If we calculate the average labour productivity by dividing the GDP (the Gross Domestic Product, that is the total value of goods and services produced in a country in one year) by the total number of hours worked (by both salaried and non-salaried employees), we then find that France is at practically the same level as the United States and Germany, with an average productivity of approximately 55 Euros per hour worked in 2015, or more than 25% higher than the United Kingdom or Italy (roughly 42 Euros) and almost three times higher than in 1970 (less than the equivalent of 20 Euros in 2015; all figures are expressed in purchasing power parity and in 2015 Euros, that is after taking into account inflation and price levels in the different countries)
Assassination, Truck Attack Point to Unpredictability Facing Trump
President-elect’s initial responses suggest his White House will take a sharply different approach to unexpected crises
Mr. Trump’s written statements just hours after the incidents were a notable contrast from those coming out of the Obama White House.
He labeled the assassin in Ankara a “radical Islamic terrorist,” even though Turkish authorities hadn’t yet drawn conclusions about the gunmen’s possible affiliations or motivations, whereas the White House simply stressed President Barack Obama’s “determination to confront terrorism.”
.. “With Obama you get thoughtfulness, but you don’t get any decisiveness. You don’t get any anger. You don’t get any passion. And I think people need a little bit of that,” Mr. Jeffrey said.
The Frankfurt School Knew Trump was Coming
In 1950, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno helped to assemble a volume titled “The Authoritarian Personality,” which constructed a psychological and sociological profile of the “potentially fascistic individual.”
.. The combination of economic inequality and pop-cultural frivolity is precisely the scenario Adorno and others had in mind: mass distraction masking élite domination.
.. A defining moment was the turn-of-the-century wave of music piracy, which did lasting damage to the idea of intellectual property. Fake news is an extension of the same phenomenon, and, as in the Napster era, no one is taking responsibility. Traffic trumps ethics.
.. At some point over the summer, it struck me that the greater part of the media wanted Trump to be elected, consciously or unconsciously. He would be more “interesting” than Hillary Clinton; he would “pop.” That suspicion was confirmed the other day when a CNN executive, boasting of his network’s billion-dollar profit in 2016, spoke of “a general fascination that wouldn’t be the same as under a Clinton Administration.”
.. America has, for the time being, abdicated the role of the world’s moral leader
.. “Make America Great Again” is one of Trump’s many linguistic contortions: in fact, one of his core messages is that America should no longer bother with being great, that it should retreat from international commitments, that it should make itself small and mean.
.. On the day after the American election, which happened to be the seventy-eighth anniversary of Kristallnacht, a neo-Nazi group posted a map of Jewish businesses in Berlin, titled “Jews Among Us.” Facebook initially refused to take down the post, but an outcry in the media and among lawmakers prompted its deletion.
..
No, the fear is that the present antidemocratic wave may prove too strong even for Germany—the only country in the history of the world that ever learned from its mistakes.
Italy Just Handed the Global Economy Another Giant Variable
Even that possibility threatens Europe with trouble. If investors worry that Italy may leave the euro, they will demand greater rewards for continued lending. Those with the greatest debt burdens — Greece, Spain and Portugal — could see their borrowing costs rise beyond their ability to pay.
.. For now, such grim scenarios appear remote. The referendum maintains the power of the Italian legislature’s upper chamber, a potent check on the Five Star Movement, or any government pursuing radical change.
.. The consensus is that Italy can patch immediate holes in the banking system. But the referendum has destroyed what momentum existed to address the condition that is both cause and effect of the banking problem — a dire lack of economic growth.
Italy’s banks are stuffed with uncollectable debts in part because the country’s economy is smaller than it was a decade ago. Bad loans on bank balance sheets reflect that millions of people have lost jobs, eliminating spending power, while companies have seen sales evaporate.
.. Voters clearly did not trust Mr. Renzi to wield greater power. Now, they will be represented by someone with less power where it matters a great deal: Brussels and Berlin.
.. Brussels and Berlin argue, such countries must deliver so-called structural reforms, stripping away labor protections and trimming pension benefits.
.. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble effectively threatened to banish Greece from the euro if Athens did not deliver on reforms it promised as a condition of successive European bailouts.
.. Mr. Renzi was a rare leader who carried credibility in such quarters. He gained modest relief from European spending strictures in part by pointing at his reforms.
“Renzi is the only leader in recent history who has advanced a structural reform agenda,” said Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy.