Economics

Tea Party Loses in Fight with Big Business

May 17, 2012 by

For leaders of the right-wing populist “Tea Party” who have bragged about their growing influence – if not domination – of the Republican Party, the past week’s battle over the future of the U.S. Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) has been a humbling experience. It’s also been a reminder of the power enjoyed by Big Business, the corporate empires with globe-straddling interests, in both major parties in Congress.

Paul Krugman’s Economic Blinders

May 16, 2012 by

Paul Krugman is widely appreciated for his New York Times columns criticizing Republican demands for fiscal austerity. He rightly argues that cutting back public spending will worsen the economic depression into which we are sinking. And despite his partisan Democratic Party politicking, he warned from the outset in 2009 that President Obama’s modest counter-cyclical spending program was not sufficiently bold to spur recovery.

The Puzzle of the 2012 Greek Elections

May 8, 2012 by

With the Greek Parliamentary election behind us—likely the first of at least two such contests in this political season—we need to take stock of the situation and separate myth from fact. My objective is to make sense of the electoral results by describing and analyzing the Greek political system in both its historic and nascent forms. The particulars of the bailout have been widely discussed elsewhere in the press and policy circles, and I will refer to them only in the ways in which they inform the topic.

Emerging Powers vie for Influence in Africa

May 4, 2012 by

The end of the Cold War resulted in the strategic disengagement of western countries, including the United States, from Africa. They continued their trade, aid and assistance relationship with Africa, but once the threat of communist expansion disappeared, the West interacted with the continent in a different way. This change permitted an opening for a variety of emerging countries to expand their ties with Africa.

Why Low Minimum Wages Kill Jobs and Crush Living Standards for Everyone

May 3, 2012 by

Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, has introduced a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.80 from its present level of $7.25. Polls are showing many voters in favor, though they are confused about what it would mean for the job market. The truth is that a move would be good for a slow economy and have a positive impact on the jobs crisis. Naturally, this has led to the usual cries of opposition, largely based on the notion that raising the minimum wage hurts the very people it is supposed to help. Typical of this view is a letter to the New York Times from Michael Saltsman, a fellow at the Employment Policies Institute, a business-backed nonprofit research group (surprise!).

Income Inequality and the Rise of European Separatist Movements

April 19, 2012 by

Separatist movements typically flourish during times of economic or political distress. While in the recent past separatism has been associated most with emerging or failed states and linked with armed conflict and insurgencies, the west’s economic dislocation and the ‘rise of the rest’ has coincided with a surge in political movements and a desire for autonomy and independence – not only among violence-prone regions of the world, but among the strongest of emerging states, and the EU.

What’s Left?

April 15, 2012 by

The public suicide of 77-year-old pharmacist Demitris Christoulas a short distance from the parliament building in Athens and the outpouring of grief and anger reveal the trauma and desperation in Greek society in the midst of an economic crisis. In a handwritten note before he shot himself in the head, Christoulas complained that the government had made it impossible for him to survive on the pension he had paid into for 35 years.

Risk with Great Reward in South America

April 12, 2012 by

For hundreds of years, South America has provided much of the world with essential natural resources. The global nature of the world economy, coupled with the development of South American countries and turbulence in the Middle East presents South America as an alternative to dependency on oil from far flung, sometimes adversarial areas of the world.

China: The Frog and the Scorpion

April 5, 2012 by

Behind the political crisis that saw the recent fall of powerful Communist Party leader Bo Xiali is an internal battle over how to handle China’s slowing economy and growing income disparity, while shifting from a cheap labor export driven model to one built around internal consumption. Since China is the second largest economy on the planet—and likely to become the first in the next 20 to 30 years—getting it wrong could have serious consequences, from Beijing to Brasilia, and from Washington to Mumbai.

The Health Care Argument That Should Have Been Made

March 28, 2012 by

Every year in the United States of America, 14,000 children die within the first year of their life – each death is preventable. If the deaths of these children were due to an enemy state, the US would declare war in a heartbeat. If terrorists had crept into hospitals in the dead night and stuck a AK-47 into every one of those 14,000 cribs, there would be almost no limit to the degree the government would pursue those organizations.

Argentina’s Economic Policy: Failing to Learn from History

March 28, 2012 by

Argentina is heading toward its second economic crisis in just over a decade and national leaders are unwilling to publicly acknowledge that the country’s growth is unsustainable. Since the country’s economic collapse a decade ago, President Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007) and President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner (2007 – present) have allowed the national economy to function without interference or direction.

Obama Deserves Credit for the Recovery

March 14, 2012 by

Obama Deserves Credit for the Recovery

There should be little doubt that President Obama deserves credit for what recovery we are seeing; although he also must share in the blame for it not being faster. The basic story of this downturn is very simple: There was a plunge in private-sector demand after the collapse of the housing bubble. The $8 trillion housing bubble had generated more than $1 trillion in annual demand both from its direct impact on construction and through the effect that bubble-inflated house prices had in spurring consumption. When this bubble burst, there was nothing to replace this gap in demand.

Do Country Acronyms Have a Meaningful Place in a Dynamic World?

March 10, 2012 by

Do Country Acronyms Have a Meaningful Place in a Dynamic World?

When Goldman Sachs first coined the term “BRICs” in 2001, it did so on the assumption that these four countries were going to heavily influence the direction of the global economy. It turned out that China was much more influential than any of the other three, and that Brazil well underperformed the others based on its decade-long average GDP growth rate of approximately 3.5%.

Trouble in Euro Zone Paradise?

February 24, 2012 by

The Europeans evidently thrive on instability and the ongoing threat of systemic risk. There is nothing else to explain the renewed hardline stance adopted by both Mario Draghi of the ECB and the German government on fiscal policy, just as the markets appeared to be calming down again.

First Nike, then Starbucks: is it now Apple’s turn to be ‘held up’ by protesters?

February 21, 2012 by

Over the last few weeks, what was the juiciest development for those that cannot get enough of gossip about tech giant Apple? Was it “when will the iPad 3 debut and will it have a retina display?“ Or the titillating rumor that it will have 4g capabilities? Perhaps it was the fact that Apple’s share price topped a mind numbing US$500 per share, giving the company of total value of Google and Microsoft combined?

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