Gizzajob: *Facepalm*

Here is the news. Major American tyre company (ok, tire for yous Americans:) Titan, which already imports its own tyres into France, wanted to buy the struggling French Goodyear tyre production site. But Titan's Big Boss, Maurice M. Taylor, decided not to do the deal. So he wrote a letter to the French government to explain why.

He said that labour costs were much too high in France, that French workers spent too much time on coffee breaks and lunch, that their unions were suicidally intent on not changing current practices and that if they didn't become more productive and competitive the French tyre market would soon be dominated by Chinese and Indian imports.

The riposte wasn't long in coming. French Minister of Industrial Renewal Arnaud Montebourg wrote back to say that well, if that's how you feel, what we're going to do is to check your tyre imports with "redoubled zeal" to make sure they respect production and safety requirements and if they don't we'll refuse them.

In other words, a businessman tells a country its workers are shit, in response to which its government says that it's going to penalise the businessman's company.

That's it. The news.

Two ideologists waving their 'mine's bigger than yours' cocks around and confronting each other in a grotesque and strutting dance of combat at the very moment the world economy and its movers and shakers need not less, but more reconciliation and compromise in order to clean the current mess.

And these people get PAID for doing this chrissakes????!!!!

Gizzajob.

*Facepalm*