New Year’s Eve is the main event: 1,193 vehicles were set on fire. But it’s a year-round passion, with over 40,000 vehicles going up in smoke. A tradition no one has the balls to explain. In a country whose unemployment is climbing with incessant brutality, and whose automakers are bogged down with uncompetitive products in a morose market. But there’s an industry that is booming. The lottery.
Europe
Blowing Up: The Transfer Of French Nuclear Technology To China
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Blowing Up: The Transfer Of French Nuclear Technology To China
Technology transfers, whether on a contractual basis or through theft, have long bedeviled companies that want to benefit from China’s cheap labor and 1.3 billion consumers. Automakers, aerospace companies, technology outfits…. it’s the price they have to pay. But when it seeped out that the largely state-owned nuclear industry in France was trying to sell its secrets to China to make a deal, oh là là!
French Artists (Théâtre Royal de Luxe) Strike Out Against Evil American Empire (Coca-Cola)
by Contributor • • Comments Off on French Artists (Théâtre Royal de Luxe) Strike Out Against Evil American Empire (Coca-Cola)
Théâtre Royal de Luxe, a street-theater company in France, decided to sue an evil American multinational giant, or so it seems. But there are complications: Royal de Luxe is at the confluence of political connections, government subsidies, Coca-Cola commercialism, perhaps even world domination—and certainly, awesome art.
“Trench Warfare” Or “Civil War” Over Confiscatory Taxes In France
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on “Trench Warfare” Or “Civil War” Over Confiscatory Taxes In France
“We’re engaging in trench warfare,” proclaimed Alain Afflelou, head honcho and founder of an eyewear company with 1,200 stores in France and other countries. He was talking about the tax fiasco that split France in two. He was done with his country. He’s moving to London. One of France’s so-called fiscal exiles. And now there are “unprecedented waves” of them.
The EU Bailout Oligarchy Issues A Report About Itself
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The EU Bailout Oligarchy Issues A Report About Itself
On Friday before Christmas when nobody was paying attention, when people were elbowing their way through department stores or heading out for vacation, the European Commission issued its report on bank bailouts in the European Union—a dry document with mind-boggling numbers that left out the most important fact.
A Revolt Against Corporate Welfare Programs For Multinationals In France
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on A Revolt Against Corporate Welfare Programs For Multinationals In France
“Paradox” is what the New York Times called France’s ability to attract more foreign investment than any country other than China and the US. A paradox because it shouldn’t. Investors should be scared off by labor laws, tax rates, the cost of labor, and mud-wrestling bouts over nationalizing some industrial plants. But turns out, multinational corporations pay practically no income taxes in France. And it has reached the boiling point.
The Price Of “Collective Trauma”: Greece At The Brink of Civil War
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on The Price Of “Collective Trauma”: Greece At The Brink of Civil War
“I’m wondering how much this society can endure before it explodes,” said Georg Pieper, a German psychotherapist who specializes in treating post-traumatic stress disorders following catastrophes, large accidents (including the deadliest train wreck ever in Germany), acts of violence, freed hostages…. But now he was talking about Greece.
Germany’s Favorite Rabble-Rouser Economist Lashes Out
by Wolf Richter • • 2 Comments
Hans-Werner Sinn, President of the German Ifo Institute and a thorn in the side of bailout politicians and eurocrats: The longer you delay the needed “radical measures,” the more banks and other private investors will be able to sell “their toxic paper without haircut to governmental bailout funds, and then hightail.” Taxpayers, retirees, and savers “in sound countries” will pay the price.
Sweden’s Euro Hostility Hits A Record
by Wolf Richter • • 3 Comments
As the Eurozone flails about to keep its chin above the debt crisis that is drowning periphery countries, and as the European Union struggles to duct-tape itself together with more “integration,” that is governance by unelected transnational eurocrats, Sweden is having second thoughts: never before has there been such hostility toward the euro.