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- These days, austerity-induced depressions are visible all around Europe’s periphery, enligt Paul Krugman i New York Times, 11 March 2012 Greece is the worst case, with unemployment soaring to 20 percent even as public services, including health care, collapse. But Ireland, which has done everything the austerity crowd wanted, is in terrible shape too, with unemployment near 15 percent and real G.D.P. down by double digits. Portugal and Spain are in similarly dire straits. And austerity in a slump doesn’t just inflict vast suffering. There is growing evidence that it is self-defeating even in purely fiscal terms, as the combination of falling revenues due to a depressed economy and worsened long-term prospects actually reduces market confidence and makes the future debt burden harder to handle. This was not what was supposed to happen. Two years ago, as many policy makers and pundits began calling for a pivot from stimulus to austerity, they promised big gains in return...

Jag skrev tidigare om Parkinsons lag och ECBs nya skyskrapa ECB har vackra bilde r på de stolta för att inte säga storvulna planerna på något som för tankarna till Totalitarian Architecture En artikel i dagens Financial Times behandlar den kommande skyskrapan - den nuvarande är inte dålig den heller - på ett mer lättsamt sätt och drar paralleller till professor Parkinsson. Författaren av artikeln, Graham Allison, är ingen vanlig lustigkurre. Han är director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government - A decade in the planning, the building will consist of two towers – one 41 floors, the other 44 – linked by a vast conference centre. Symbolising a reliable, stable storehouse of value, the taller tower is said by some to represent the euro’s emergence as a second global reserve currency. - Parkinson’s closest analogy to the new ECB headquarters may be New Delhi, where British architects envisaged...

Trichet har den för framgångsrika personer viktiga förmågan att kunna säga plattityder eller mer eller mindre osanna påståenden med fast röst och utan att själv falla i skratt eller se generad ut. Det hän gången har Trichet lämnat sitt stöd åt mantrat om att man eftersträvar en stark dollar. Trichet har ett eget intresse av att dollarn förblir stark, eftersom vad jag tror, EMU kommer att spricka när dollarn faller. As the late Herbert Stein, former chairman of the US council of economic advisers, once said: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." - (The Dollar) Financial Times editorial 2/1 2003 European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet has praised the US' commitment to the strong dollar as several world powers including France and Russia call for a fresh debate on the global currency system ahead of this week's G8 summit of leaders in Italy. Asked by journalists on Sunday (5 July) whether the US d...