Bad behaviour and budget cuts

We look at media comment on the behaviour of the French team in the World Cup, the UK government’s recently announced emergency budget, and the controversial statements made by General Stanley McChrystal in Rolling Stone magazine. His withering comments led to his public dismissal this week as commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Just in time

The French team have shamed their nation. But what does it mean for a sponsor when their team gets bad publicity? asks the Financial Times.

For a while in Tuesday’s match, it looked as though the inept French football team would offset national shame with international popularity by allowing host nation South Africa to stay in the World Cup competition. As even that prospect disappeared, Crédit Agricole must have felt it acted not a moment too soon in dropping its advertising campaign ahead of the team’s ignominious exit from the competition. The sorry tale of France’s truncated involvement in the contest highlights the risks of corporate sports. ...

The brakes on Keynes

The UK government’s emergency budget, announced on June 22, is a welcome departure from Keynesian economics, writes The Wall Street Journal.

[Chancellor of the Exchequer] George Osborne presented the U.K. government's emergency budget [on June 22], with spending cuts and consumption-tax hikes intended to shrink public borrowing to 1.1% of GDP by 2016, down from 10.1% of GDP this year. Nearly 80% of that retrenchment comes as spending cuts rather than tax increases. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's cuts are, on balance, good news for the British economy. Even more welcome, though, is that Mr. Osborne's budget is the latest to depart from the short-lived Keynesian consensus that government can spend its way back to prosperity. ...

 Out of line

On Wednesday, before Obama dismissed General Stanley McChrystal, The New York Times discussed the general's interview in Rolling Stone magazine. His comments are puzzling, the paper wrote, and called for Obama to take control of the situation in Afghanistan.

Until this week, Gen. Stanley McChrystal had a reputation for fierce self-discipline. That makes his hugely undisciplined comments in Rolling Stone magazine — including derisive quotes from his aides about Vice President Joseph Biden and other top officials — all the more puzzling and disturbing. ... Mr. Obama ... must order all of his top advisers to stop their sniping and maneuvering and come up with a coherent political and military plan for driving back the Taliban and building a minimally effective Afghan government. ...