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05-02-2010, 02:59 AM
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Corsica is the poorest part of France
<center><big><big>Introduction</big></big></center>
Alizee's new <a href="http://AlizeeRadio.com/">virtual Internet radio station</a> features several numbers by Brooklyn-born rap/hip-hop artist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay-Z">Jay-Z</a> including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Knock_Life_(Ghetto_Anthem)"><i>Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)</i></a>. Does this surprise you? What could Alizée know about a "hard knock life"? Didn't she herself have a safe, comfortable and loving upbringing? If all you know of Alizée's Corsica is what you've seen in glamorous Mylène Farmer orchestrated promotional videos from the dawn of Alizée's career, you have a very small piece of the story of Corsica. This post will be about the economics of personal wealth and poverty. As this is Alizée America, we will especially focus in on the United States and the two countries in which Alizée has had her most important commercial successes, France and Mexico. The purpose of all this is to provide a more realistic view of Corsica, Alizée's beloved "homeland." If you are short on time, or hate numbers, skip the next lengthy, but very educational, section. <center><big><big>Measuring Income Inequality</big></big></center> The Marshall Plan gave rise to a study group of wealthy nations called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisation_for_Economic_Co-operation_and_Development">OECD</a>, which today includes 30 states. Ninety percent of them, including the United States and France, are what the World Bank calls "high-income economies." The rest, including Mexico, are called "upper middle-income economies." All the OECD countries live much better on average than the typical person on the planet. (The three nations of North America make that continent unique in consisting entirely of OECD countries.) Of course, household incomes vary within a country, both locally, and regionally. Thus to fully understand incomes one must examine both national averages and variations from the average. First let's look at national averages. In recent years, we have come to appreciate that because of geographical constraints, it is misleading just to look at national GDPs and compare them by using the relative trade values of their respective national currencies. That's because not all the good and services a nation's people consume can easily be traded internationally, if at all. For example, there is an international price for crude oil, but not one for natural gas. That's because it only takes a couple dollars to move a barrel of oil between two ports on opposite sides of the world, much less than the oil is worth. The common method of compensating for the complication of localization is to introduce PPP-corrected incomes. Americans might think of them roughly as correcting incomes for cost-of-living, as COLA formulas do. There are other complications as well. Not all activity which promotes welfare takes place in the market, even including the portion of it in which the state operates. The amount of DIY work varies a lot between nations, as does the size of the underground economy. Thus, in the final analysis, comparing economic well-being in different places is problematic at best, even assuming people agree on what they like. Here then are the two types of annual per capita income numbers: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita">GDP (nominal) per capita</a><table cellspacing="10"><tr><td>order</td><td>nation</td><td>income(US$)</td></tr><tr><td>9th</td><td>USA</td><td>46,381</td></tr><tr><td>15th</td><td>France</td><td>42,747</td></tr><tr><td>61th</td><td>Mexico</td><td>8,135</td></tr></table> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita">GDP (PPP) per capita</a><table cellspacing="10"><tr><td>order</td><td>nation</td><td>income(US$)</td></tr><tr><td>6th</td><td>USA</td><td>46,381</td></tr><tr><td>21th</td><td>France</td><td>33,679</td></tr><tr><td>60th</td><td>Mexico</td><td>13,628</td></tr></table> We see there is a small difference between the US and France, and a much larger common difference between those nations and Mexico. What about differences WITHIN these nations, especially on an internationally comparative basis? And what sort of metrics are used to characterize them? <a href="http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/why/evidence/methods"><i>How Income Inequality is Measured</i></a> writes: <blockquote>There are several ways to measure income inequality. One way (the 20:20 ratio) is to compare how much richer the top 20% of people are, compared to the bottom 20%. Among the rich developed countries the 20:20 ratio varies from as little as 3 or 4 to as much as 8 or 9. For example, in Japan and Sweden the income gap is fairly small: the richest 20% are less than 4 times as rich as the poorest 20%; but in Britain the richest 20% are over 7 times as rich as the poorest 20%, and in the USA they are over 8 times as rich. ...In many societies, the poorest half of the population get around 20-25 percent of all incomes and the richest half get the rest. </blockquote>Perhaps it is not surprising to see larger income variations in huge, geographically and ethnically diverse nations like the United States, but a bit more surprising to see them in a compact place like Britain (once, but no longer, of limited ethnic variability). Other methods exist to measure income inequality. The simplest and most colorful is the Hoover or "Robin Hood" index, which is the fraction of national income one would have to redistribute from wealthier to poorer households to make all incomes identical. Another, more complicated, method is the Gini index. The 1996 study <a href="http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/312/7037/1004"><i>Income distribution and mortality</i></a> wrote: <blockquote>Data on income, household size, and poverty were obtained from the 1990 United States census... These data were used to calculate the Gini coefficient and the Robin Hood index... The Robin Hood index for the United States overall in 1990 was 30.22% (range 27.13% for New Hampshire to 34.05% for Louisiana).</blockquote>I was surprised to see how close the US Robin Hood index was to that of the western part of Germany, the latter of which is computed using income after taxation in 1995, the default data loaded in the online calculator <a href="http://www.poorcity.richcity.org/calculator/">here</a>, as 29.7%. I would not be surprised that if more people understood how small the Robin Hood index was in wealthy countries, more attention would be paid to raising average national productivity, or even leveling labor participation rates and durations, and less to redistributing income. Separate from the issue examined above, of the inequality of incomes WITHIN the various US states, is the issue of the inequality of average incomes BETWEEN the various US states. That is examined over a large part of the twentieth century in the 2006 paper <a href="http://www.clevelandfed.org/Research/Workpaper/2006/wp0606.pdf"><i>State Growth Empirics: The Long-Run Determinants of State Income Growth</i></a> which writes:<blockquote>Real average U.S. per capita personal income growth over the last 65 years exceeded a remarkable 400 percent. Also notable over this period is that the stark income differences across states have narrowed considerably: In 1939 the highest income state’s per capita personal income was 4.5 times the lowest, but by 1976 this ratio had fallen to less than 2 times. Since 1976, the standard deviation of per capita incomes at the state level has actually risen...</blockquote>Additional germane information is published in <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/ABS@.NSF/Previousproducts/1301.0Feature%20Article152001?opendocument&tabname =Summary&prodno=1301.0&issue=2001&num=&view="><i>Y ear Book Australia, 2001</i></a> which writes:<blockquote>[A study in 1976 employed] ...published data on income distribution to compare inequality in ten OECD countries... using a range of different income measures (before-tax and after-tax; original and per capita household income) [and]... concluded that Australia, along with Japan and Sweden, had the lowest degree of inequality in its post-tax distribution. At the other extreme were France and the United States, both of which consistently showed up as having most inequality... TABLE 6 INCOME DISTRIBUTION, Selected Countries - around 1995 (The unit of analysis used for this table is the household.)<table cellspacing="10"><tr><td>Country/year</td><td>Gini coeff.</td><td>P10/P50</td><td>P90/P50</td><td>P90/P10</td></tr><tr><td>Sweden (1995)</td><td>0.222</td><td>0.603</td><td>1.562</td><td>2.589</td></tr><tr><td>France (1994)</td><td>0.290</td><td>0.539</td><td>1.790</td><td>3.321</td></tr><tr><td>US (1997)</td><td>0.375</td><td>0.380</td><td>2.142</td><td>5.637</td></tr></table> </blockquote>Similar metrics are summarized for the three nations of special interest to us at <i>Wikipedia</i> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality">here</a>, reporting:<table cellspacing="10"><tr><td>Country</td><td>UN R/P10%</td><td>UN R/P20%</td><td>UN Gini</td><td>CIA R/P10%</td><td>Year</td><td>CIA Gini</td><td>Year</td></tr><tr><td>Mexico</td><td>24.6</td><td>12.8</td><td>46.1</td><td>24.6</td><td>2004</td><td>46.1</td><td>2004</td></tr><tr><td>USA</td><td>15.9</td><td>8.4</td><td>40.8</td><td>15.0</td><td>2007</td><td>45</td><td>2007</td></tr><tr><td>France</td><td>9.1</td><td>5.6</td><td>32.7</td><td>8.3</td><td>2004</td><td>28</td><td>2005</td></tr></table> (As a caveat, <i>Wikipedia</i> notes <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient">here</a> that <i>The USA counts income before benefits, while France counts it after benefits, making the USA appear slightly more unequal vis-a-vis France than it admittedly is.)</i>We see that these days, France has the most egalitarian distribution of incomes. Mexico has the least, with the United States in the middle. One important consequence of this is that not only is Mexico the least rich of the three countries, but its poorest citizens are rather more impoverished than one would expect from its average national income, if one was only acquainted with France, or even the US. An on-the-ground anecdotal consequence of these numbers is the Mexican version of the <i>favela</i>, described by following text, which Scruffy frankly offered on 01-04-2008 <a href="http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showpost.php?p=85945&postcount=28">here</a> <blockquote>I went to Paris last month to Alizée's autograph session and I hope to go to Mexico if she does a concert there. However Paris and Mexico city are two totally different animals. I took my mother to Mexico city back in 2000because she wanted to see the Basilica of Guadalupe which is about 20 miles north of the city. At the time, the city had a population of about 23 million. Once you get outside the city, the hillsides are covered with shacks. Actually a shack would be a step up for whatever you would call these dwellings. They were stacked one right above the other with no running water, no sewer system, just unbeleivable poverty there and numerous places in Mexico. A lot of these people have little way of making money but to prey on unsuspecting tourists. I work in the travel industry and I've heard a lot of horror stories of things that have gone on down there. From what I hear, you can't even trust the police. So I will and I hope anyone else here who decides to go down will do plenty of research on where it will be, how to get there, etc. You also have to be very careful of what cabs you get in and I wouldn't recommend bringing an expensive camera. If possible, bring a spanish speaking freind. Hopefully it will be in one of the safer areas of Mexico such as Cancun, Cabo San Lucas, etc. Be careful and hope to see you there.</blockquote><center><big><big>Corsica is Poor Compared to France</big></big></center> What does all this have to do with Alizée? We now get to the heart of the matter. Corsica is a part of France which in <i>some</i> (hardly all) ways resembles Mexico more than it does the rest of France. Performing shows in Mexico was probably not as strange an experience for Alizée as the more naive among us might have imagined. First, some numbers. I could not induce Bigdan to help out, but his always-funny graphics are so delightful, I have now "forgotten" I ever asked him for help with numbers at all. <table align="center" border="10" width="90%" cellpadding="10"><tr><td><center><big><i>How</i> Poor Is Corsica? An Incomplete Story</big></center> Another numerically-oriented fan (at Alizee Forum's thread <a href="http://www.alizee-forum.com/showthread.php?15058-Which-Social-Class-Is-Alizee-From&p=280605"> <i>Which Social Class Is Alizee From?</i></a>) filled in for Bigdan's silence On 24th May 2005 22:03 as post #9, Ludicrous Maximus wrote:<blockquote><i>I'm sorry to disapoint you or break any Corsican dream, but income wise Corsica is the poorest region of France (ex[cep]ting oversea[s] territories)? It's GDP per capita is about 10.260 $ a year (not a simple figure to find) it's lower than Poland (12,000 $) and mainland France is much closer of the 30.000 $ a year (hard to find a figure for mainland France only, all stats include Corsica and the oversea territories). It's economic growth is following the same r[h]ythm than the rest of France (which isn't a good thing). There is indeed a rich class in Corsica, but it's really far [from being] representative of the reality. Corsica isn't a third world country, but what do you want me to say? It's clearly not a rich region in France, the powerfull area are Ile de France and Alsace. Southern France is also xperiencing strong devellopments (but not Corsica).</i></blockquote>And on 25th May 2005 02:41 in post #10, Backinblack added:<blockquote><i>Corsica also receives more subsidies than any other region of France. It experiences "brain drain" and the majority of income from the island is generated during tourist season.</i></blockquote>But are the unsourced numbers alleged in the excerpt above in any way accurate? <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/"> EUROPA is the portal site of the European Union (http://europa.eu).</a> The page it publishes <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/country/prordn/details_new.cfm?gv_PAY=FR&gv_reg=ALL&gv_PGM=1139&g v_defL=7&LAN=7">here</a> writes:<blockquote><i>France Operational Programme 'Corsica' ...In recent years Corsica has had strong and sustainable GDP growth that has been more rapid than the national average. However, with a GDP per capita of €20918 in 2004, it is still in last place among all the regions of mainland France (77.5% of the national average). ...For several years the unemployment rate was about 3% higher than in mainland France. The situation improved considerably in 2004 and 2005, with the difference being only half a percentage point at the end of 2005/beginning of 2006 (France 9.6%, Corsica 10.1%). ...Last modified: 02-05-2010</i></blockquote>Please note I have found no numerical data, alleged or substantiated, which compares the cost of living in Corsica to that in France as a whole. (See anecdotal remarks below.) Does it matter? Well, I happen to know of two zip codes in the United States where the nominal per capita incomes are the same, but the cost of living in one is double that in the other one. Both northern Italy and Colorado provide examples where the ambition to uplift the income of local inhabitants through tourism pushed living costs so high they actually drove the vast majority of long-time residents far away. Note that a very extensive English-language Web site on Corsica writes <a href="http://www.corsica-isula.com/public.htm#The%20economy">here</a>: <blockquote><i>The Economy. The Corsican economy had a GDP in 2000 of €4593 million. This had risen to €4777 million in 2001. In this progression it follows the pattern of the French economy as a whole (but it runs at about 20% of the national average per capita)...</i></blockquote>It is a pity that, as written, this page mistakes the difference between 100%-20%=80% and 20%, a FOUR-FOLD ERROR! Sheesh.</td></tr></table> Corsica has been poor for a very long time, and also infamous for its extensive violence. The <i>Wikipedia</i> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corsica">article</a> on it writes:<blockquote>In Corsica, vendetta was a social code that required Corsicans to kill anyone who wronged the family honor. It has been estimated that between 1683 and 1715, nearly 30,000 out of 120,000 Corsicans lost their lives to vendetta.</blockquote><a href="http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst?docId=107327921"><i>Appetites and Identities...</i> (1995)</a> writes:<blockquote>In 1954 there were only 191000 Corsicans left on the island which was the poorest region of France.</blockquote><a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+troublesome+island-a0110915140"><i>A troublesome island</i> (2003)</a> writes:<blockquote>Corsica is the poorest region of France and receives large subsidies from Paris. Roughly 40 percent of the island's workforce is employed by the government.</blockquote>A Dutch computer scientist about Alizée's age, working in Vienna, on September 4th, 2006, blogged <a href="http://www.arjangeven.nl/blog/page/2/">this</a>: <blockquote>Corsica is the poorest region of whole France. Living there is very expensive, Île Rousse, the town we lived close to has approximately 1500 citizens throughout the year, and about 55.000 in summer. It is clear that the traffic system on the island is not built on those amounts of people. 60% of the Corsican people is over sixty, and Corsica has a very high unemployment rate compared to other regions of France. But, the beaches, the nature is wonderful!</blockquote>Perhaps there are coastal luxury resort towns in Mexico about which affluent, professional-class foreign visitors might write reports which are similar - save for vastly contrasting age histograms. Finally, Yale University publishes <a href="http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/europe%E2%80%99s-next-immigration-crisis"><i>Europe’s Next Immigration Crisis...</i> (2006)</a>, writing the following about the economic problems of Corsica and its social consequences:<blockquote>When there are too few jobs, either nationally or within certain regions, antagonism between locals and newcomers grows... Throughout Western Europe, the pattern is the same... In France, there has been a striking rise in the number of racial attacks [i]n Corsica against the island’s mainly Moroccan immigrant community. It is worth noting that Corsica is by far the poorest region of France, with the second highest ratio of immigrants -- some 10 percent of the population. The highest ratio is found in the city of Paris and the surrounding suburbs, the epicenter of the riots in 2005.</blockquote><center><big><big>Extending a Hand To Alizée's Compatriots</big></big></center> I do not have data on income inequality within Corsica itself, but I would hardly be surprised if the coastal cities, with cheap maritime access to other places, including those providing visitors to the island, have rather higher per capita incomes than the small, isolated communities in the hills and mountains. If an arts scholarship is funded at the Mufraggi school, it would be especially nice if somehow a child from the hinterland might use it, lodging with (perhaps distant) relatives in Ajaccio for a year and experiencing something totally out of reach in the place called home. But certainly that is an expense and complication out of our ability to influence. Alizée was lucky to have two healthy, intelligent, educated parents unvexed by persecution or other extraordinary travail. They could provide the financial basis of a very happy childhood in an idyllically beautiful small city with all the modern conveniences. As I documented elsewhere, it appears her Dad was the first of his surname born on the island, with his long-horizon surname origins in Doubs, near Switzerland. Thus it seems that her proudly outspoken deep roots in Corsica (and one imagines her partial Sicilian heritage as well) are mainly through her Mom. I bet hardly all of Alizée's extended family on the island are affluent white-collar people living in coastal cities. I would not be surprised if, upon her earlier success and the unusual rewards it brought, she was a source of precocious generosity to many people, something about which we would never hear a whisper. When at her interview at Aguascalientes in Mexico, she was asked about her charity work, Alizée's cheerful demeanor became crestfallen, her words coming slow and somber, reflecting on the problems facing the needy people which her philanthropy helped. She eventually cut the answer short, suggesting that it was hardly something with which she wanted to glorify herself. It is not hard for me to believe that as she spoke about needy people, she visualized not only the faces of strangers, but those of people she knew on Corsica. So it is not odd that Alizée's radio station plays Jay-Z songs! His world may be urban, black and anglophone while hers is rustic, white and francophone, but I bet a lot of the same problems go down for the people on the bottom in both places when things are bad. The affluent national economies and welfare states to which both places belong prevent the horror one sees in poor countries, but the poor people still know they are poor. That is especially true in very hard times like these. And even more so in Corsica, because its major private industry is travel and tourism, which, as a luxury, is among the very worst hit during recessions. Nearly a half-century ago, I came home from first grade and excitedly told my Mom that if I could bring a quarter-dollar to school each week, they would teach me to play the piano! I still recall the pain in her face when she had to explain that people like us could never afford such an extravagance. I would never again ask my folks for anything I didn't desperately need, even when things got much better for us. Today, my tragic childhood neighborhood in Brooklyn remains the most destitute place in the city, as illustrated by the map <a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/a-localized-breakdown-of-joblessness-in-new-york/?partner=rss&emc=rss">here</a>. It is worse off than Jay-Z's Bed-Stuy, and even the south Bronx and Harlem. It is no tragedy I never studied the piano, for I have reason to believe I would have been a poor musician. But what if I had been very talented? Alizée provided Alizée America with valuable goods and services at our private half-hour session in Paris and was never paid for it. Funding a cause like the <a href="http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5631">arts scholarship</a> at Mufraggi in Ajaccio is something I really believe would please Alizée and materially compensate her for her honest and valuable work. Again, I also hope it would be of value to her business manager as an example of her "star power," and even calibrate fees she might generate doing future private personal appearances and other non-musical services which would be helpful in subsidizing her costly musical enterprise in the face of relentlessly expanding and ultimately unstoppable and commercially fatal Napsterism. Last edited by FanDeAliFee; 05-03-2010 at 02:05 AM.. Reason: add EC numbers 
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05-02-2010, 04:49 AM
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Very interesting Doc.
I especailly found the drop in the average French PPP based per capita income interesting when compared with the Mexican increase in PPP based per capita income. By the way, Wikipedia lists the Corsican population as 302,000 in 2008, and the GDP per capita as 20,300 euros in 2006. If I could offer a suggestion. The ratios effectively demonstrate the variation between the rich and the poor of each country. However they, by themselves, do not provide numbers that most can really get a feel for. Simple average per capita incomes at each percentage point (if available) would be much more effective. So, are you an Economist? 
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05-02-2010, 07:43 AM
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Well that answers a lot of questions on why Alizée has said certain things about her life over the years. Example: She said in an interview that she never could have dreamed that she would ever have had the wonderful life she has now.
She really does appreciate every thing she has and earns because she grew up seeing the real world around her on Corsica. Too many people "make it" in life and seem to conveniently forget where they came from.
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Last edited by ALS; 05-02-2010 at 07:46 AM..
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05-05-2010, 02:58 AM
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According to studies, poor people aren't necessarily unhappy. They may be more happy. Of course, those studies could be crap since, I think poor generally means poor relative to those one is regularly in contact with anyway. Poor people in a third world country don't actually know much about us anyway I'd wager. How do they even know they are poor? What's poor? We have conveniences that the richest men in the world didn't have 100 years ago. I don't know if I could live outside the city anymore, but Tolla, Fr looks nice from what I can see from outer space. I'm glad Alizée got out of Paris proper. It has amazing and beautiful aspects, but filth as well. I saw it all the time when I was there for two months. It was depressing to think of the happy Corsican girl being subjected to that and no she did not live in some special part of the city away from all that. The poorest places in the world are the cold sidewalks where the bums sleep, wherever it is (well, maybe not poorest, but you get the point). Dio vi salvi Regina - thanks. I like that. I've heard some that remind me of the Indian shabads that I have heard, but this one had a more medieval European sound to it.
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 Merci Fanny
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#5
05-05-2010, 01:23 PM
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Roman, that is why I ask for people to see Tolla, Fr. through Google street view. It looks like a nice village that seems to be a tourist destination during the summer due to the lake it is situated on. It is a typical mountain village/town on Corsica.
Plus being that Goggle drove through Tolla with their camera car makes it an interesting place to check out with out having to fly over to Corsica to check out the Island.
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Last edited by ALS; 05-05-2010 at 01:26 PM..
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05-05-2010, 11:38 PM
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Merci Fanny
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05-03-2010, 02:34 AM
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Updated post on Corsican poverty
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Last edited by FanDeAliFee; 05-07-2010 at 10:15 PM.. Reason: mend URL typo
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05-03-2010, 03:03 AM
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05-02-2010, 07:39 AM
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It's pretty much the same with many european mediteranian countries. Not much export industry to speak of, they have income from tourism and that's pretty much it.
Problem is, they now have the same currency as the industrially much more developed nations of central europe. The european union already transfers many billion of EUR every year into these countries. Fully 1/3 of the transfers come from the german taxpayers. Go figure. Despite all this, Greece is practically bankrupt by now and has to apply for help to the other european countries. Others like Portugal will very likely follow. In other words, the taxpayers of some nations are now expected to cover the debts of other nations, and we are talking about hundreds of billions of EUR here. I guess nobody likes paying for the debts of others, so we are possibly facing a veritable currency crisis here in Europe right now. Basically many states are spending much more than they can afford, national debts are spiralling out of control and it get's more and more difficult to get new credits to keep the show running. Never mind paying back your debts, guess that will never happen anyway. Just to give you an idea what is currently happening in good ol' Europe atm.
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05-02-2010, 02:51 PM
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