February 2012
20 posts
The Rise of the Indignados and the Collapse of...
I wrote this piece in November at the request of a few of my friends from JUSOS in Germany. I am happy to see that it has now been translated here:
On the 20th of November, the Partido Popular (PP) won a convincing majority in Spain’s general elections. The socialists (PSOE) suffered their worst defeat since the return of democracy to Spain. With only a few exceptions, the Spanish right now...
Joseph Stiglitz, "Capturing the ECB" →
From Project Syndicate: “The ECB’s behavior should not be surprising: as we have seen elsewhere, institutions that are not democratically accountable tend to be captured by special interests. That was true before 2008; unfortunately for Europe – and for the global economy – the problem has not been adequately addressed since then.”
January 2012
15 posts
Javier Solana, "Austerity vs. Europe" →
“Austerity at all costs is a flawed strategy, and it will not work. We cannot allow a misconceived notion of “discipline” to cause lasting damage to our economies and inflict a terrible human toll on our societies. All of Europe must agree on a short-term growth strategy – and implement it quickly.”
2 tags
2 tags
Brad DeLong, "The British Economy is Now Doing... →
“In less than a year, if current forecasts come true, the Cameron-Osborne Depression will not be the worst depression in Britain since the Great Depression, but the worst depression in Britain… probably ever…
Policy makers elsewhere in the world take note: starving yourself is no road to health, and pushing unemployment higher now is no road to market confidence.”
A few links on debt and deleveraging
Robert Skidelsky, “Does Debt Matter?”:
…deficit reduction is at the center of most governments’ fiscal policy today. A government with a “credible” plan for “fiscal consolidation” supposedly is less likely to default on its debt, or leave it for the future to pay. This will, it is thought, enable the government to borrow money more cheaply than it would otherwise be able to do,...
Martin Feldstein, "How to Create a Depression" →
“European political leaders may be about to agree to a fiscal plan which, if implemented, could push Europe into a major depression.”
Slavoj Žižek, "The Revolt of the Salaried... →
From the LRB:
A consequence of the rise in productivity brought about by the exponentially growing impact of collective knowledge is a change in the role of unemployment. It is the very success of capitalism (greater efficiencies, raised productivity etc) which produces unemployment, rendering more and more workers useless: what should be a blessing – less hard labour needed – becomes a curse....
Vicenç Navarro, "¿Salirse del euro?" →
“Es importante que para el bien de las clases populares se inicie un debate en España sobre los excesivos costes de pertenecer al euro, y de los que la población parece ser ya consciente. Según una reciente encuesta, el 70% de la población española tiene mayores reservas hacia el euro. ¿Cuándo se iniciará tal debate en España?”
Vicenç Navarro ha iniciado aquí en España un debate muy...
de la Cultura Tributaria: Asfixiados* →
culturatributaria:
*Amb il·lusió
Se ha hablado bastante de lo que va a suponer para las clases medias (a pesar de que todavía no tengo muy claro que son las clases medias) la subida del IRPF aprobada por el Gobierno y refrendada ayer en el Congreso. No es que no quiera hablar de ese tema, seguro que hablaré,…
Kant on Greece
Via Zero Hedge comes a reminder that Greece is spending bailout money on weapons purchases.
Here’s a snippet from Kant’s Perpetual Peace:
4. “National Debts Shall Not Be Contracted with a View to the External Friction of States”
This expedient of seeking aid within or without the state is above suspicion when the purpose is domestic economy (e.g., the improvement of...
Per un partit d'activistes, cal un partit...
La excel·lent reflexió d’ Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí per la Fundació Ideas, titulada “Otro modelo de partido es posible” em va animar a actualitzar aquests continguts: [1]
Per un partit d’activistes, cal un partit activista
L’acte típic de final de campanya és un gran míting que en teoria ha de tenir una gran repercussió mediàtica. Parem-nos a pensar per un moment en els números....
John Quiggin, "The End of the Nuclear Renaissance" →
“The average retail price of solar cells as monitored by the Solarbuzz group fell from $3.50/watt to $2.43/watt over the course of the year, and a decline to prices below $2.00/watt seems inevitable. For large-scale installations, prices below $1.00/watt are now common. In some locations, PV has reached grid parity, the cost at which it is competitive with coal or gas-fired generation. More...
Dean Baker and John Schmitt, "The bogus case... →
From Salon:
“Higher minimum wages are a simple and effective mechanism for helping the lowest-paid workers. It is also important to remember this is not new ground. In the prosperous decades immediately following World War II, the minimum wage was actually higher than it is today. Adjusting for inflation, the minimum wage would have to rise to about $9 an hour to reach its peak level in...
Center for American Progress - 20 Ideas for Job... →
El fin del fin de la Historia en Europa
Las ventas navideñas colapsaron en Grecia esta temporada. Esto es un indicador superficial de la situación que padecen once millones de nuestros conciudadanos europeos. Otros síntomas de la crisis son más graves:
Hospitales alejando a mujeres embarazadas
Un aumento en la desnutrición infantil
Padres abandonando a sus hijos a causa de su pobreza
Un aumento enorme en la tasa de suicidio
Un...
December 2011
10 posts
Richard Koo, " The world in balance sheet... →
“One way to solve this eurozone-specific problem of capital shifts would be to prohibit member nations from selling government bonds to investors from other countries. Allowing only the citizens of a nation to hold that government’s debt would, for example, prevent the investment of Spanish savings in German government debt. Most of the Spanish savings that have been used to buy other...
“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new...”
– Antonio Gramsci (not writing about 2011) 