Yeah, they HAVE MONEY for that and are SELLING OFF STATE (thus TAXPAYER-OWNED) PROPERTY so they can PAY BANKS and so BANKS and "investors" can ALSO OWN the PROPERTY!
Related: Greece Sells Its Soul
Hey, look who is standing in line next to you:
"France selling buildings to cut debt" by Angela Charlton, Associated Press | June 10, 2010
PARIS — Fancy setting up house in a French government ministry? Or retiring to a royal hunting lodge? Line up now for a supersize sale of 1,700 properties by the French state, seeking to shed dilapidated, expensive-to-maintain buildings and chip away at the country’s record-high debt.
Who would want to buy a government-neglected building?
Foreigners are welcome to join the bidding, Budget Minister Francois Baroin said in announcing the sell-off yesterday — but their cash must be clean. Any buyer, whether a movie star, foreign government, or ordinary taxpayer, will undergo thorough background checks.
I'll pass.
By releasing a long-term list of state properties for sale publicly for the first time, the government appears determined to avoid the kind of controversies and secrecy that dogged some past sales of French property, both public and private, to shady magnates or deposed despots....
Like who?
See: Noriega is the News
No, not him; he still in the hole.
Also see: France Says Foque You to AmeriKa
We send one but don't get one back?
That hardly seems fair.
Related: A Quick Hike Through Iran
WTF, Frenchies?
You will trade with them but not us?
France, with its historically strong, centralized state, has too much property, Baroin said, disproportionate compared with other countries.
Well, I AGREE with THAT!
The state must get rid of “useless and unadapted buildings.’’
And fob 'em off on some sucker.
The plan announced yesterday lays out planned sales from now through the end of 2013.
“Contributing to the reduction of debts’’ is part of the reason for the sales, Baroin said, though he wouldn’t give an overall estimate of the value of the 1,700 properties.
The PRIMARY REASON!!!
And it does not appear that the state’s real estate profits will make much of a dent in France’s debt, which is worth about 77 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to the state statistics agency.
Less than 20 percent of the property sale proceeds will go directly to debt payments, with the rest for new government investments.
The sale is part of a larger effort to streamline bureaucracy in a country where more than a third of workers are employed by the state.
Which is why they once had great social benefits and why the French are in the streets when government foques with it.
A large chunk of the properties for sale belong to the Defense Ministry, which is undergoing a sweeping rehaul to make the military smaller, more modern, and technologically focused.
The answer to your problems -- and ours.
The Defense Ministry itself is moving to a facility under construction on the southwest edge of Paris that some dub a “Pentagon a la francaise,’’ after which the old Defense Ministry buildings along the elite, Left Bank artery, Boulevard Saint-Germain, will be sold off.
No, not in that direction.
--more--"
"French trader says bank backed risks; He casts himself as pawn at trial" by Angela Doland, Associated Press | June 10, 2010
PARIS — The former trader accused of nearly toppling France’s Societe Generale argued in court yesterday that he didn’t invent the tricks that allowed him to gamble tens of billions of dollars of the bank’s money, insisting that such practices were tolerated by management.
Jerome Kerviel is not accused of profiting personally from his huge trades. His motive — beyond the hope of a bonus of a few hundred thousand dollars — remains the great mystery of the case.
Questions remain....
And you will not be finding any here.
