Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- At 4 a.m. on Sept. 30, as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was shaking up investors on six continents, President Nicolas Sarkozy convened an emergency meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris to broker the bailout of French-Belgian bank Dexia SA. For an hour, he grilled Finance Minister Christine Lagarde and Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer on the terms of the 6.4 billion euro rescue plan, says François Perol, Sarkozy's economic adviser. One of his top requirements: Dexia Chief Executive Officer Axel Miller must leave and forfeit his 3.7 million euro severance paycheck. With that gesture, Sarkozy, who took office pledging to instill a work-hard, get-rich ethos in a country known for its disdain for money, turned into something more familiar to the French: a politician who intervenes in private companies, subsidizes jobs and bashes the bosses. "By conveying the message that the state can do better than free markets, Nicolas Sarkozy is appealing to the French's old instinct for protection," says Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis Asset Management in Paris. "He seems to be turning his back on his reformist agenda meant to give the French economy more inner resilience."
Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- At 4 a.m. on Sept. 30, as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was shaking up investors on six continents, President Nicolas Sarkozy convened an emergency meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris to broker the bailout of French-Belgian bank Dexia SA. For an hour, he grilled Finance Minister Christine Lagarde and Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer on the terms of the 6.4 billion euro rescue plan, says François Perol, Sarkozy's economic adviser.
One of his top requirements: Dexia Chief Executive Officer Axel Miller must leave and forfeit his 3.7 million euro severance paycheck.
With that gesture, Sarkozy, who took office pledging to instill a work-hard, get-rich ethos in a country known for its disdain for money, turned into something more familiar to the French: a politician who intervenes in private companies, subsidizes jobs and bashes the bosses.
"By conveying the message that the state can do better than free markets, Nicolas Sarkozy is appealing to the French's old instinct for protection," says Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis Asset Management in Paris. "He seems to be turning his back on his reformist agenda meant to give the French economy more inner resilience."
One of (Sarkozy's) top requirements: Dexia Chief Executive Officer Axel Miller must leave and forfeit his 3.7 million euro severance paycheck.
says Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Natixis Asset Management in Paris. "He seems to be turning his back on his reformist agenda meant to give the French economy more inner resilience."
http://dutron.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/en-pleine-crise-financiere-petits-arrangements-entre-amis-sar kosy-yves-leterme-caisse-des-depots-dexia-aux-frais-de-la-princesse-marianne/
http://www.lexpansion.com/economie/actualite-economique/les-deux-francais-qui-ont-eu-la-tete-du-patr on-de-dexia_164832.html?xtor=RSS-123
http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/economie/comment-l-elysee-a-pris-le-pouvoir-chez-dexia_586623.html? p=3 In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
It is appalling that Google Translate cannot even properly handle the ne xxxx pas construction of French. Is it entirely vocabulary based? As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Is Bloomberg suggesting that the tax payers subsidize Mr Miller's severance paycheck, as a reward for having put the bank in such a fine situation that it desperately required government funded bailout?
You'll have to admire the chutzpah...
When you're falling off a cliff and someone throws you a rope, you are not exactly in a situation to make demands and complain about your rescuer butting into your business, now are you? Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
In the real world, at least in continental Europe, the conservative mantra is that the poor get too much, relative poverty isn't real, and that work has to pay again. The notion that wealth rightly confers privilege is, lets say... underdeveloped.
Funny part: the authors appear to be French; they sure have mastered the fine art of Economist/FT/WSJ speech... Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Frank Delaney ~ Ireland
