"In a note to investors, [the boss of CQS, one of London’s biggest hedge funds] Mr Hintze has said: “While Cyprus has stolen the news headlines of late, I am concerned that the eurozone’s problems could soon turn to the ‘core’, and in particular the focus could be on France.” (...)

Mr Hintze said: “President Hollande’s ability to drive structural reform may be limited by his ability and willingness (and the Socialist Party’s support of him) to pursue the deeper economic reforms that are required – the tax and benefits system, deep reductions in government spending and public administration, and extensive reforms to pensions and the labour market.” He added: “In a country where more than half of the voting population is employed (directly or indirectly) by the state, can France’s leadership tackle the difficult choices that exist?”"

Source : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10061805/Car-burnings-rise-as-France-threatens-to-take-euro-crisis-to-higher-plane-says-hedge-fund-boss-Michael-Hintze.html?fb 

Source : http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2013/05/are-stocks-cheap-a-review-of-the-evidence.html

Larry Summers, secrétaire d'Etat au Trésor sous Bill Clinton, et adversaire reconnu des politiques d'austérité, rappelle toutefois que la théorie de Keynes ne s'applique que dans un contexte particulier, et qu'il est impossible de continuellement relancer l'économie :

"Mark Blyth often seems to forget that in a world where the present value of what a government spends must ultimately be constrained by the present value of the revenue it collects, issuing debt is not an alternative to cutting spending or raising taxes but only a way of deferring these painful steps.

The issue here is a broad one. Keynes could have more accurately titled his landmark work. Instead of being a “General” theory it is, in fact, quite specific, explaining how demand-constrained economies in or near liquidity traps operate. Such a distinction would have avoided the misguided application of Keynesian policies that led to the stagflation of the 1970s and discredited Keynesian economics."

Source : http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/5097537a-a034-11e2-a6e1-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2SWQlBwr4

Quelle que soit la méthode choisie, la conclusion reste similaire : la croissance économique tend à être plus faible dans les pays avec une dette publique plus élevée. NB: il s'agit d'une corrélation, la causalité n'a pas encore été clairement établie empiriquement, même si de nombreux arguments économiques vont dans ce sens.

 "You don't hear France's voice at all. They are nowhere, just nowhere," said a senior European diplomat who is in frequent contact with other member states. "This is a critical country and yet it seems absent (...) There is broad agreement that one root of the problem lies in France's inability so far to follow Germany's lead in reforming its economy. A lack of economic competitiveness has undermined France's ability to project influence in Brussels." 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/24/us-france-eu-insight-idUSBRE93N0AA20130424

"The real problem may be that the twin pillars on which the much-vaunted “French exception” has been built since 1945 are wobbling. At home, France took pride in its “social model” of a powerful and generous state. Overseas, the country’s global power was to be rebuilt through an EU constructed around a “Franco-German motor”. The EU, however, is now in deep crisis. And the pretence that it is being jointly run by France and Germany has been stripped away by the gap in economic performance between the two nations. (...) The certainty of further cuts in public spending underlines that France’s vaunted social model has peaked. (...) France is simply going to have to get on with the hard and unglamorous task of economic reform."

Source : http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9f1f23ac-ab37-11e2-8c63-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2RH29Rve2 

NB: le "modèle social" français n'est ni un modèle ni social, comme on le montre par exemple ici http://www.eclaireco.org/ModeleSocialFrancais

Ca ne s'arrange pas : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/21/us-g20-policy-idUSBRE93K09N20130421 

Cela suggère que les taux d'intérêts faibles vont persister pour de nombreuses années encore.

Selon le CEO d'ArcelorMittal : "high labour and energy costs keep France at a competitive disadvantage. (...) In France, labour costs are 20 percent higher than in  Spain and labour laws are still too rigid."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/20/us-france-mittal-idUSBRE93J0I020130420?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

Milton Friedman n'avait pas seulement prévu la stagflation des années 1970 suite à l'abus de politiques de relance conjoncturelles. Il avait aussi prévu la crise de l'euro il y a plus de 15 ans ! Extraits :

"By contrast, Europe’s common market exemplifies a situation that is unfavorable to a common currency. It is composed of separate nations, whose residents speak different languages (...) wages and prices in Europe are more rigid, and labor less mobile. In those circumstances, flexible exchange rates provide an extremely useful adjustment mechanism. (...) The drive for the Euro has been motivated by politics not economics. (...) I believe that adoption of the Euro (...) would exacerbate political tensions by converting divergent shocks that could have been readily accommodated by exchange rate changes into divisive political issues."

Un article visionnaire écrit en... 1997.

Source : http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-euro--monetary-unity-to-political-disunity

"Les partisans de la prétendue politique alternative - Arnaud Montebourg, Benoît Hamon, Cécile Duflot - proposent d'amplifier tout ce qui a échoué : la hausse des impôts qui a relancé la récession, la redistribution qui a sapé la production, l'envolée des coûts du travail qui a miné la compétitivité et installé le chômage permanent, la préférence pour la dépense publique qui a étouffé l'État et l'a surendetté. Leur seul apport réside dans le protectionnisme et la sortie de l'euro, qui relègueraient définitivement la France hors des puissances économiques de premier rang et ruineraient soixante ans d'intégration européenne."

Nicolas Baverez, http://www.lepoint.fr/editos-du-point/nicolas-baverez/du-bon-usage-de-la-crise-18-04-2013-1656439_73.php

"Men regularly marry women who are younger, less intelligent, less educated. It’s amazing how forgiving men can be about a woman’s lack of erudition, if she is exceptionally pretty. Smart women can’t (shouldn’t) marry men who aren’t at least their intellectual equal. As Princeton women, we have almost priced ourselves out of the market. Simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are … you will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of you." Princeton alumni Susan A. Patton

"The idea that women may have stronger preferences than men do for assortative matches - that is, for marrying mates who are like them - has a long literature in economics and to some extent has been supported by data."
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/women-and-marriage-at-princeton/?smid=fb-share

"“In a regime where anyone can go part time, where it’s hard to get rid of people if they do, employers might sort on the front end and not hire people they think are likely to want to go part time, which usually means women,” said Lawrence F. Katz, an economist at Harvard. “There may be no way a woman can credibly commit to sticking around and not going part time.” The U.S., where these policies do not exist, has the smallest gap between women’s representation in the labor force and their representation in senior management positions."  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/magazine/how-shared-diaper-duty-could-stimulate-the-economy.html?hp&_r=2&

Pour Martin Feldstein, non : http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/higher-interest-rates-and-financial-stability-by-martin-feldstein

Il omet quand même de dire que les taux sont bas en ce moment parce que la croissance économique est faible et l'incertitude (notamment politique) élevée.

Selon la fondation Concorde, le départ de plusieurs milliers d'entrepreneurs aurait fait perdre un million d'emplois directs en vingt ans.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/emploi/2013/03/25/09005-20130325ARTFIG00321-avec-l-exil-fiscal-la-france-perd-des-emplois.php