The left wing (2/2)

ALLEGED COLLUSION BETWEEN FORMER PRESIDENT NICOLAS SARKOZY AND OPULENT MME BETTENCOURT
1. What exactly is Nicolas Sarkozy being accused of? We need to identify the ABUSE, if there is any. Basically, he’s accused of having benefited from the billionaire’s largesse to the tune of 150,000 Euros. This person’s assets are estimated to be worth 15 billion Euros, which would make the gift of 150,000 / 15 000 000 000 = 10e-6. To put this into perspective: an executive who earns 100,000 Euros/year and whose assets amount to 1 million Euros would have given 1e6 * 10e-6 = 10 Euros for his chosen candidate’s campaign, WHICH IS NEITHER DISHONEST NOR DISCREDITABLE FOR EITHER PARTY (in fact, rather stingy!). If I remember correctly, my annual subscription to the Socialist Party costs 70 Euros, and I’m not complaining.
2. In a capitalist democracy, we have the free choice of making use of our own fortune as we please, in a reasonable fashion, without any excesses or despoliation. OUR CONSTITUTION GUARANTEES THAT FRANCE IN THE 2000’s IS NOT A COMMUNIST COUNTRY.

3. Who benefits from implicating the former President of the Republic? His competitors, obviously. François Hollande himself, directly? No, I think he’s too honest and ethical for this sort of thing – and I’ve been listening to him for a long time. Henchmen in the Socialist Party? Yes, perhaps … Why not Jean-François Copé himself, in-house competitor on the right of Nicolas Sarkozy, who was smiling broadly about the charge against Sarkozy this morning on the 7.45 a.m. France2 television news programme? (now, this ought to be checked, confirmed, and then, if true, acted upon!)
4. This sad business is conducted through the judicial system, which, once more, brings discredit upon itself by lending credence to nauseating accusations and, as is common nowadays, will let the situation deteriorate by dragging it on while smearing the accused and ruining his career, if not his private life. Surely, France deserves better, Your Honor!

MANAGEMENT’S AND WORKERS’ INTERESTS GO HAND IN HAND
Here is my message to trade unionists/ managers/ executives/ workers. Essentially, the interests of shareholders, managers, executives, and workers go hand in hand, at least up to a point.
• Managers need their business to run smoothly.
• Executives need to have satisfied bosses on the one hand, and subordinates who do their job properly, on the other.
• Workers need to do their job properly so that their company thrives and they, in turn, are better paid, preferably according to a profit-sharing mechanism. From the managers’ perspective, the fixed part of salaries needs to be limited: should business slow down, the fixed charges will be too heavy and will lead to layoffs. That situation would be counterproductive to the interests of subordinates, managers, and executives: loss of in-house skills, and costs of rehiring, retraining, and recoordinating when business is better.
• Majority shareholders need to get maximum profits on the long term; hence, they seek effective worker training and stability.
• As for politicians, they also need a dense and prosperous industrial fabric across the territory. So, there’s no question of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs nor of issuing ill-considered statements that will bring about cacophony among employees and rivalry with the managers.
Consequently, I say once more that a capitalist industrial system will work optimally provided that all actors play and sustain their role.
I would strongly advise investors to invest only in companies that, as a bottom line, follow the principles enunciated above: their long-term return on investment closely depends on it.

BEING CHARGED UPON ILLEGAL EVIDENCE
Jérome Cahuzac, Budget Minister, has had to resign from the government following a judicial indictment based upon completely illegal telephone-tapping. In our democracy, the Constitution forbids judges to 1) carry out illegal investigations, and 2) accept the so-called evidence that has been illegally acquired.
Consequently, the constitutional judges need to demand the immediate repeal of the indictment procedure and to promptly rehabilitate Jérome Cahuzac. Otherwise, it means our country has NOT PROGRESSED since the days of the 1940-1944 COLLABORATION WITH THE NAZIS.
PS: Two weeks after this message, former Minister Cahuzac admitted his guilt. I am no professional lawyer, but believed that I had to defend a man I thought was innocent with all my energy. It now turns out that he was guilty. I wish for appeasement of the whole affair.

A FINE STATEMENT FROM FRANCOIS HOLLANDE, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
“We can also find enemies, targets, and seek a scapegoat. This happens in all European countries. I have found a fine sentence from ROOSEVELT, as he was confronted by another crisis, the 1929 crisis, of a different magnitude. This is what he was telling his compatriots: “What we need to fear most is fear. Even today, we need to bring hope and confidence. This is what I told the firms I met, workers and managers alike, but I say it to our fellow citizens too: A STRONG STATE IS A SIMPLE STATE; A POWERFUL STATE IS A FAST STATE; AN EFFECTIVE STATE IS A STATE THAT TRUSTS AND INSPIRES TRUST.” François Hollande, Speech in Dijon, March 12, 2013.
Download from http://www.elysee.fr
http://www.elysee.fr/chronologie/#e2883,2013-03-11,deplacement-en-cote-d-or

AN EXCELLENT ECONOMIC POLICY SPEECH FROM JEAN-MARC AYRAULT, PRIME MINISTER
Speech given at the National Assembly on March 20, 2013.
Download from http://www.gouvernement.fr
http://www.gouvernement.fr/premier-ministre/discours-de-jean-marc-ayrault-premier-ministre-reponse-a-la-motion-de-censure-de-je
A TOTALITARIAN PHENOMENON: CROSSCHECKING IN FRENCH VILLAGES
I am a witness to a phenomenon of crosschecking of the behavior of people in a village; this practice, I imagine, would affect all the world’s villages. What is the point of it? The drawbacks, lack of discretion, stifling atmosphere of loss of freedom (deprivation) are obvious.
Could sociologists help me understand this phenomenon?

IMPOSING STIFF SANCTIONS ON INCOMPETENT JUDGES
We are witnessing a serious breaking up of political life through repeated attacks from judges on current political leaders, or those likely to influence the course of things. To cap it all, a number of investigation procedures are unconstitutional, hence illegal.
I urge the highest judicial authorities and the Justice Minister to impose stiff sanctions on those incompetent judges who thus play havoc with our democracy. Is the general idea to make us believe that we’ll be happy if we do nothing and take no responsibility, make no decision on anything? This needs to be investigated.

WHY I SUPPORT THE SUCCESSIVE DEMOCRATIC FRENCH GOVERNMENTS
Indeed, I have supported right-wing and left-wing French governments the best way I could when they were going in the right direction, in the best interest of France and the French people.
Besides, in our democratic system, major elections take place every five years, which generally gives us one year to think and one month to make a decision, each according to our own conscience. What I simply will never accept is the voters’ unbelievable fickleness such that a good 50% of the votes go to one particular face and programme, but, one year later, opinion polls systematically announce only 35% of favorable opinions going to the government. So,
• either the programme that was adhered to at the time of voting was pure demagogy, totally unrealistic, and the pedagogy of a realistic programme was not attempted;
• or the French are impatient, moaners and whiners, fickle, and incapable of political thinking.
Hence, a question comes to mind: “Should we keep a popular democratic system?”, “Should we go back to some as yet undefined suffrage by census system?”

OFFERING AN ECONOMIC POLICY FROM THE CENTRE-WING
Centre-wing politics are defined through a double opposition to left- and right-wing politics. To offer a third path, the centre had better shop around and collect centre-, left-, and right-wing ideas so as to offer its own synthesis. In the political world, policies do not belong to anyone and there is no such thing as copyright; ideas are invented by counselors who are paid to do just that, but those ideas are then adopted and promoted by those political parties that identify with them.
In particular, I suggest that (both left- and right-) centre-wing politics adopt a mixed economic policy:
- rigorous budgeting: no annual budget deficit, zero debt targeting for a healthy macroeconomic environment (centrist politics), and room to maneuver in the event of a geopolitical blow (Gaullist politics, the army)
- promoting entrepreneurship to speed up growth (liberal politics, right-wing politics)
- redistributing: producing more and better (ecology) to redistribute more to the poor (left-wing politics, even catholic-oriented)

THE NECESSARY DEMOCRATIC ARBITRATION PROCESS
In politics, it is necessary to distinguish between what comes under hard science (rules established through reasoning and experiments) and what comes under human sciences (hypotheses and inferences based on fragile ground). Rules do not require arbitration; they are applied until some major event calls them into question. In contrast, contradictable reasoning comes fully under the notion of arbitration; in a democracy, arguments are the domain of specialists who try to convince the people who will make decisions directly (elections or referendum) or indirectly through the people’s representatives (House of councilors, House of decision makers, President, Prime Minister, ministers).

Here is a typical case: the economy of developed countries has been in recession for 40 years. Left-wing economists swear by Keynes (the notion that redistributing purchasing power can stimulate business in the country). Right-wing economists cling to the concept of low-risk management according to which budgets are balanced so as not to imperil the country’s future. Who’s right and who’s wrong? Both arguments, truly at opposite ends of the spectrum, are scientifically true. In a democratic state, only the people will be convinced by one argument rather than by the other, and voters will decide between one and the other perspective.

We need to go beyond the scientific debate, to settle things once and for all, so we may move on to public arbitration of other aspects of politics. 40 years of public debate have not seen the riddle solved. In fact, Keynesian Stop and Go principles worked in the 1950s and 1960s in England (Beveridge). The left wing tried to apply them in France in the 1980s and 1990s, but only the easy half of the economic policy was carried out, namely the stimulus when at the bottom of the economic cycle (Go phase). The difficult phase of the theory (Stop phase) was never carried out, namely the savings in the expansion times of the cycle, savings that are needed to pay debts and save for future bad times. In these conditions, I strongly suggest abandoning Keynesian policies in France, at least in the current situation and given the lack of economic virtue from both the elites and our fellow citizens. Instead, I advocate rigorous budget balancing, which means we don’t have to speculate on a possible recovery nor gamble on our limited financial virtue; in addition, this will encourage adaptive strategies from all economic stakeholders (companies, workers, shareholders, the State), which, in turn, will enable a strong economic recovery when the characteristics of the top (peak) of the cycle are met.