Enquiring minds might find this table from SocGen of passing interest,
The standout lines are that the French and Belgiums earn more per hour than do German workers, which is a straight turnaround from 2000 when the Germans made more per hour.
That of course suggests that the Germans suffered relatively poor wage gains but stayed competitive with low unemployment and strong exports.
Everyone else saw wages go up, and competitiveness reduce and now they're looking for German handouts.
Except the UK where earnings per hour have fallen dramatically since 2008 which is demonstrative of the British taking their medicine.
Onlookers should remember, many things have gone very wrong in the UK but to our credit we started to face up to problems immediately after the crisis. There is a ton of unfinished work in the UK but at the time, the French swept most of their bad news under the carpet and hoisted a sign that said, "no problems here (especially in their banks), nothing to see, move along now."
Guess what.... your problem, grow up, stop whinging and deal with it.
David Cameron obviously doesn't hold the centuries long held conviction that Frenchmen are there for Englishmen to practise shooting arrows at.
The ridiculous defence agreement with France, which David Cameron signed yesterday, brought back some memories of when your intrepid, and at that time much younger, writer played his own small part in the Entente Cordial.
In the far off halcyon days of the Cold War, when there was order in the world and we knew who our enemy was, I took part in an exercise in Germany called Tripex. The friendly forces consisted of a battalion of Jocks, (1 RHF), a US tank regiment, which carried the nickname "Hell on Wheels," and French Artillery. Working with the French was somewhat unusual at the time because they weren't NATO members and spent most of their overseas time skulking around the darker parts of Africa. They also had a presence in Berlin given they were one of the Berlin powers, mostly as a result of three inebriated Frenchmen hitching a lift on a British Churchill tank in Normandy and accidentally arriving in Berlin at the end of the war.
The aim of the exercise, which was politically driven because it would have been suicide in practice, was for the battle group to punch a corridor through Eastern Germany to relieve Berlin should it again be blockaded. In reality of course, the undertaking would have been like A Bridge Too Far, only we would have lasted 20 mins against 3rd Shock Army rather than the full 3 hours of the movie.
Despite being an utter nonesense I expect it ticked a few boxes in Washington, London and Paris........ just as yesterdays agreement ticks a few boxes in London and more importantly for them, Paris.
The point of the agreement has nothing to do with military capability or sensible husbandry of reduced defence spending, because even stupid people in Whitehall know that the French can't be relied upon to do anything, with anyone or anywhere unless it favours their own direct self interest. Rather, it is to give the French an alternative to the Franco-German alliance that has bestrode Europe for the last fifty years.
In European terms, the winner from the recent financial crisis has been Germany. It's fiscal discipline, sense of common purpose and strategic industrial base has seen it emerge stronger than it's European partners. The geo political centre of Europe has moved from Paris to Berlin. Germany is not without it's own internal tensions and stresses but in geo political terms, they are in the driving seat. That worries the French.
This agreement then, simply expands France's options and is a starting gesture to diluting Germany's growing political influence over the extended EU.
So, sending some special forces to crawl about in the dark with knives between their teeth is a modern version of the old Tripex exercise. That however, didn't end quite so well.
Unsurprisingly, the Jocks and the septics rubbed along together just fine and the Americans soon learned to stop leaving their shiny new bits of kit lying around. That was until.................... until we had a couple of days off and were billeted in Sennelager Camp. Soldiers from various cap badges gathered in the huge NAAFI there and everything was going just fine until one very large septic knocked down the tower of empty beer cans that the boys from C Company had been diligently building all night. Then it all went off.
The instigating American immediately had a 5'6'' Jock hanging off his shoulders and bodies were soon flying in all directions, including one or two that went airborne, exiting through the windows. Tables, chairs, beer cans and the odd REME artificer were flying from one side of the room to the other as the whole place erupted in a bar fight worthy of a John Houston western.
Unremarkably, the French were nowhere to be seen.
After a while, the scenes of carnage and chaos quietened down with the arrival of the guard, some RMP's and some over enthusiastic barky, bitey guard dogs. Of course, the Jocks and septics suddenly became the best of friends and resumed drinking, swapping tales and kit.
Note to David Cameron, families fight but they're still family. For one thing........ they speak the same language.
You may or may not have been following the debt crisis in Greece. No matter, the broad brush summary is that the Greeks have been living way beyond their means and the clock is ticking against imminent debt repayments. To make those payments the Greeks must borrow money through bond sales which they can only do at a higher cost than other European governments may borrow money at. That premium prices in the additional risk of lending to the Greeks in case they default.
Intense discussions have been underway and at the end of last week the EU agreed to offer the Greeks assistance but only when the Greek government reach a point where the international markets are effectively closed to them.
The looming debt crisis has created a great deal of stress within the EU and the hard line attitude of the Germans has shocked not only the profligate Club Med countries but also the core EU states like France. The German government however has simply been reflecting a hard line German taxpayer view that they should not be put in a position whereby their hard work and productivity is exploited by idle tax evading beach bums. In fact an important result of last weeks negotiations is that the German government has sent a strong message not only to the rest of the EU but to their own people which implies that not one single German euro will be spent until all other avenues have been explored.
This hard core message of fiscal discipline has strong resonance for the average German voter.
Contrast this to the British voter, whoever he or she is and in fact it wouldn't be unreasonable to ask if they exist at all. If they do, they suffer from a collective virus of bovine lethargy given after all that the current shower of corrupt and incompetent muppets have done, there is barely a whisper raised in protest. The Cabinet must sit down not quite believing their luck - they've almost bankrupted us, financially and morally and they've got away with it - only a few points behind in the polls and growing in confidence as the election approaches. They're beginning to think they might actually pull it off; you can smell it.
So why is there such a dramatic contrast between the German people and ourselves and why does their government listen and ours don't? I genuinely don't know. I can only guess that people have simply given up, that they've decided that whatever their view is it won't make a blind bit of difference. That whatever actions citizens take They will still be there and They will keep on coming, no matter what, there is no way to finish them off.
Even more sad, at times.......... I feel the same way.
What of the opposition? Just like many, many others I simply despair. No backbone, no courage, no idea. I sat next to a lady last evening who had every reason to vote Tory in May. I listened to her reasoned critique of Labour and then asked her about the Tories. "No way am I voting for them," she said, "I have no idea what they're policies are." Nor do I.
In fact, David Cameron rather reminds me of the captain of this ship.........(yes, I know we've all seen it before but it makes the point and me laugh at the same time so it's in..).
Tuesday, December 20, 2011 at 4:06PM 
