Sarko on the slide.

[hutch--]

Seems all bad things must come to an end and our friends in France may get a win at last. Sego definitely had better legs though.  :P

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17806398

[donkey]

France is one of those countries that's so screwed up it really doesn't make much difference who they elect. Public spending out of control at nearly 60% of GDP, negative growth and onerous debt puts them on a par with Spain in terms of economic outlook. Just like Obama in 2008, whoever wins the election will inherit a broken economy without the tools or money necessary to fix it.

[jj2007]

Public spending out of control at nearly 60% of GDP

CIA says France is not the worst case :bg

[donkey]

Public spending out of control at nearly 60% of GDP

CIA says France is not the worst case :bg

Not quite sure what public debt has to do with spending as a percentage of GDP. The problem with France is that it's public spending (regardless of whether it's borrowed money or not) is running at somewhere near 60% compared to between 40 and 50% for most of the other industrialized nations. It's level of spending is unsustainable in the event of another economic downturn in the EU which is likely to happen in the next year or so. And the solution from the current crop of candidates is to increase the tax burden without cutting services, the projected load after entitlement deductions for a company in France could reach 90% (based on the proposed 75% tax rate) which would likely cause the current exodus of corporations from Europe to accelerate. France has seen labour costs spiral out of control while the tax burden on industry increases, I'm not opposed to the corporations paying their fair share but not at the cost of being competitive.

[jj2007]

Not quite sure what public debt has to do with spending as a percentage of GDP. The problem with France is that it's public spending...

Sorry, Edgar, I had read your post a bit superficially.

Regarding government spending, France ranks indeed high, 52.8% of GDP, on par with Sweden and Denmark. For comparison, the U.S. are at 38.9%.

[donkey]

Actually Jochen that's an old figure, it has grown to over 56% this year according to the IMF, some studies suggest it's closer to 61%.

http://www.economist.com/node/21551478