French Election - Hollande Wins

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Stretch said:
Or Japan, where austerity turned out to be equally disastrous. The current financial problems aren't caused by debt per se, but irresponsible lending.

Taking on more debt is a risky strategy and not one I'd like to try in the UK. But if someone else is willing to give it a go, I'm more than happy to sit back and see what happens.
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Good post, I agree. But it's also worth noting that the UK economy was stimulated out of depression when it was running a debt to GDP ratio of about 130 per cent.
 
Dolph said:
If the alternative strategy worked, France, Greece and indeed the UK wouldn't be in the mess they are in in the first place, given that the alternative strategy is to borrow your way out of a debt crisis...
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France isn't in a debt crisis; it has a debt problem over the medium term. What it needs is growth. Austerity kills growth.
 
Dolph said:
If the alternative strategy worked, France, Greece and indeed the UK wouldn't be in the mess they are in in the first place, given that the alternative strategy is to borrow your way out of a debt crisis...
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If the alternative strategy worked then US GDP would be growing and unemployment falling - oh wait, that's what's happening. While the government have taken us into a recession (exactly what economists predicted would happen) and are looking to somehow scrape together 0.8% growth this year the US economy is predicted to grow at between 2.4 and 2.9% this year because they rejected Cameron's suggested global austerity.
 
scorza said:
If the alternative strategy worked then US GDP would be growing and unemployment falling - oh wait, that's what's happening. While the government have taken us into a recession (exactly what economists predicted would happen) and are looking to somehow scrape together 0.8% growth this year the US economy is predicted to grow at between 2.4 and 2.9% this year because they rejected Cameron's suggested global austerity.
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And look at the size of the US national debt. I don't think they should be held up as an example of a model economy.
 
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Well all my friends and family in France are hugely disappointed. One even posted "ah well RIP France!". A little OTT but it shows the unease of it all.
 
Freefaller said:
Well all my friends and family in France are hugely disappointed. One even posted "ah well RIP France!". A little OTT but it shows the unease of it all.
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An overwhelming minority of my friends here are feeling upset that Sarkozy lost... I know that you must know more people than me in La France, but the way I can sum up the mood in Bordeaux at the moment is one of extremely unenthusiastic celebration that Sarkozy lost. Though I did see people celebrating, I haven't met one person that is excited about the prospect of a Hollande presidency, even though they voted for him.
 
StriderX said:
Are they not always like that?
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Well it seems you know my family and friend's better than I?! :/ weird comment.

Naffa said:
An overwhelming minority of my friends here are feeling upset that Sarkozy lost... I know that you must know more people than me in La France, but the way I can sum up the mood in Bordeaux at the moment is one of extremely unenthusiastic celebration that Sarkozy lost. Though I did see people celebrating, I haven't met one person that is excited about the prospect of a Hollande presidency, even though they voted for him.
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Doesn't surprise me.

It's going to be an "interesting" or maybe trying is a better word, time in France.
 
Freefaller said:
Well it seems you know my family and friend's better than I?! :/ weird comment.



Doesn't surprise me.

It's going to be an "interesting" or maybe trying is a better word, time in France.
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I meant the French overall, i was being stereotypical in a humorous sense.

Sorry for the confusion.
 
Nitefly said:
Tyron thinks his thought process is tight.

Tight? You could land a jumbo ****ing jet in there!
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I just laughed so loud I think I woke up half my flat....

Also, a UB should know to fully star ;p

Back to the actual topic,I feel this could be interesting... Hollande will be, well interesting I guess. France will collapse and fall though I feel. I'll catch up with what is going on in a bit. For some reason I haven't paid much attention to the French situation recently.

I almost feel a brief summary of each of the candidates views, policies, and political allegiance would be useful in the ops of these topics, but that's never going to happen, so could someone in the know perhaps provide an unbiased view on the Rough policies etc....

kd
 
Naffa said:
Almost as stupid as cutting your way out of a growth crisis... Neither France, nor the UK, have made serious attempts to stimulate their economies back to growth, following the financial crisis. Stimulus was used to prevent depression, but nothing substantial has been done, since. It's a shame that our government saw political opportunity in scaring the population into thinking we were almost bankrupt, which in turn decreased aggregate demand and consumption, which damped output and growth even more.
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You don't call running a deficit of circa 9% a stimulus? Funny definition. At any other time in history, it would have been considered huge.

The issue is that Keynesian stimulus requires you to run a responsible budget during the boom time, something that neither France nor the UK did.

Incidentally, you do realise that UK public spending hasn't been cut at all, right?
 
scorza said:
If the alternative strategy worked then US GDP would be growing and unemployment falling - oh wait, that's what's happening. While the government have taken us into a recession (exactly what economists predicted would happen) and are looking to somehow scrape together 0.8% growth this year the US economy is predicted to grow at between 2.4 and 2.9% this year because they rejected Cameron's suggested global austerity.
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The US deficit is less than ours, in classical terminology, they are stimulating less than we are. Not to mention they provide the reserve currency for the world which makes their position somewhat different.

Just to be clear, are you advocating short term growth as being more important than long term stability? Effectively a simple game of 'kick the can'?
 
Mr Jack said:
France isn't in a debt crisis; it has a debt problem over the medium term. What it needs is growth. Austerity kills growth.
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You know that the Greek bailout and Portugese prop-up was an indirect prop-up of the French banking system, right? Without either, it would have collapsed.
 
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Dolph said:
The issue is that Keynesian stimulus requires you to run a responsible budget during the boom time, something that neither France nor the UK did.
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actually this is the real thing that got me about the last labour government when I looked back at it. (too young to think about what was happening as it happened..)

The thing that got me was Brown's 'we are out of boom and bust'.... Bloody idiot....

We did stupid things during our 'boom', compare that to Merkels boom strategy and a lot will start to make sense...

kd
 
Mr Jack said:
France isn't in a debt crisis; it has a debt problem over the medium term. What it needs is growth. Austerity kills growth.
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And inflating growth with borrowing just moves the problem further down the road.

What both France and the UK need is genuine growth, not fake growth caused by the government pumping money from future taxpayers into the economy now. The question is how to achieve that.
 
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