The difficulties of assembling and steering an effective organization/bureaucracy during turbulent times...
Can the EU satisfactorily and sustainably address today's issues of concern for it's own citizens via an integrated financial framework, an integrated budgetary framework, an integrated economic policy framework, democratic legitimacy and accountability? What is it's current sphere of influence as compared to the hopes and dreams of 'the elite'? Is there a significant deficit of democracy? What about privatization and the application of market forces?
Some of today's reading...
TOWARDS A GENUINE ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION Report by President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, Brussels, 26 June 2012, http://consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cm.../ec/131201.pdf
The REAL Eurozone Crisis Is About Much More Than Debt, Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/europ...#ixzz2A3AgZ2Jf
Welcome to Berlin, Europe’s new capital, By Gideon Rachman, October 22, 2012 4:48 pm, Financial Times, www.ft.com
High fiscal multipliers undermine austerity programmes, October 21, 2012 3:25 pm by Gavyn Davies, Financial Times, www.ft.comBerlin does not feel like an imperial city. The new government buildings – the chancellor’s office, the Bundestag and the foreign ministry – have all been designed with plenty of glass and natural light, to emphasise transparency and democracy. The finance ministry is, admittedly, housed in the old headquarters of the Luftwaffe. But most of the grandest architecture – Unter den Linden and the Brandenburg gate – is a legacy of the Prussian kings. Modern Berlin presents a more welcoming face, and has become a magnet for tourists and teenagers.
Yet while the German capital has deliberately eschewed the trappings of imperial power, the fact is that Berlin is increasingly the de facto capital of the EU. Of course the EU’s main institutions – the commission and the council – are still based in Brussels. But the key decisions are increasingly made in Berlin.
European Bank For Reconstruction And Development 2011 Annual Report, http://www.ebrd.com/pages/research/p...s/annual.shtmlMuch therefore hinges on whether Blanchard and Leigh are right. Their methodology is certainly not watertight. Cross-sectional country studies are notoriously unreliable. As demonstrated by Chris Giles in the FT, if we exclude Greece and Germany from the 28 countries in their study, then their result largely melts away. It is also sensitive to the time period chosen, and does not appear to work for other similar periods. It is surely asking a lot to change the entire course of global economic policy on the basis of a result as flimsy as that.
Having said that about this particular study, there are other, stronger, reasons for believing that fiscal multipliers are higher than many governments have been assuming. In the 1950s and 1960s, when Keynesianism was at its height, the multiplier was generally assumed to be around 2. Then in the 1990s and 2000s, these estimates gradually dropped, leaving the consensus range around 0.5-0.7 by 2009.
European Bank For Reconstruction And Development Search at Bloomberg, http://topics.bloomberg.com/european...d-development/The Annual Report 2011 shows how the EBRD continued to provide strong, sustained support across sectors from central Europe to central Asia, as well as Russia and Turkey, during turbulent times. At the same time as supporting its existing countries of operations in 2011, the EBRD began to lay foundations for future investment in the southern and eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region and to assist those countries affected by uprisings to make the transition to open, democratic market economies.
Putin Balks at Pension Threats as Aging Russians Hold Trump Card, by Henry Meyer - Oct 21, 2012 4:01 PM MT, Bloomberg News, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...rump-card.html
Sultankina -- and the legion of Russians who grew up with the cradle-to-grave state care of the Soviet Union -- are holding Putin, 60, hostage to his election promise to keep the retirement age unchanged six months after he returned to Russia’s presidency.
Pension spending will rise to 14 percent of gross domestic product by 2030 from 9 percent, Standard & Poor’s said. There is an “urgent need” for measures to curb the rise in retirement costs, according to VTB Capital. Government debt may rise to 70 percent of GDP by 2030 from about 10 percent this year, if the pension deficit is financed through borrowing, it said.
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