The Last Model Standing Is France

Wow. I can't believe an economist at Bank of America is allowed to express his analysis of the meltdown considering it was the incompetence of the banks that created this mess in the first place. I'm afraid people like him have lost all their credibility. I'm actually surprised he is still employed by the bank.

But what really amuses me is Schmieding's outrageous claim that the mess can be traced back to "misguided signals sent by governments". I wish he would elaborate on that because I would love to hear how the free market was tricked by these "signals".

Mr. Schmieding, you, along with all the Friedman evangelists, need to let go and just admit that the root cause was nothing more than greed and it is in fact the lack of regulation in the global capital market that got us into this mess.

English - Interesting, but a little short demonstration. Schmieding retracts an important component. Americans, in spite of a skilful planetary marketing which makes them pass for liberals without qualms , can be as interventionists and pragmatic as the French, and especially, also nationalists. From their agricultural policy to their assistances with the iron and steel industry, while passing by the recent support for the banks, the examples abound. Without forgetting hundreds of billion dollars which the taxpayers mobilized to help the banks and to support the economy. In short, behind the slogans, the border between the systems is fuzzier than it appears to be.

French - Démonstration intéressante, mais un peu courte. Schmieding escamote un élément important. Les Américains, en dépit d'un marketing planétaire habile qui les fait passer pour des libéraux sans états d'âme, savent être aussi interventionnistes et pragmatiques que les Français, et surtout, aussi nationalistes. De leur politique agricole à leurs aides à la sidérurgie, en passant par le soutien récent aux banques, les exemples abondent. Sans oubliers les centaines de milliards de dollars que les contribuables ont mobilisés pour aider les banques et soutenir l'économie. Bref, derrière les slogans, la frontière entre les systèmes est plus floue qu'il n'y parait.

Gee whiz... all these really really smart people can't figure it out. The reason is because they are all intellectually dishonest. Their dual agenda does not allow for honest analysis. It's really very simple.

They allowed corporations to get too large and to own too many unrelated businesses - creating monoliths. Monoliths need large profits because of the continual demand for growth. They meet the demand for growth by moving offshore - to cheap labor markets but those are only one time savings. By moving manufacturing offshore, then by moving knowledge jobs offshore, they are killing their base economy. Monoliths are like cancer cells - they suck the life out of the healthy cells leaving a diseased and dying body.

A national economy is like a pool. You can raise or lower the water level in a pool as long as the walls are intact. Globalization drills holes in the wall... and son of a gun, the water all runs out. And so it is with the economy - and no amount of economic stimulus will work to raise the water level. Our economy is dying - and the foundations of our country are crumbling. And all of these "really, really smart people" know it. It is the goal. In the twisted, perverted and diseased minds of the people they work for, a return to feudalism and the dark ages - with global overloads of the planet and slave populations to serve them. And I wish that was fiction or hyperbole - but it isn't. It's the truth.

"Interested American" sounds more like "Ignorant American" by using nothing but tired, old cliches and anecdotes to try and slam France: like rich people in France hide their money abroad (Really? All of them? And ONLY in France? Amazing!!) or the French are too "civilized" to have families (There's a scoop: French Produce No Babies in 2008! Wild!!) and especially the idea that France has no defense "so we do it for them". (Actually, France has long been the most independent NATO member, NOT relying totally on the USA by having a well-regarded NUCLEAR arsenal of their own - generally considered the 3rd most potent in the world, just ahead of China [while Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy, etc. have no such defense]. And while everyone knows the US helped France in WWII - it was much like the time France helped the US become a nation in 1776 as our strongest ally against England). And lastly he claims that France completely rejected socialism in their last election (What a simple view of the world that is! It's like saying the USA completely rejected capitalism in 2008 (i.e. it's nonsense)).

For those that attack France for high taxes, I am a lower middle class American taxed 30% of my income. If I get paid more in my career, I expect that number to rise to 40-50% of my income. In exchange, I get pretty much nothing---my childcare costs are killing me and prevent me from participating in my retirement plan. I have NOTHING for retirement and am 41 years old. My child care costs continue on and on as you can't really leave a kid alone until they are like 12-13. Then there are the STUDENT LOANS.....which they also don't have in France because education is paid for---if the childcare doesn't kill you--childcare and student loans together certainly will and IF you don't have healthcare----just forget about it--it almost doesn't even pay to work....Once you are done paying your student loans, you get to borrow again for your kid's....I would glady pay another 15% in taxes to have these three things taken care of because together they certainly cost more than what I would lose by paying that tax...oh and by the way---we DO have money to pay for this stuff now---if we refocus our money on taking care of taxpayers instead of having numerous wars and miltary bases around the world. I have been to France---the rich and middle class both have really nice standards of living. Their racial discrimination aside, the poor do better too.

"Europe would then be outclassed once again by the eventual resurgence of the more flexible United States" - Flexibility? What your selling as flexibility is actually just a much more pronounced boom & bust cycle in comparison to Europe. America may be growing faster during good times but the pain is much greater during bad times

"Although closer inspection suggests that much of the financial excesses that turned to waste can be traced back to misguided signals sent by governments and central banks . . ." Really? You mean like passing the modernization acts (1999, 2000) that financial lobbiests paid for? Warren Buffet predicted the results of that legislation and even he was ignored by the industry and government. So if you mean the governments shouldn't have given the market movers what they asked for, then you are correct. But how can we blame government for over leveraging by fund managers, insurance companies and banks as well as the drafting of derivatives that are incomprehensible? The free market apparently gets incredibly greedy and can't be trusted. So if you mean that governments trusted markets too much, then you're correct. Wake-up!! Human nature makes both free markets and government intervention dangerous. The most important thing is to balance the two by enforcing transparency and setting standards and formats government makes it possible for there to be a market at all.

"Although closer inspection suggests that much of the financial excesses that turned to waste can be traced back to misguided signals sent by governments and central banks . . ." Really? You mean like passing the modernization acts (1999, 2000) that financial lobbiests paid for? Warren Buffet predicted the results of that legislation and even he was ignored by the industry and government. So if you mean the governments shouldn't have given the market movers what they asked for, then you are correct. But how can we blame government for over leveraging by fund managers, insurance companies and banks as well as the drafting of derivatives that are incomprehensible? The free market apparently gets incredibly greedy and can't be trusted. So if you mean that governments trusted markets too much, then you're correct. Wake-up!! Human nature makes both free markets and government intervention dangerous. The most important thing is to balance the two by enforcing transparency and setting standards and formats government makes it possible for there to be a market at all.