[easytiger]

The predicate for this dates back a long way. I believe UBS were offered an initial sum of $1.1b to settle a few years ago and took it to trial [1]

> The judges’ move followed a failed plea bargain between national financial prosecutors and UBS representatives, the first time such an out-of-court settlement was tested in France. French magistrates reportedly offered UBS to settle the case for 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), after considering an initial deal of 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion). - 2017

However the basis was

> The assets illegally concealed by French clients in Switzerland between 2004 and 2012 allegedly amounted some 10 billion euros ($10.75 billion).

Another quote puts it at $600billion[2]

I'd love to know the definition of "illegally concealed" in these circumstances

The chances of it being reasonable I'd consider very slim; France is not a reasonable country nor is it run by reasonable people. France is a failing protection racket running out of people to shake down, by and large. When the people who run the socialist party government budget are offshoring their wealth - perhaps your country is fundamentally broken.[3]

[1] https://www.apnews.com/2c7032c7d75a40728395587fd917517e

[2] http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/04/europe-loses-billions-to-tax-...

[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-17/three-ex-...

Edit: Downvotes without comment. Not exactly productive conversation.

[mruts]

I can see why you are being downvoted, but you are right, France isn't a very reasonable country. France has some of the most absurd, protectionist, socialist, anti-market laws the world has ever seen. Hopefully they are getting the message that their stodgy old world socialist world-view is self-defeating and unproductive.

America has some problems, but there's a reason why they have a GDP 40x larger than France with only 5x the population.

[ArnoVW]

I won't enter into the policy discussions about wealth distribution, and you are right that the GDP per capita of the US is larger than that of Franc, but. The difference is more that of 43K vs 59K. So not 900%.

In fact, the GDP per capita is 100$ less than that of the UK, and more than that of, for example, Japan or South Korea.

Also of note may be that France, unlike the US, does not dispose of oil resources, which makes comparisons not quite as simple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

[mruts]

Sorry it's not 40x it's more like 10x for GDP. But there is a difference between GDP/capita and PPP. If we're talking about standard of living PPP is a good measure. But if we're just talking about "wealth" then I think GDP/capita is a better measure. Or actually, just total GDP is probably a better measure than per person.

[ArnoVW]

Even at nominal GDP it is 59k vs 39k, so 50% difference and not 100%.

And I'm not sure to understand why you prefer one mesure over the other. Pure GDP does not take into account systemic issues, such as the cost of health care or education. And the point of the discussion was the relevant merit of various economical systems.

But I did not post in order to correct some semantic point. But rather to explain the non-commented down votes.

In your original post you made an extraordinary claim, that was off by an order of magnitude. I pointed this out, and instead of checking facts, you downgraded your claim, even though a simple Google lookup would have been enough to know that even that was wrong by 100%.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(no...

In my mind this is an example of why it is difficult to have meaningful debate in our society. There is no point in debating if one or both parties are not willing to challenge their understanding of the facts.

[mruts]

I’m not the one who originally posted. The 10x GDP is just based on raw GDP numbers. I don’t think they’re biased. As are the population numbers.

[marsokod]

As of 2018, the US GDP is 7.34x the one of France, not 10x. And in 2019, the US population is 4.91x bigger that France population, leading to a GDP per capita being 1.50x higher, not 2x.

You cannot round numbers at 1 significant digit and use them for further computations, that's butchering math.