As France Sinks, It Posts Housing “Recovery” From Hell

As France Sinks, It Posts Housing “Recovery” From Hell | David Stockman's Contra Corner:

A lot of things are doing just fine in France, but the economy isn’t one of them. 

It’s burdened by a public sector that never ceases to bloat. 

In 2013, government spending, despite any overt efforts to limit it, grew to 57.1% of GDP, a record within the Eurostat data series for France, and up from 52.9% in 2002.

......Now France lives in a different world, the Eurozone. 

But it hasn’t quite adjusted to it. It can’t print its own money (though it desperately wants to). 

And when the government wants to spend more than it takes in, there are suddenly treaty-based limits, which it keeps transgressing.

But the private sector is being asphyxiated. 

So in the second quarter, the economy was mired down at zero growth – same as in the first quarter. Consumption was up 0.5%, which is good, but it only drove up imports (+0.4%). 

Exports stagnated, manufacturing fell 1.0%, corporate investment declined 0.8%, and housing investment plunged 2.4%.

The plunge in housing wasn’t a blip. 

And it’s occurring even while people scream about shortages of housing in Paris and other urban areas, or at least shortages of affordable housing, to which the government has responded with numerous elegant policies, like trying to force owners of vacant apartments to rent them out. 

Demand for housing is there. 

But where is construction of housing units?