Category: Politics

A battle is lost, war is not over

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The asset management lobby just won one more battle in France. The transfer of life insurances between insurers still won’t happen… for now.

You probably missed it completely, but a few days ago a battle of the highest importance for French investors and the French economy took place. It was short, it was brutal.

Indeed, last Thursday, two brave MPs, Amélie de Montchalin and Joël Giraud, proposed, finally, to allow, finally, French life insurance plans to be transferable.

I do know what you think now: “Wwoooo… This post is going to be so boring…“

Think again ! On the contrary, it is of upmost importance for French and worldwide investors to read this as a reminder of what is currently at stake and why we fight !

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Global warming. What can we really do about it ?

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Global warming is frightening, and hope is thin to contain it. So maybe we should start not only fighting it, but also preparing for it.

In my last, and more obscure, post about data-mining bias ( that you should of course read, see here ) I illustrated my argument with the example of extreme weather news reports. To sum it up, my point was that while the increasing regularity of extreme heat/frost waves is probably a consequence of global warming, one separate occurrence was absolutely not sufficient to prove anything about it.

In the meantime however, summer passed in the north hemisphere, and it was hot. Damn hot all around. And while still not proving anything “by itself”, it did make me think about global warming. And I am sure you did too.

Global warming is here. No doubt. What was once upon a time a scientific theory became a few decades ago a scientific and political issue. Now it is starting to turn into a scary and material reality for everyone. And it is probably just the beginning.

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How can they possibly still like Trump ?

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Trump’s popularity is still surprisingly high. How can we explain it, and what can it teach us about populism ?

Until very recently I was stunned. I just wasn’t getting it. It was such a huge mystery to me. How, how on earth could a great part of republican Americans still like Trump ? This is how I ended up thinking about it and trying to understand.

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The end of French two sided politics

Everyone in France (and outside) now has to rethink its political affiliation in three dimensions.

 

After the victory of Emmanuel Macron, and the constant, tiring tension that came along, I feel the need to talk a little about French Politics.

Indeed, after listening to the mumblings “from the left” arguing that he is the evil servant of big corporations and banks,  “from the right” that he is an evil left-wing, family destructing, void of beliefs politician, and finally the screams of both sides (for once agreeing on something) angering  about the pretended lack of representativeness of his election, I do feel the need to square things up a little about French politics and by extension many others democracies politics.

So here it is in short :

Can everyone stop, one and for all, talking about “left” and “right” in politics. This has absolutely no meaning.

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