Posted on 07/29/2005 11:28:03 PM PDT by Cincinna
Americans tend to believe that we do everything better than anyone else. That belief makes it hard for us to learn from others. For example, I've found that many people refuse to believe that Europe has anything to teach us about health care policy. After all, they say, how can Europeans be good at health care when their economies are such failures?
Now, there's no reason a country can't have both an excellent health care system and a troubled economy (or vice versa). But are European economies really doing that badly?
The answer is no. Americans are doing a lot of strutting these days, but a head-to-head comparison between the economies of the United States and Europe - France, in particular - shows that the big difference is in priorities, not performance. We're talking about two highly productive societies that have made a different tradeoff between work and family time. And there's a lot to be said for the French choice.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Wasn't it the snooty French who left their aging parents in the scorching heat of Paris to die (from lack of air conditioning) - while they vacationed at the beach ..??
I don't know about you .. but that doesn't reek of "family values" to me.
"It is America who never can forgive the french for not supporting the war."
I won't forgive France for not supporting the war because they were taking $$$ from Sodomy Hussein. If it had simply been a difference of opinion over what was the proper thing, that would have been one thing. But France wanted to keep Hussein in power to protect their cash flow. And then they call us greedy.
"In contrary the word "french" was banned from french frise and french toast..."
This is a very misleading sentence. No one 'banned' the word. The Congressional kitchen played a practical joke and it very mildly caught on.
Krugman is showing some remarkable self awareness, here. :-)
"when the money runs out for all the benefits under the Nanny State, then what?"
I'm guessing that will happen soon and soon france will be considered a third world economy/country. I can only imagine they will come running to the US again for an (economic) bail out this time around.
Krugman doesn't like to be bothered with facts.
Of college graduates over the past five years in France, fully one-third can't find employment.
In France, jobs are an entitlement...and there aren't enough of them to go around.
As you point out, the impact of these policies over the long-term are yet to be felt. One of them is: inexorable decline.
...But France wanted to keep Hussein in power to protect their cash flow....
Well...
So did the US a decade or so ago... what is the difference?
Saddam was the friend of the US while he made most of his crimes....
So on the moral level the US does not have great leverage...
"If we do things badly, we do them worse imitating the French: public school, feminism etc.."
The French are one of the most mysogynist, sexist, anti-woman cultures around .
I was going to read this for a laugh, then I saw that it was more bird cage liner from his highness Krugman. No need. After the first 3 sentences I can write the rest, he is so sickeningly predictable.
Are any of these people actually happy in life???
Lets expand your argument.
Since Chamberlain signed an agreement with Hitler (“Peace in our time”), England had no right to go to war with him later.
Remember in WWII, GB was NOT attacked by Hitler, GB declared war on the Germans. It was no defensive posture they had.
DO YOU SEE HOW RETARDED YOUR ARGUMENT GETS IF ONE APPLIES IT ELSEWHERE?
Saddam 1978 was not Saddam 1991. Times change.
Saddam didn't start gassing the Kurds until later. Actually MOST of the atrocities were committed later not earlier as you state, unless you consider the Iran/Iraq war an atrocity. Most of our aide to this regime was in the early 80s and intended as a crutch to prevent Iran from rolling over them.
Red6
I'm sure their muslim population is especially enthusiastic about people with names like Krugman.
Hope that helps. I wonder if she's out of Krugman's league.
Yea, they have a lot of free time with their families with more than 10% unemployment.
I notice he don't mention that.
Red6
And isn't 'Krugman' a Jewish name? Remind us, Paul, of how much the French love the Jews and Israel...I'm sure their muslim population is especially enthusiastic about people with names like Krugman.
No doubt about it.
"when the money runs out for all the benefits under the Nanny State, then what?"
I'm guessing that will happen soon and soon france will be considered a third world economy/country. I can only imagine they will come running to the US again for an (economic) bail out this time around.
***Entre the Muslim take-over...
In the 1980's, when we were (weakly) allied with Hussein against Iran, it was for Cold War strategic reasons, not the personal enrichment of political figures high in the government.
Also, it wasn't like the US was holding out against regime change in the 80's. No one was advocatin regime change, and one of the plusses of current administration policy is to avoid the realpolitik or puppet-government paths and actually encourage consensus government.
I am curious to see how the US will respond to Cuba when Castro kicks the bucket.
Yes,
Saddam was the lesser evil when viewed against Iran which had just had its “revolution” with an ayatollah in power. There were many factors at play here, but one thing never changes: The weasels always attempt to pull us into the mud pit with them.
Example: The Germans will often claim, “Well you exterminated the Indians”, or “You had concentration camps for the Japanese Americans”, or “What about all those people you did radiation tests on?”
The intent here is always the same. Show that we “all” do these kind of things. It’s “normal” to exterminate people like the Jews and the Germans just happened to loose the war which makes them wrong. It’s all relative.
Truth is, that none of those parallels drawn really is like what was done to the Jew in Europe. The Japanese Americans were not being exterminated in the camps, although they were put there against their will. The Indians mostly succumbed to internal fighting, war against each other, alcoholism, disease that we Europeans brought over unintentionally but the Indians were not able to deal with, the destruction of their means of subsistence (Buffalo). The nuclear testing years ago was done unknowingly of its hazards. Many of the engineers and scientists stood out there themselves and watched mushroom clouds go up in a distance. But you see, the idea behind drawing bogus parallels is to demonstrate that they were no different than anyone else when they exterminated in a planned, scientific, engineered way 6,000,000 Jews.
Where is this going? The whole “You supported Saddam in the 80s” argument is the same argument. By taking things out of context, distorting the truth, reinterpreting events and speculating about our motivation, some will try to make it appear as if it was the same what we and the French did. They will try to take the argument to absurdity, a slippery slope where in the end, the French are no worse than us. It’s a defense based on tearing us down into the mud pit where the French stand.
But when you look at who it is in Europe trying to drop the arms export restrictions to China. When you remember Roland missiles found in Iraq that “somehow” got there just months before wars begin. Strange how all those Mirage fighters and helicopters kept flying despite 11 years of embargo isn’t it? Who was it that quickly jumped up and sold India Mirage fighters after the rest of the world set an arms embargo on them for violating the nuclear proliferation or test ban treaty (I forget the name of the agreement)?
The bottom line is that France is a real bottom-feeder. They were even willing to support the Khmer Rouge after their Vietnam experience. France today is a “COLONIAL” power. No one seems to care in the MSM and while some try to invent skeletons in our closet they conduct colonial wars in Vietnam, Algeria (after WWII) and elsewhere. What do you think the Ivory Coast is all about? Installing a democracy? After WWII the French attempted to reestablish themselves as a colonial power. French Indo China was no more than France trying to reassert its colonial rule. We got involved after the French were loosing and Chinese-Russian influence became present there. It evolved to a Cold War battlefield between the US and USSR/China.
The point here is simple. The French still are a colonial power to this day. They are bottom-feeders willing to make a deal with nearly anyone for a Euro. However, we are the big kid on the block and are looked at with a microscope. Everything we do is analyzed. Reporters are on the beaches waiting for our Marines in Somalia before they arrive. While the French are conducting a colonial war in Africa TODAY and it gets no MSM coerage, others speculate about the "real" motivation of our support to Saddam in 1981.
If you look at De Gaul and his raise to power, him jeopardizing the security posture of whole Europe. Frances refusal to conform to NATO and not placing their nuclear arsenal under NATO control……….you quickly discover that France is a small poodle that thinks it’s a bear. They’re a colonial power that acts in PURE self interest and in complete disregard for anyone else.
"I am curious to see how the US will respond to Cuba when Castro kicks the bucket." You say
Look at Germany, Japan, S. Korea, Italy, our attempts today in Iraq and elsewhere. We truly are that which we say we are. On the other hand, I can list a buch of French colonies today, some where they are still fighting (Ivory Coast-150 years control). The only ones that are lose of the French grip are those like Vietnam or Algeria that fought themselves free of French rule.
No one can sum up French foreign policy better than the Frenchman and head of state De Gaul: “Nations have no friends, they only have interests.”
Red6
French Families like holidays...
Hello,
I intended to say in connection with the article of "Paul Krugman" that French spent more time with their family, because they work less, they have more holidays... it’s true! it is exact that certain can have 9 weeks of holidays, in my preceding job (BNP paribas), I had 9,5 weeks equivalent of holidays!! now I work in a software firm and I have 5 weeks of holidays, when my small daughter was born, 5 months ago I had 2 week paid by the social security. In short, French work not much, but that depends also the context and the moments; the executives can be harshly invested and worked 10h per days in intense work period; it sometimes happened to work the week-end and the evening until 11pm... thus one should not take all that in term of statistics; ... the more so as, if you look at the CAC40 market since the beginning of year... the Parisian place is the best of world market! far in front of the others... (18% since january 2005) Would the American companies like microsoft and motorala uses of many engineer in France then why it make this if it isn’t so competitive?
French Families like holidays...
Hello,
I intended to say in connection with the article of "Paul Krugman" that French spent more time with their family, because they work less, they have more holidays... it’s true! it is exact that certain can have 9 weeks of holidays, in my preceding job (BNP paribas), I had 9,5 weeks equivalent of holidays!! now I work in a software firm and I have 5 weeks of holidays, when my small daughter was born, 5 months ago I had 2 week paid by the social security. In short, French work not much, but that depends also the context and the moments; the executives can be harshly invested and worked 10h per days in intense work period; it sometimes happened to work the week-end and the evening until 11pm... thus one should not take all that in term of statistics; ... the more so as, if you look at the CAC40 market since the beginning of year... the Parisian place is the best of world market! far in front of the others... (18% since january 2005) Would the American companies like microsoft and motorala uses of many engineer in France then why it make this if it isn’t so competitive?
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