The French presidential election: Going blank

PARIS

Facing off for the top prize

So, here we are, just a few days' away from the runoff election that will decide who will be the most powerful man in the Western world. Yes, I mean it: the French president has more powers than his American counterpart who has to deal with Congress, a more often-than-not independent judiciary and a highly decentralized country where most decisions affecting people's lives are made by mayors or governors rather than by the Federal government. And other European leaders tend to be heads of government, sharing power with a head of state (elected or hereditary, depending on the case). As one of the major candidates reminded the nation in his campaign (see below), we live under a presidential monarchic who, apart from being elected, maintains most of the power and trappings of the "kings who built France," as the phrase goes (Les rois qui ont fait la France).

And, for once, the finalists are as different as can be, with two radically different views of what ails France and how the country should be run. After many decades of pretending otherwise, voters have finally realized that there is no difference between the mainstream parties and gave the Socialists and their partner-in-crime the Gaullists what Churchill called "the order of the boot". Something I have been calling for in as far back as 2011, when I wrote in a post subtitled "Democracy 2.0" that throughout the Western world whether you pick Party A or Party B makes no difference. They are just the two faces of the same coin, the establishment party. Or, to quote my beloved Gore Vidal, they are just the two wings of the single party.

Let me give you my two cents on the four candidates who made this campaign by being within a whisker of each other in both polls and actual election results, before I share with you my vote - and why.

François Fillon, a.k.a The Crook, had what was  undoubtedly the best program, and it certainly wasn't the most popular one as it offered the French some belt-tightening ahead. The only issue with it, were actually two, both related to how credible its plan is: First, when Fillon was in charge for five years, why didn't he implement  it? What guarantees do we have that once in charge he will deliver on his promises? Remember that when a private business makes false claims on its products, it can be penalized and fined; not so with politicians, who can promise you the moon and the stars and, once elected, do the opposite and still keep their seat. Second, the little credibility Fillon had disappeared with the financial scandal he got engulfed in. French voters can tell a liar and crook when they see one, and rewarded his campaign with the dubious distinction of  being the one which, in a 60-year period of time, managed to get a Conservative candidate disqualified for the runoff. If there is a dustbin of history for politicians, Fillon is heading straight for it.

The Gang of Four that made history

Marine Le Pen, a.k.a. The Loony or The Fruitcake (have your pick), has the silliest of all manifestos, basically based on hatred: of Arabs, Muslims, immigrants, Europe, the euro. Anything that can be offered to the people's anger as the source of their miseries, you'll find it in Ms Le Pen's bag. French politicians have been doing this for centuries: It used to be the Jews (in the Middle Ages) and Huguenots (in the 16th and 17th centuries). Nihil novi sub sole, as ancient Romans used to say (in their times, Christians were the scapegoats - food for thought.) Her success resides only on two facts: Her denunciation of the elite's abject failure in running the country (which hardly anybody can dispute) and that, having never been elected to office, she can claim the benefit of the doubt. Apart from that, her program of Fortress France does not make any sense at all.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a.k.a. The Commie (or Bolshie.) His sharp tongue, quick wit, consistent philosophy, grasp of details, brilliant, inventive campaign (those videos, holograms and the cruise on the Ile-de-France canals!) made him my favorite. He is the only one of all candidates, who realized that the corrupt leaders we got and their ineffective policies couldn't be separated from the sick political system we have. I fully agree with his calls for revamped political institutions, which he calls the 6th Republic, and many of its tenets such as the ability to recall all politicians. Is it normal that we  have to put up with a deeply unpopular and incompetent president as Hollande for so long? Is it normal that neither you and  I can decide on our compensation or rules governing most of our career, but politicians can? Is it normal that when we commit a felony or crime we go to court (and jail if found guilty) like everybody else, but not politicians who have their own court (Cour de justice de la  République) who rarely finds politicians guilty: and small wonder - its membership is largely made up of...fellow politicians! And even when they do find them guilty, they make the bizarre ruling that no punishment should be meted as we saw with the recent Christine Lagarde trial. Mélenchon is right to say that the system is rotten at the core and propose to do something about it, beyond the mere superficial slaps on the wrist for wayward politicians. I also fully support his call to move to real environmentally friendly policies, not the vague lip service most other politicians adopt.

However, on the economic front, I deeply disagree with Mélenchon. We already have the highest tax burden of the developed group of nations. If that could have translated in higher growth and more employment, we would have seen it. And I feel very uncomfortable with his anti-"rich" rhetoric. What is wrong with being rich, if you've earned it through your hard work - or inherited it? Unless the rich have gotten there through fraud and murder, confiscating their wealth strikes me as deeply unfair and demotivating for society at large.

Emmanuel Macron, a.k.a The Dapper (or the Charmer). Let's give credit where credit is due: His is the most amazing political career France has ever seen, and few countries can boast a novice with no experience of running a campaign, no party, no funds, coming from nowhere and about to win the ultimate prize. For sheer audacity, vision, and management skill, one has to acknowledge his amazing talents and wonder what he could do for the country if he continued to evince the same skills once in office. For a while, he was my favorite. Even when I couldn't completely shake off a feeling that he may just be a manipulator, who saw an opportunity and seized it. (Even then, still a brilliant one.) However, as  I shared several times with my old friend, C.T.H., a member of his campaign team, as soon as Macron put meat on the bone of his program, that's when he lost me. Freeing 80% of French households of the Taxe d'habitation (a kind of property tax) is typical of the worst of the French political-administrative establishment. First of all, that's a local tax, so what is he doing, apart from being generous with other people's money? And then, the lucky ones aren't exactly exempt from this tax, it's the central government that pays it to cities and towns on  their behalf, but should the rate go up, then you will still be liable for it. Again, what's the point  of putting in place such a complicated scheme when the objective, increasing people's purchasing power, could be done via levers the central government controls such as VAT, income rebates or credits. A bad idea, to be jettisoned immediately, as the idea to increase the CSG-based social security taxes, another tax created in the 1990s: then with a 1.1% rate, it currently stands at 15;5% and he wants to increase it? Wasn't he supposed to be a liberal (in the European sense?) As for his non-reform of the net-worth tax (ISF), it is absurd to remove most assets from it, except the one that affects most people who don't make money out of it: homeowners.

Worse, unlike Mélenchon, he seems to be very happy to keep the political system as it  is. Maybe just tinker a little bit here and there ("moralisation de la vie publique"), but over all, let's not rock the boat. Which rekindles my suspicion that Macron may just be all PR and marketing, all fluff, with some Conservative economic policies, some left-wing social policies,  all repackaged by a nice smile and endearing family life. But still a politician bent on grabbing power. And his will to rule by decree is alarming - this is the "presidential monarch" Mélenchon is right to denounce.

Le protest vote

Based on this, I just can't bring myself to vote for Macron. And I won't cast a negative vote: voting for him, to block the Loony. Since neither of the two has managed to convince me, then I'm voting blank. I do hope that Macron will prove my concerns wrong, and manage to fix some of the country's most serious issues. If  he does, then in five years' time, I will be more than glad to vote for him. As for Blondie, I do hope that they commit her either to an institution or behind bars: either way we'll be free of that nightmare. Until 2022 when, should Macron fail, then the National Front could finally grab the elusive prize it has been after for several decades. After all, that's a French political tradition: Fight long enough, and you end up in the Elysée Palace.

Terror strikes my hometown and neighborhood - AGAIN

PARIS

My second city's tribute to my
hometown

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, for a global city to be hit by a terror attack once a year can be considered a misfortune; to be hit twice smacks of gross negligence. Add to that that my neighborhood is the only one with the dubious honor of having been targeted twice makes me wonder if time hasn't come for me to move permanently to my second home, Rio de Janeiro. Now, that would be the mother of all ironies: seeking refuge from terror in a city well-known for random violence.

But we live in troubled times where what made sense for so long suddenly doesn't. Here is a short summary of the last 48 hours.

As (bad) luck would have it, as in the dreadful events last January (which I recounted in this post ) I was at home on Friday evening, relaxing from a long week of SAP-to-Workday workshops at French pharma giant Sanofi, when I heard the ear-splitting sound of sirens. At the beginning I didn't pay much attention, but after a while it suddenly hit me that the blaring sirens had been going at it for a good fifteen minutes. A quick look at the city skyline didn't reveal any Neronian fire. An accident, maybe? Then the ominous alternative crept into my mind: another attack?

I grabbed the TV remote control and tuned into one of the 24-hour French channels. My hunch was confirmed: another series of terror attacks have hit my hometown with my neighborhood once again targeted.(Dear Mr. Terrorist, I don't mind your being bloodthirsty. But do you also have to be unfair? Would you mind spreading the victim share among all Paris districts? Next time, could you try Montorgueuil?  Or the 16th arrondissement? Why not cross the Seine and have fun in the Left Bank?)

Since the action was taking place just a few blocks away from my place, I grabbed my coat and ran out. It was around 11 pm. By then I had already received some text/Whatsapp messages from friends and family who, when apprised of my intention to go to the Bataclan concert hall, tried to dissuade me. But there was no way I was going to experience the events vicariously on a small screen when I could witness them live.

The next few hours will probably never be erased from my memory. In the cold fall night I stood and watched as the elite security squads forced their way in using their guns in deafening noise, soon to be followed by explosions as the terrorists blew themselves up. Then the sad sight of bodies being retrieved. My phone battery died but I managed to shoot (no pun intended) a couple of videos and take some pictures. I'll never forget the distraught young man whose two brothers were inside the Bataclan (where I had been many times for some popular parties) and who tried to go in but was restrained by the cops (I later heard they had both died).

Few people managed to sleep that night in the neighborhood, or in the city. The next morning I woke up early and went back to see the remains of the carnage: the sad pair of shoes of a concert goer who never suspected that his Friday fun would put an end to his life. Still-fresh blood on the pavement was a reminder of the horror that took place just a few hours ago.

Apologies for the gory details but sometimes you need to
face reality head-on

People were too shocked to engage in meaningful and rational discourse. But some questions were being asked and the government's official version challenged:

- Some claimed that many who died didn't die at the hands of the attackers but as side effect of the police action - collateral damage, they'd call it in the US (but the supine press won't tell you about it.)
- Also, how come that for the second time in a year, and even more spectacularly, terrorists were allowed to operate freely in France?
-Was this timed for the the looming key regional election where the incompetent government headed by the Clown-in-Chief; François Hollande, is expected to suffer a big defeat? (I watched him on TV and his incompetence was eerily reminiscent of Gerge W. Bush as captured in Fahrenheit 9/11: both "leaders" showing they were not up to the task)
- Should France continue to target IS (Islamic State - not Information Systems) in Syria, if IS can retaliate so easily and spectacularly in France?

A victim's scattered sad belongings:
A testimony to the horror  that took place a couple of hours ago

The media vultures were all over the place and I was flabbergasted to see their reporters interviewing basically anybody who walked up to them and served them any cock-and-bull story. A Spanish anchorwoman basically bought lock, stock and barrel what was clearly the rants of an old woman who kept on referring to the Second World War. Other reporters fed their audience the asinine comments that all of us will later lap up while watching TV. A wise neighbor told me, "The only group who knows less than reporters is the government: and the little they know, they are not telling us." Couldn't disagree with him, since the entire French political class has lost the last shreds of respect from the citizenry. They can't fix the environment, but spend billions organizing a useless COP21 jamboree whose only function is to serve as a political marketing ploy for the government (regional elections were undemocratically pushed back to help the moron masquerading as French president win a few votes with the event's reflected glory). They can't fix the economy, nor unemployment now at record levels, and even less immigration. At least we thought they could keep us safe but, as this year's events are proving, the political class is also proving to be an abject failure at security. So, why are we putting up with them much longer? Shouldn't such low performers have been discarded long ago? Beats me.

In moments like these, scared people give the impression of rallying behind the "leader" who has no idea in what direction to lead us. But deep down inside of them, most know it is hopeless.

Last night, I took the metro around 10 pm and was deeply shocked to find it empty. I was born here and have never seen an empty metro on a Saturday night. The streets were equally empty, reminding me of that Friday in the early 90s when I was living in New York City and we were told at noon to go home because of the fear the Rodney King riots from Los Angeles would spill over in Manhattan. Last night in Paris I was eerily reminded of that distant Friday when I walked from the UN building towards Grand Central Station and the greatest city on earth was deserted in anticipation of possible mayhem. But in ghost-town Paris disaster had already struck. And will strike again. No solution is in sight.

Poor Paris.

Poor France.

(Except for the Christ the Redeemer picture, all photos and videos by the blogger)

UPDATE: Nov. 26, 2015. A week ago, while browsing through press accounts I stumbled on the name of a victim ("Djamila Houd") and her place of origin (Dreux, South west of Paris). I immediately emailed Tassadit Houd, one of my oldest friends, who is from Dreux, asking her whether she was a relative. I was getting worried when I couldn't get through to Tassadit and today I finally heard from her: Djamila was indeed a relative. Her own sister! She and her family are devastated. It took them 10 days before they got to bury her. Djamila was having a quiet dinner at the sidewalk restaurant La Belle Equipe (belonging to her husband, Gregory) when she was shot twice in the back. Here's the account by the local paper. In the family picture at the funeral my friend Claire Tassadit is the second from the right. Another press report quotes my dear friend Tassadit's tribute to her sister.

IN MEMORIAM
Djamila Houd, a Muslim victim of Islamist terrorists.
She leaves behind a husband and an 8-year-old girl who
will become a "Ward of the Nation"

The pipe dream of Catalan independence

BARCELONA
 

The ugly face of intimidation
Many a balcony in Catalonia are adorned with
the would-be-independent state flag.
Strangely enough, you rarely see the Spanish flag

A frequent visitor to this vibrant Mediterranean city for two decades, it is high time I gave my two cents on the madness of Catalonia's independence project. Reading the headlines-obsessed and shallow international press I realize few people understand what is really going on.

The independence movement is led (and  fed) mainly by Artur Mas, the president (equivalent to a US governor) of Catalonia, who in countless press and TV interviews whines about the innumerable alleged sufferings Catalans have had to suffer at the hand of "Spaniards" and the profound unfairness of Scotland being allowed a referendum and not his "country" (he conveniently forgets that Scotland voted against independence, anyway.)

Well, let me set the record straight and explain in layman's terms why Catalonia's breakaway project is sheer madness, unjustified by historical,linguistic, economic, legal and political facts. 

First of all, Scotland was for centuries an independent country, recognized as such by all of Europe. Were Scotland to become independent it would just go back to what it once was; actually, throughout its long history, Scotland spent more time as an independent country than as part of the UK. Catalonia, on  the other hand, was never an independent country. At one point in time there was a small territory headed by the counts of Barcelona (hence the nickname Ciudad Condal) but it was soon part of the larger kingdom of Aragon which merged with Castile in the late 15th century to give birth  to Spain as we know it. 

Cataloonia! - Where loonies want to lead you to catastrophe

Artur Mas and his antiquated  Nationalists, who feel nothing about inventing a mythical Catalan kingdom, then proceed to rewrite history by portraying the siege of Barcelona (which took place exactly 300 years ago - Europeans have long memories) as another manifestation of the Spanish state oppressing poor Catalans. That day is now celebrated as a "national" day in Catalonia to remind Catalans of how long "Spain" has been oppressing them. Pure hogwash. Barcelona was attacked not because it was a center of Catalan culture which had to be destroyed as the official propaganda would lead you to believe, but because it took sides in the conflict between the two claimants to the Spanish throne  in what became known as The War of Spanish Succession. Any other Spanish city opposing the new king would have suffered the same fate, so it had nothing to do with being Catalan. But Catalan nationalists would stop at nothing to paint themselves as victims and create fanciful grievances. Such victimization, in which a couple of generations of Catalans have been indoctrinated through the nationalist parties' control of education, fears no ridicule: Catalonia is Spain's richest region. How can they claim with a straight face that they are oppressed by the rest of Spain? Where on God's good earth have you ever seen the poor oppressing the rich? Only in Catalonia!

Then, we have the language question. A big argument for the independence movement is that Catalonia is different from the rest of Spain because it has its own language. As arguments go this one doesn't fly very high. Switzerland has four languages (read my blog post on Switzerland ), is way smaller than Spain and yet never thought of splitting up in four countries. In addition, and this is something few people inside and outside of Spain know, a majority of Catalans (55%) have Spanish as ...their native language! Catalan is spoken as a native language by only 33% of Catalonia residents. In other terms, the Catalan language is a minority language in its own "country". If it were to break away from Spain, Catalonia would be one of the few countries on earth where the national language is a minority language. Actually, talking about alleged oppression, if anybody is being oppressed in Catalonia it is the majority Spanish speakers who are forced to live with public signs in Catalan only. Walk around Barcelona and you will see everything written in Catalan. Prick up your ears and all you will hear is Spanish. Why not bilingual signs? What's wrong?

Catalan schizophrenia:
A rare sight in Catalonia: a bilingual sign.
Usually, public notices, billboards and street
signs are in Catalan, but in Barcelona and many
other places all you hear is...Spanish!

 Finally, let's go back to the Scots example Artur Mas is so fond of, except that the Scottish referendum was agreed upon with the British government; it was in full compliance with British laws. For me who lived a year in Scotland exactly three decades ago, I can't see anything wrong about it. But Catalonia's independence would fly in the face of the Spanish Constitution which clearly prevents secession. At last week's regional election, Mas & Co promised that should they win they would launch an independence process. Another proof of how these dishonest politicians are misleading their people is that they do not have the legal power to declare independence. This is as if I would wake up one morning and go to the office declaring I would raise everybody's salary by 10%. A laudable idea, no doubt, but for which I have no powers since I am neither head of HR or CFO. Any regional government in Spain can make decisions on transportation, education, language policies etc because these fall within their remit; however, the Catalan parliament and government cannot declare independence because that decision is reserved to the whole nation of Spain. It is a mark of the Catalan nationalist parties' that they are promising the people something they cannot lawfully deliver. They may not like the fact that they are in Spain, but they are. And as long as they are they have to comply with the law of the land. That's called democracy and the rule of law.

I don't want to sound too legalistic, but if Artur Mas and his bunch of loonies just stopped and  thought for a second they'd see that their independent Catalonia would suffer from the sins of its birth. If,  when it was part of Spain, Catalonia refused to follow its rules, why should its new citizens follow its own rules? They could say, "Oh well, I don't feel like sharing my taxes with the Catalan government, so I'll just  keep them to myself." What would prevent some parts of Catalonia (at last week's election, 52% of Catalans voted against pro-independence parties) to stay with Spain? Artur Mas & Co base their case on self-determination, but they wouldn't recognize that right for others.  

The reason we came to such a situation is because morally, politically and ideologically bankrupt Catalan nationalist leaders decided a while ago to whip up nationalist fervor to reach the ultimate goal of full power by becoming in charge of an independent country. After all, it is way sexier to be the head of an independent state, hobnobbing with the British queen and the French president, having a seat at the UN and considered an equal in the concert of nations than just a lowly regional premier. If achieving that aim means manipulating history, falsifying reality, indoctrinating citizens in an artificial sense of victimization, so be it, these power-hungry and unscrupulous Catalan nationalists are saying. 

Another comparison with Scotland doesn't paint the Catalan independence loonies in a favorable light. Whereas Scottish nationalists would make their case purely on why they felt Scotland would be better off as an independent state with no animosity towards the English or British governments (they even want to keep the Queen as head of state), Artur Mas & Co never miss an opportunity to hurl abuse at, and show their hatred of, the rest of Spain in what is clearly an insane fundamentalist campaign. Nationalism is indeed the last refuge of scoundrels.

Let me me very clear: as a multicultural person, fluent in five languages, a globe trotter and a great defender of individual  rights, I have no issue with an independent Catalonia or Barcelona or Ensanche (the latter is a lovely Art Nouveau neighborhood of Barcelona which goes by two names - the Catalan version is Eixample.) As long as the rule of law is obeyed, as it was in Scotland, one would have to accept it. And there is a legal solution. National elections will take place in a  couple of months. No political party is expected to gain a majority, meaning that a coalition will be in order. Let Catalan parties work with others to reach a consensus on changing the Spanish constitution to allow secession.  Then a referendum can be organized and, if won, then Catalonia can go its own way, in a democratic, legal, clean way. But of course power-hungry Artur Mas & Co want a messy  adventure, only then can they flourish. In an orderly, rational process people would see through them and vote against independence realizing quite rightly that there is more to lose than to gain from it.

Politically, especially geopolitically, the Catalan independence movement has an uphill battle before it. There are no cases of a successful breakaway territory without outside help. And that outside interference is not happening, as neither the EU nor the US have any interest in a  weakened Spain. The EU does not want to open the Pandora's box of disintegration of the European sovereign state system (part of the insane project would be to grant Catalan citizenship to all Catalan speakers in the neighboring Spanish regions of Valencia and Aragon, the Balearic Islands and even in southern France) and, since Catalonia cannot show any evidence of severe human rights violation or central-government oppression, there is no case for international involvement. European leaders, starting with Angela Merkel, have been very clear: Spain is a democracy and its laws must be obeyed by all. Should Catalonia leave Spain illegally and unilaterally it would find itself outside of the euro and the European Union. Would they be better off? I doubt it.  Felipe Gonzalez compared Catalan separatistas to Nazis and got a lot of flak for it. I understand perfectly well what he meant. Of course, Artur Mas & Co are not about to start roasting Spanish Unionists in ovens. But with their sense of superiority, that their problems are the result of others ("Spaniards" are their Jews), along with the linguistic cleansing they are conducting all over the region, Gonzalez sure has a point. 

Spain has got too many serious problems (the recovery from its worst economic crisis in decades is still fragile) that it doesn't need to compound them with false ones. Let's hope that a new coalition would come to power next December and settle this matter once and for all. But I'm afraid I can't be too optimistic: the Catalan issue will always lurk in a corner, ready to rear its ugly head whenever given the opportunity.

 

Great play at the Tivoli Theatre, right off the Plaza de Cataluña.
I use the Spanish version of the square, the way many
barceloneses  say "Consejo de Ciento" even though
the street sign says "Consell de Cent. "

(The blogger is spending a long weekend in the Barcelona province. An unusual weekend where the sun made itself scarce and rain was a daily occurrence with strong waves. Are the higher powers shedding tears on the current situation? I took the opportunity to go to the theater and see a terrific play, Escenas de la vida conyugal, with Ricardo Darin, Argentina's most famous actor, and his fellow countrywoman, Erica Rivas, who delivered an astounding performance in this adaptation of the Ingmar Bergman movie Scenes from a Marriage. The play was of course in Spanish, as befits this great Spanish-language city, home to the country's publishing business. Interestingly enough in today's El Pais there was an article by Mario Vargas Llosa on Carmen Balcells, Spain's most famous literary agent who died  recently: she was a Catalan and instrumental in popularizing Spanish fiction from Spain and Latin America.) 

(This is the latest in a series of country posts, of which several focus on Spain, a country close to my heart. One of my most popular posts is "1992-2012: My 20-Year Affair with Spain": As of today it has been viewed 7,577 times making it the third-most popular of my posts, and the first not business related)

(All pictures by the blogger. All rights reserved)

Mourning the passing away of a unique political leader: Nelson Mandela, 1918-2013

PARIS

I was 26 years old when Nelson Mandela was freed . I will never forget that day. I was living in the United States then and, watching the news on TV, I was shocked when I realized that he had entered jail before I was born, meaning that he had spent an entire life, a generation, behind bars. And why? Just because of his principles, mainly that all human beings are equal.

In a world ruled by corrupt, incompetent, rotten and often illegitimate rulers, Mandela stood apart: a political leader motivated only by his people's interests, with zero ambition for himself. This was made  even more obvious when, at the height of his popularity, basking in his people's and the world's adoration, he refused to seek a second term and retired.

For his funeral world leaders will congregate to praise the great man. How hypocritical that neither Obama, Putin, Hollande, Cameron, and certainly not Mugabe, will follow his example but will continue to serve only themselves and their corporate and banking friends with total disregard for their citizens.

Goodbye, Madiba. The world was made a better place by your presence. It is made worse by your absence.

It will take generations, if not centuries, for a man of your caliber to appear amongst us.

"Custo Brasil" or the Absurdly High Cost of Living in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO

How The Economist magazine
saw Brazil's prospects in 2009...

I have been visiting Brazil for ten years now, spending half of the three years between 2010-2012 in this city, and I am constantly flabbergasted at how ridiculously high the prices have become.

For my daily pleasure of reading O Globo I used to pay just R$1.00; I have now to fork out R$2.50, that is a 150% increase. In the same period of time its Paris equivalent Le Monde has only known a 50% increase. A Rio Metrô ticket costs now R$3.10 the exact equivalent of €1.00 whereas in Paris it costs...almost the same price: €1.10, and a subsidized price (for workers, students, senior citizens, unemployed) costs just half that. Yes, you have read right: a basic good such urban transportation costs 50% more in Rio (which knows of no subsidies or daily/monthly passes)  where average income is one-third that of Paris. This is complete madness and explains that riots broke out last June because of the bus fare hike.

In January 2003 when I arrived for the first time in the Marvelous City taxi rides were so cheap that it never crossed my mind to use buses. A taxi ride to Galeão international airport would cost as low as R$35. Now you'll be lucky if you can get it for less than R$100. A restaurant meal was so affordable that I rarely bothered to go to per-weight joints, a Brazilian institution. Now, a single dish at a buffet restaurant would cost you easily a  whopping R$15. Eating in New York is much cheaper, and what makes it even more scandalous is that Brazil is blessed with an efficient agriculture and a land where everything grows and is raised effortlessly. 

Currency exchange rate fluctuations are to blame in only a tiny proportion: when I arrived in Brazil in 2013 US$1 bought close to R$4, by last year it was down to R$1.6, now it has inched back to a more reasonable R$2.2. The euro has followed a similar pattern (the euro is now worth around R$3), making the country extremely expensive for foreigners. But even with a stable real, inflation and price levels are outrageously high for the locals as well (if not more so, since their income levels are much lower than foreigners'). This can be seen from the below table on the price increases I have witnessed over the years.

The only thing growing at double-digit figures in Brazil are prices

There are several reasons why prices are so high: poor infrastructure, red tape, high taxes, low productivity. I would single out two of these: high taxes and low worker productivity. High taxes are not in and of themselves a bad thing. If Brazilians were getting Scandinavian-level public services, that would be fine. But the sad truth is that Brazilians suffer the highest tax burden of any emerging economy and are rewarded with pitiful health care, education and infrastructure. Where does the money go, then? Ask the politicians, among the most corrupt in the world. Compounding the situation is the low productivity of the Brazilian worker. Now, I never expected a Protestant work ethic in Brazil the way we know it in Northern Europe or in the United States, but still, I  am flummoxed by how poorly educated, trained and motivated Brazilian employees tend to be. Of course, there are pockets of excellence here and there, but overall the average Brazilian employee has to wake up at 5 am every morning, spend an average of two hours to get to work, fearing to be mugged on the way. By the time the poorly educated Brazilian arrives at their poorly paid job, they are exhausted, and have only one thing on their mind: get through the day and head back home where a host of problems (violence, not enough money to make ends meet etc.) await them Are you surprised then that discharging their duties efficiently, optimally and with respect for the customer (a notion alien to most Brazilian companies) is not exactly their top priority?

But let me continue with my whining about insane prices. A broadband internet connection at one of the four major operators (Oi, Vivo, Tim, Claro) will cost you on average the equivalent of US$40. And that is for just the connection which, in many parts of the country, and even in Rio, is a haphazard affair. For the same price in the US and Europe you get true broadband connection, unlimited phone calls to fixed lines all over the world,  high-definition TV channels, a cell phone number with a monthly credit for calls and text messages. It is mind-boggling to see how much Brazilians are paying for so little. And still putting up with it. 

If you are an expatriate settling in Brazil, one of the first things you will do is make sure you have a decent health plan. And, here, you will have the shock of your life, especially if you hail from Europe. Sure, you can always rely on the Brazilian government's health service knows as SUS (probably short for SUCKS) but it is so dreadful that anybody with some discretionary income buys a private health plan. Brazil has world-class hospitals (such as the Sirio-Libanês in São Paulo or the Samaritano in Rio de Janeiro) but they don't come in cheap. And to ensure you get developed-world standards you'll need to pay premiums in  the range of hundreds of dollars per month. The best healthcare can even cost you north of US$1,000 per month! And health plans in Brazil do not cover medication which you have to pay out of your own pocket. 

For Americans and Europeans used to reasonable airfares, especially by low-cost companies, flying from Rio to São Paulo (roughly a 350-mile distance) will easily set you back between US$300 and US$1,000. A Paris-London airfare (covering a similar distance between the two most important European capital cities) can be found at a fraction of the Brazilian fare. And Europeans are way wealthier than Brazilians! There are times when it is cheaper to fly to Paris from Rio than to São Paulo.

One key difference between subway transport in Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo and their equivalent in New York, London or Paris is the number of people who use the ride to read newpapers, magazines or books in the northern hemisphere. In Brazil, a book-reading subway rider is a rare occurrence. That is due to the overall population's high illiteracy rate and the high cost of books. Go to any bookstore chain, such as Saraiva or Livraria da Travessa, and you'll be hard pressed to find a book costing less than R$30-40, if not more, which makes it way too expensive for a majority of Brazilians. (On the other hand, you can find true bargains in second-hand bookstores, or sebos as they are called in Brazil. Mere stalls on the sidewalk will offer you even better deals, another reflection of the law of supply and demand: with so few Brazilians used to reading, the only way book peddlers can sell their wares is by offering low prices - probably the only low prices you will ever find in Brazil!)  

You will purchase domestic appliance (pots and pans, irons, blenders, etc.) in Brazil only under duress. You will then grab the item and leave the store screaming at what can only be called highway robbery. And when you realize that the coffee maker you bought a few months ago suddenly stopped working and is good for the scrap heap, you will understand the pain of most Brazilians who can afford these high-ticket items only through credit which, in addition, they have to repay at punishingly high rates. (Another Brazilian oddity is that most people who buy on credit repay it through monthly installments - I was bewildered when at a McDonald's restaurant I was asked in how many months I wanted to pay my hamburger. Yes, prices are so high in Brazil and people's incomes so low, that the only way for some to afford a hamburger is to pay a few cents per month for the period of a year!) 

Rio's 5-star hotel rates are higher than in Paris, London or New York. And as for residential real estate, prices have skyrocketed to reach the surreal. Prices in the city's South Side (Zona Sul) have been going up by 30-40% per year for the past four years. For instance,a small one-bedroom apartment in Copacabana, shoddily built, with wires hanging out, hot because buildings are all built next to one another with no ventilation - and we are in a beach district!) will easily make you poorer by an astounding $8,000-10,000 a sq meter! And maintenance charges have gone through the roof: for a similar apartment expect to pay hundreds of dollars per month! (Property tax, though, is still affordable.) One of the reasons housing maintenance costs are high is due to another Brazilian oddity: the need for every residential building to have several doormen working different shifts to ensure 24 x 7 availability. And with wages shooting up (if only to offset inflation) homeowners have only one option: cough up ever more. (Add to that yet another Brazilian oddity: coop board presidents are exempt from paying maintenance so their share is picked up by the other homeowners pushing their home maintenance bill further up.)

The latter is clearly the result of a bubble in the making similar to what we saw in Spain and in the US. Those who are selling now are those who bought cheap several years ago and are cashing in now quietly before moving their money away. Real estate buyers are fools, paying today before weeping tomorrow.

...and how it sees Brazil now

In general one can summarize the absurd prices in Brazil the following way: first-world prices for third-world quality. I am afraid that when that statue of Christ the Redeemer  falls back to Earth, it will not be on its pedestal on top of Corcovado but further down, trodden and trampled. The day after the hangover will be painful for some.

(The blogger has shared many aspects of his Brazilian experience in several blog posts: on Brazil's colonial towns, Lula's "third" victory at the polls,  and his thoughts on the country, HR and technology.

He has also published in Portuguese a blog on HR systems in Brazil.)

(The blogger has a second home in Rio de Janeiro where he spends part of the year. When he is not in residence, his penthouse can be rented. Check out the Airbnb listing, also available on TripAdvisor/Flipkey and Homeaway. You can also rent it straight from the blogger)

Good riddance, Sarkozy!

"La France forte" or "Strong France"
was Sarkozy's campaign slogan.

NEW YORK CITY
In one of the most memorable lines of his presidency, Nicolas Sarkozy threw at a French citizen who dared refuse to shake his hand, "Get lost, asshole!" ("Casse-toi, pauvre con!" in the original French- Watch the YouTube video) At this week's second round of the presidential election, the French people returned the compliment sending Sarko packing.

Two years ago, in a blog called "Sarkozy: La France c'est moi" I alerted my countrymen to the dangers of the presidency of the authoritarian and egomaniac bullshitter who tricked us into trusting him with the nation's top job. It took five years but finally the French people saw through him and gave him what Churchill once called, when he was on the receiving end of it, "the order of the boot." And rightly so.

This is of course, only Part 1 of the Sarkozy defenestration. Part 2 should be to prosecute him for the various abuses in power (some of which I mentioned in the same blog) and convict him. Hopefully this time we'll have a convicted French president who will serve his sentence, unlike Chirac (see my blog, "Real crime, fake justice") Then we could say that we have made a qualitative jump on the democratic scale by ensuring that justice is meted out to ALL citizens regardless of social status. We would thus show the way to other Western countries to send Blair, Bush & Co to jail for the crimes they have committed and for which they enjoy a scandalous full impunity.

I have seen press reports about how François Hollande "won" the election. That is simply untrue. Sarkozy lost it. Just look at the figures, less than 2% separated each candidate from victory, hardly the mark of a landslide. And yet, considering Sarkozy's disastrous record and abysmal approval ratings, Hollande should have won by a handsome 60% at least. But are we surprised at the poor showing by the Socialist candidate?

Not really. After all, he was not the first candidate for his party's nomination; that was Dominique Strauss-Kahn who was disqualified after that little incident at the Sofitel hotel in this city last year. Hollande was not even the second choice, that was party chief Martine Aubry who dithered so long about running that she finally lost to him. Many Socialist Party activists even toyed with the idea of letting Hollande's former partner, Ségolène Royal, have a second try at the presidency, but thank God they thought better of it at the last moment (I used to think that  the US with George W. Bush and Sarah Palin had a monopoly on idiots running for the presidency, but obviously in France we also have our share.) Unlike Barack Obama who fought tooth and nail to get the job (what he did with it is another issue and will be the subject of a blog come November), François Hollande was just lucky to be the least bad man at the right place at the right moment.

"Sarkozy, Outgoing President!"

So François Hollande won by default. Will he be up to the task? Will he finally solve the crippling debt crisis we have been suffering from for the past several years now? Well, considering that in his thirty years as a party apparatchik, lowly MP or local politician in a sleepy rural town he never displayed any conviction, vision or signed any remarkable policies, that would be quite a miracle. A couple of months ago, I caught him campaigning on a bright Sunday morning in a market close to my Paris home, at the Bastille. Since the debt crisis is the direct result of banking misbehavior, I put the question to him:

"Monsieur Hollande, are you going to nationalize the banks?"

"At any rate, we will reform them," he replied.

"Is that a promise?" I asked grabbing his arm. With Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris smiling that phoney smile of his just behind him, the then-candidate-now-president nodded his head reiterating that policy decision before leaning forward to kiss a kid and shake hands with well-wishers.

In case you don't believe me, here are the videos I made (they are of course in French, I appear at the end of the first video, and in the second you can hear my voice asking the question at 00:40 followed by Hollande's answer.)

So Hollande is on record promising bank reform and to get us out of the debt mess these banks brought us in. After the wasted twelve years with Chirac and five Sarkozy years, it would be great to finally have a president who can deliver.

Unfortunately, considering his record, my advice to you is not to hold your breath. We are used in France (and other Western pseudo-democracies) to being betrayed by our political class. As we say, Plus ça change...

Why Wall Street and the City are beyond salvation

What about "Save the People?
After all, financiers have only
themselves to blame for the
crisis they inflicted on themselves
and the rest of the world

RIO DE JANEIRO
I have been a keen reader of The Economist for a good quarter-century. I have always loved their writing style and irreverent humor, even the rigor it often brings to its analyses. I am less keen when it unashamedly behaves as the mouthpiece of big business and banking giants, as it does in this week's cover story and leader whose title is the self-explanatory "Save the City."

In one of its headers  The Economist  wonders why  “Strangely, California doesn’t talk down Silicon Valley”. Why would it? Silicon Valley companies produce computers and software that consumers and companies (often) love and use. What have the City and Wall Street offered ?(And how come The Economist doesn’t ask itself why “Not Strangely, the United States DOES talk down Wall Street”?) 

The Economist claims that financial markets “funnel savings to their best use”. Oh, really? How can the subprimes be considered as best use? How can the real estate bubble be considered best use? How can the various pyramid schemes be considered best use? How can the taxpayer-bailouts be considered best use? How can the encouragement to governments to spend beyond their means and create the problems we are seeing now be considered best use? How can helping Greece to cook its books (as Goldman Sachs did) be considered best use? How can ruining millions and sending many more into unemployment while the pigs gorge themselves at the trough be considered best use?

Whichever way you look at it, financiers are parasites, living off the body they attack and sucking it dry until they move somewhere else. It is time we get rid of them. If the management of money is so critical to society, like defense, justice and the rule of law, then just as we do with these areas let’s nationalize/highly regulate it so that finance can truly serve the people and not the other way round.

The argument that Britain should hang on to this industry just because it is a big contributor to GDP is flawed: there are some countries where the mafia and drug cartels create as much wealth. Should we then legalize them? “But these are criminal enterprises,” you might say quite shocked. Well, someone prove to me that financial services companies are less criminal.

“China and India have underdeveloped financial markets; Britain has the expertise,” writes The Economist. If I have any advice to give these emerging economies it is to remain underdeveloped with respect to financial markets. They don’t need to import our current mess a few years down the road, with all those hedge funds and derivatives and CDO's which nobody understands. The reason nobody understands them is the point: the less consumers understand the financial products offered to them, the easier it is for the banks to fleece them. 

As for "Britain’s expertise," the Chinese and Indians would be well advised to say, “thanks, but no thanks.”  I remember when, at the height of the financial crisis in 2008, the governor of the Czech Central Bank was asked how his country escaped the turbulence. He explained that  years back when those risky products appeared, Czech bankers came and asked him whether they should invest in them. "Do you understand what these are made of?" When they replied in the negative, the governor then advised them not to invest in products they didn't have a clue what they were about. And he was damn right as his country's bank sailed through the crisis.

Time to get back to basics and produce real products and real services that people really need.

(The blogger is currently in Brazil whose banking system, in spite of its being more regulated than the U.S. or British banking industry,  has many faults, concentration being one of them. I am also worried at the high amount of credit being freely distributed at Shylock-like interest rates to new, undiscerning consumers.  When the day of reckoning comes, and some bubbles burst, Latin America's largest economy  will be in a lot of pain.)

Real crime, fake justice: Chirac gets 2-year suspended jail sentence - UPDATED Feb. 2019

After 25 years of obfuscation,
legal maneuverings and turning a
blind eye, a French court has finally
said it out loud: Between 1995 and
2002 France was ruled by a criminal.
But if you think you will see him behind
bars, don't hold your breath: the
French political class is making sure
that one of its most  (in)famous
members is shielded from such a fate

PARIS
This week's ruling by a French court seems at first of quite earth-shattering importance: for the first time since World War II, a former French head of state is convicted of committing crimes (in this case misuse of public funds) and is sentenced to two years in jail. But look more closely and you realize that this judicial decision is as connected to justice as Alaska is to Madagascar.

The facts go back a good quarter century when Jacques Chirac was not yet president of France, just mayor of Paris (but considering how Paris is actually a midsize version of France, he was for all intents and purposes almost president.) In his Etat dans l'Etat which was his Paris fief, Chirac behaved like a medieval baron, hiring (especially for phoney jobs known in French as emplois fictifs where town hall positions were used to pay people who never carried out a single task for the city, but many for Chirac and friends), firing, using public funds as he saw fit with scant regard to rules and regulations. Why should he? He felt above such mundane things as the law. And subsequent events proved him right. It took decades for the law to close in on him, because the whole legal system in our Western pseudo-democracies is designed to punish harshly the small fry, while members of the elite remain scot-free. Among the examples used to shield Chirac from justice: while president, he made sure a new law on presidential immunity was voted so that he could remain literally above the law, even for crimes committed before he became president - and we make fun of Berlusconi who engineered laws to protect himself from zealous judges.

After Chirac left office in 2002, the Sarkozy government made sure his predecessor was left alone. Now, we all know that there is little love lost between the two men: Chirac tried every trick in the book to prevent Sarkzoy's ascent, as revenge for the "Dwarf" backing his opponent, Balladur, in a previous election. So why would Sarkozy care about Chirac's fate? If anything he should be happy to see Chirac in jail. Not really. These guys are smart, they know when it is better to put their rivalry on hold and think about higher things. Sarkozy has no interest in a judicial precedent, of having a former French president prosecuted and, God forbid, even convicted, since he knows he would then be the next one (read my blog on Sarko's own abuse of his position.)

So Sarkozy did everything he could to protect Chirac. First, he made sure that the case would drag as long as possible after Chirac left office (five years). Then,  and this is one of the more shocking aspects of the Chirac case, the public prosecutor (who in this pseudo-democracy acts on order from the government - no prize for guessing whose orders) decided to drop all charges against Chirac. Now, that was too much in light of the overwhelming evidence as gathered by all the files seized and the witnesses heard. So, a seemingly courageous judge, egged on by pro-justice militants, said, "I don't care that you drop the charges, Mr Prosecutor, there is enough in this case to convict Mr Chirac." And so he did, to two years in jail. But, and here's the rub, he made sure it was a suspended sentence meaning Chirac would not actually have to go to jail.

Yes, you have heard right. If you are lowly riff raff and get caught stealing, you can be sure you will end up as a guest of the French Republic for a few years. But if you belong to the elite, no such worry. And then you wonder why people laugh derisively at the lofty motto of the state, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. In France, as in all other pseudo-democracies, Lady Justice is far from blind: she has one eye open to recognize VIP's and be lenient towards them. And yet, one of the first decisions of the French Revolution was to abolish all privileges that the mighty had. Two centuries on, privileges for the elite still live on. Now you understand why the "system" made sure the case dragged for how long as possible, so that even if he were to be convicted, Chirac could claim to be too old and sick to serve his sentence. And yet, read the French papers and watch television, and the whole French political class is cheering and saying, "See, we have truly independent justice." They are elated that they have managed to protect one of theirs from the same fate most of them should know: jail.

The great French fable writer, La Fontaine, wrote in the 17th century that:

Selon que vous serez puissant ou misérable, 
Les jugements de cour vous rendront blanc ou noir. 

(Depending on whether you are rich or poor
Court rulings will acquit or condemn you)
Jean de La Fontaine, Les Animaux malades de la peste, 1678.

Lest you believe that my native country is the only one where double standards apply when it comes to justice, I have some enlightening news for you: the same thing happens in other Western mock-demcoracies where the rule of law is supposed to apply. In addition to Italy's already mentioned and notorious  Silvio Berlusconi, Britain's Tony Blair and former US president George W. Bush should be in jail now for war crimes: didn't they wage a war which was found to be completely illegal (says the UN) and unjustified (say themselves after no weapons of mass destruction were found) but killed 100,000 innocent Iraqis (not to mention 4,500 American servicemen)?  Shouldn't these two men, along with a host of Israeli prime ministers and generals, be now in the dock of the International Criminal Court in The Hague? No way, only Arab, Latin American, Asian and African rulers commit crimes, not Western ones. Funny, isn't it, that when it comes to individuals we find in all countries the same proportion of criminals, but not when we deal with politicians. In the West, politicians are angels. Yeah, right!

When Juppé, one of Chirac's underlings, took the rap
for his master, a judge sentenced him to jail. But
the two-tier justice system we have in France and
other mock democracies meant that instead
of spending a single day behind bars Mr. Juppé
went to teach in a Canadian university for a
year (I didn't know Canada accepted criminals as
visiting professors) and after returning to France
he claimed back BOTH his old jobs as mayor
of Bordeaux and foreign minister. Whoever
created politicians left the shame gene out of them.
And as for us citizens who allow this to happen,
well, we have the rulers we deserve.

When Sarkozy succeeded Chirac one of his first announcements was that his administration would be "beyond reproach." A whiff of wrongdoing and you're out, he said to his ministers. Revolutionary, you'd think. Think again. Suffice it to say that the current Foreign Minister, Alain Juppé, a close aide to...Chirac, whose prime minister he even was at one point in time, was found guilty of the same crimes as his mentor in 2004 and given a (again suspended!) jail sentence of 14 months. Yes, we currently have a criminal as a foreign minister.  Even in the United States, hardly an exemplary country when it comes to the rule of law (think Guantanamo) and democracy (remember W's "election" in 2000?) any evidence (let alone court ruling) of wrongdoing  would be enough to end a politician's career. Not in France, where the political class wears its proof of corruption as a badge of honor.
Feb. 2019 update: President Macron just nominated Juppé to the highest court in the land, the Constitutional Court. Yes, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you: he who is going to ensure people uphold the country's top law is himself a convicted felon.

Speaking of America, remember that even there where the rule of law is supposed to prevail, Nixon was found to have committed crimes which led to his having to resign in shame and yet he was never bothered. His successor, Gerald Ford, in a behavior similar to what Sarkozy is doing now for Chirac, pardoned the Criminal-in-Chief thus ensuring he could spend the rest of his life enjoying the spoils of his crimes, in peace.  Well, Ford owed it to Nixon who made him president. And I am not speaking here metaphorically: it was Nixon who made Ford president, not the American people since, as few people remember, Ford was NEVER elected either as president or as vice president: he was appointed by Nixon to replace his previous VP, Agnew, after the latter resigned over (already!) a corruption scandal. The fish rots at the head, as they say.

Interestingly, Ford's outrageous act came at the same time when Chirac became mayor of Paris and was starting to put in place the intricate web of patronage, corruption, phoney jobs (but real salaries and cost to taxpayers.) If he ever worried about whether he might be held accountable one day, he just looked across the pond and the unedifying example of the White House shenanigans, and just shrugged his shoulders saying to himself, "Nothing to worry about."

For a quarter century he was right.  The wheels of justice grind slowly, if at all, when we are dealing with the elite. And yet, had justice done its job in a timely fashion, Chirac would have been caught in the 1980's and jailed (I doubt he could have claimed old age and bad health then) and we would have been spared his presidency which, by all accounts, was an utter failure. There are indeed many advantages to having an efficient justice system rather than the two-tiered parody of justice we currently have.

The struggle for equality, the rule of law, the principle that NO ONE should be be above the law, for a truly blind justice, continues.