Bill Maher on the French
- Thread starter mrkun
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Hah theres actually a lot of truth to that speech.
Although i find it kind of odd that he quoted low poverty rates in france.
Doesnt france have like 29% unemployment? There were all those riots recently over it.
Edit: Typo.
Although i find it kind of odd that he quoted low poverty rates in france.
Doesnt france have like 29% unemployment? There were all those riots recently over it.
Edit: Typo.
ProfJohn
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I really liked his take on the French elections.
Our democracy is horrible at turning out voters, at the same time though I don?t want an 85% turn out because half those people will be clueless.
French healthcare: I can?t comment on what he says because I am not familiar with how he comes up with them have the best in the world.
I do know that France has insane tax rates. If you are a middle income earner in France between 30-40% of your income is going toward income taxes. That is DOUBLE the rate of the typical middle income earner in the US.
The French economy: Yes they have a very low poverty rate and the lowest income inequality rate among large countries.
They also have a 9% unemployment rate, double ours.
They also have anemic economic growth; from 2002 to 2006 were 1.3% .9% 2.1% 1.5% and 2.3%
US GDP growth during this time was 2.4% 3.1% 4.4% 3.2% and 3.4%
And people still complained about the shape of our economy. Imagine living in France where the economy is growing slower and unemployment is double ours.
Finally, on them being oil independent. France gets 77% of its power from nuclear plants. If we followed that course we could cut our oil imports and get close to oil independence as well.
Our democracy is horrible at turning out voters, at the same time though I don?t want an 85% turn out because half those people will be clueless.
French healthcare: I can?t comment on what he says because I am not familiar with how he comes up with them have the best in the world.
I do know that France has insane tax rates. If you are a middle income earner in France between 30-40% of your income is going toward income taxes. That is DOUBLE the rate of the typical middle income earner in the US.
The French economy: Yes they have a very low poverty rate and the lowest income inequality rate among large countries.
They also have a 9% unemployment rate, double ours.
They also have anemic economic growth; from 2002 to 2006 were 1.3% .9% 2.1% 1.5% and 2.3%
US GDP growth during this time was 2.4% 3.1% 4.4% 3.2% and 3.4%
And people still complained about the shape of our economy. Imagine living in France where the economy is growing slower and unemployment is double ours.
Finally, on them being oil independent. France gets 77% of its power from nuclear plants. If we followed that course we could cut our oil imports and get close to oil independence as well.
zephyrprime
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K1052
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Nuclear power has jack all to do with oil imports unless you want to talk hydrogen. The vast majority of our electricity is generated by domestic coal/natural gas and nuclear power.
As far as the French go, I personally don't give a fsck. I do not think it is a capital idea to emulate their society though.
If you all bothered to see the video, or, you know, comprehend, he said that they were free from Middle Eastern oil. You know, the stuff from Saudi Arabia that we put in our Yukons which helped finance 9/11 and is the reason our soldiers are having their faces shot off? That oil.
Stunt
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- Jul 17, 2002
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US Electricity Sources
52% Coal (from continental US)
20% Nuclear (Domestic)
10% Natural Gas (from continental US)
7% Hydro (Domestic)
3% Oil
52% Coal (from continental US)
20% Nuclear (Domestic)
10% Natural Gas (from continental US)
7% Hydro (Domestic)
3% Oil
Stunt
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That being said, at 3.7T kWh for the whole United States, oil is used for 3% or 111B kWh
1000BTU=0.273kWh
1gal oil = 175,000BTU or 47.8kWh
1bbl(barrel) of oil = 42gal
1bbl = 2,008kWh
If the US were to convert all the oil electricity consumption to nuclear, oil dependence would drop by 55million barrels.
This is approximately 0.7% of the US's total oil consumption (7.6Billion bbl's a year).
1000BTU=0.273kWh
1gal oil = 175,000BTU or 47.8kWh
1bbl(barrel) of oil = 42gal
1bbl = 2,008kWh
If the US were to convert all the oil electricity consumption to nuclear, oil dependence would drop by 55million barrels.
This is approximately 0.7% of the US's total oil consumption (7.6Billion bbl's a year).
LOL, yea, they take all the oil and mix it together, then ship it from one big central depot to the rest of the world. Get a clue
Stunt
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K1052 speaks the truth.
Oil is a commodity and has a world price.
Even if the US/France don't deal with Iran, China (and others) will and China won't buy from other more reputable countries. It's a commodity that trades hands and there are always going to be people with low morals to offset the good countries with the bad.
Stunt
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I don't think so...
Considering only 35% of electricity is consumed by Residential and most industry is in more populated towns/cities. This means the 3% is unlikely in the other 65% of electricity production. Therefore one can say 8.6% of Residential use oil as an electricity source. 8% of total population is 26million people. I highly doubt a quarter of people get their electricity from oil.
Oil is typically used in co-gen plants where the base load is exceeded. It's much easier to turn on and off a steam turbine compared to a nuclear power plant. The costs of these co-gen plants is much less, especially when they are only operating during peak hours. It's a higher cost of energy but it's also expensive to have nuclear plants not at full capacity. Most of these oil fueled power plants can be replaced with natural gas fairly easily. My university was powered with oil and it was in the same area as a nuclear plant; had 300,000 population, definately not rural.
K1052
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I forgot that is it is sometimes used for supplementary firings or in turbines for peaking. Natural gas is still usually preferred for most of the peaking work here though. I do know of towns that do have their own diesel generators for normal electricity that have to ship in the fuel. Hawaii for example is almost totally reliant on fuel oil powered turbines.
Nope. That's a frequently misunderstood point. Light sweet crude futures are traded internationally. The BRENT is just a benchmark and each contract replicates 1000 barrels of brent crude from the North Sea, with a sulfur content of .37%. Just like the WTI is Texas Sweet Light with a sulfur content of .24%. And the WTI is just the underlying commodity for futures too.
If you actually want a tanker of oil you arrange it delivered point-to-point. Quality of oil differs tremendously from a country to the other. That's why Europe gets most of its oil from Africa. Their refineries are prepared to treat the extremely light oil from Angola or Nigeria. The US is better prepared to refine oil with a higher sulfurous content like the one coming from the middle east.
If you want oil from Siberia you actually pick up the phone and call a guy sitting in Vladivostok.
judasmachine
Diamond Member
- Sep 15, 2002
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where as I don't doubt your points, Bill's main point is that to simply dismiss them as many do today is foolish and childish.
a) Unemployment is measured in a different way in the US and Eurozone:
For the fourth quarter of 2004, according to OECD, (source Employment Outlook 2005 ISBN 92-64-01045-9), normalized unemployment for men aged 25 to 54 was 4.6% in the USA and 7.4% in France. At the same time and for the same population the employment rate (number of workers divided by population) was 86.3% in the USA and 86.7% in France.
b) Eurozone is now growing faster than US, creating more jobs and with a falling deficit.
Business cycles are not synchronous, so comparing the two areas is often impossible.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070507/ts_afp/eueurozoneeconomy_070507185558
K1052
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Those alignments have a lot to do with logistics and keeping transport costs down. The US has substantial sour crude refineries due to our proximity to the high sulfur reserves in the Americas. The majority of the Saudi oil ends up going to Asia.
ProfJohn
Lifer
- Jul 28, 2006
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The problem with what Maher is doing is that he is taking a bunch of unrelated things and mashing them together as if they are one big thing. Most of the eye rolling is based on France?s foreign policy. Not their domestic life styles.
France has a long history of semi-opposing American foreign policy. At the height of the cold war they withdrew their forces from NATO etc.
Additionally, France had major ties to Iraq and operated almost as their protector.
French oil companies operated many Iraqi oil fields.
Saddam actually visited France, the only western country he ever visited, and he met with Chirac.
Following that France started to build a nuclear plant in Iraq.
France sold $20 billion worth of weapons to Iraq and was Iraq?s second largest trading partner.
This is why they rolled their eyes at France, not because they don?t like the Eiffel tower or French food.
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