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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Taro who wrote (265790)	12/26/2005 5:37:17 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578006

Re: (What really happened: The dollar surged 14% against the Japanese yen and 13% against the euro from the start of the year through mid-December.) Indeed, and I'm afraid we haven't seen nothing yet... France (the EU's second biggest economy) is currently abuzz with talks about her snowballing debt --not good for the euro: FRANCE MUST REFORM TO TACKLE "WORRYING" DEBT: OFFICIAL REPORT Received Wednesday, 14 December 2005 13:49:00 GMT PARIS, Dec 14 (AFP) - French public finances are in a "worrying" state and the government must put them in order, continue pension reform, stabilise spending and consider slimming down the civil service, an official report said on Wednesday. The report said that France was "the European country where the ratio of the public debt has increased the most in the last 10 years" and where reduction of the debt had "practically never been a priority aim". The review was prepared by Michel Pebereau, the chairman of French bank BNP Paribas, who had been charged by French Finance Minister Thierry Breton to look at ways of dealing with a growing problem of public debt. Pebereau stressed that "a large part of the increase in debt" had been the result of day-to-day expenditure by successive governments, rather than of long-term investment. In a list of suggestions, the report stressed that France should get a grip on its public finances by containing spending for the next five years, continue to reform pensions to balance the system by 2020, and also overhaul its sickness and unemployment benefits system. Spending by local authorities should be held steady and the report also suggested that the number of French ministries and civil servants should be reduced. Government receipts from the sale of state-owned companies should be used entirely to reduce the national debt or to top up government pension funds. Strains in French public finances, and broader endemic weaknesses in the economy, led the then finance minister and a leading candidate to be the next French president Nicolas Sarkozy, to commission last year a study by the former head of the International Monetary Fund, Michel Camdessus. This study also found that action on overspending was a priority. In October the centre-right government announced measures to tighten management of public spending. Meanwhile, France is under constant pressure from the European Commission to reduce its debt and annual public deficit to respect rules under the Stability and Growth Pact which underpins the euro. The ratio of national debt to gross domestic product in France, the most common measurement of public debt, is about 66.0 percent. EU rules say that debt should not exceed 60.0 percent or should be falling structurally and continuously towards this ratio. French national debt is estimated at 1,100 billion euros (1,322 billion dollars), but other commitments, notably pension payments for civil servants, are an additional 400-1,000 billion euros. 66.249.93.104