I repeat KEEP out the these predatory swines called AMERICANS. You would support a company that would exploit workers with threats of slave wages to Asains to support what exactly? Give me a break.
I do agree that the BBC is probably the best around Clare but they're not totally beyond a bit of spin.
Here, here. For a country who invented minitel, the first email systems etc.... why are they so Neanderthal now? Had they used their knowledge and expertise wisely they could have been a real force to be reckoned with.
Yes, but it wasn't just on the BBC, google it and it has attracted the worlds presses attention. That aside if you read the article you will see that the information was taken for the FRENCH press. As for BBC spin, my husband having worked for this organisation for many years, I believe that you are less likely to get as much spin from them than the others. I agree that some of the management are corrupt but I don't think that the news they report is. They are pretty unbiased i''d say. Haven't got inside info have you John, are you related to Hugh????
Whilst vaguely agreeing with your premise, what exactly does it prove? Presumably that 2 people were doing the work that one could do? That seems to be business logic to me, and as such should apply to the Public Sector of whom we are the paymasters.
If on the other hand you are saying that two people are doing two people's work and one gets fired, and that loads up the remaining one with an excess burden, then that is a fair comment, as it is also a stupid, short-term business decision that will always rebound on the Company detrimentally.
No Theo it's a lot simpler. There are far too many civil servants in France producing far to many rules for those that actually create wealth. Plus the immigrants who contribute nothing and cost so much. Why would one ever try and set up a business here?
What ?
Claire, I do agree with you but as an aside I'd never believe anything negative you see on the BBC about France. Much as I love the BBC I have accepted through observation over the last thirty years that the BBC indulges in positive UK spin. This can be summarised as "Things bad here in the UK but...... worse in France". On the other hand I remember when we lived in Grenoble there was a nuclear scare there that wasn't reported on French TV but was on the BBC! So probably French TV does the same. Thank goodness for the Net.
Well said David. This is a big issue for Foreign Direct Investment.
Ernest, The difficulty in Ireland was due to a corrupt Irish Government giving tax breaks to their developer pals while lazy German and French bankers gave cheap money to greedy and incompetent Irish bankers to fund the above. The tragedy was that Ireland panicked and stupidly converted the German and French banks problem into Irish sovereign debt. Without that action, forced on them by the ECB, the euro would have collapsed. Of course that's all forgotten about now. Hence,Ireland is stuffed.
Regarding '"American business" do you think German business or successful French business less hard headed? Many, many French businesses would love to emulate US companies if only the Government and the lazy overpaid public service would get out of the way.
I love living in France at least as much as you do but there's been thirty years of socialist bullshit (and I've watched it since living here for the first time in August '81) where those that produce least gain (proportionally) most. It's not sustainable.
they have already been left behind especially in terms of technology and internet etc
eg supermarkets offer online grocery shop now in france however after you place the order you have to go to the shop to pick it up !
many "online shops" here are selling goods more expensively than in the local expensive shops ! how does that work ?
small / medium size businesses still want to post quotes / info etc rather than email
and some of the websites look like they were made by a teenager who got bored halfway thru and just left it incomplete !
if you search the yellow pages and sort by businesses with a website you will find many are basically the same site set up by page jaune with no actual content - just the address and telephone number etc
i have lost count of the number of online enquiries i have made which have gone unanswered - to the detriment of the firm as if they dont bother replying i will as a matter of principle not bother to phone or visit.
Gets me so annoyed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You might have a point. Recently I was regaled from an 'informed source' about one of the largest companies in the USA who received a three trillion bailout as they were simply too big to let fail.
Less than three years later, this company has repaid the bailout! In other words they worked out how to either a) fix their problems and/or b) are financial whizz-kids. Now I don't know the details, but it would certainly seem remarkable that a company that got so deep in the mire, still, albeit with state funding support, found a way to find that massive amount of money and continue. Or is it all some financial sleight of hand?
A far as I am aware this sort of money is way above the total 'debt' of the EU.
Now, simple soul that I am I find myself wondering how a private company can do it, and our brilliant Governments (multiple) and their Treasury people can't. Can it be we have the wrong people in Government positions? Surely not! (sarcasm in case it needs explaining).
I think that we can agree that over the last twenty years the very rich have become richer. The poorest in the main remain the poorest. Then it must be the middle who have in some way been raided or seen the wealth redistributed. In the 19th century some became very rich by building railways, mines, mills etc but now it is not quite so much that as people working for public companies (with pensioner shareholders) and government (central or local) who have become more numerous and are having bigger salaries and pensions. Thus I imagine it must be those who have their own small businesses (risk takers), or middle management and general salaried people who have had their pockets touched. Yet at the same time it seems that most still go on holiday, buy branded clothing, have a reasonably new car, and eat and drink reasonably well even if a % may briefly have been horse. Some even import bushmeat in their suitcases rather than eat good old British beef!
I know and was reading some other comments you have posted here. Of course, this abuse to control everything through "public authorities" can get out of control as well, - I recently saw how 2 places in a kinder-garden where assigned by 8 employees from the Social Committee of the Paris City Hall. They needed almost 3 hours to reach their decision. Nevertheless, it cost us taxpayer still less than the tax evasion / avoidance of this international locusts who on top contribute a lot to the reduction of product quality in order to sell for cheap prices. Or they relabel horse-meet ;-) Its greed that is stronger than modesty which is then making economy often looks stupid
I am not arguing for no regulations. I am arguing for fewer regulations and above all fewer people administering them. After all those people have to be paid for by everybody else. Just in my own field the phenomenal increase in regulation has led to an increase in the cost of buildings, fewer building projects, and a decrease in the income of most providing them.`Take a simple example of local authorities insisting that house builders provide large amounts of infrastructure payments and affordable housing conntributions when the country is entering a recession yet the population is exploding. Requirement for minimum floor space per dwelling also went up at the same time. Result - lowest housing starts since the 1920s. There are just hordes and hordes of peole meandering around debating and demanding requirements but no body facing the economic facts of the declining wealth of the nation.
I don't think he has made himself look an idiot at all. The comments were made from HIS direct observation at the factory. He even challenged the unions about it, whose answer was "that is the French way* Why should an American company invest in a failing one here who will not change it's attitude. That would be financial suicide. And, if you open your eyes and look around you it is very clear that, certainly in the public sector there are so many people who are not actually working, but talking, having a fag or a coffee with no sense of urgency about anything. A lot of people here do not take a pride in what they do, a customer is an inconvenience on their time. My husband has a saying about customer service here ' Don't own a problem, make it someone else's' Our working ethos in the UK was own a problem and see it through to the end. And they need to change their attitudes. Otherwise the country will be bankrupt in not time at all. Oops my mistake, one of the French ministers has already recently said that France is as good as bankrupt! As for some of the similarities made in the thread about French & German attitudes being the same, this is very far from the truth. A lot of the people in Germany took pay cuts some time ago in there own austerity measures before the EU crisis. They don't like paying the amount of tax they do, but does anyone. But, they are prepared to bite the bullet and run with it and there frustrations are with the rest of the Euro zone, who will just not wake up & smell the coffee and are fed up of other countries who have intention of sorting themselves out, but to try an continue to milk the EU coffers.
David, how should limits be set fairly when boundaries are blurred intentionally? Is it not often the anarchy and chaos that the nature of a supposedly "free market" brings with it which then causes amendments to laws to adopt to changes of the abuse of "free market" rules? If there would be no regulations we would be like in a pond full of sharks were larger sharks steal local business sales opportunities from a safe distance without contributing their share to all participants in the market. Would this then be "free"? Therefore, a clear regulation of taxation of activities for global companies through the nation in which these companies sell their products is perfectly understandable if we want to keep the general quality of life here also for the future of our children.
Having lived in in the Good Ol’ US of A I can assure you that all you have said about the French work force prevails in that country as well. As in all of the countries that I have lived in including the old colony of Australia No One who can get away with it work hard. I have been very disappointed so far with the self employed here usually the English with poor workman ship. Another reason for getting out of the U.K. If it means that France changes to the same poor standards of any of those countries in the name of progress God help us.
Be happy with what you have.
I can assure you that had the American bought the firm jobs would have gone before the ink had dried on the bit of paper used to buy it. Stop being so naive about the belief that all so called progress is good for us.
I promise you it ain’t.
I don't normally respond to this type of thread, however having been born and spent most of my adult life in the US as well as spending many years in the UK and Ireland (during and after the Celtic Tiger), maybe I see things a little differently. I'll not make any comment on the state of the unions in France as my knowledge of such is limited. And yes, I do understand that there is a lot of bureaucracy in France, some of it unnecessary.
I lived in the US before and after every store on every corner was open from 7 in the morning until 9 at night 'for the convenience of the public' (yes, I am no longer a sweet, young thing!). The UK and Ireland have followed suit with this business model, perhaps not quite to the extent of 9 pm but they are still working on it. In my opinion, this change did not necessarily make anything that much better for the public. It made it easier to pick up things that you may have forgotten, easier to go shopping when you were bored, easier for you to lose your mind and create too much debt for yourself. AND it made the owner of the company a lot of money that went in his pockets, as well as those of the CFOs and CEOs, but not so much to the general public. It did not, however, prevent America from having a recession that helped trigger (if not completely causing) the current world wide financial crisis.
There are some real problems that need to be addressed, both here in France and around the world. But to insinuate that shops being open through lunch and all weekend will solve the problem is a bit naive. Those of us who have lived in countries where this is the case and everything is readily available for your convenience have more likely just forgotten the organisational skills that were needed when this 'convenience' was not available. I, for one, discovered that the type of life style that was available in the UK, US, and Ireland did not make me happy. So I'll deal with the idosyncracies of France, where I am happy and my husband is less stressed.
It is highly unlikely at all that even a simple working Frenchman would think its necessary to shake his shoulder about such naive "estimation". All self-employed and SME business owners have no time to deal with such nonsense because they have enough to do with their own work. They're really not lazy.
If there had been a talk about "functionaries", I would let someone get away with such a statement, but the reality is different: the French problems are rather the "public-private partnerships" (example: Veolia). These confused descriptions by a few individuals trying to out themselves as self appointed "pot-paroles" of a imagined economic power and how they would like to design their global playing fields, without having any interests long-term investments, are as useful to any economy like a bicycle for a fish.