. GBP is all red except against EUR.  
  17. Prior to the premier tour, when the opinion polls had the dwarf and Hollande neck and neck, every single opinion poll, without expection, had Hollande to win in the deuxieme by between 8-20%. Traditionally the left wing vote sticks with the left wing candidate, and the centre and the right fracture. Mde Le Faciste's vote is shown as 40% for the dwarf in the deuxieme, 27% Hollande. Bayrou's is 50-50. That would put the dwarf on 44% max. as it stands at the moment. In the words of my dearly bewildered, never underestimate the selfishness of french voters, and their lack of economic education. She voted for Bayrou.......................that was 2 hours of her life wasted. And Hollande in the 2ieme. Not from conviction. Just hates her mother's party. Therefore hates the dwarf.
  18. And for a little light relief. Guess which candidate uses which keywords. I got 5, all the easy ones! http://www.leparisien.fr/election-presidentielle-2012/en-images-jeu-trouvez-les-mots-de-chaque-candidat-15-04-2012-1955558.php?pic=4#infoBulles1  
  19. No escaping it here either. Guess what the top rate TV programme was............................http://www.leparisien.fr/tv/audiences-tv-titanic-fait-le-bonheur-de-france-2-16-04-2012-1957174.php    
  20. Police issued documents are no longer valid for international air transportation. Current ID card or Passeport only, for French citizens. No drivers licences, no military ID card, no Livre de Famille. As it stands at the moment, she simply can't go. Thems the international rules. Nothing Ryanair can do.
  21. [quote user="NormanH"]Especially as that politician wasn't even elected! [/quote] It's France, so I took that as a given fact!! Bet he's Sciences-Po+ENA, and that's without checking Google!  
  22. Even Marine called it cynical political gesturing. I do find it bizarre that a politician, has the power to remove people from the country without either the legislative or the judiciary being involved. Lets hope he doesn't suddenly take a dislike people with red hair, or Rosbifs! All the deportations are to countries with relatively good human rights records. I wonder if that was deliberate! Kick a few people with beards out the country. Pick up a few FN votes. Just don't pick anyone serious, or from a dodgy HR country!
  23. The professeur is definitely Jewish. No news on the little kids yet As I said before, looks like we have a french Breivik.
  24. Norm, I don't think the figures are being specifically modified for the Dwarf.
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