Bloomberg: What a Macron Presidency Would Mean for France

The domestic front is much trickier. The French president appoints the prime minister and other senior administration figures -- a straightforward process if the parliamentary majority is from the president's party; he then controls the legislative agenda. But Macron's nascent En Marche party has never fielded candidates for election, including Macron himself. It's possible a number of existing deputies from the embattled Socialist Party will change flags. Even so, France's mainstream parties are fracturing and this election is likely to yield a fragmented and obstreperous parliament rather than one committed to his agenda. [...]

He wants to create a single tax of around 30 percent for all income from capital, bringing France's high taxation of capital closer to the EU average. The corporate tax rate, which has been coming down, will be reduced to the European average of 25 percent of the five-year period. He's pledging a 50 billion euro ($53 billion) public investment program and 20 billion euros of tax cuts to be shared between individuals and businesses. That would be paid for with 60 billion euros in spending cuts and low-interest borrowing. He has also pledged to get the budget deficit down to within the 3 percent EU limit. There is more flexibility for employers but also some extensions of the welfare state.

Some of his ideas hold promise, but they fall short of the radicalism that his rhetoric would suggest. Fundamentally, Macron is a centrist who has built his following by discrediting the (centrist) establishment of French politics. The result is yet more centrism, albeit wrapped in a more glamorous package. While the National Front’s Marine Le Pen proudly rejects ties to both the right and the left in this presidential campaign, Macron has decided -- perhaps unsurprisingly given his long record of pragmatism -- to claim both.

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Bloomberg: Italy’s Struggling Economy Has World’s Healthiest People

While Italy is among the most developed countries, growth has stagnated for decades, almost 40 percent of its youngsters are out of jobs and it’s saddled with one of the world’s highest debt loads relative to the size of its economy. Yet Italians are in way better shape than Americans, Canadians and Brits, who all suffer from higher blood pressure and cholesterol and poorer mental health.

Italy also has “an excess of doctors,” said Tom Kenyon, a physician and CEO of the global relief organization Project Hope. Case in point, one of the country’s most watched and long-running television shows is called “A Doctor in the Family.”

Then there is the diet, rich in vegetables and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil. Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington, has written about the importance of consumers having access to fresh produce, fruit, lean meats and fish. [...]

The developed world isn’t without its risks — obesity among them. The U.S. placed No. 34 with a health grade of 73.05 out of 100. It's ranking for prevalence of overweight people is 67.3 — tipping the scale as one of the world’s heaviest nations.

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The Atlantic: How to Buy Happiness

According to one oft-repeated rule of thumb, spending on experiences rather than objects makes us happiest. When asked to reflect on a purchase,  people who described experiential ones—travel, say, or concerts—were much happier than those who described material ones. [1] Psychologists believe the “hedonic treadmill”—our tendency to eventually revert to our original level of happiness following a change—operates more swiftly after material purchases than after experiential ones: A new table is easier to get used to than a trip to Chile. They also say we are better at making peace with bad experiences (“It brought us closer together”) than with regrettable objects.  [...]

University of Cambridge researchers joined with a bank to analyze the relationship between customers’ spending habits, personality, and happiness. They found that the “Big Five” personality traits—extroversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism—predicted spending. Outgoing people splurged on restaurants and entertainment, while self-controlled, conscientious types shelled out for fitness and insurance.  And those whose spending fit their personality were happier than those who spent against type. In one case, extroverts and introverts received vouchers for either a bar or a bookstore. Extroverts were happier when forced to spend money at the bar, while introverts were happier spending at the bookstore. 

But before you go on a spending spree, a caution: More than income, investments, or debt, the amount of cash in one’s checking account correlates with life satisfaction. [6] That doesn’t mean you should be stingy, though: When people were assigned to buy goodies for either a hospitalized child or themselves, those who bought treats for a sick child reported more positive feelings. [7] The effect was the same in a rich country (Canada) as in a poor one (South Africa). Spending on friends and family likewise gives us a boost because—unsurprisingly—it brings us closer to them.

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The New York Review of Books: Xi Jinping: The Illusion of Greatness

Xi came to power offering a similarly broad range of reforms and pledging to “rejuvenate” the nation. But his measures have been limited to the classic nationalist-authoritarian-traditionalist playbook. He has pursued an expansionist foreign policy, occupying and militarizing vast reaches of the South China Sea, while at home he has cracked down on corruption and promoted traditional values.

A crucial part of this has been enhancing his own control. At a plenum of the Communist Party last autumn, Xi was elevated to a “core” leader, putting him on a higher plane than other leaders in the recent past—the idea being that China needed even firmer leadership to get through tough times. [...]

The sidelining of China’s premier, the nominal number two in the hierarchy, has been accompanied by another development that is slowly becoming clearer: Xi seems not to have appointed a successor. Because Chinese politics is not very well institutionalized, it is hard to say that this is significant at this point in the year, but it’s fair to say that most observers expected that a successor would have surfaced by now. The lack of one means either that the Party is divided (possible) or that Xi intends to elevate a loyalist closer to the Party congress so he can rule from behind the curtain once he retires in five years (likely). [...]

The government, for example, talks endlessly of China needing to improve its legal system. But the main legislation at parliament involved setting up a continental European-style “civil code.” In theory this could enshrine personal liberties and make the legal system work more effectively. But the problem isn’t a lack of laws; it’s the politicization of the system. All sensitive decisions are still made by Party functionaries, not independent judges. So the code is likely to be largely a tool to allow the Party more legal cover for ruling, rather than bringing it more under the rule of law.

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BBC4 In Our Time: Seneca the Younger

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Seneca the Younger, who was one of the first great writers to live his entire life in the world of the new Roman empire, after the fall of the Republic. He was a Stoic philosopher, he wrote blood-soaked tragedies, he was an orator, and he navigated his way through the reigns of Caligula, Claudius and Nero, sometimes exercising power at the highest level and at others spending years in exile. Agrippina the Younger was the one who called for him to tutor Nero, and it is thought Seneca helped curb some of Nero's excesses. He was later revered within the Christian church, partly for what he did and partly for what he was said to have done in forged letters to St Paul. His tragedies, with their ghosts and high body count, influenced Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and Hamlet, and Kyd's Spanish Tragedy. 

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