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The French can be proud of their health-care system; they spend less and get more than Americans do, and they outlive nearly all Europeans. But the public-private hybrid system is coming under heavy financial strain. The French may soon not only have to forgo publicly funded thermal baths, but find deeper savings too.
And economists have predicted five out of the last three recessions, as the joke goes. But while they are fallible, it’s better to have them than not. Yet governments in many rich countries are cutting back on producing the statistics economists rely on. That won’t make it any easier to see the next downturn coming. | 
