International & World Report

The rise in prices over the past decade has not spared the agricultural world. A report published by the Agreste, the agency in charge of "statistics, assessment and agricultural perspective," returns to the soaring prices of agricultural land since 1997. In 2010, arable lands and grasslands sold free worth 5230 euros per hectare, an increase of 66% over 1997.

Sold leased, the price is lower, at 3620 euros per hectare, which is still a 51% increase in 13 years. Rental status is not the only explanation for the difference in price between these two types of terrain. Although subject to the law of the market, characteristics of municipalities where agricultural lands are for sale often come into playThe specialty of the town, that is to say raising grain or cattle, for example, is one of the main factors that come into account when the reserve price. When the municipality has a dominant breeding beef cattle, rates may be on average 10% cheaper than in a town that specializes in cereals.

Geographically, the agricultural land is distributed in a rather orderly in the territory. The leased lands are mainly located in the Paris Basin and the northern half of France, the rest of the country being occupied mostly by vacant land payday loans in one hour.

New competition

More generally, the report highlights the influence of geographical location on the pricing of these lands. Near a city, a parcel is approximately 8% more expensive than in rural deep.An element that is associated with patch size, which also has changed over the years: the area of ​​arable land and grasslands free decreased in urban areas. Instead, the size of land rented sold continues to grow throughout the country thanks in part to farms that do not stop to grow to increase their production.

Another change in size during the past 13 years: the buyers. The report shows in fact that today Agreste fewer farmers acquire land and open meadows. They represent only two thirds of the purchasers against three quarters in 1997. Although this was down due in part to their inability to face economic uncertainties but also the arrival of new competition. A growing number of individuals and communities have actually landed on the market for agricultural land free.Primarily interested in the land, they usually offer to buy the most expensive land that farmers and thus participate in the surge in prices.

The aim is to encourage solidarity among employees. UMP deputy from the Loire, Paul Salen, filed in July 2011 a bill providing a legal framework for donations of RTT. A consistent practice in companies, which had so far developed in the silence of the Labour Code and case law.

The member was itself inspired by an actual case that occurred recently in his constituency. Badoit employees have offered 170 days of RTT to one of them to accompany her to the end of a child with liver cancer. A single gesture of solidarity was observed in April in the automotive supplier Fuji Autotech in the Doubs, in favor of an employee whose husband was suffering from lymphoma. Or at Merial, a subsidiary of Sanofi, which has even signed a collective agreement on this.

Company agreements

For now, no text did not mention the possibility of offering shorter working week, days off or recovery. This practice was not illegal as long. Spontaneous, it has developed on the basis of agreements between employees and employer, which is responsible for the holidays. "The agreements allow the company to implement virtually any provision not prohibited by the labor code," says Eric Rocheblave, lawyer office.

Thus the employees of Adixen in Annecy, could pay back all of their Christmas bonus for interim company, who did not have touched before fast cash now. Or that Renault executives have, by sacrificing RTT make ends months of Workers' group, one time forced to short.

Few dispute

But if an agreement is simple enough to offer its RTT, why, then, legislate? The bill appears to meet two objectives. First draw the attention of public opinion on a new form of solidarity. Then make sure to prevent abuses that could result.

Thus the proposed text, which focuses only on the donations bound for parents whose child is "gravely ill," says that the agreement required the employee donor such as his employer. "To the extent that these initiatives are based on agreements, litigation is rare. For now, it is even nonexistent, "Eric Rocheblave nuance. Already signed by 136 MPs, Paul Salen, interviewed Thursday morning in Les Echos, has high hopes to push through the text before the next presidential election.

"YOUR OPINION – Do you agree with the initiative of offering their employees days off? Would you be willing to do the same for a colleague? Share your thoughts and experience in the comments below or by email at temoin@lefigaro.fr.

Buoyed by the announcement of a burst of mergers and acquisitions, Wall Street on Monday confirmed the rebound that started in last weekend. It even erases all its losses last week. All indices end in green: the Dow ends up sharply from 1.87% to 11,479.65 points. The index had opened up 0.48% to 11,323.44 points and continued to grow during the session. The Nasdaq index also closed with a gain of 1.87% to 2554.79 points.

Markets reacted to a volley of announcements of mergers and acquisitions. First, Google (-1.16% to 557.23 dollars) has announced the acquisition of the mobile phone manufacturer Motorola Mobility (55.78% to 38.12 dollars) to $ 12.5 billion in cash. Time Warner (-0.81% to 64.98 dollars), meanwhile, reached an agreement to buy the cable operator Insight Communications to Carlyle for $ 3 billion.Finally, Cargill will acquire the French specialist in animal feed Provimi to 1.5 billion euros.

As in Europe, investors are upbeat on the eve of an important meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the reform of the governance of the euro area. They should discuss ways to implement to prevent contagion problems of sovereign debt to the rest of the region.

But Germany has already warned investors: this meeting will lead to "nothing spectacular". "It will be a working meeting on the governance of the euro area in line with European decisions taken in late July," said the spokesman of the Ministry of Finance. The latter also confirmed the skepticism German, joined by France, in respect of Eurobonds.These ads have already resulted in demoralizing the European investors.

In Asia, the announcement of a contraction much weaker than expected Japanese GDP has also reassured the markets.

Morale builders stable

The statistics published on Monday in the U.S. are, however, bleak. Manufacturing activity in the New York area declined for the third consecutive month at -7.7, 3.9 points lower than in July.

In real estate, the NAHB index released on Monday shows that the morale of the manufacturers was unchanged in August, close to its lowest historical levels.

Note that the currency market, the euro strengthened against the greenback at 1.444 dollar. Oil markets, oil prices closed up in New York payday loan. A barrel of "light sweet crude" for September delivery was trading at 87.88 dollars, up 2.50 dollar.Prices had fallen during the European trading, erasing their gains made in Asian trade in a market nervous and still haunted by persistent concerns about global growth and the debt crisis in the eurozone. A barrel of Brent North Sea crude for September delivery was trading at 107.56 dollars on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in London, down 47 cents from Friday's close.

Google swallows Motorola Mobility

On the corporate side, Bank of America (7.93% to 7.76 dollars) has announced the sale of its activities in the international credit cards in Britain, Ireland or Canada.

The food distributor Sysco (-3.93% to 28.11 dollars) announced earnings per share (EPS), diluted to 57 cents under its fourth quarter, diluted EPS of $ 1.96 for all of its financial year, while its quarterly sales reached $ 10.4 billion.

Estee Lauder fell 6.64% to 94.15 dollars. Despite the publication of a net income group share record of $ 700.8 million, up 46.5%, the cosmetics group announced its annual results would be below Wall Street expectations.

Lowe (0.82% to 19.58 dollars) has already reported sales below expectations in the second quarter of its fiscal year and lowered its annual targets for the second time in three months, consumers pushing their development projects until later because of sluggish growth.

Boeing (1.54% to 62.70 dollars) announced it had completed with Air Lease Corp. an order valued at $ 2.5 billion on 14 737-800 aircraft and five 777-300ER.

Pfizer (2.69% to 18.34 dollars) announced Monday it had won before a U.S. court case against Teva Pharmaceutical Industries of Israel, preventing the global generics to produce a copy of Viagra before 2019 .

Transocean (2.97% to 57.26 dollars), listed in New York, wants to buy the Norwegian group Aker Drilling, for a total of 1.1 billion Swiss francs (1 billion), according to a statement Monday.Several large shareholders, representing 65% of the capital, have agreed to the deal, said the Swiss.

The American specialist craft materials Grainger (2.01% to 138.57 dollars) on Monday announced the acquisition of the Dutch distributor of fasteners Fabory Group for $ 344 million (242 million).

Shortly before opening, chewing Americans were expected small decline, but volatility remains very high, the index futures may return at any moment, like the indices themselves. Shortly before noon Paris time, the index futures Standard & Poor's 500 and Nasdaq 100 yielded respectively 0.3% to 1165 points, and 0.37% at 2150 points.

On Thursday evening, U.S. markets have rebounded sharply, welcoming new listings weekly fewer than expected. European markets had also enjoyed the news, closing up vigorously.

The pressure remains strong this weekend

Other statistics on the agenda for this Friday, may well generate a few responses. Retail sales for the month of July will be unveiled at 2:30 p.m., in fact, before the start of the session Eats United.Investors await with interest the first estimate of consumer confidence from the University of Michigan for the month of August, from 3:55 p.m..

Pressure remains high on world markets. Lack of macroeconomic and really good news in the absence of major business publications Friday, this weekend is likely to be overshadowed by even more obvious signs of a weakening of growth. The sovereign debt crisis, and severe drops in banking stocks recorded this week, amid rumors of bankruptcy, particularly in France, will affect the trend no fax payday loans.Asian stock markets have already finished down on Friday morning.

In this context agrave exacerbated by a volatile market, investors are going to look at publications such as retail sales, which should also benefit from a slight rebound in auto sales?

Difficult to answer this question. For analysts Aurel BGC, "while" so far the timing of publications of macroeconomic indicators has been poor, a reaction, positive or negative, this indicator would in any case an early normalization "of market behavior. Excluding cars, the indicators are still available for now more mixed.

On the corporate side, the U.S. airline AMR, parent of American Airlines, announced plans to separate its regional affiliate American Eagle.A document filed with the stock market regulator described a "possible separation" with the American Eagle to introduce the stock market separately. American Airlines is still bound for nine years in its subsidiary. American Eagle will continue initially to operate 281 aircraft for American Airlines, which will wind down its cooperation in 2012.

The American and European leaders were under pressure Sunday to try to agree on a concerted response to the debt crisis in the eurozone and the degradation of the note of the United States. Front line, they seek to avoid further financial market plunge Monday, worried about the slowdown in global growth and spread of the debt crisis in the eurozone. Since Friday, so they stepped up contacts.

• Maintenance of imminent G7 finance ministers. Finance ministers of the G7, which includes the U.S., Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Italy and Britain, have stepped up telephone contacts this weekend in order to develop a common strategy to offer.After heavy turbulence in global financial markets, which lost 2,500 billion during the past week, they must reassure investors about the ability and determination of their countries to reduce deficits and public debts. A telephone conference of finance ministers and central bankers to be held Monday, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo. Interviews are tentatively scheduled before the opening of Asian markets (in the night from Sunday to Monday in Europe).

• A G20 focused on the debt. More broadly, the G20, which groups the world's major economies, contacted by telephone Sunday morning to discuss the consequences of the debt crisis on both sides of the Atlantic. Nothing had filtered from the meeting at noon.Only South Korea said that its confidence in the U.S. Treasury had not changed despite the decision of Standard & Poor's. "There will be no change in the policy of foreign exchange reserves of South Korea," said Vice Minister of Finance.

• The ECB will speak Sunday. Among the tracks in the study is a possible intervention by the European Central Bank, which could buy government bonds in Italy and Spain. This intervention is strongly demanded by the markets payday loans. The European Central Bank Thursday reactivated its share repurchase program of sovereign debt in order to calm soaring interest rates in some countries of the euro area, but has so far bought only small amounts of debt and Irish Portuguese, while speculation is focused on Italy and Spain.If the decision to intervene is taken, the ECB and national central banks will begin to redeem the bond markets open Monday. A meeting of governors will be held Sunday to 18 hours.

• Nicolas Sarkozy met with David Cameron on Saturday. The President, who chairs the G7 and G20 met Saturday evening on the phone for thirty minutes of the financial situation with British Prime Minister. The two men "agreed on the importance of working together to monitor the situation closely and keep in touch in the coming days," said a London spokesman for Downing Street, without giving further details. The discussion between the two leaders has focused on his view "the euro area and the lowering of the rating American."

• Barack Obama called on Europeans Friday night.According to the White House, Bush spoke by phone separately with President Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel about "the latest developments of the crisis in the euro zone" and noted "the importance of [the] implementation "of measures adopted at the summit of the euro area on July 21. The leaders of the eurozone had concerted Friday after finding that the agreement found to cope with the debt crisis had not convinced the markets. If Italy and Spain are at the heart of the turmoil, other countries are also affected such as Belgium.

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The script, well-functioning, truly does not leave room for surprise. Around the fall, Apple should introduce a new iPhone, the fifth. As with previous releases of the iPhone and those of the iPad, the clues and revelations follow one another in recent weeks, from subcontractors in Asia, analysts and industry sources "knowledgeable," cited by major U.S. media. Little to say as usual, Apple executives have so far been content to indicate that a transition to a "future product" was to be expected.

If Apple has not experienced such a mishap with the iPhone 4, a prototype of which was intercepted by a blog two months before the release, specifications are beginning to converge guaranteed cash advance.Manufacturers of accessories, which can get the dimensions of future Apple products under the seal of secrecy, expose already covers cut for the next iPhone. They suggest that the new model, greatly thinned, will include a screen bigger (about 4 inches instead of 3.5 inches), full width of the device. The back end up rounding the old iPhone, easier to handle.

Touch an area in place of the home button

Examples of covers for the next iPhone.

EDF is optimistic. The electrician today reported improved results for first half 2011 and has set ambitious targets in the medium term. In a statement, the group announced that its sales rose 2.7% to 33,464 million euros and aims for the period 2011-2015 average annual growth of between 4% and 6% its gross operating profit (EBITDA), and 5% to 10% of its net income.

It also provides a ratio of debt to EBITDA of 2.1 to 2.3 (two in the first half) and a dividend at least equal to that paid for 2010. EDF will also establish an investment program, the amount reach 13 to 15 billion euros by 2015.Perspectives of "profitable growth" long overdue and should bolster the market.

Side results, the net half the group up 54% year on year to 2.6 billion euros, also benefits from a favorable comparison effect since EDF had spent in its 2010 accounts a provision of a billion euros to cover the risk of impairment of its assets in the United States. Analysts had forecast a net profit slightly below the 2.429 billion euros.

"The first half of 2011 is marked in a troubled context, a strong operational performance, particularly related to the increase in nuclear generation in France and the UK", says Group CEO Henri Proglio, quoted in the statement.

Nuclear generation raised

In an interview with Les Echos, Proglio stresses that nuclear generation in France has a record in the first half. It amounted to 218.4 terawatt hours (TWh), offsetting the decline of 7.6 TWh of hydropower production group in France, which has suffered water conditions "deteriorated". As a result, the group raised its target and has produced in France from 411 to 418 TWh, against 408 to 415 before. "The group has investments necessary for the proper operation of power plants, increasing capacity and extending their service life beyond 40 years, and incorporate lessons learned related to Fukushima," said Henri Proglio.

The group that had fallen in 2009 to its lowest level of production for 10 years as a result of breakdowns and strikes, had already made an investment effort in 2010.Nearly two billion euros were spent on ten-year inspections, the program of replacement of heavy components and other investments related to plant operations, against 1.5 billion euros the previous year. This amount is expected to reach 3.4 and 3.6 billion euros in 2015, according to Proglio.

At the Paris stock exchange, EDF lost 1.06% while the CAC was down 0.84%.

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The fifteen-minute speech of Barack Obama addressed the U.S., not markets. The objective of the President was to convince his fellow citizens that the right of the Republican Party is responsible for the impasse. He asked the rest of his listeners to call their senator or their Republican Congress asking them to compromise.

Barack Obama said the disaster would be a failure to pay the Treasury on Tuesday, if this compromise was not reached. The economic crisis that would result, he said, entirely caused by the political dysfunction in Washington.

Obama maintains its position

For the chief executive of the United States, the problem of excessive indebtedness of the country is the result of at least ten years of lax fiscal policy. First, because of excessive spending and irresponsible tax cut decided in George W. Bush.He then explains the explosion of debt since taking office by the need to save America from a very serious recession.

Nothing he outlined in his speech Monday night was not already stated in previous days by Barack Obama. From this point of view, it may disappoint the market. The White House put on the pressure of public opinion to split the Republicans in two.

He tries to rally the Republican pragmatists to what he calls "a balanced approach" to reducing debt. That is a major plan that includes both tax increases and cuts in public spending.

However, he supported the plan proposed by the Democratic majority leader of the Senate, Harry Reid. It abandons the idea of ​​raising taxes.It offers a massive and immediate increase in the debt cap, with "savings" of the same order.

Republicans denounce economies sham

John Boehner responded Monday night's speech by Barack Obama. Photo credits: NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP

Pressure mounts on Barack Obama. While the deadline of August 2 approach, the U.S. president can not convince Republicans to vote on raising the debt ceiling of the United States. He must now face the threat of a deterioration in the country's sovereign rating from Moody's. Wednesday evening, the rating agency said it could in the coming weeks to lower the American note, currently the highest possible AAA, AA category, which is an investment category.

Moody's became the first of the three major rating agencies to place the note in the United States under surveillance with risk of a downgrade. In a statement, she said, receive "a possibility of increasing the maximum statutory debt is not found in time."Without an agreement, the U.S. could miss some payments on government bonds in circulation, she says. The dollar and U.S. bonds fell after the announcement. The dollar's share has compounded its losses. In morning trading, the euro is worth 1.4196 dollars.

The agency intends to end the monitoring as soon as it can conclude whether a defect is avoidable or not. It will then decide if the United States are entitled to keep a stable outlook on their ratings, on the basis of the budget negotiations between Democrats and Republicans. But even if Congress manages to avoid a technical default in August, increases the likelihood of a revision of the outlook to negative in the weeks following, told Reuters Steven Hess, Moody's analyst."The fact that they do not agree on are the maximum debt shows that the outcome of negotiations on the status of long-term debt may not be very positive," said he.

Recall

Following this announcement, the Deputy Treasury Secretary for Finance interior, Jeffrey Goldstein, said the Moody's decision was a timely reminder of the need for Congress to avoid a default and to seal an agreement to reduce serious budget deficit.

For Democrat Chris Van Hollen, the words of Moody's demonstrated the danger in the ideological debates. "The fact that Moody's places the United States under surveillance and downgrade our rating to AAA underlines the danger of those who would do our economy and our jobs hostage to a rigid ideology instead of acting in the best interests of our country, "he said.

Tense discussions at the White House

The opinion of Moody's fell just before the fourth interview in four days between Barack Obama and the leader of the Congress. According to a Republican parliamentary attaché, she was the most tense of all. To conclude the meeting of Wednesday, the president of the United States would have meant he would no longer concession, even if it were put at risk its mandate. "I got to the point where I have to say 'enough is enough!" Is Ronald Reagan would sit here? I reached my limits. This may possibly lead to the end of my presidency, but I will not yield on this point ", would he have said.

Denying the information that the President had left the room abruptly, an audience member who requested anonymity confirmed that he had expressed his exasperation, saying, "Enough!".Barack Obama, who will again parliamentary leaders on Thursday, has also asked to renounce the political maneuvering, according to a member of the Democratic Party.

In this context, the President of the U.S. central bank (Fed), Ben Bernanke, warned that failure to pay the United States would create "huge problems" for the country and a "major crisis" in the world .

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In the fight against deficits, the prize for creativity back to Hungary. It has introduced a "hamburger tax" which, as its name does not indicate, not only will tax the burgers, which are beyond the last minute. In reality, this new collection in September will affect the crackers and sugary soft drinks high in sugar and packaged cakes.

This offensive against junk food is primarily aimed at combating the scourge of obesity, which affects 18% of the population. "Studies in recent years on the eating habits of Hungarians and health effects show that the problems associated with excessive consumption of fat and salt have increased," says Minister of Economy, György Matolcsy no faxing pay day loans.

This tax also has the advantage of the coffers of a state that really needs.Faced with abysmal deficits, the IMF ordered to redress the balance, the government of Viktor Orban multiplies the creation of new taxes, including banks, telecommunications companies, energy and distribution. Never mind, especially since he swears the "hamburger tax" will finance advertising campaigns on food hygiene.

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