Newsweek: "The Last Model Standing Is France" (Can't blame me for feeling smug!)

Hat tip to SuperFrenchie who reveals one of the final stupid presidential acts of outgoing US President George W Bush: Bush's last food fight by imposing a 300% tariff on roquefort. Yes, roquefort, one of the famous French cheeses. 300% tariff???? Hilariously ridiculous. It seems this is his final retaliation act against France for French refusal to back him in his illegal invasion of and war on Iraq that has culminated in more than 1 million deaths so far.

So what! I'm all for keeping our roquefort and Bush can keep his hormone-infested beef!

But there is a happy, and might I add, judiciously savourous note, thanks again to SuperFrenchie's That was then; this is now that's making me feel embarassingly smug.

Well, here's why: while the US and the UK, its bosom buddy, played France and French bashing games on the world bashing court in the run up to that stupid invasion of Iraq, France stuck to her guns and boy, was she proven right. There were no bloody WMDs and worse, we learned that Bush and Blair and their subalterns had been fixing intelligence data around the invasion. And as if things couldn't be any more worse for them, France played its cards right and guess what? France has not gone down as bad as Bush and Blair/Brown countries have fared on the economic front.

One might interject, "They had what was coming to them!" Alright, it's not proper to be showing one's smugness in the current situation but heck, and I'm sorry about it (Dad, sorry I'm embarassingly feeling smug*) but good news is hard to come by! So, right you are: I am a teeny weeny bit feeling smug about it.

Here's what making me feel smug:

The Last Model Standing Is France: "For better or worse, French-style intervention is gaining the upper hand as other economic models lose credibility."

(*My Dad is English but also happens to be against the invasion of and war on Iraq from the onset and believes that Tony Blair should be charged with war crimes.)

NOTE: 29 January 2009. Have just been to SuperFrenchie's blog and found that this post has been linked by a search engine that's called Skyrock India.

France overtakes British economy

Britain on the brink of recession? I think the UK is already in recession. The days of wild spending are over. Who would think that the free-wheeling and dealing Brits who had it good for the last decade are on the verge of falling behind the poorer Italians?

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Thirty years ago, France was also host to thousands and thousands of jobless Brits when Britain was at its wits' ends trying to make ends meet, and I'm afraid that today's younger Brits -- even those who are anti-Europe or are Euro haters but who now find themselves in dire economic situation, will start trooping back here looking for jobs. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they might soon compete for jobs that were usually reserved for the Poles and the Latvians or other Eastern Europeans.

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Frankly, that's fine by me on the condition that they learn to speak French! I've met many Brits who have lived years and years in France but do not even try to learn or to speak French. They continue to live in a world of their own, among themselves, refusing to integrate. Most of them have expatriated to France but don't necessarily like the French. They simply want to avail of the French quality of life and the nation's first class health care system, things that are not readily available to them in cold, wet, dreary UK. Quite appalling behaviour actually!

According to The Times' in-country French basher Charles Bremner, many Brits who have come to France thinking that they would live la belle vie with their British pensions in Sterling are flying back home because the British currency has dwindled in value compared to the hated Euro.

Speaking of Bremner, I doubt however that he would be one of them. His bread and butter is in France. He lives la belle vie and gets to criticise France and the French and gets paid for doing it. So, why should he? Why would he want to live a potentially impoverished life in London?

Here's a report by The Daily Telegraph...

Britain's economy has been overtaken by France and could fall behind Italy's next year, according to leading economists.

By Ben Leach
Last Updated: 5:12PM GMT 07 Dec 2008

The UK is now the sixth largest economy in the world Photo: GETTY

New figures show that the economic crisis has pushed Britain well down the international league table.

The UK is now the sixth largest economy in the world, behind America, Japan, China, Germany and France.

Economists said the fall reflected the pound's slump to record lows against the euro.

A year ago the UK economy was 8 per cent bigger than that of France, measured by gross domestic product (GDP).

Now it is 14 per cent smaller, according to figures from the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). More here.

Dream Team Obama

Hmm... President-elect Barack Obama has come up with his team. Le Figaro headline:

Pour braver la crise, Obama choisit les «meilleurs esprits»

To confront the crisis, Obama selects the "best minds" or The Dream Team!

• 
  
• 

  La «dream team»
  de Barack Obama

  Click (on the link above) to see the gallery of pictures of Obama's "Dream Team"
  

• And the cost of the Obama plan? » Le plan Obama à 700 milliards d'euros
• And guess what? The stock market surged all over world! A result of confidence in the American president-elect and his economic dream team.
• Here's a message from David Plouffe, Campaign Manager, Obama for America:

Friend --

Today and yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama announced key members of an economic team tasked with creating jobs, stabilizing the economy, and getting our country back on track.

Barack is bringing together some of the best minds in the country to make swift progress on the economic challenges we face.

Timothy F. Geithner, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will serve as Secretary of the Treasury. Lawrence H. Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, will serve as Director of the National Economic Council.

Christina D. Romer will serve as Director of the Council of Economic Advisers, Melody C. Barnes will serve as Director of the Domestic Policy Council, and Heather A. Higginbottom will serve as Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

Peter Orszag, currently Director of the Congressional Budget Office, will serve as Office of Management and Budget Director, and Rob Nabors will serve as Deputy Director.

Watch the video of Barack's announcement yesterday and learn more about the economic team:



Barack's economic team has already begun work on a recovery plan, and he'll provide progress updates in the coming weeks. He'll also provide their initial recommendations to the incoming Congress.

You'll be instrumental in generating support to pass legislation that puts America on the road to recovery.

While we can't underestimate the challenge we face, we also can't underestimate the opportunity we have to bring the change our country needs.

Thanks,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Pres Sarkozy takes intl lead reformer role amidst world economic crises

Crédits photo : AFP

La victoire de l'Europe

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The world has to move on - US election or no US election - and start addressing the world economic problems that was triggered in large part by the United States Wall Street meltdown. And Europe has taken the lead... Europe is prescient in move to mitigate financial crisis reports the IHT.

...After initially dithering, European leaders came up with a financial bailout plan that has now set the pace for Washington, not the other way around, as had been customary for decades.

That was clear when the U.S. Treasury Department decided to depart from its own initial bailout plan - the one approved by Congress this month - and invest as much as $250 billion directly in American banks. The nuts and bolts of that approach were laid out days earlier by European leaders as they tried to save their own financial systems.

And that outcome left Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, in something of a commanding position to claim the title of wise men. They are now speaking of creating a Bretton Woods agreement for the 21st century, while the leaders of the country that devised the postwar financial system worked out at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, prefer to stay away from such big-picture talk.

Sarkozy, who met over the weekend with President George W. Bush, told European leaders who gathered in Paris recently that he hoped "literally to rebuild the foundations of the financial systems."

There will be a series of summits and the first one will be held with incumbent albeit lame duck US president after the Nov 4 US election, most likely in the US, as Sarkozy imposes a world financial summit on Bush

Le premier de ces sommets «se tiendra aux États-Unis, peu après les élections américaines» du 4 novembre, précise ce communiqué. Cette rencontre au niveau des chefs de gouvernement visera à «examiner les progrès enregistrés pour faire face à la crise actuelle et à rechercher un accord sur les principes des réformes nécessaires pour éviter que se reproduise une telle crise», poursuit le texte. «Les sommets suivants se pencheront sur la mise en œuvre des mesures précises devant être prises pour concrétiser ces principes», lit-on encore.

The first of these summits "will be held in the United States, immediately after the US elections on 4 November" according to the press release (issued jointly by US Sec of Treas Henry Paulson, his French counterpart Christine Lagarde and Condoleezza Rice."

The meeting will be held among the heads of states and will examine the progress that will have been made in adressing the financial crisis and to agree on the principles of reforms required to prevent the occurrence of said crisis again.

The press release also said, "Succeeding summits will deal with the formulation of a set of measures to concretise these principles."

Sarkozy has taken the lead it seems, in the intl fight for global financial institutional reforms... I can only applaud him.

En revanche, le président américain, qui sera la puissance invitante du premier sommet, très certainement à New York, a refusé qu'il se tienne sous la houlette de l'ONU, comme le proposait Ban Ki-moon. Surtout, des divergences de fond sur l'ampleur des réformes devront être surmontées. «Il est essentiel que nous préservions les fondements du capitalisme financier», a dit George W. Bush, samedi. Certes, lui a répondu Nicolas Sarkozy, «mais on ne peut pas non plus continuer avec les mêmes causes qui produiront les mêmes effets».
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Meanwhile, the US president, who will be hosting the first summit which will most likely be held in New York, refused that it be held under the auspices of the UN. Diverging opinions on the magnitude of reforms are expected.

"It is essential to preserve the foundations of financial capitalism," Pres Bush said on Saturday.

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"Certainly, but we also cannot continue with the same causes which are bound to produce the same effects" Nicolas Sarkozy riposted.

(Translations mine.)

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Meanwhile, there are suggestions by some commenters to a Daily Kos post Polyphemus that Europe should wait for a President-elect Obama before beginning international initiatives aimed at finding solutions to reform "corrupt" practices by international financial institutions.

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One even suggested that Sarkozy is "bulldozing his way to jumpstart reforms" and implied that Americans might not take the French president's proposed reform summits well.

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Whoa! But why? I don't understand this obtuse attitude... It's like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

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I beg to disagree with those who believe that the world should wait for a new US president before jumpstarting the finding of solutions to the largely US induced global economic crisis. The take that anything negotiated & signed won't be honoured by the president elect is wrong; that the US president-elect re-negotiates any agreement he inherits is another matter.

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In my view, the world has to move on - US election or no US election - and start addressing the world economic problems that was triggered in large part by the United States before we find ourselves in another great depression. Proof is that the Sarkozy-led European initiative has produced a bit of positive result: bank lending has once again begun. It's all a question of restoring confidence in the market and Europe is jumpstarting this initiative. Is there anything wrong with that?