The chief prompt: government grants of up to FFr7,000 ($1,200) to anyone trading in an old jalopy for a new car.
IT IS more than two decades since America led the world in tax reform, and what Ronald Reagan called "that old jalopy of our tax system" is looking in need of a lot more than a new spray of paint.
Most funds manage only one to two years.In this section Overhauling the old jalopy All locked-up Cold Turkey Ports and storms Be careful what you wish for In praise of usury Reprints Related items Face value: Leader of the swarmJul 12th 2007For managers, the benefits of lock-ups are clear.
In contrast, America's lax (perhaps too lax) monetary policy has fuelled rapid growth.As Paul Krugman, an economist at MIT, puts it: monetary and fiscal fine-tuning cannot turn an economic jalopy into a Porsche, but even a Porsche will not go far on an empty tank.
But it is stuck in a time warp behind protectionist barriers, with little foreign investment to drag it into the present.For as long as Iranians can remember, motoring has been synonymous with the Paykan, the style-free jalopy that has been polluting their cities ever since Iran National (as Iran Khodro was then called) got a licence from a British car maker, Hillman, in the 1960s.
The jalopy swung wildly across the road.
Trade restrictions with then-apartheid era South Africa meant no new vehicles, while any second-hand jalopy that went for sale, however decrepit, was snapped up pronto.
After all, the United Kingdom – that ramshackle old jalopy of a polity, tied together with string and myth – is wheezing towards an abyss of its own.
"The EU leaders are driving a German Mercedes and the Greeks are in a beat-up old jalopy".
It was acquired 24 years ago at the British Masters in Woburn after Poulter – a 15-year-old from Stevenage – had journeyed across Bedfordshire in his brother's old jalopy to pay homage to his hero, who won by three strokes.
That type of valuation would be akin to preferring a decrepit jalopy, with a nonfunctioning engine and a rusting chassis, to a serviceable new car solely on the grounds that the old wreck had a more appealing hood ornament.
