France, consumption, and mycookies…
(… for the sick there is china …)
(… let's add these too to the endless list of topics where you came here to fool around, only to then see them slammed in your face by the authoritative press – and say: "You were right!" never, eh, may the honor of those who, as an amateur, take the risk of confronting a professional …)
Hocpoc left a new comment on your post " Pulling the strap ":
https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/fichier/6795076/27_IR_Biens.xlsx
I believe the source of the data of that graph could be this.
Published by Hocpoc on Goofynomics on May 10, 2023, 11:05 pm
but perhaps, since we are professionals here, we could also represent it like this:
Valerio Santoro left a new comment on your post "Pulling the belt":
1. According to Numbeo , the average net monthly salary in France is close to €2,266, monthly expenses for a single person reach €886.9* (€3,151.8* for a family of 4). In Italy, the average monthly net salary reaches €1,556, the monthly expenses for a single person reach €803.8* (€2,798.5* for a family of 4). Now, Numbeo's methods are not very transparent and questionable , but they photograph a reality of Italy as a country where you spend 11% less than in France but where you earn a salary of 43% less. We can discuss whether 11 is really 11 or 10 or 12 and whether 43 is really above or below 40, but the order of magnitude remains, confirmed at official levels .
2. In France they don't protest because they don't. They protest against raising the retirement age by a couple of years. Stuff for which, here in Italy, he wouldn't even have muttered. Since 1980, 5 major reforms of the Italian pension system have passed, which have profoundly changed and restructured it. Making it, by the way, less tenable, when, in words, the intention was the opposite. The French protests see young people at the forefront, while here in Italy young people protest against pensions and – a natural evolution – against any form of widespread well-being.
3. The government had to avoid passage in the National Assembly because MPs were afraid – and not of the markets .
4. French unions are no better than Italian ones. But in France demonstrations are held the same. And the police are not joking.
My hypothesis: if you are richer you have more to lose and therefore you protest more (1) even if the environment doesn't want you to do so (4) but there is more widespread awareness (2). And if the other party can suffer damage (3) he is more willing to negotiate.
*excluding expenses for mortgages or rents
Published by Valerio Santoro on Goofynomics on 15 May 2023, 10:49 am
It's my fault.
Under my posts, as under the advertisements in which certain cars perform reckless performances, I should be careful to write: don't try this at home ! Yes, because especially after I had the great honor of becoming your representative (and therefore of joining that criminal association known as #aaaaabolidiga), the newcomers ignore, and the pre-existing ones have forgotten, that you are at home here of a professional. Someone who has his h-index , nothing stellar, but higher than many " egonomists " who inflict on you on TV, someone who, perhaps you've forgotten, worked in France, then shopped in their supermarkets , frequented their homes, especially the homes of those of them who are comfortable because they are (college) elite.
So I don't understand all this frenzy of demonstrating to me, and moreover using a particularly deranged version of micuggino which is Numbeo, that "the French are richer than us, they earn more than us", to me who know the data and I've been going to them for a living since you lived serene and carefree, because you hadn't yet understood that first the economy, and then, much later, the pin prick, would take care of you. I don't understand it, but it's my fault: evidently I failed as a prophet of stalking: I practice it, but I can't, with my example, get others to do it. Worse for the others: I am in my place so much, the others will be put back in their place by the force of events, and in the meantime let's try to understand what is happening and what I am trying to explain to you (those who understand it can skip explanation).
I'm trying to explain this to you:
And please don't come and explain to me why the French are pissed now, reasoning on the basis of the last front page of the Republic. The French got pissed five years ago about the increase in fuel taxes and more generally for protesting the high cost of living: a picture much more consistent with the slowdown in the consumption curve exactly in that period than with the rantings of numbeo mycuggine. Of course now they are not pleased that their retirement age is growing! Of course their unions are not as yellow as ours! But this is a drop that falls into a vase that has already overflowed, even if you apparently didn't notice it (but here too it's my fault: I told you six years in advance and you forgot).
French families consume a lower and decreasing percentage of their GDP than Italians:
If you tell me that their GDP is higher than ours and that this gap has increased over time:
with a gap that went from 3.4% in 2011 to 6.2% in 2022 (nothing amateurishly stated by the good Valerio and the funny Marco, by the way), thank you (here there was austerity, there no), also because you reinforce my point: why should those who earn more consume less (we have seen volumes in this post : a smaller percentage of a greater volume can obviously be a greater volume, but as you will remember the volume of French consumption is rapidly approaching that of Italian consumption).
It can be argued (that is, it could be argued, if there were a minimum of that refinement that we have lavished for years, reaping numbeo in return) on the fact that GDP is a less accurate measure of household spending capacity than disposable income. Here it is, on a purchasing power parity basis:
Austerity has widened the gap, but… we are not 43% down.
After that, since you are better economists than me, I do not exclude that you can tell me that the French took to the streets in 2018 because their rational expectations indicated that their pensions would be reformed in 2023. Mine indicated it to me in 2012 , but theirs, I can guarantee you, won't even indicate it in 2052!
Even on the idea that #aaaaabolidiga is scared of "the people" I would have a lot to say, but I think I've already said it (this too).
Here there is one point, and only one: when we play on equal terms, i.e. without "the rules", we do better than the others, and it takes much less for others to freak out than for us, because it is not true that they are sidelier than us .
It would be enough to know.
But it is clear that the representatives of a people who do not want to understand their own potential, if they want to be truly representative, must themselves first ignore these potential.
And since we are in a democracy, I give up!
(… good night!… )
This is a machine translation of a post (in Italian) written by Alberto Bagnai and published on Goofynomics at the URL https://goofynomics.blogspot.com/2023/05/la-francia-i-consumi-e-micuggino.html on Wed, 17 May 2023 21:08:00 +0000. Some rights reserved under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license.