You've come a long way, Baba!

[muckefuck]

So can someone explain to me why Turkey was successful where France, Italy, and Greece have been been failing miserably and Germany is making at best mediocre progress? And while the French government worked to prevent the Italians from buying out a utility company and has vociferously opposed a takeover that doesn't even involve a French company, the goddamn National Bank of Greece buys a Turkish bank outright and there's not even a whimper of protest? Am I the only one who finds it ironic that an Islamist party is displaying more liberal economic credentials than mainstream European conservative administrations?

If that's the effect joining the EU has on your economic policy, perhaps the Turks would be better off staying out of it.

Comments

Ipso Facto

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

EU = Statism.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

So what's Britain doing in it?

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Labor was in power at the time the treaties were signed. The debate between going deeper into the EU vs withdrawing from same has divided English politics ever since. Notice they didn't join the euro-zone?

[bunj.livejournal.com]

And while the French government... has vociferously opposed a takeover that doesn't even involve a French company, the goddamn National Bank of Greece buys a Turkish bank outright and there's not even a whimper of protest?

If the takeover you're referring to is Arcelor, remember that the French state has a big stake in the company, and it has a big presence in France, despite being headquartered in the Netherlands. In the micromanaging world of French economics, that's enough.

With the Turkish bank: acording to the article, they don't have a majority stake yet, and any takeover will wait until the second half of the year. We'll see if there's any hue and cry then.

To address your larger question: Turkey is doing better than France economically (or at least trending upwards where France is trending downwards). You can get away with a lot if the economy is doing well (and you don't have powerful unions).

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

AFAICT, the French government doesn't have any stake in Arcelor. 85% of its shares belong to individual investors. The largest single shareholder is the government of Luxembourg, and they have only a 5.9% stake.

It does employ 30,000 people in France, but so what? McDonalds employs 50,000 and yet the state can't even be bothered to protect their franchises from being ransacked in broad daylight.

[lifeandstuff.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree. France is messed up and has serious issues. I mean, not compared to say, Sudan, but they really need to get their act together. They are highly protectionistic in a way that is likely to hurt them long term and has them treating other countries quite unfairly.


Just because I like numbers even when they are just polls (LOL), I recently ran across this quote:
"In another startling poll, however, whereas 71% of Americans, 66% of the British and 65% of Germans agreed that the free market was the best system available, the number in France was just 36%. The French seem to be uniquely hostile to the capitalist system that has made them the world's fifth richest country and generated so many first-rate French companies."