Pave: Neat French Trick, I

Le jour 215 de Sarko

Here is a neat trick.

Let's say you oversee a trillion-plus economy (€1.318 trillion | USD $1.902 trillion). But your economy is slowed, strangled, by supranational compliance, an external monetary policy, record trade deficits (and here and here), over-regulation (and here), onerous taxes, endless strikes (and here and here), structural unemployment (and here and here and here), social services (and here), low birth rates and ballooning retirements, emigration (and here), immigration (and here and here), social unrest (and here and here and here and here and here), and an unshakeable gloom (and here and here and here and here).

A percentage point of growth will require €13,180,000,000 net. You forecast 2% (€26,360,000,000) to 2.5% (€32,950,000,000) -- or exhuberantly, 3% (€39,540,000,000) -- growth for your harried economy. For years the economy struggles to make the low-cast, and, of course, your only hope is to make the low-cast, but in all your press releases and soundbites projected growth is presented as a low-to-high range.

The difference between the low-cast and the high-cast (2.5%) is 125%, between the low-cast and the fabulous high-cast (3%) 150%. So although you will be lucky to make your low-cast, you can chat up the economy -- you create the impression -- as if the high-cast were in play. That's a 125%-150% perceptual beep-up in growth without an actual whit of growth.

Neat trick.

For example:

FRENCH GROWTH FALLS SHORT,
ADDING PRESSURE ON SARKOZY

PARIS, May 15, 2007 (AFP) - French first-quarter growth fell short of government expectations, official data showed on Tuesday, adding pressure on President-elect Nicolas Sarkozy to make good on a pledge to shock the economy into a faster track. ... Finance Minister Thierry Breton, a day after Sarkozy's election victory, declared that economic momentum had picked up and that growth in annual terms was projected to be 2.5-3.0 percent this year.

PRIME MINISTER SETS 3.0-PERCENT GROWTH TARGET

PARIS May 23, 2007 (AFP) - French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said on Wednesday his government aimed to boost French growth to 3.0 percent using tax reforms to "shock" the economy into a faster track. ... Fillon said the annual growth prediction used in the 2007 French budget, of between 2.25- and 2.5-percent of gross domestic product (GDP), was "not good compared to the average in other major countries.

FRENCH ECONOMY MINISTER UPBEAT ON GROWTH

PARIS October 16, 2007 (AFP) - French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde expects economic growth this year to be better than expected by most economists thanks to a "solid" third quarter. ... "I have no reason to doubt" that the French economy will expand by between 2.0-2.5 percent in 2007, although it would be "at the bottom end of this range," Lagarde said in an interview in Le Figaro to be published on Tuesday.

Earlier this month the French statistics institute INSEE cut its forecast for 2007 growth to 1.8 percent from 2.1 percent but the government has stuck to its 2.0-2.5 percent estimate.

When it becomes apparent that the high-cast is nowhere in sight -- NO PROBLEMO! Simply assert the low-cast or shift to next year's forecast.

Here's one example:

FINANCE MINISTER SHRUGS OFF Q3'S BAD NEWS

PARIS November 23, 2006 (AFP) - French Economy and Finance Minister Thierry Breton maintained his economic growth targets for the year on Thursday and forecast a fourth-quarter rebound after momentum slowed to zero in the third. ... M. Breton:

After just three quarters we are already in the lower end of the planned range.

Here's another:

FRANCE'S LAGARDE - DOING ALL
TO KEEP GROWTH FORECAST

PARIS December 3, 2007 (Guardian/Reuters) - President Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right government is forecasting growth of between 2.0 and 2.5 percent this year. ... Economy Minister Christine Lagarde:

As growth is concerned, we have kept (a forecast of) 2 percent. We are doing everything needed for this to be met. And I think the numbers prove this to us today.

FILLON SEES 1.9% GROWTH FOR 2007

PARIS December 10, 2007 (FT) - France is on course to achieve economic growth of 1.9 per cent during 2007, only a shade below the 2 per cent predicted by the government, François Fillon, prime minister, told Les Echos, the FT's French partner paper.

FRANCE'S LAGARDE CONFIRMS
2008 GROWTH FORECAST OF 2.0-2.5 PCT
PARIS December 12, 2007 (Forbes/AFX/Thomson Financial)

FRENCH BUDGET MINISTER REAFFIRMS
2-2.5 PCT GDP GROWTH TARGET FOR 2008

PARIS December 17, 2007 (Forbes/AFX/Thomson Financial) - '0.5 or 0.6 pct (growth) in the coming quarters will be enough to meet 2.25 pct (growth in 2008), so it's by no means impossible for France,' [French budget minister Eric Woerth] said in a joint interview with RTL radio, news channel LCI and daily Le Figaro.

Woerth said 'there is no reason' to cut the growth forecast, a move which 'would give an extremely unpleasant and negative signal for the economy.'

Pretty neat, huh? [Pause.] Everything always doubleplusgood in France.

PFFT (What is this?): France, reporting tomorrow's good news today 3 | Neat French trick 2½ | Rayonnement français 0

Posted by Damian at December 16, 2007 07:00 PM