The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
Already this morning I have received several E-mails asking me to comment on the latest article in the Sydney Morning Herald (February 3, 2014) – Budget a matter of timing and nerve – by its economics editor Ross Gittins. I prefer not to write a full blog about this because it will distract me from my Eurozone book that is running to a tight deadline before publishing. But I will make a short comment on what I see as symptomatic among financial and economics journalists – a laxity in their terminology, which either deliberately supports or involuntarily plays into the hands of those who seek to redefine full employment as something that allows austerity to look acceptable.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014. The book will be about 180 pages long. Given the time constraints I plan to devote most of my blog time over the next 3 months to the production of the book. I will of-course break that pattern when there is a major data release and/or some influential person says something stupid or something sensible. I hope the daily additions will be of interest to you all. A lot has to be done! Because the drafting has to be tighter than the normal stream of consciousness that forms my usual blogs, the daily quotient is likely to be shorter.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014. The book will be about 180 pages long. Given the time constraints I plan to devote most of my blog time over the next 3 months to the production of the book. I will of-course break that pattern when there is a major data release and/or some influential person says something stupid or something sensible. I hope the daily additions will be of interest to you all. A lot has to be done! Because the drafting has to be tighter than the normal stream of consciousness that forms my usual blogs, the daily quotient is likely to be shorter.
The title is my current working title for a book I am finalising over the next few months on the Eurozone. If all goes well (and it should) it will be published in both Italian and English by very well-known publishers. The publication date for the Italian edition is tentatively late April to early May 2014. The book will be about 180 pages long. Given the time constraints I plan to devote most of my blog time over the next 3 months to the production of the book. I will of-course break that pattern when there is a major data release and/or some influential person says something stupid or something sensible. I hope the daily additions will be of interest to you all. A lot has to be done! Because the drafting has to be tighter than the normal stream of consciousness that forms my usual blogs, the daily quotient is likely to be shorter.
In April 2013, I wrote a blog – The March of the Makers – out! – in reference to the failed mission (at that time) of the UK government to base growth on an export boom. The Chancellor’s 2011 Budget Speech had claimed his fiscal strategy was “for making things, not for making things up”. He imperiously announced that the Government’s strategy was for a “Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers”. I wrote that the march of the makers hasn’t been a long one. In fact, it hasn’t been much of a march at all. If anything, given the title of that blog – the march has been out. I have been holding off commenting on the third-quarter British national accounts data because I wanted to see what the revisions on the earlier estimates were. I also wanted to get a better feel for what was happening to the external sector data. In the last week, the British Office of National Statistics released several key data publications (National Accounts, Public Finance and Balance of Payments) which allow us to get a better understanding of what is happening. The short message is that austerity has failed to rebalance the British economy. The more complicated message is that government net spending supported growth in the third-quarter 2013, which means those who see the real GDP growth as a victory for austerity better think again. Further, the economy is starting to exhibit dynamics consistent with the unsustainable pre-crisis period. That means the celebration of the growth should be muted at best.
I have been travelling today a lot and so haven’t had much time to write. I have been reading early (1970s and 1980s) documents in recent days relating to the debate that preceded the establishment of the Eurozone. I have read them before, at the time they were released in many cases, but they provide a salutary reminder of how the political and economic reality in Europe diverged with catastrophic consequences for millions of people that live there. There was ample analysis and supporting evidence in the late 1970s to tell us that the creation of a common monetary union in the form that was eventually agreed in the 1990s would fail. But even now, with that failure for all to see, the same dynamics that predicate against any reforms that might create a strong federal fiscal capacity, are present in the discussions surrounding the creation of a Single Supervisory Mechanism to regulate banks and protect their depositors. The Germans, exhibiting all their irrational paranoia about inflation, are using their political weight to influence the design of the banking policy and the likely outcomes are looking decidedly deficient. They are doomed to fail if subjected to a stern test.
In July 2013, the Australian Labor Party (the then Federal Government) humiliated itself when it created the – Parliamentary Budget Office. It was a case of “me too” “catch-up” neo-liberalism because the morons who dreamt up this plan felt left out because the US had its Congressional Budget Office and the Brits had a Office for Budget Responsibility and other advanced nations similar. The now conservative Federal government humiliated itself in September 2013 when it declined the sensible path which would have scrapped this ridiculous waste of public funds. The PBO humiliated itself yesterday when it released its first report – Australian Government spending Part 1: Historical trends from 2002-03 to 2012-13 – which contains spurious analysis, to say the least. And last not least, several leading economics journalists in Australia humiliated themselves this morning when they wrote up the PBOs press release as if it was something that mattered and refused to elicit a single critical word of the PBO report. Their creativity was to get some quotes from various “bank” economists who considered the report was tantamount to the sky falling in. What a sorry mess this all is. And it will be the poor, the unemployed and underemployed who will bear the brunt of the policy response.
This is the first part in what might be several blogs. I will see where my curiosity takes me. Today I want to invoke that well-known piece of inductive reasoning the – Duck Test. We all should know how that goes. But consider this reasoning. We have an institution that is 100 per cent government owned. It borrows millions and its liabilities are 100 per cent guaranteed by the federal government. It spends, I mean lends millions each year at very low rates to all manner of firms, organisations and even builds infrastructure. It also takes equity positions (provides capital) to a range of enterprises. It pays no tax having the same status as the central bank. It is not a duck but looks very much like a government fiscal entity. Welcome to the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (Reconstruction Credit Institute) or as it is now known the – KfW. This bank was created in 1948 as a German vehicle to faciliate the infrastructure rebuilding under the Marshall Plan. It has since grown (and diversified) into one of the largest banks in Germany (taken its main business units into account) and pumps millions of Euros in the domestic economy and the export sector (via IPEX, its 100 per cent owned subsidiary). It is a major reason why the public debt ratio in Germany is 80 per cent rather than close to 100 per cent. It is a major reason why the federal deficit has been reduced without scorching the German economy. It is a story about smoke-and-mirrors accounting, German-style.