FRANCE SURRENDERS TO MALI REBELS

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Posted on 14th January 2013 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

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France says Diabaly falls to Malian insurgents

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI AND BABA AHMED

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Despite intensive aerial bombardments by French warplanes, Islamist insurgents grabbed more territory in Mali on Monday and got much closer to the capital, French and Malian authorities said.

In the latest setback, the al-Qaida-linked extremists overran the garrison village of Diabaly in central Mali, France’s defense minister said in Paris. Jean-Yves Le Drian said Monday the rebels “took Diabaly after fierce fighting and resistance from the Malian army that couldn’t hold them back.”

The Malian military is in disarray and has let many towns fall with barely a shot fired since the insurgency began almost a year ago in the northwest African nation.

French military forces, who began battling in Mali on Friday, widened their aerial bombing campaign against Islamic extremists occupying northern Mali, launching airstrikes for the first time in central Mali to combat the new threat. The rebels, who come from several nations besides Mali, had been bottled up in the narrow neck of central Mali. But by now sweeping in from the west, they are now only 400 kilometers (250 miles) from Mali’s capital, Bamako, in southern Mali.

LEAVE IT TO FRANCE PART DEUX

33 comments

Posted on 8th June 2012 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

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Just when you thought the leader of France couldn’t come up with a dumber idea than reducing the retirement age from 62 to 60, Mike Shedlock reports about an even more brainless idea from the clearly dimwitted leader of France. His plan is to make it so expensive for companies in France to fire people that they never hire them in the first place. The logic is so pure and assinine that Obama is sure to jump on the idea as part of his platform for re-election. The Frenchies don’t believe in the business cycle and the fact that when demand declines, companies need to get their costs in line with revenues. Hollande knows best. This is like watching a French comedy with subtitles. Except it isn’t really funny. It’s sad.

 

Hollande About to Wreck France With Economically Insane Proposal: “Make Layoffs So Expensive For Companies That It’s Not Worth It”

 

Unemployment in France touched 10.2% in April, a number last seen in 1999 according to data from Eurostat.

 
click on chart for sharper image

The question on newly-elected President Francois Hollande’s mind is what to do about it.

Economic Insanity
 
Hollande’s layoff clampdown solution according to Labour Minister Michel Sapin is to “make layoffs so expensive for companies that it’s not worth it.”

France’s new Socialist government is planning to ramp up the cost of laying off workers for companies in the coming months, its labour minister said on Thursday after data showed the jobless rate hit the highest level this century at 10 percent.

“The main idea is to make layoffs so expensive for companies that it’s not worth it,” Sapin said in an interview with France Info radio.

“It’s not a question of sanctions, but workers have to have compensation at the right level,” he said.

Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg is also planning legislation that would force companies to sell plants they want to get rid of at market prices to avoid closures and job losses.

Four Things, All of Them Bad

  1. Mass layoffs will occur before the law passes.
  2. Companies will move any jobs they can overseas.   
  3. Ongoing, if it’s difficult to fire people, companies will not hire them in the first place. 
  4. Corporate profits will collapse along with the stock market should the need to fire people arise.

The proposal to force companies to sell plants rather than fire workers as outlined by Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg and Labour Minister Michel Sapin is nothing short of economic insanity.

Nannycrat Dilemma

Think the Nannycrats in Brussels will go for this idea? If they do, they will wreck all of Europe. If they don’t, then how are they going to “harmonize” everything?

For more on nannycrats and the nannyzone please see …

Also see my original post on the “nannyzone” written June 2, 2011, nearly one year ago today: Trichet Calls for Creation of European “Nanny-State” and Fiscal “Nanny-Zone”

Addendum:

Reader “Bob” writes ….

Point 3 is the biggest but it gets even more insidious. The companies that have enough employees now are generally larger companies with a political voice. The companies that will need employees later are generally smaller, entrepreneurial companies with no political voice.

Since most job creation happens at the entrepreneurial level, the proposed policy will subsidize corporate stagnation while stemming the flow of entrepreneurial companies entering the market.

Over the long haul, this will kill France’s economic competitiveness while increasing unemployment.

Recall government enforced jobs in the former USSR in the 1980′s. How well did that go? Things got got so bad the USSR had to dissolve.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock
 http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

LEAVE IT TO THE FRENCH

105 comments

Posted on 6th June 2012 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

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Europe is imploding under an unpayable mountain of entitlement promises. What do the French do? They lower the retirement age to 60 and add billions to the mountain of unfunded liabilities. No wonder the Germans have invaded them twice in the last hundred years. Could a country be more delusional than France?

French government lowers pension age for some

France’s new Socialist government has signed off a decree to partially lower the pension age to 60 for people who have worked since early in life.

France’s new Socialist government rolled back an emblematic reform of Nicolas Sarkozy’s administration today.

It announced a decree which lowers the retirement age from 62 to 60 for some workers.

The decree, reducing the age limit for people who begin their careers at the age of 18, was agreed on at a cabinet meeting, Social Affairs Minister Marisol Touraine said.

It will be finalised before the end of the month before being published in France’s official gazette.

Next year around 110,000 people are expected to benefit from the measure at an estimated cost of €1.1 billion, an amount expected to rise to €3 billion a year by 2017, she said.

Up to six months of unemployment and six months of maternity leave can be included in the calculation of the amount of time a worker has to pay into pension funds to benefit from retirement at 60, Touraine said.

This system means that “women who worked and who had children will not be penalised in the calculation of their pension”, she said, adding that the project will be financed by a 0.1 percentage point rise in worker and employer contributions.

Touraine said that the new decree, which goes against the current of pension reform in Europe, was “a measure of justice which concerns those who were penalised most by the reform of 2010″.

Right-wing president Sarkozy raised France’s retirement age that year from 60 to 62 despite months of protests that brought millions onto the streets. Under the new system, workers who begin their careers at 18 will be able to retire if they have paid into state pension plans for 41 years or 41.5 years, depending on their year of birth.

WE WE DOWN YOUR LEG

5 comments

Posted on 7th May 2012 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

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The French people have elected a socialist and now their housing bubble is about to burst. I wonder if this will have a positive impact on their bankrupt banks? The Europeans sure have fucked up their continent.

France faces 40pc house price slump

France faces a property slump of Anglo-Saxon proportions as the frothiest boom in French history finally tips over, threatening the country with an economic shock just as austerity hits.

Coffee, croissant and newpaper in cafe , Paris, France

 
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Paris has overtaken New York to become the world’s third costliest city Photo: Alamy

7:22PM BST 03 May 2012

“It is a gigantic bubble, all the more dangerous as it is spread across France,” said Pierre Sabatier, from the consultancy PrimeView.

“It reached a paroxysm in the summer of 2011. There is a mix of incredulity and denial as it starts to burst but there can be little doubt that all levers propelling the market are disappearing.”

PrimeView said prices across France have jumped 160pc since 1998, though houshold incomes are up just 35pc. Paris has overtaken New York to become the world’s third costliest city at €18,000 (£14,600) per square metre.

The boom seemed to defy global gravity last year as southern Europe and the US battled property slumps. The mood has since darkened. “A number of clients tell me they think the market has topped and want to get out,” said one French hedge fund manager.

Standard & Poor’s has told investors to brace for a 15pc correction. Credit Agricole says prices may fall 12pc by the end of next year, expecting a “gradual slide” that could last until 2016.

House prices versus disposable income in France

 

PrimeView thinks it will be much worse. The price-income ratio was stable from the 1960s to the late 1990s, before exploding over the past 12 years as a perfect storm of demographics, state sweetners and cheap credit led to a 12-year blow-off.

There are parallels with Spain and America but Mr Sabatier said the French twist is a replay of the early 1930s when investors fled stocks after 1929 and rotated into “safe” property. Hence the paradox of rising prices during the Depression. The strange boom did not end until premier Pierre Laval cut rent ceilings in 1935, triggering a long slide.

“Laval’s policy change was the catalyst. The same could happen now as austerity forces brutal measures,” he said. An array of market props are eroding, including tax relief on some mortages and certain capital gains.

The shift comes at a delicate moment. Banks are limiting credit as they scramble to meet Basel III lending rules.

PrimeView said deleveraging – which pushes up mortgage spreads – comes just as France’s ageing crunch arrives. Those younger than 58 are net buyers of property, those older are net sellers. The buyers will stay constant at 33m, while the sellers rise by 1.2m every five years for a quarter century.

“Starting this year, the demographic structure will have a profound deflationary impact on property, reversing the last 40 years. We could see a vicious circle of falling prices,” said Mr Sabatier.

“Ageing means the end of property’s golden age. It may be less rapid than in the US because French households have less solvency problems, but we think a 40pc fall may be inevitable over five or 10 years.”

A housing slump would hammer the economy just as long-delayed austerity begins in earnest. Property makes up 65pc of French household wealth, compared with 57pc in Germany, 39pc in Japan and 27pc in the US.

The risk is a “negative feedback loop” as all key levers of the economy turn contractionary. Any slippage in growth below the rosy forecasts of both candidates in Sunday’s presidential elections, Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, would play havoc with debt dynamics, pushing France above the danger line of 90pc of GDP.

“Whoever wins will receive a poisoned chalice. What France faces is like Japan: not a cardiac arrest, but slow growth for years,” said Mr Sabatier.

IRAN CUTS OFF OIL TO BRITAIN & FRANCE

15 comments

Posted on 19th February 2012 by Administrator in Economy |Politics |Social Issues

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This should do wonders for the European Depression. Keep waiting for lower gas prices. Obama’s next public relations ploy will be to withdrawl more oil from the Strategic Reserve. We know how well that worked last time. Oil was $80 a barrel and now it is $102 a barrel. The best part of this farce will be the revelation that Saudi Arabia is full of shit and has absolutely NO SPARE CAPACITY. They were unable to ramp up production for the Libyan oil shortfall and they will be unable to make up for the Iranian oil in Europe. Higher prices bitchez!!!!



Iran Stops Oil Sales To British, French Companies

 
Tyler Durden's picture
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/19/2012 10:26 -0500
 

The geopolitical game theory escalates once again, as Iran, which four days ago halted exports to peripheral European countries took it up a notch, and has as of this morning halted sales to British and French companies. Reuters reports: “Iran has stopped selling crude to British and French companies, the oil ministry said on Sunday, in a retaliatory measure against fresh EU sanctions on the Islamic state’s lifeblood, oil. “Exporting crude to British and French companies has been stopped … we will sell our oil to new customers,” spokesman Alireza Nikzad was quoted as saying by the ministry of petroleum website.” Here is the actual statement from MOP.ir. As a reminder, on January 27 we said how Iran was about to “Turn Embargo Tables: To Pass Law Halting All Crude Exports To Europe.” And so it has – now, the relentless media campaign about China isolating Iran in response to American demands has to be respun: recall that in early February Reuters told us that “China will halve its crude oil imports from Iran in March compared to average monthly purchases a year ago, as a dispute over payments and prices stretches into a third month, oil industry sources involved in the deals said on Monday.” Apparently that may not have been the case, as there is no way Iran would have escalated as far as it has unless it had replacement buyers of one third of its crude. Incidentally, this is just as we predicted in “A Very Different Take On The “Iran Barters Gold For Food” Story.” The end result of this senseless gambit by the west: Europe has less oil, the Saudi fable that it has endless excess suplies is about the be seriously tested, China has just expanded a key crude supply route, and Russia is grinning through it all as Brent prices are about to spike. Iran didn’t invent chess for nothing.

This is what we cautioned in early February:

we humbly submit that instead of taking the Reuters article at face value, and one may certainly do that, what may instead be happening as Iran migrates to a non-dollar based international trade system is the testing of the waters of a non-USD regime, more importantly, one quietly encourage by  China, who is a very complicit participant in the transition to a world in which the US Dollar suddenly finds itself irrelevant. Whether replaced by gold, or a currency backed by a basket of hard assets (the CNY?) we don’t know. However, we know one thing: China needs Iran’s crude, which at last check was among the world’s top 5 oil producers, and had the world’s third largest proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia and Canada, and despite media reports that it is actively looking for crude import alternatives, we would allege that this is nothing but purposeful disinformation. After all why would China comply with US demands for an enhanced Iranian embargo? The whole point of China’s foreign policy to date has been to counteract US pushes and provocations abroad without fail. Why should it make an exception now. Frankly, we don’t buy it.

Sure enough, ten days later neither does the world.

More from Reuters:

 

Industry sources told Reuters on Feb. 16 that Iran’s top oil buyers in Europe were making substantial cuts in supply months in advance of European Union sanctions, reducing flows to the continent in March by more than a third – or over 300,000 barrels daily.

 

France’s Total has already stopped buying Iran’s crude, which is subject to fresh EU embargoes. Market sources said Royal Dutch Shell has scaled back sharply.

 

Among European nations, debt-ridden Greece is most exposed to Iranian oil disruption.

 

Motor Oil Hellas of Greece was thought to have cut out Iranian crude altogether and compatriot Hellenic Petroleum along with Spain’s Cepsa and Repsol were curbing imports from Iran.

As we tweeted a few days ago, “Greece may be broke buit at least it has no oil.”Win-win. Er… wait.

Needless to say, it is now time for Saudi Arabia to step up or shut up. And if many are correct, stripping away all the posturing about Saudi’s near infinite excess supplies, may reveal a very ugly picture. And a $10 spike in brent in short order.

Saudi Arabia says it is prepared to supply extra oil either by topping up existing term contracts or by making rare spot market sales. Iran has criticised Riyadh for the offer.

Finally, here is why it is quite obvious that China has stepped up:

Iran said the cut will have no impact on its crude sales, warning that any sanctions on its oil will raise international crude prices.

 

Brent crude oil prices were up $1 a barrel to $118.35 shortly after Iran’s state media announced last week that Tehran had cut oil exports to six European states. The report was denied shortly afterwards by Iranian officials.

 

“We have our own customers … The replacements for these companies have been considered by Iran,” Nikzad said.

Surely, when it comes to shooting itself in the foot, Europe truly has no equal.

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