Archives Jan. 1, 2019

The level of public debt and its costs for the State budget have been used in France as a scarecrow by politicians for about ten years. These threats were held up when tax increases or expenditures reductions had to be voted. Everything has changed these last days. As a miracle, Bercy has admitted that the cost of the debt was going to fall. It will allow financing the new expenditures or the receipts reductions generated by the measures announced by the President of the Republic in December right in the middle of the “gilets jaunes” crisis. They had been evaluated ...

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China is still the object of critical analysis and pessimistic forecasts. The country is used as an excuse, if not an alibi, about the slowing of the world growth. But its last results are not confirming these negative judgments. If 2018 growth rate has been very slightly weaker than during 2017, it is still inside, with 6.6%, the objective determined by the government, i.e. between 6.5 and 7%. It is possible to say that it is the weakest number for a long period but that doesn’t make sense. The size of the Chinese economy is two ...

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French people have a very particular relationship with taxes. They always think they pay too much ones and especially that their neighbor doesn’t pay enough ones. In the same time, they ask for better public services and a large and fair social protection. When they are shown that their country has a level of compulsory levies among the highest in the world, that doesn’t dissuade them to ask for more, to the condition it is “the neighbor” who pays. And when, in presence of the accumulation of deficits and the public debt increase, it is suggested to reduce ...

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