UKC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25345249

Interesting...to be honest I expected that eventually everyone would overtake us

Guess its not as bad as it looks...and they seem to put it down to immigration (population growth) as the key reason for this...and "low taxation"!!

In reply to phja:

By 2030, I´ll believe that when I see it!!!!!

In reply to phja:

Sorry but I don't see anything in the report about overtaking Germany.

This bloke doesn't think that a drop in unemployment will automatically result in a rise in interest rates, "With earnings growth almost flat, and inflation falling, these data offer further evidence that there is still no justification for the Bank of England to 'apply the brakes', in the form of a rise in interest rates. This is likely to be the case even when the unemployment rate falls below 7%. - See more at: http://www.scottisheconomywatch.com/brian-ashcrofts-scottish/#sthash.7SXeN2..."

However 2015 is a fair way away.

In reply to Removed User:


I think it was a link to the wrong article -

The UK will be in a position to overtake Germany as Europe's largest economy, according to the think tank the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25519110

In reply to phja:



Eventually? What planet are you from?

This is the most dismal economy in north-western Europe. The Irish have recovered enough to overtake us on the basis of GDP per capita and only the Icelanders, with few natural resources and a population the size of the Highlands and Islands, still trail behind, for now.

If we want to come anywhere near to catching up with Europes most powerful economy ('land der ideen') then we need to stop relying on gamblers to run our economy, remember that houses are for keeping the rain off, stop fiddling with our phones, and get back to making things for a living.

The best the British can hope for in relation to the German economy is that a combination of German precision and British flexibility can be world-beating. I think there is a word for it: Siemens.

In reply to Jim Fraser:



Err no, actually. A lot of the money that flows into Ireland, for tax reasons, flows straight back out again so don't just look at GDP. Also unemployment in Ireland is currently running at 13.3% and over the last few years 200000 Irish people have left their country in search of work. As for recovering, well they have just stopped getting loans from the European central bank, if you want to call that a recovery then fine but it's a strange way of defining it.

In reply to Jim Fraser:



What are your criteria for making this claim ?

In reply to phja:

I was surprised to see that France is currently ahead of us if I am honest!

In reply to Postmanpat:

General life experience instead of internet reports?

In reply to Saor Alba:


General life experience? How can one person have enough to make an objective judgement based on that? I was assuming that he might have some sort of objective metrics in mind.

In reply to crayefish:


Largely currency dependent. The difference is not enough to mean much. In per capita and purchasing power terms the UK is ahead, just.

In reply to Postmanpat:

And produce a link so that the battle of the links could commence? I think he lives in the real world and looks around.

In reply to Saor Alba:


Don't be ridiculous.How the hell can he or anyone else have the personal experience to judge the experience of others? How often does he visit, Germany, France , the Netherlands or anywhere else and how many different places or jobs does he do in them?

Rather a comparison of publicly available and comprehensive metrics and a discussion of their significance than one person's prejudices.

Basically you seem to be saying that ignorance should triumph over knowledge and analysis which seems to be quite a popular and depressing view on here.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I declare the Battle of the Links has officially started. All parties must act in the standard belligerent manner and type out as much as is necessary to warrant a new keyboard. I also kindly request that you use unnecessarily complicated language in an attempt to appear like an authority and act in a huffy manner when challenged.

I was going to request that you argue with a point that no one has made but I see you have already started that so no need.

By the New Year I expect several thousand words on this thread and others from you. Please do not disappoint me as I have high expectations.

In reply to Saor Alba:



Which point would that be, that an attempt to establish objective criteria by which the statement can be evaluated should be dismissed as "a battle of the links" and replaced by unquantifiable personal anecdote and prejudice?

If that's not your point then what is it?

In reply to crayefish:



Everyone in the UK will be surprised if they start looking at objective evidence. Neither GDP nor any other single measure is perfect. GDP and GNI (nom & PPP) together give a more complete picture and pick up the effects of some of the factors described for Ireland.

No matter which way you cut it, the UK's position as the dismal worthless corner of NW Europe has a history decades long and is not just a post-2008 effect.

Post-war complacency, dreadful industrial management, Thatcherite destruction, the gambling obsession, ...

When are we going to get our act together?

In reply to Jim Fraser:

The UK isn't. Time to leave.

In reply to Jim Fraser:

I would hardly call us the dismal worthless corner of NW Europe. Just look at either the Irish economy or ridiculously bureaucratic, inefficient and EU subsidised French economy. My parents have lived in France many years and while the way of live there is fantastic, anything to do with business, taxes and whatnot is just a joke.

Funnily enough George Bush was actually right when he said his infamous gaff 'The trouble with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur'

In reply to Jim Fraser:

You forgot to mention Union militancy and resistance to change.

In reply to Jim Fraser:


Can you provide the some evidence to substantiate this assertion?

In reply to crayefish:



France has always been a net contributor to the EU, they are the second largest.
They may not have a word for Entrepreneur (though quotes from George bush are probably not to be relied on) but don´t seem to have any problem suppling electricity, water and so on to most of us.

In reply to jimtitt:


In net terms the UK is a bigger contributor.

In reply to jimtitt:

Entrepreneur is French... but the French aren't in the slightest bit entrepreneurial. Living here a few months will show that (here visiting parents).

Yes, admittedly they do have a decent nuclear power system but the power outages are fairly regular here in the south.

As for French plumbers and electricians... god they are terrible! They have no concept of either discipline! It's really rather funny how bad they are

In reply to jimtitt:

France profits enormously from the EU budget due to its large agricultural sector. At present things aren't too good in France though, unemployment is due to reach 11% in the new year compared to Britain's 7%. Some areas are very rich, the Cote d'Azur, and some are very poor - the suburbs of the large cities, for example, where the main activity seems to be drug dealing. Marseille has been having more than a murder with Kalashnikovs per month for quite a while, maybe they'll club together to build a statue to him as he just died. Unemployment is at about 50% in these sorts of areas so there's not much else to do.

So if Britain is such a mess I don't know what France is, although there are plenty of people who live quite well as in Britain on average the GDP per capita is very similar but taxation is much higher in France... Further South, in Spain and Portugal things are much worse - unemployment over 20% in Spain.

Anyway, Donald & Co are just interested in painting a dismal picture because they are Scottish Nationalists and as we all know there is no hope for the future without a break up of Britain

In reply to Postmanpat:

Any help to you?

SOURCE: EU Budget Office
Total EU spend €m Total contrib €m € per person % of GDP
Germany 12,132.98 19,671.10 240.62 0.75
France 13,162.33 18,050.84 277.5 0.89
Italy 9,585.87 14,336.22 235.84 0.91
U K 6,570.05 11,273.41 180.38 0.64

In reply to crayefish:


So why do French people not hire Polish Plumbers and Electricians.

my German friend had a house built, and when I was over visiting near the end, it was all Polish workers that were there, and he said that the German workers were being undercut by the Poles ( and the Poles were also better workers)

Why would the French keep hiring bad French workers, I can't believe there are no Poles over there.

In reply to jimtitt:




Yes. To be honest I was looking at older figures by mistake but yours are 2011. We don't know the current (2012 or 2013) situation. What we do know over the past decade is that the UK and France swap places on a regular basis.
And then again the UK Treasury numbers for net contribution are much higher than the EU's budget office numbers so go figure......

In reply to jimtitt:

France supplies water ?????

In reply to Saor Alba:


If this is the case, then none of us can comment. Whereas I appreciate that some have been hit hard during the current downturn, personally, I have been unaffected. Employment prospects in my field have remained positive (I changed jobs 3 years ago without much fuss). I would therefore be inclined to agree with the article. But my personal view point is not a valid indicator of how the whole is.

In reply to Jim C:

There are loads of Poles and other East Europeans in France, it is a big subject of debate there too. A subject which no one has brought up here but was much in the news in France before Christmas was an EU regulation that allows a company to use workers from another country from the EU and pay the social charges of the country of origin in that country. In France where these charges are very high - they cover things that in other countries are covered by taxation - this means that these companies can undercut local companies considerably. This is made worse by a lack of efficient EU mechanisms to ensure that the company actually pays the charges. France wants this loop-hole blocked, Britain doesn't for some reason.

We hear a lot about workers being lodged 10 to a room then bussed from site to site in conditions that escape all work regulations... Local companies react by employing more and more on the black, no medical cover or retirement contributions and so on. Open borders is one of those bad good ideas which favours rogue employers and puts honest workers on the dole.

In reply to Jim C:




There are some Poles... my parents have used them for some jobs and the English here use them a bit. However, there aren't that many (can earn better money in the UK) and most do construction work. The French have very arsey laws about who can and can't work and even a plumber needs a special license or qualification (can't remember the details) but it's difficult for foreigners to do that sort of work.

The French are very protective over their own work forces and industries and while they can't 'stop' foreigners working (against EU rules), they make it as difficult as possible. The same thing with the British ski instructors which now can't work in the Alps.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:



Well for once I agree with you Brucie The posted workers system in the EU is not sorted out.
But actually it's more a case of the Posted Workers EU Directive not going far enough.
Basically it makes sure that posted workers have the same working conditions and arrangement as the native workers, but where the catch is, is that the posted worker social security is handled by the country they come from, so they pay contribution to the country they come from. Obviously it is unfair to local companies who have to pay the local contribution which are a lot higher.

I guess the administrative problem here is that if you are from Poland and work in France for 6 months as a posted worker, I guess you'd want your social contribution to be paid back to your home country so you don't loose your social security contributions back in you home country.

What would be needed to fix this permanently is a more harmonious and integrated social security systems across EU countries, so contribution could always be paid at local rate but count toward the Employee's home country social security. But probably not going to happen soon. Especially not in the UK with the current anti EU climate, every change coming from the EU is seen as coming from the devil itself.

In reply to crayefish:



They can, they simply have to pass the same tests and qualification that French ski instructors have to pass. It's simply that in France for many jobs you actually need a legally recognised qualification to be able to do that job, and it's often not the case in the UK.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Observing UK politics for 40 years. Ignoring press headlines and looking for objective evidence.

If the Tories hadn't been in power in the 1950s and the liberals and socialists who had laid the foundations of a more modern society during the National Government had been able to continue their work then this would be a very different, more prosperous, fairer, and more equitable country today. All those periods of Tories sitting on their hands giving out tax breaks to their pals need to be paid for somehow. And oh how we are paying!

In reply to Jim Fraser:


Have you used any Siemens kit? I shouldn't complain too much though, it keeps me in a job...

In reply to Jim Fraser:


Those are not criteria, they are the way you reached the conclusion. The criteria are the "objective evidence". So which are you focusing on?


The evidence of the economic disaster of the 1970s suggests the opposite is true which is why all major parties and most economists (and most countries)abandoned the socialism.which you espouse.

In reply to Jim Fraser:



Well yes, but you don't have to search very long. Basically the GDP/GNI numbers show the UK as well into the a European high income bracket and pretty much on a par with its obvious comparison, France. It is obviously behind Germany and the Netherlands, which is widely recognised.
I assume from your highlighting these numbers that these are the criteria which you think are important?

Why do you prefer them to others, for example the mean disposable income figures which show the UK ahead of most European countries including Germany.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Ranking_of_Household_Income

Why do you think a lack of manufacturing is so crucial when only Germany has very significantly more (proportionately) and the country leading your statistics (the US) has about the same.

The reality is that the UK is neither a global or a European star nor a disaster. Like most countries it has areas of economic excellence and areas of economic failure. Having underperformed much of a western Europe in the post war period it has caught up a bit in recent decades but lags Germany and the Netherlands in particular. Personally I find it intriguing that for all our economic and political differences the UK and a France have ended up in much the same place, statistically at least.

And if you regard that conclusion as "comfort food for dickheads" I can only say you are a very glass half full type of person.

In reply to phja:

in case the points not been made already, the report says we'll be ahead because we have more working age people. which is really just a matter of choice - how much immigration will we allow.

In reply to Donnie:


Yes, it's a pretty stupid report in that sense!

In reply to Postmanpat:

Will Hutton in the Observer on Sunday pointed out that the CEBR (the source of this story) produces results that almost self evidently support the free market ideals they pedal (low tax and regulation, state shrinking etc). He thinks we need a wider perspective on economics and links alternative views that counter the predicted decline of the western european social model. Even those that don't agree with him will nearly all recognize economies are far more complicated than these simplistic predictions indicate: for instance the CEBR and other organisations with similar ideals failed to predict the 2008 crash.

In the end though I question what economies are for. If the average (mean or median) person lives in an economy like the US where one can barely afford standard healthcare, or china where you are poor and under a dictatorial state, what the hell are the economic benefits? If the UK average lifestyle needs to go backwards to achieve economic growth of the state what good is that and what are the risks that we are heading to a 1984 worldwide competitive dictatorship model by giving up rights and benefits?

All this CEBR 'good' news in the UK includes things like massive increases in low quality part-time employment (increasing inequalities), growth due to an overheating housing market, how is this sustainable desirable growth?

In reply to Offwidth: Perhaps you could point to a couple of countries without economies where the people are better off.

In reply to Postmanpat:

Of course its conventional wisdom to think that the 1970's were an economic disaster. But the objective metrics are interesting. If you take real GDP per person as the best single measure of prosperity, it turns out that between 1970 and 1979 in the UK this grew at an average of 2.4% a year. From 1979 to 2010 it grew at an average of 2.0% a year. And average growth in the decade up to 2012 was a tiny 0.7%.

So on the measure of real growth in GDP per person, we're living through a period that's substantially worse in economic terms than the 1970's were for the UK.

In reply to Postmanpat:

Here's a helpful plot of the real GDP per capita numbers.
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-uks-macroeconomic-battlegroun...

I don't see how you can look at that plot without accepting that the UK is now in the worst crisis of economic growth since 1945.

In reply to Richard J:

between 79 and 2000 we went through 2 significant recessions. I'm not sure what your comparison shows, or how it argues for or against socialism.

In reply to balmybaldwin:

Yes, that's the point. Before 1979, despite all the manifest shortcomings of the UK's economy, we managed to produce steady economic growth. Since 1979, we've seen a series of deep recessions separated by periods of growth which don't make up the ground lost in the recessions. It's fair enough to argue that the post-1979 economic reforms improved some aspects of the UK economy, but those who make those arguments need to find some reasons why despite those reforms the overall performance of the economy since then has been worse.

In reply to Richard J:

That website appears to have more than a slight bias in its politics.

What it does not show at any time (and clearly the data isn't available) is what would have happenned if a different set of fiscal policies were put in place.

I.e. what would we have seen had Balls been in no.11? a short increase in GDP per head followed by a deep dive, or perhaps the same thing we got, or perhaps a slow and stead increase.

Is there any analysis of similar economies that have taken different routes to try to get out of the credit crisis?

In reply to balmybaldwin:


The politics doesn't matter, it's the numbers that are important. Those are the official Treasury numbers.

In reply to Richard J:

Ah, ok I see the point. what was the rest of the world doing at the same time?

The 70s was a great time for invention and renewal of manufacturing processes etc (albeit controversially), iirc the 80's and 90's were more about changing services and increases in "intangible" goods.

Plus, the pot smoke filled, hazy 60's probably made the 70's look better as it became less cool to be stoned!

In reply to balmybaldwin:


That could be something to do with it. Productivity tends to increase faster in manufacturing than services, so switching out of manufacturing into services could tend to decrease long-run economic growth rates. It's also true that the UK was a very much more R&D intensive economy in 1979 than it is now. Of course, these were more or less conscious policy choices.

In reply to Richard J:


Until well into the 1960s European growth was driven by post war recovery from a very low base. What stands out was the UK's growth was the lowest of any significant peer.
The1970s saw major booms and recession:1973,1975,1979-80.
Since 1980 the UK has achieved higher GDP growth than most European peers and the recessions have been less frequent recessions.

In reply to Richard J:




That's not what the argument is about. The argument is where the UK stands compared to a European peers.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I think you've given this reply to me before. Why should I be interested in how we compare to other countries? What matters to the citizens of any country is how their own living standards are improving, not whether they are doing better than the French.

My question about the post-1979 experience of the UK is a very serious one and I'd be interested in your answer. Clearly there were supply-side improvements, but equally clearly the metrics show that the overall performance of the economy did not improve. What do you think were the countervailing factors that have led to the UK's subsequent poorer economic growth performance?

In reply to Richard J:

Thanks for the link.




Does anyone know what the units are on the Y axis (the professor loses 5 marks for having no units on the axis)? It would be nice to know that inflation is accounted for.


Well no surprises there. In 2008 Alastair Darling did say that the recession would be the worst the world would have seen since since the Great Depression and I recall anyone arguing with him about that. It would be interesting to see the same graph with the data for say, the Eurozone and the USA plotted alongside. I'm sure the trends would be the same as the UK, at least in recent years.

In reply to Richard J:


Because that was the point that Jim was making and because to a large extent we are victims or beneficiaries of the same global factors as our European peers.



Off to the pub but will return!

In reply to Offwidth:


Which is why I asked Jim what his criteria are. Good discussion point but alcohol beckons!

In reply to Removed User:



It's the logarithm of the GDP per person corrected for inflation. This log-linear plot is particularly clear because a constant percentage growth rate shows up as a straight line.


Here's the most recent comparative data I can find. The USA and Germany recovered from the recession much faster and more strongly than the UK, France did less well than these two but better than the UK, Spain and Italy did worse. The Netherlands started out with a stronger recovery but have done worse more recently.
http://europeansnapshot.com/2013/08/30/a-european-recovery-not-exactly/

The UK may have done better if the Coalition hadn't cut government capital spending so hard when they came to power (a mistake they've since tacitly recognised and partially reversed), it would certainly have done worse if it had joined the Euro (so you can thank Ed Balls for that).

In reply to Postmanpat:


We're influenced by some of the same global factors (e.g. oil prices, Chinese mercantilist policies) but they affect us in very different ways. And there are very important factors that affect European peers that don't affect us - like being locked into an ill-designed currency union. But my broader point remains, in the long run what matters is our long-term growth rate, so understanding why that has got significantly worse since the 1970's seems quite important to me.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Interesting point. Although, has France had anything like the economic shot in the arm that was North Sea oil and gas?

In reply to seankenny:

France has a slightly bigger population, and slightly better productivity despite the higher unemployment rate. Without that they probably would be slightly behind the UK in term of GDP maybe ? Anyway GDP rankings are a bit pointless I guess.

In reply to RomTheBear:

If we swapped the life style for the whole nation of France with the UK I know most Brits would be very pleased indeed and given the different tastes of the rich even those French who would gain in financial terms might turn their nose up at rich UK society norms. This is what I meant about what economies are for. The benefits in France in quality of life are way better on average than the UK and that comes mostly from the French people pushing back at their government. The same story is repeated across Scandinavia, Germany and the Low Countries. All those nations predicted to decline by the CEBR due to high tax and high regulation ... my money remains on them. It's dumb in the extreme to think these counties will sit back and allow everything they have built to decay.

In reply to SirChasm

Anthropologists have reported many primitive societies with happiness levels supposedly above modern western society. Their problem comes of course when someone is Ill or injured. However that as you well know wasn't my point you sad troll (see above)

In reply to Offwidth:

Well said. Take away the rich elite in the UK and I bet the figures wont look anything like as healthy.

In reply to Offwidth: You know how most Britons think? Well done, a late entry for the most ridiculous comment of 2013.
And how the sick and injured are treated by society is hardly a minor point, but you know that.

In reply to Sir Chasm:

Yes I know enough to extrapolate to a reasonable conclusion: as a populace we don't think or complain enough in the UK and too many believe some pretty outrageous crap from our politicians and the media. Are you seriously proposing any of the NE European countries standard of living is worse than the UK average?

In reply to Offwidth:


This is a subjective judgement. The 500,000 French living in the UK presumably don't agree. I think I'd love to live in a a nice restored farmhouse in the Haute Savoie or Dordogne (despite the shortage of Polish plumbers) but might not be so keen on the banileus of Lyon or Marseilles.The other man's grass etc...

Anyway, do you think British want to live in France because it has a better economy or becase the think it has a preferable culture (not to mention loads more space)?

In reply to Postmanpat:

The French produce €45 for every hour they work, the British only manage €39. It's their higher labour productivity that allows them to achieve pretty much the same per capita GDP while working less.

In reply to Richard J:


But a higher proportion of the uK population is employed.

In reply to Offwidth:

Well I am a Frenchman naturalised British, and I can tell you that in terms of quality of life I find it pretty good in the UK compared to France. Of course it's all relative to my own experience, but I think both countries are pretty similar (apart form the weather !)

Yes healthcare and education is way better in France, and benefits are quite good too. So France is definitely a slightly better place if you are out of a job or sick or studying.
But if you are working and don't mind the weather the UK is definitely a good place to be. No wonder why so many Frenchies go to London to make a career. Working conditions in France aren't any better, the 35H week is a complete myth. Most people in the private sector work 45h, get paid 35h, and don't complain because of the constant fear of loosing their job with a labour market with 10.5% unemployment.

So yeah, some things are better in the UK, some others are better in France, at the end of the day it simply depends on what floats your boat.

In reply to Postmanpat:

They are mainly middle class well educated and mobile and will be heading home when they have made their money and/or can get a good job. It's not French living standards that are their issue, it's skilled worker unemployment. A fairer comparison would be to ask them where they would rather be unemployed. A much smaller but significant other group are escaping the tax regime but the trend as I see it is that places like Belgium often top London. As for banileus, the UK has plenty of its own. Standards of living are better in France on average.

I have no illusions: Northern Europe has big problems I'm just more confident they will resolve these better than we will, through better engagement with their voters, via a slightly bigger state. The main cause of their problems are the same as ours, a worldwide recession triggered by poor regulation of global financial institutions (anyone seriously think the conservatives would have fared a lot better in the UK?... governments of the left, middle or right seemed to lack immunity across the world).

I'd be more optimistic about the UK if in many areas we were not seemingly shooting ourselves in the foot: low state and private sector investment in skills from keeping tax and regulation at a minimum and increasingly bending in politics to blocking the skilled immigrant workforce we need to fill the gap; housing and personal debt bubbles are serious threats to the UK yet we trumpet their outcomes as producing better growth than our neighbours; spending 'food, money on weighing public bodies to make them fatter rather than feeding them then complaining they haven't put any weight on. Its a series of dangerous illusions.

In reply to RomTheBear:
So if you could get an equivalent job in France would you stay in the UK and will you retire here? I've known French exchange undergrads and MSc students who are pretty clear their answers are 'no' and 'no'; yet current needs must in terms of improving their chances of getting a good UK job.

In reply to Offwidth:

I work for a French/Italian multi national and as such have worked with many French engineers who have come over to Edinburgh to work. In fact the optical engineers on the last two projects I've been on have both been French. I also spend a lot of time with other engineers and managers based in France and as such have the opportunity to talk these sorts of things over in an informal way.

I've always been pleasantly surprised at how positive the French are about working in Edinburgh, even though most have previously been based in Grenoble which you'd expect would be preferable to Edinburgh if for nothing else than the weather. However that couldn't be further from the case. My take on it is that there's really not much to pick and choose between the two countries.

What some do say about their own country is that taxes are too high, a mild grumble I've heard a few times. More significantly perhaps is the more senior manager's concerns over labour costs and flexibility. I don't there's much doubt that there is a negative perception of France in the minds of investors that high labour costs and very high exit barriers make France an unattractive country to grow a business in. This tends to result in labour moving out of France when times are bad and not coming back when times are good. They need to be careful.

Expanding upon this a bit. In Ednburgh we also employ a lot of people from other parts of the world as as well, we have no problem attracting people from (off the top of my head) Ireland, Italy, Poland, Greece, Bulgaria, Morocco, Singapore and India.

Thinking about your questions to French MSc students, I'm not that surprised. I've often thought about working abroad and would have done so in the past but would never have thought of spending the rest of my life in another country. It's a matter that is an emotional one as much as an economic one for most of us. Most of us want a "home". That's why we're not all working in Saudi Arabia or Quatar.

Question for Richard J: the numbers you quote on productivity. They are gross aren't they? In that case they don't account for the higher cost of labour in France (I assume it is higher in general and not just in my company)?

In reply to phja:

I understand my comment will probably not have any replies, as it's more a throwaway comment about the state of the nation rather than an answer the current discussion. So therefore all measurements of economy are completely out of date. For example I can buy from ebay an old smart phone which isn't even considered a good device for less than a average night out in Leeds, and this device has more functionality than a 1998 desktop computer, and then at the same time I'm told there's a recession going on because of problems with the current flow of cash, when really what I'm hearing is political spin.

In reply to johnj:

The term "recession" means that the economy is shrinking which has been technically correct and doesn't suggest that you can't by a powerful piece of electronics for a low price.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/recession.asp

In reply to Removed User:

I'm sure some of it is sentimentality with the French (maybe more than with most nationalities) but that's not all. I'd also agree it's probably is not so much different for youngish Engineers in a cosmopolitan city like Edinburgh. Yet back at the average, the differences are bigger. Even for the relatively wealthy in the middle classes the UK system really ends up with huge cost and quality risks for things like healthcare in old age, this is a massive hidden tax and health incentive that differs from country to country and are big financial and quality of life reasons why most French will go home from the UK or go elsewhere in Europe in the end.

If the legendary inflexibility of France was really so bad the economy should have imploded decades ago yet they still 'bump along' and most strangely head the similar sized UK: a bastion of the free market (with the benefits in the last 30 years of way more oil and gas and one of the worlds two main financial centers). Those higher taxes in France pay for things most voters said they wanted there. If they turn out to be too high or industry gets too damaged I'm sure the party elected and the tax regime will change.

In reply to Offwidth:


Some parts of the UK do have free health care for the elderly .

In reply to Offwidth:

I'd also note that unemployment in France is significantly higher than in Britain, I think it has been for some time.

In my list of priorities low unemployment comes pretty high in terms of quality of life in a country.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php?title=File:...

In reply to Removed User:

Yes but when the high street becomes less relevant as a measurement in the measure of the economy, the validity of the data also changes.

In reply to johnj:

I'm afraid you'll have to explain that a bit more, I don't understand.

In reply to Removed User:

My point as mentioned above is the economy is measured on certain indexes such as the housing market, high street spending, manufacturing, etc.

However the value that the high street now plays, as apposed to on-line, and the growth of technology alter things vastly, the tech which kids now see as tat, was sci-fi in the 70's, also take into account inflation, QE, and the emerging global economy, and a measure of growth or decline using tools and indexes from an earlier age, in my opinion is not the most valid way of identifying the true state of play.

In reply to Removed User:

Let me just give another example, a few years ago, I'm in a vehicle with a guy I know who's got a far greater understanding than I have of street level economics, and he's pointing out flourishing businesses to me, saying, 'drug money' 'drug money' 'drug money', 'drug money', errrr you get the picture. Now where's the black market in the statistics of the UK economy?

In reply to Removed User:

Funny, I was living in Grenoble and I am now living in Edinburgh too. Yeah Grenoble sucks balls compared to Edinburgh. One thing they know how to do in Grenoble though is how to build a bloody tram !

In reply to Offwidth:

Yep as I said the UK is crap compared to France when it comes to healthcare, benefits and so on. But if you are healthy, between 25 and 65 and on the job market you'll be slightly better off in the UK I think.

I don't think one is better than the other, it just reflects two different cultures, I guess we are just a bit more individualistic in the UK maybe.

In reply to Richard J:



I don't think I accept this. If you look at per capita GDP growth you find the 1970s the worst period until the past five years (1970-5 +1.93%, 1970-75 +1.75%). The 1960s , 80s and 90s were all 2-2.5%. The poor numbers for the 21st century are all the result of 2008-9.
2000-5 growth was 2.04%. 2005-10 was -.29%.

So we have an overall picture of over 2% growth interrupted by the 1970s and by 2008-9. Note also that the 1970s numbers are very volatile (+5% in 1973 courtesy of the "Barber boom accounts for a lot of the growth) and the decade is characterised by the deterioration in all sorts of numbers such as inflation, employment and the balance of payments.

So we don't really need to explain a slowing of growth in the latter part of the 20th century because it didn't slow. We have to explain why the post war growth (1946-70) in the UK was so much slower than amongst the European years and the 1970s were so so much worse. France, by comparison, was growing around 3% in the 1970s. This is the period in which the UK economy fell behind the local competition.

As far as one has to explain why growth in the 1980-2005 period wasn't higher of manufacturing didn't lead it surely one has to look at the relative costs of manufacuring in Asia with those in the the UK/Europe which only germany really managed to overcome, and that through linking themselves to an inappropriately weak currency.

All of which, of course, begs the different question of whether the growth since 1980 has all been illusory and would inevitably end n the debacle of 2008.

In reply to Postmanpat:

PS. My figures are world bank numbers. There seem to be alternatives available!!

In reply to Postmanpat:



Any thoughts?

In reply to Postmanpat:

My numbers were from the Treasury blue book, which I think are as definitive as you get. But the picture is all there in the graph in the Simon Wren-Lewis post I linked to above. Just eyeballing this makes clear the poorer performance of the economy post-1979. I know this is difficult to accept to those steeped in the conventional wisdom, but that's what the numbers say. Anyway, I'm going to do something else now so have a good evening.

In reply to Richard J:


I genuinely don't see the same as you when eyeballing that chart and I'm not sure why you see what you see. Have a good evening!

In reply to Removed User:

What's the comparative percentage of French in employment above the living wage? How many jobs in the UK are part-time low wage and temporary. How are the stats calculated in the two countries?

In reply to Offwidth:


I think you have somewhat Guardian or colour supplement view of France, it's much of a muchness with Britain on average and has the advantage of much more space but it's not all roses and fine wines. Life for many is exceptionally hard and the social safety net has many holes. Compare the life in some social housing complexes in French suburbs with the British equivalent and France doesn't exactly shine. The grass may look greener but don't believe all you read.

In reply to Offwidth:


The figures are just as wangled in France as in Britain... On another subject the extreme right is over 15% in France, doesn't that show you that there are a few teeny weeny problems? Unemployment is touching 11% in France now and many have little or no financial help... When I tell people that in Britain the dole pays your council tax and part of the rent they don't believe me.

In reply to Offwidth:

Surely if you doubt the comparison it's for you to demonstrate that it's a false one ?

I vaguely remember that there is some sort of vague accounting standards that EU countries adhere to with unemployment figures but I have no doubt that such politically sensitive statistics are massaged by both the UK and France to give them the lowest numbers.

Further up the thread Romain, a Frenchman, also pointed out that unemployment was higher in France. I imagine that if he thought the numbers were bollocks he'd not have said that.

Whatever, my point is that there's not a great deal to pick and choose between European countries. In France they tax more which allows them to pay for more health care for the elderly. In the UK we have a higher disposable income which we choose not to save to spend on health care in our retirement. In the UK we have a less well protected work force than in France but lower unemployment. These sort of balances are open to debate but in the grand scheme of things it's swings and roundabouts. It's difficult to say that one country is significantly better off than another...unless you are talking about Greece..

In reply to Richard J:

Well, you'll see what purport to be the latest revisions to real GDP (Treasury numbers)since 1960 below. They are not per capita but I can't imagine that the per capita trend would be very different:

http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2013/01/guest_contribut_30.html

They show:
1950s 3.03
1960s 3.18
1970s 2.07
1980s 3.09
1990s 2.77
2000s 1.77

In reply to Removed User:


France has a president who made all sorts of wild, un-deliverable, uncosted and unaffordable promises in order to get elected, also made a series of hysterical and fact-free attacks on various economically important or critical groups in a populist witch-hunt, which succeeded in getting him elected despite him having the reputation of being a grey, untalented, party-apparatchik and nonentity (which description seems to have been entirely vindicated). He is now the least popular president in the history of the current (5th) republic, while the Front Nationale, the BNP equivalent, is reported by some opinion polls likely to become the leading political party in the European elections in 2014, and generally the largest single political party in France.

The similarities between Hollande and Miliband are striking and frightening, indeed Hollande's victory was hailed as a great turning point by many leftist comentators in Britain. It was, but not in the way they meant. Hollande is a dreadful warning to all in the UK.

France should be far richer than Britain. It has twice the land area, much of it very fertile, more tourists than any other country and generally much more ameanable weather. It would take a seriously incompetent and bloody-minded ruling elite to mess up France and its economy, in contrast to Britain which is drastically over-crowded and has a continual need to find ingenious ways of sustaining its (catastrophically growing), population. It is true that French health care is much better than the NHS, but that is not due to spending, indeed most healthcare systems are better, safer and more patient focused than the "envy of the world".

Unfortunately the French are cursed with a ruling elite, the ENArchs, with all the incompetence, arrogance and bloody-mindedness required to cause economic and all sorts of other disasters.

In reply to Offwidth:

For UK stats you could do worse than The Joseph Rowntree Foundation website

In reply to Simon4:


so so true.

In reply to Postmanpat:


OK, I'll try and explain. So we're looking at the figure here
http://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-uks-macroeconomic-battlegroun...

You can ignore the captions if you think they're too political. What the graph is is the GDP per capita expressed in constant inflation-corrected pounds plotted on the y-axis in log form. You can make a plot like this yourself by downloading GDP per capita data from the website of the Treasury Blue Book (national accounts). I did this and it looks the same.

It's a log-linear plot so on the y-axis a constant distance expresses a constant proportion. So a quantity that grows annually at a constant % rate gives you a straight line whose gradient is proportional to the growth rate.

Simon Wren-Lewis has drawn a fit line on the graph representing a constant annual growth rate of just over 2%. You can see that this fits the data very well until 1979. Between 1979 and 1986, between 1990 and 1998, and since 2008, the data falls below the line. For every year that the data falls below the line, the economy is producing less than it would if the trend from the 1970's was continued. This is a permanent loss of output.

On the other hand the data touches above the trend line after 1986. However, the amount of extra output produced then, represented by the positive gap between the data and the line, does not come close to compensating for the earlier lost output. That degree of economic output proved not to be sustainable - it was the Lawson boom, a property bubble. Likewise, when the economy returned to the trend in the New Labour years, this also turned out to be an unsustainable bubble built on real estate and a growth in financial services. So once again since 2008 we have an economy producing substantially less than it would if the pre-1979 trend had continued.

So the message of the graph is simple - on a per capita basis, the economy has produced substantially less output since 1979 than it would have done if the pre-1979 trend had continued. And at the moment that output gap is larger than it has ever been.

In reply to Postmanpat:

Actually the correction for per capita is quite important. For example the population is growing now at about 0.6% a year so you need that much growth just to stand still in per capita terms.

In reply to Removed User:


You get the labour productivity figures simply by dividing national output by number of hours worked. So from the point of view of a company they are a total of what the worker gets, how much goes to government, and how much profit the company makes. It doesn't say anything about how that division is done in different countries.

In reply to Postmanpat:

And a happy New Year to everyone!

In reply to Richard J:


I understand what it represents but I dont think you're looking closely enough. You are are also regarding "one off" events eg1979-80 as the trend.

Even taking this into account the trend (despite the obvious challenge of rising base level effects) was above the line until 2007 which is why I don't buy your argument about it showing lower growth.-which raises again the question I posed about whether the 2208 shock was inevitable..

Personally I (not surprisingly) would argue that the 1979-81 debacle should be seen as the final fling of the 70s as the nature of the economy was forced to change. Take that out and the growth trend would be well above the line.

Either way, in Q4'79 the growth line was below the trend line (having been above it in 1970) and by Q1'90 it was above it as it still was in 2000. So the 70s goes from above to below and the 80s and 90s end above.

What the line shows is weaker growth in the 1970s followed by stronger growth in the 80s and 90s even despite the recessions you highlight.

You are essentially going back to the question I asked about 2008 (which is different to simply looking at the numbers) i.e. was the previous growth "illusory" and arguing that it was in the run up to 1991-2. Personally I think that Lawson arrogantly overdid it but I don't see that as necessarily an intrinsic failing of the post Thatcher economic model.

In reply to Postmanpat:

Would you rather have a salary of 100k rising by 2% a year for five years, or one of 90k rising by 3% a year for five years? I know which I'd prefer, but that's because I think the absolute level of output is more important than the growth rate.

But to answer your final question, I do think that quite a lot of the pre-2008 growth was illusory. But as you say that's a much longer discussion.

In reply to Richard J:



But the latter is not what is happening. I should have said "actual line" rather than "growth" and the "actual" underperforms trend 1970-79 and outperfoms it in the 80s and 90s by decade end and would outperform it a lot more if one acknowledges that 1980-81 was actually a period of transition.



The trouble is that on this basis much of the early 70s "barber boom" growth was illusory so you'd have to rejig the 70s numbers down!

We are conflating two arguments.

1)What the figures actually show.

2)What they tell us about different economic models.

It is very tempting to reinterpret "1" in the light of what one feels about "2" but, for now, looking at the chart and the numbers I would still say that, even taking a strict time frame, the 1970 looks weaker than the surrounding decades.
Taking what I would regard as a more meaningful time frame the difference is much more marked.


PS. Where do you find the raw data in the blue book? I get directed to the ONS site which is like navigating the the Antarctic in a blizzard.

In reply to Postmanpat:


http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/naa1-rd/united-kingdom-national-accounts/the-...

As a paid-up nerdy physicist, I did a regression to an exponential between 1960 and 1979 to get my trend line, getting a slightly higher growth rate than Simon Wren-Lewis, who I suspect of just drawing the line by hand. I'll leave you to it now.

In reply to Richard J:

So how is GDP corrected to take into account of public/private debt to give any meaningful indicator of economic well-being?

In reply to jimtitt:
It's not, and it doesn't take into account environmental degradation, income inequality, and all sorts of other factors, making it indeed a flawed indicator of overall well-being. I focused on it because I wanted to question Mr P's narrative of the 1970's as a time of socialist economic disaster, redeemed by the subsequent glorious economic miracle of Thatcherism, and real GDP per person seemed the best single number to do this. Mr P and I obviously disagree about how to read the numbers, but given that in the 70's we had the headwinds of a world energy crisis and terrible industrial relations, and in the 80's and 90's we had the North Sea oil bonanza and the end of the cold war, it seems to me that the conventional right-wing wisdom that Mr P channels doesn't really stand up to the actual data.

In reply to Richard J:


Why do you start resorting to this? I though you were more sensible.I didn't say that because I don't believe it's that simple.
Our debate was primarily about the 1970s, a decade in which maybe more than any the headline GDP number disguises the mayhem behind it.

In reply to Postmanpat:
Your sentence that I was reacting to was "The evidence of the economic disaster of the 1970s suggests the opposite is true which is why all major parties and most economists (and most countries)abandoned the socialism.which you espouse." To be honest, I was surprised myself at how little the GDP per person figures reflect the convulsions of the 70's when I looked at them first. Even the Barber boom is just a little blip compared to the convulsions we've seen since 1979. I will agree that it isn't that simple.

In reply to Richard J:
Do you (or PMP) have a control?
Is one possibility that things would be worse had the policies of the 1970s continued and that any straight line in yhr figures be a best result?
I thought France with Mitterand tried and had to backtrack rapidly.

In reply to MG:


No, and I can't see how one would be possible except through some artificially created and probably biased model.


Yes


Sort of I guess.

In reply to Removed User:

I dont doubt the figures outside the usual manipulation. Im just pointing out a lot of the difference in employemt rates is down to a huge recent increase in low quality casualised jobs in the UK. In other words employment isnt so different. The UK has a skills gap, France has a skills suplus hence the migration of the young skilled.

I dont think a choice was made for low tax and more costs in older age. The UK population (sure, excluding Scotland) were hoodwinked into this in a way that wouldnt be possible in France. When you add on University fees and pension changes the effective tax increase on the middle class in the UK has been huge and then we have recently had a sustained period of pay decline (cf inflation) and a significant tightening in benefits.

As for Bruces points I wonder when he last looked at the dole arrangements and how he failed to miss the rise of UKIP. Of course the differences are not huge but France wins on standard of living for the average .

In reply to Removed User:

I guess the point is that GDP numbers and most measures involving money are almost completely meaningless as a way of measuring 'wealth' because they don't capture technical improvements.

For example - suppose your parents could afford a £20,000 car and you can only afford a £15,000 car (using inflation adjusted money) then an economist would say you are worse off than your parents because you have less money. But actually the car you could buy in 2013 for £15,000 would, in every practical aspect - comfort, safety, efficiency, performance - be far superior to the one your parents bought. The same thing would apply to most things you spend money on with the exception of houses.

GDP numbers are even worse because they just measure how much money is being spent without any care about how useful it is. You could put up GDP by printing money and paying people to dig holes and fill them in again - or build windmills.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

Completely meaningless maybe overstates it a bit, but technical change is certainly very important. One issue is that this changes relative values. Some material things become much cheaper because of technical improvements, other things that are intrinsically scarce (like houses) retain their value, while services that depend on personal human involvement - for example medical care - get relatively much more expensive. The "productivity" of a GP now isn't any different from their productivity 20 years ago, but their pay has to rise in a way that keeps track of the productivity increases in the whole economy, otherwise nobody would become a doctor. The big mistake is to imagine that because of this relative rise in the cost of medicine, we can't afford it any more.

In reply to Offwidth:



On what basis?

Taking both GDP per capita (the standard measure) and the Eurostat measure (which adjusts for publicy supplied goods and services eg.the NHS)the UK was ahead of France in 2012. Haven't seen more recent figures but at worst one can surely say there's no much in it.

In reply to MG:



I don't think you can talk about the policies of the 1970's, because they changed a lot between Heath's initial austerity, then his U-turn and the Barber boom, to the mild monetarism and spending restraint of the Callaghan/Healey administration.

There isn't really a control, because every country is different. You could look at the very different policies of South Korea, for example, which has run a very state-directed type of capitalism with enormously successful effect, but that country was starting from a different place.

But of course things could have been different, either better or worse. You could ask what would have happened if Callaghan had called an election in Autumn 1978, before the winter of discontent, that he would probably have won. Then there might have been no Thatcher government and maybe a very different course for the 1980 recession and everything else that followed. Or if the Argentinians had sunk the Ark Royal and the Thatcher government fell to be replaced by a very left-wing Foot/Benn administration. And there were policy choices that we can see in retrospect were a bad idea - e.g. the loose and monetary fiscal policies followed by entry to the ERM at the wrong rate - that led to the Lawson boom and subsequent recession.

But I think the most important thing to keep in mind are that there are always choices to be made, and there are always different ways of arranging an economy. Political movements always need to suggest inevitability, that their way is the only possible way. The left wing has done this in the past, now with the right in ascendancy "there is no alternative" is a message more associated with current free-market centred values. But there always is an alternative.

In reply to Postmanpat:

My apologies, I meant quality of life measures or a more generic standard of living which includes more than just the strict financial definition. There are indicators trying to measure these factors but as they often rate the US really highly they are hard to believe (I think this is because the things they measure bias towards free market views on populations), anyway despite the bias even on these stats France almost always beats the UK (see PQLI or HDI 2013 for instance).

In reply to Richard J:

All this whatif talk of the 70s may not be quite on the right track. The background is that we still owed the Yanks a very large fortune and would do for decades to come.

MacMillan's "never had it so good" line was bu11sh1t. I was never quite sure who he thought he was speaking to though. Was it the plebs who could now earn enough to pay significant Income Tax (4 times as many tax-paying families as before the war) and, very occasionally, Purchase Tax? Or was it the Toffs whose investment income was now under slightly less pressure?

Lots of interesting numbers for those interested:

http://www.numbeo.com

Most of it makes you want to leave the UK though

In reply to Jim Fraser:



Nonsense, by almost any measure the standard of living for most Brits in 1957 was higher than it had ever been. That is not a party political point. Quite simply the period of post war economic recovery, technological developments and the welfare State had made this so.

The UK economy was massively underperforming its near neighbours, as discussed above, but that is another thing.

In reply to Jim Fraser:


It's true that the background to the 50s and 60s was paying off a massive accumulation of debt from the war. This at least partly involved a slow-motion default through inflation, currency depreciation and financial repression. What I don't know is how much of the debt was domestic, and how much foreign.

In reply to Postmanpat:
But talking of the 70's reminds me of something else - at that time the balance of payments was a big worry, it was this that led to the 1975 IMF bailout. What's striking is that last year the UK ran a record-breaking balance of payments deficit of £59 billion, which as a % of GDP is pretty much the same size as the mid-1970s one that caused all the IMF trouble. Two things are weird about this - firstly, the fact that when the economy was still in recession that we'd run such a big deficit says very worrying things about the UKs ability to pay its way in the world - the UK has to balance the deficit by a combination of borrowing and selling assets. You'd normally only expect to see such a big deficit when the economy was running at full steam. The second weird thing is why, when in the seventies a similar size deficit made people think the country was on the point of bankruptcy, now people don't seem to have noticed the £59 billion hole.

The difference is that we don't have capital controls any more, so we're happy to balance the deficit by selling assets. Currently a huge amount of this is commercial real estate in London - last year £15 billion's worth was sold to foreigners. So, in summary, our current economic model amounts to buying goods from abroad and paying for them by selling offices in London to foreigners. While this explains why the government is so keen to prop up the London property bubble, and adds to the prosperity of the London financial services industry, it doesn't seem like a very sustainable way to run a large economy.

In reply to Offwidth:


I live in both countries and have no particular axe to grind... many Brits have a strangely positive view of France and a strangely negative view of Britain. My eldest daughter went to school in France then moved to Britain to study as there was no equivalent degree course in France - Applied Arts/Design - and since has made her life in London. Despite the cost of living there she has no intention of returning to Paris as she is convinced she wouldn't find a decent job there, none of her friends have, they are all in part time of occasional work, and don't even have any possibilities of financial aid until 24, even then very limited. None of her three cousins have been able to find work in Paris, one has left for Belgium where despite an MA she is working on and off in a bar. They are not at the bottom of the ladder either, young people of her age in the suburban ghettoes (in France the poor have usually been pushed out of town centres to the suburbs) are even worse off...

Anecdotes are completed by figures - 11% unemployment, double for young people, 4 times as much in rough areas. If you are in the public sector then this is now the place to be, even wages are better than the private sector and you have total job security, followed by a guaranteed retirement, although the latter is being eroded heavily at present.

It's not hell but then nor is Britain, a bit of objectivity is required as a stone built farmhouse in Dordogne is not available for every Frenchman, and even if it were he'd have a hell of a job finding work there to pay for it!

In reply to Simon4:

On the subject of French elites, dates a bit but not much has changed since it was written.

http://www.windmillweb.info/thoughts/Etat2Bit.htm

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

Youth unemployment in 2012 was 21.9% in the UK and much more in poor areas. In France it was 21.8. Unless your are part of the black economy or have others supporting you the UK is currently very uncomfortable place to be young and unemployed: hence the mass uptake of shit temporary part time jobs on zero hour contracts and campaigns for the living wage. I dont get how you have missed this huge recent change in the UK. No one here (other than you putting words in others mouths) are saying brits on this post think France is wonderful. I'm just saying any living standards stats I've seen put France ahead on estimates of living standards despite slightly lower per capita income.

In reply to Offwidth:



But they don't really measure standard or quality of life. They measure very specific things like literacy and life expectancy. They are useful when looking at developing countries but not very when comparing developed countries because the differences are not great.. France and the UK are only about 2% apart. Both France and the UK, for example, have 99% literacy rates but French life expectancy is 82 v British 80. Do we really think that France is a better place to live because you might live for an extra 24 months?

In reply to Postmanpat: 'Do we really think that France is a better place to live because you might live for an extra 24 months?'

At our age, PP, I would have thought that began to look increasingly attractive

In reply to Offwidth:


So practically identical in each country, on the other hand what you don't mention is that a young person can get enough benefit to live on in Britain (England at least, I don't know if it's the same in Scotland), council tax paid, rent and a bit of money, zero in France, they are expected to be looked after by the parents... there's even a law that makes parents legally responsible.

As for comparisons, which country is "better off" it's so dependent in the exchange rate that it's irrelevant. When the pound was at 1.5€ then as GDP comparisons are usually in $s Britain came out on top, now it's down 1.2 then France probably tops Britain. Subjective judgement of "life styles" is all that's left.

Often the French health system is presented as superior. I just went to see the doctor with my other daughter who lives with us in France for a cold: cost, doctor 35€ paid on the spot followed by 23€ for medicines. The latter are not covered by either the state system nor the supplementary insurance that everyone has in France, the actual doctors visit is covered to the tune of 23€ by the sum of the two systems so a simple cold cost her 35€, without even adding in the insurance costs. How much would it have cost in Britain?

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


Yeah I don't know how things evolved in France, but from what I remember, a visit to the GP in France is well worth the price, every single time the doctor does a basic full health check, takes the time to speak to you, takes your blond pressure, listens to your breathing, inspect you airways, weighs you and so on, even if you have nothing wrong. At least 15/20 minutes consultation.

The first time I went to a GP in the UK I was completely shocked that it lasted less than 3 minutes and didn't even take my blood pressure...

I am surprised that the medicine are not covered by your "mutuelle" though.

In reply to RomTheBear:

'a visit to the GP in France is well worth the price, every single time the doctor does a basic full health check, takes the time to speak to you, takes your blond pressure, listens to your breathing, inspect you airways, weighs you and so on, even if you have nothing wrong.'

Why? If I go to my doctor because I have a sprain or something I don't want a full medical, I just want to be fixed up as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Which at our GP practice they do, as I've noted on here before.

In reply to phja:

Isn't it incredible how every one of these threads turns into either Wembley 1966 or Waterloo.

A bit boring.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:



Last year FIL was finally persuaded to call out a doc for a fever that would not go away, during that call, the Doc did lots of other checks unrelated to the original fever ( for thoroughness)

When the fever was under control , a follow up of the other checks found a life threatening condition , and another , not so immediately serious , but could have been if unchecked, and both were unrelated to the original. Both were both quickly operated on, so in that instance, the extra checks were worthwhile.

( we had just lost his wife, (MIL ) 2 years previous, when a known condition deteriorated very quickly)

(He is almost 80 though)

In reply to RomTheBear:

Like anywhere there are good and bad doctors, as for the mutuelle payment, the mutuelle only pays if the Security social pay a bit, if they pay nothing neither does the mutuelle. To attempt to reduce the SS enormous deficit more and more medicine is no longer reimbursed - all three prescribed were off the list so the SS paid nothing, hence the mutuelle as well. On top of this many doctors, especially specialists are allowed to charge over the official rates and this extra is not reimbursed by the SS. It may be reimbursed by a mutuelle but only if you take one of the more expensive options, so usually it's not worth it.

It's a political hot potato but both left and right have followed the same trend of reducing cover to reduce the deficit. I saw some figures the other day which said that these days, on average, only half your health costs are reimbursed. So if you are ok for money it's a good system but poor families and single people find things tough and reports show that many don't go to the doctors when they should...

On the other hand it is true that in France the consumption of medicine is one of the highest around and the use of generic medicines is only just starting, many resisted it so now if you refuse a generic then the SS doesn't reimburse the branded one. In your example it may not really be required for a doctor to spend 20 minutes for a simple ailment? France already has the highest taxation level in the world.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:



Still, I think the NHS cloud be saving billions on pounds by focusing more on preventing and detecting diseases early. This is only my personal experience, but it seems to me that the NHS is really good at fixing you up when you are really sick, but completely crap at detecting diseases or risks early.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:



Well I agree with you that the French healthcare system is costlier to the tax payer and to the patient than the NHS is. It does perform way better though.
They could take some ideas from the NHS though, especially cutting on non essential drugs and so on.

In regards to the French taxes, if you look at it they are really not more than the Uk taxes, sometimes less (apart from the new temporary gimmick 75% tax rate).

The problem in France is the social charges, basically payroll taxes, paid by the employer (but in fact, really, it's paid by the employee), which is one the of the highest in the world at around 66%. Never understood why a country with so much unemployment would tax employment so heavily. It just doesn't make any sense. The unfortunate consequence of successive government transferring more and more taxes to the employer's side of the payslip to not upset the voters, but in fact they are the ones paying the price.

In reply to RomTheBear:

Evaluating the effectiveness of screening for asymptomatic diseases is more complex than you might think. What's 'intuitively obvious' may not in fact be so great.

In reply to RomTheBear:


Saying "taxes" was a shortcut, the real term is "prélevements obligatoires (PO)", ie. the sum of taxes and social charges that are not a choice - both taxes and social charges taken from your pay, pension, dividends etc etc. I wasn't sure of the term in English. When you work in France, as you doubtless know, you have about 25% taken from your pay before you even start looking at income tax, which is usually paid the following year directly - no PAYE in France. Although this statistic, PO, is criticized by some it seems important to know how much the state spends on your behalf and how much you can do as you choose with. In France this about 46% at present whereas in Britain it is 30 something. Also a major difference is that social charges reach a limit so the well off pay proportionally less than those earning less, which seems the opposite to what it should be!

BTW, these 25% docked from your pay are completed by double this paid by the employer which all in all put the cost of employing someone higher than many countries... on the other hand finding reliable figures is quite difficult as different countries function differently... another reason why I don't have your faith in statistics and reports as people can, and do, present all these things differently depending on what conclusion they were aiming at before they started

In reply to Bruce Hooker:




No it's quite easy to find reliable figures. Most countries actually have comparable types of taxes, Income tax, payroll tax, and VAT.
It's just that in France the "payroll tax" is actually a multitude of different complex taxes (trying to understand a French payslip is simply impossible if you don't have a degree in accounting lol)

In France for example the payroll tax is 66% if you add them all up !! No wonder there is so much unemployment... Never understood the principle of taxing employment, seems stupid to me to tax employment in a country with an employment problem... they'd be better off taxing ALL incomes more and lifting some of these stupid social charges, but obviously it's always very unpopular to raise income tax...

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


Quite possibly. Just exploring the possibility that this might be one of the reasons why the French system delivers better results.