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Greece is facing front, looking towards the new year and the upcoming January elections. But it would be foolish not to learn from a look backwards, as well. At the Athens economics conference, Europe At The Crossroads , the participants were a diverse collection of policymakers, overflowing with disagreements on the very best route to growth. Nonetheless, with one notable exception the leader of Ireland's central bank, endorsing European Central Bank policy , the overwhelming majority united on a single principle: The bailout and its related austerity programs have failed miserably.
Papadimitriou View More View Less. Background Briefing with Ian Masters, January 5, Papadimitriou joins Masters to discuss the upcoming January 25 election in Greece that is likely to bring the anti-austerity left-wing Syriza party to power, sparking fears that Greece will reject the terms of the EU, ECB, and IMF bailouts and exit the euro. Official figures show that the gross domestic product—the broadest measure of economic output and growth—grew at its fastest rate since , surging 5 percent in the third quarter.
Not all central bankers—or other stakeholders—believe this is, or should be, their role. By Aaron Abbruzzese Mashable, September 27, If it seems like the rich are getting richer, well, the data might just back you up. A new graph based on data from times of growth backs up growing concern that the current economic system is disproportionately favoring those that are already wealthy By Neil Irwin The New York Times, September 25, Economic expansions are supposed to be the good times, the periods in which incomes and living standards improve.
In an August paper , she wrote: An examination of average income growth [in the U. In other words, the wealthy are capturing more and more of the overall income growth during each expansion period By Jordan Weissmann Slate, September 25, When you write about the economy every day for a living, you can start feeling numb toward charts about income inequality. After all, the story doesn't change much week to week, and usually neither do the visualizations.
But this one, from Bard College economist Pavlina Tcherneva , somehow still feels astonishing, and has stirred up a bunch of attention today. It shows how much of U. Guess who's gotten the lion's share in recent years? Will Lindsay Lohan Save Greece? Mykonos has been the summer's Go-To spot for superstars and supermodels; the mainland and cities are also seeing the British and Europeans coming back By Matthew Yglesias Vox, September 25, Pavlina Tcherneva's chart showing the distribution of income gains during periods of economic expansion is burning up the economics internet over the past 24 hours and for good reason.
The trend it depicts is shocking It's not easy finding new and interesting ways to illustrate the growth of income inequality over the past few decades. But here are a couple of related ones. The first is from "Survival of the Richest" in the current issue of Mother Jones , and it shows how much of our total national income growth gets hoovered up by the top 1 percent during economic recoveries.
The super-rich got 45 percent of total income growth during the dotcom years; 65 percent during the housing bubble years; and a stunning 95 percent during the current recovery.
It's good to be rich Polychroniou Truthout, August 27, Is the Greek crisis nearly over as the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the Greek government like to proclaim because of the sharp decline in Greek bond yields, the attainment of a primary surplus and an increase in foreign tourism? If so, what about the And what about the United States?
Is America on the way to becoming Greece as many Republicans claimed a couple of years ago? Papadimitriou, executive vice president and Jerome Levy professor of economics at Bard College, and president of the Levy Economics Institute at Bard, who foresees Greece emerging into a debt prison and a rather gloomy economic future for the United States, discusses these questions in an exclusive interview for Truthout with C.
Etorno Inteligente, August 22, Hay un impacto de la enfermedad holandesa. Por eso, otras exportaciones son menos competitivas. Pero el impacto de la tasa de cambio en la competitividad acaba con un incremento de los ingresos nacionales y al mismo tiempo se abaratan los bienes importados. Entonces es un factor doble. Es un gran error. Es un crecimiento que desilusiona. No se puede mirar crecimiento sin empleo. Pero el desempleo ha bajado… Ha bajado, pero no es mucho y sigue siendo sumamente alto.
Hay un problema de desempleo disfrazado que debe ser de 40 por ciento. It looks that way. The commitment to economic austerity policies by the "troika"—the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund—hasn't wavered. Meanwhile, the country's unemployment rate has soared to yet another unexpected high. In a population of 9. It has been well documented that wages adjusted for inflation for most workers have been stagnant since the mids.
The one exception: from the late s until This is a key driver of rising inequality. The labor force is aging and becoming better educated. Workers are also putting off retirement, having been hammered by the bubble collapses of and The result: real wages for many workers likely have been declining between and , especially for those with less than a college degree.
But a degree may not alone guarantee future results. May is little changed from April. But there are 2. This is true across every industry. And furthermore: Seattle-based Payscale , which surveys cash compensation for full-time, private industry employees, released its second-quarter index.
Real wages in the index are down about 8 percent from So inflation is very subdued — too subdued to really get the recovery going. The big problem is the weak labor market, so employers can hold down wages. After all, they have choices. By Martin Sosnoff Forbes, May 19, Within this lot is some cautionary metaphor about conspicuous consumption reigning, again. The Koons piece is an immaculate, but exaggerated life sized presence in colorful, shiny sheet steel.
When Wynn took control of the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas some 40 years ago, I sold him my block of stock, a reportable position. He deserved all his successes, a great operator who made Vegas a family destination resort while competition still ran grind joints.
Whether this is driven by connoisseurship, emotionality or trading savvy is another story. These big hitters are equivalent to whales at gaming casinos: Alice Walton the Warhol Coca-Cola , Elaine Wynn the Bacon and corporate types like Russian oligarchs and Malaysian honchos, dealers — investors like the Mugrabi family, the jewelry purveyor Graff, even a handful of hedge fund operators.
More critical, overindulgence ultimately is divisive for the country by calling attention to how the top 0. Eventually, a public outcry congeals. Congressmen begin to speak out on income inequality. Unions get their raucous voice back. Our middle-class holds minimal free capital for equity investment. Individual pension fund assets carry a discounted value based upon when they can be withdrawn. Republicans and major multinational corporations call for tax breaks on the repatriation of offshore earnings, but the facts suggest just the opposite is called for.
Corporate income tax rates rest much lower than during the sixties and seventies. Wage earners gain no leverage when the unemployment rate is elevated. Such action is indicative of a middle class as yet capital starved.
Not just machinists, even young computer code writers. The problem with conspicuous consumption is it can take decades, even centuries before it ends. Never happily. The French Revolution was preceded by bread riots but their political system for centuries exempted the nobility from taxation. When I compare our present Gilded Age with the past, I see major differentiation.
End of 19th century, Robber Barons mainly were industrialists with controlling positions in oil Rockefeller , steel Carnegie , railroads Vanderbilt , the Guggenheims minerals , Rosenwalds and Hartfords retailing. Yes — there was J. Morgan and Jules Bache and a few Russians, but no Chinese, Japanese and Malaysians throwing their money around in the art world.
Land based wealth existed but yielded minimal returns in rents and farm income. We have come a long way from when wealth rested in hard assets — minerals and chemicals, now in serious oversupply. Art world players mainly are linked to stock market wealth. They include a couple of dozen hedge fund operators.
Although establishment corporate management has learned how to milk their income statements, only a handful walk away billionaires. Unconventionally designed yachts belong to Russians and headman owners like Larry Ellison at Oracle. Deal proliferation would break out all over, too.
The stock market is capitalized currently at 16 times earnings, not 10 or 11, vulnerable to any sign of a decelerating economy. It could take decades. Infrastructure spending, what the country needs desperately to create jobs, is a stalled initiative for years to come.
The Levy Economics Institute at Bard College rightly underscores that rising income inequality weighs down the economic setting. GDP momentum, absent positive numbers on exports, must depend on rising private borrowing. But, a high debt to income ratio is unsustainable unless the stock market shows late foot.
They control most of the assets in equities but are themselves vulnerable to a stock market bubble as denouement. We sharpened our own skis at home, and ate tons of spaghetti together. My next door neighbor, a dermatologist who was coining money, even in New Hampshire, asked me if it was okay with the group if he bought a new Caddy. I told him to drop down one price point.
The group might frown on such conspicuous consumption. Les did just that. Those days are gone but not forgotten. The Distribution of Income and Wealth. Future rises in income inequality will lead to a prolonged period of anemic economic growth and high unemployment. Income for the bottom 90 percent of households has stagnated during the past 35 years.
Strong economic activity in the s and s was largely generated by consumption that was financed by borrowing. The resulting high levels of debt relative to income precipitated the financial and economic crisis. Since , the bottom 90 percent of households have deleveraged, thereby reducing their debt-to-disposable-income ratio. This ratio for the top 10 percent has remained relatively stable. Should this deleveraging trend continue, by , economic growth will be 1.
Future economic growth is unlikely to arise from the activities of the top 10 percent of households. Their consumption levels tend to remain relatively stable, and their investments are driven by short-term arbitrage opportunities of financial assets — not long-term direct investment in businesses that generate strong employment and income growth.
Coupled with weak foreign demand and restrictive government fiscal policy, future economic growth may be driven by domestic deficits. This burden will fall primarily on the bottom 90 percent in the private sector and exacerbate income disparity. However, as debt-to-income levels rise, a financial and economic crisis becomes more probable. The only viable solution to this economic conundrum is greater income equality.
Polychroniou Truthout, May 4, When the global financial crisis of reached Europe's shores sometime in late , Greece was the first victim of the euro system's failure.
Facing persistently large deficits and very high public debt levels, the country ended up being shut out of the global bond markets, raising the prospect of a sovereign bankruptcy. In light of these developments, in May , the Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund IMF agreed to provide a billion euro bailout loan to Greece in exchange for severe austerity measures and strict conditions. The "rescue" plan, as has been openly admitted by now, was designed not for the purpose of reviving Greece's ailing economy but to save Europe's banks.
Thus, as many economists had anticipated, the bailout plan made things worse, spreading havoc with its "economics of social disaster. All the money lent to Greece was being used to pay off debt obligations on time while the radical budget cuts and sharp tax hikes that were adopted were meant to readjust the nation's fiscal condition, with no regard for the economic and social costs which these policies entailed.
Four years later, Greece looks like a badly battered boxer. However, both EU and Greek government officials are claiming that the country is moving in the right direction, hailing its recent re-emergence in international credit markets as a sign the economy is recovering. Indeed, the government now talks of the Greek "success story," hoping that this narrative will tilt the electoral balance as Greece's main opposition Radical Left Coalition party Syriza is expected to win the European Parliamentary and local elections in May.
For an analysis of the latest developments in Greece, C. Polychroniou a research associate and policy fellow at the Levy Economics Institute and a columnist for the Greek nationally distributed newspaper, The Sunday Eleftherotypia interviewed Dimitri B. An edited and shorter version of the interview appears simultaneously in Greek on the Sunday edition of Eleftherotypia.
Why did Greece return to the bond markets now when the country's debt-to-GDP ratio is much bigger than it was back in ? Papadimitriou: The return to the bond markets was an act of pure symbolism. The government purposely made the success of the austerity program dependent on achieving a primary surplus as opposed to the return to growth in output and employment. Recall that the idea of expansionary austerity embraced by the country's international lenders was spectacularly discredited. Thus, the Troika IMF, EU and European Central Bank and Greece's compliant government needed to invent a new metric of success, and it was associated with achieving a primary surplus as large as it could be so that financial markets can be impressed.
However, no one else is impressed, especially the international lenders, for three main reasons: 1 The primary surplus was achieved by a one-off non-recurring excess revenue from the gains of Greek bonds in the portfolios of Eurozone's central banks and the European Central Bank's ECB holding that were returned to Greece; 2 collections of old tax revenue; and 3 non-recurring spending cuts and delayed payment of the government's debt to the private sector, whether VAT refunds or non-payments to private sector vendors.
Finally, the return to the markets was costly to the country - the apparent low interest rate of 4. To be sure, the hedge funds and the private sector [parties] buying the new bonds knew that there was an implicit guarantee from the ECB that would accept these bonds under its Outright Monetary Transactions OMT program.
So the bonds were not backed by the progress of the Greek economy - it would be ludicrous to assume so, for an economy in continuing recession and increasing debt to GDP ratio, especially if its credit rating is still below investment grade.
So, all in all, it was an act of desperation and a strategy to give the government extra help in the soon-to-be-held local and European Parliament elections. The government has hailed the return to the financial markets as a sign that the crisis is over.
Do these numbers spell out an economic "success story" or a national tragedy? All these statistics point to the failure of the harsh program of fiscal consolidation, but if you are interested in presenting a portrait of success, you need to invent a condition that will persuade the non-critical mind that things are much better. No one likes Cassandras, even though they turn out to be quite accurate in the end. As has become clear by now, the Greek mass media industry has played an inappropriate role in persuading people that economic conditions are much better than they think, that the country has reached bottom and it is just about to turn the corner.
How many times have we heard that we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel? But the tunnel is unfortunately very, very long and it will take either a decade or more for conditions to be turned around if present policy continues, with more erosion of living standards and very high structural unemployment, or a relatively quick improvement with an immediate reversal of policy.
For this, the omens are very clear, but the political will is not. And one should not expect any change of policy to happen without a change in political leadership. Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt have a lot to lose with a change of the prevailing policy, and thus they must continue to enforce it despite the destroyed lives that it leaves behind as it moves forward.
So we are seeing a tragedy which I am afraid will expand unless the European Parliamentary elections give a different message either with a significant showing of the extreme right or left parties. Marine Le Pen's impressive showing in the relatively recent local [French] elections speaks to my point.
It would be ironic if voters, despite the catastrophic consequences they continue to endure, give the present European leadership another message of approval. It will be self-flagellation with a vengeance. The feeling one gets as a result of the implementation of austerity in the case of Greece and the other fiscallytroubled countries in the Eurozone is that this is not simply a fine-tuning policy. If that is indeed the case, what is then the ultimate strategy of austerity?
In my view, the idea of austerity was not a policy of fine-tuning. To the contrary, it was a policy of radical change to allow markets to reign supreme with no government interference. They both embraced the view that government is the problem to economic ills and not the solution. But the real world has taught us time and again that government at difficult times and downturns is the only solution.
Why Greece and the other fiscally troubled economies should become experiments of contrarian policy whose results were predicted is something that really boggles the mind. No one would dare apply the idea of austerity to the extent it has been applied to countries such as the US or even Germany and other countries of the industrial world irrespective of how high their debt-to-GDP ratios are.
After all, Germany is a growing economy. So it is clear that member states in the Eurozone are not equal. When Germany was the sick man in Europe, it was acceptable for the government to follow the Keynesian prescription, but now that its status has changed to that of hegemon, the laissez-faire paradigm returned in vogue. There will always be many thoughtless leaders, but sooner rather than later people take steps to remove them from positions of strength and power.
The advocates of austerity claim that this policy will improve the external fundamentals of fiscally troubled countries in the Eurozone. Has this happened in the case of Greece? People who are not knowledgeable about structure of economies on which they impose policies should never be surprised with contrarian results.
The Greek economy cannot be improved just because policy makers impose policies that supposedly restructure labor markets - read here, suppression of wages and eliminating labor rights and standards - if import and export elasticities are different than those assumed in the policy implementation.
The sum of import and export elasticities in Greece is barely above one, which makes a substantial increase in net exports the goal of a wild imagination, at least in a relevant time frame. No wonder Greece's net exports have failed to offset the public spending cuts, and thus not contributed to the growth of GDP. And those increases are primarily from oil-related products that are volatile in concert with oil price volatility. To be sure, tourism is important, but despite last year's "huge" increase in foreign tourist arrivals to Greece, net employment continued to plummet.
The external fundamentals are not dependent on labor reforms, but on large investment, public partnership with the private sector, which will not be forthcoming any time soon. It won't happen with the privatization of the old Athens airport or with other similar "privatization" schemes. Radical structural reforms, which include labor and product markets and blanket privatizations, constitute the second component of the conditions behind Greece's bailout plans.
First, is there in economic literature a direct connection between labor market flexibility, productivity growth and national economic performance?
The economic literature, as economists know, can produce conflicting results. It will not be surprising to find cases when statistics will prove that there is a positive outcome in terms of increasing productivity with flexible labor conditions, but this is always dependent on the level of technology diffusion. To be sure, German workers have the highest productivity in Europe along with those in the Netherlands, but it is not because they are paid less than other Eurozone workers but because of the high level of effective technology used.
Clearly, Germany's and other North European economies enjoy better economic performance, but this is not due to so-called labor flexibility only. Germany is successful because it is lucky, having an extraordinary number of idle and low-wage workers from East Germany when the unification took place.
Unification gave Germany the ability to hold West German wages down. But this should not be used as an example of a successful application of a labor flexibility policy.
The literature also abounds in studies showing that labor productivity is not dependent on labor flexibility. Indeed, the theory and policy of "efficiency" wages, promoted by none other than Nobel Laureate George Akerlof and current Fed Chair Janet Yellen, is part of the economic research which shows there are productivity gains and other positive outcomes to firms which pay higher than market wages.
All in all, then, the argument of flexible wages does not, I am afraid, hold water. The international experience with privatizing electricity, gas, water, sanitation, and public health services indicates that there are anti-social effects behind privatization.
So why are Greek governments so eager to privatize virtually everything in Greece? As has been shown in certain cases, the public sector can be inefficient, but this is not tantamount to the private sector being efficient either. There are key industries that must be in the public domain because their goods or services are considered public goods.
In many advanced countries, such as in the US, the goods and services mentioned are mostly in the private sector's hands, but it does not mean that they are efficient or price competitive.
To the contrary, whenever a service was privatized or became unregulated, it never gave the desired effects in being price competitive. For countries like Greece marked with high income distribution inequality, some of the services such as health services, for example must be the business of the public sector.
Other services can be privatized, but they must be highly regulated. The privatization process in Greece is a fire sale of public property just because the international lenders have imposed it. If profitable, and in the public interest, then some of these services can be privatized, but should continue to be regulated. In the US, however, no one would dream of privatizing the national lotteries; they are the most profitable and high revenue sources of government revenue, yet in Greece it was the first public company to go on sale.
There is no general rule that these services should be privatized. They need to be run efficiently either under the aegis of the government or the private sector - absent the corruption, nepotism or other ills of the up-to-now Greek clientist political system. The absence of transparency should not be the reason for privatizing them. You have argued in a number of publications in the recent past that what Greece needs is a European type of a Marshall Plan.
Doesn't this suggestion run counter to existing political structures and economic realities in Europe? I am pleasantly surprised to read of late that even the government speaks of a European Marshall-type plan of aid to Greece.
The existing political structure in Europe may be seeing such an aid program as anathema, but I believe it recognizes that if the European project is to be kept intact, it must begin to think along those lines.
An economic and monetary union requires various types of support from the economically strong to the weak. This will eventually take place willingly or not, and the evidence shows that it not to the benefit of the weak only - but more so to the strong.
The announcement of the creation of a Greek Investment Fund with the support of Germany's KfW is a step in the right direction even though the details of the plan are rather sketchy. Thus, even though I have been labeled by many the Cassandra of Greece, I want to be optimistic that such aid may not be that farfetched.
The European Union and the International Monetary Fund have disagreed all along about the sustainability of the Greek debt load. Who is right, if any? There is no question in anyone's mind that the debt load is unsustainable. It was known from early on that a debt restructuring will be needed. The haircut that took place was ill-conceived and hurt the country more than it helped since it decimated the balance sheets of Greek and Cypriot banks along with public pension trust funds and middle-class Greek citizens.
It occurred much too late after the German, French and Italian banks unloaded their Greek holdings to their counterparts in Greece and Cyprus. When it happened, it was a thoughtless decision despite the government celebrating it as a major accomplishment. I haven't agreed on anything with former ECB Vice President Papademos' views about the Greek economy except with his opposition to such a haircut when it happened.
All in all, the IMF is, of course, correct - but Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt are trapped, having convinced every European citizen that Greece's debt load is sustainable. The government will celebrate a new accomplishment after the European elections when the debt will be restructured by extending its maturity to perhaps 50 years and lowering the interest rate. This is in economic terms a present-value "haircut," but not a debt-load reduction.
It is the proverbial kicking the can further down the road, which will subject the country to continued vigilance and restrict its sovereignty over its fiscal policy stance. Syriza represents itself as a viable alternative to the current economic, social and political malaise in Greece by claiming that, when it comes to power, it will put an end to austerity and will force the European Union to rethink its policies towards Greece.
However, while a good percentage of Greek voters have shifted to the left, many others seem to believe that Syriza's political rhetoric rests either on naive thinking or plain opportunism. What are your own thoughts on this matter? I believe Syriza is the only viable alternative that Greece has at the present time if a change in policy direction is to be achieved. Its mandate to change policy would be very difficult indeed. But it can be done, although not free of risks.
But risks are endemic in any policy prescription that would be implemented, and I believe the current policy being followed entails higher risks for the economic future of Greece. What I fear more is the disappearance of what used to be a middle class, let alone the immiseration of low-income, low-skilled workers. What these groups need right now is a lifeline - which, unfortunately, is not in the cards. Given the additional financing that will be needed in and , more austerity will be needed which will affect even further the country's living standards, a process which will have even further adverse effects for the middle class and the low-income and low-skilled segments of the population.
With conditions worsening, even more people are expected to question the prevailing policy. And if there is one political force which can offer a viable alternative to the current nightmare, it is none other than Syriza. Yes, perhaps there is an element of political naivete characterizing Syriza, but there is seriousness of purpose and the work of the gifted in its midst is very refreshing and encouraging. To be sure, political analysts talk about the importance of the incumbent candidates and this would be a very difficult problem to overcome.
I want to believe, however, that despite the internal squabbling which frequently occurs among the different groups inside Syriza, the party will, at the end, prevail. At least I hope so. To those who oppose them, I can only respond by saying be careful what you wish for. If the economic "success story" of Greece turns out in the end to be nothing more than a politically constructed myth, and the prospects of the European integration project remain what they are today, why shouldn't Greeks opt to leave the euro?
There is plenty of evidence that the success story is a politically constructed myth with the acquiescence of the European leadership. The question about the country remaining in the euro club is interesting and very important. I believe that Greece cannot leave the euro since the costs associated with an exit are very consequential. As I have written elsewhere, Greece has a number of options that it can follow, if the European leadership continues with its intransigence and continuing policy of the dangerous idea of austerity.
If all other options fail, the introduction of a carefully designed parallel financial system is a very viable alternative in order to get a handle on both domestic financial market liquidity and employment growth and output. This is not a novel idea. The Greek government used a similar program in , although very haphazardly conceived, but it was introduced nevertheless. It is not a crackpot idea and has been embraced by both conservative and liberal thinkers.
This will address some of the most serious challenges the Greek economy and society face without endangering the country's membership in the euro. So, there are other alternatives available before the unthinkable becomes the only option. I suspect a priori that the Great Moderation was a result of official policies that suppressed normal adjustments that should have taken place in the economy, for example, by neglecting prudential and consumer protection regulation of "too big to fail" banks, so that when the episode of the permanent financial crisis erupted, it was much more costly and disruptive than it would otherwise have been.
Ironically, after having written this sentence, I found that a similar suggestion had been made by a famous economist — none other than Hyman Minsky. The very informative Wikipedia entry on the Great Moderation also contains a reference to a speech by University of Chicago economist Robert Lucas as president of the American Economic Association celebrating the idea that the profession had practically solved "the central problem depression prevention.
Among the economists cited as having contributed research on this subject are former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Douglas Elmendorf , currently director of the Congressional Budget Office. Furman dated the beginning of the debate over the Great Moderation to the early s. To his credit, Furman took time out to question, as I do, whether "there ever was a 'Great Moderation,' let alone that it has returned and rendered further policy steps unnecessary.
He seems not to have considered that maybe these are "normal times," and that the slow growth and shortfall in output are due to previous misguided policies.
Instead, he offered some new misguided policies, a lot of them, under what he calls "The Unfinished Agenda for Economic Stability. It almost becomes amusing to consider the grab bag of measures Furman offers as holding out hope of averting or coping with future downturns. He claimed that Obamacare will have a counter-cyclical effect, a notion that is heatedly disputed, and he also pointed to increased progressivity in taxation.
Reducing inequality is highly speculative as a counter-cyclical measure, but maybe they can start with salaries of reckless bank executives and their feckless regulators. Finally, Furman pointed to implementation of Dodd-Frank and Housing and Finance Reform, which are laughable, because neither is likely to happen, and they might not produce the effects he expects even if they do.
As a political document, the speech represents how desperate the administration is to establish a positive legacy as President Obama's popularity declines. Archived video can be found here. Carolyn Maloney, D-N. The conference was sponsored by the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, an independent group that "encourages diversity of opinion in the examination of economic policy issues while striving to transform ideological arguments into informed debate. The conferences celebrate the life and work of Minsky, who was an early theorist on the financial crisis and an advocate of government intervention to respond to financial crises that inevitably occur from time to time.
This is the first of three articles on speeches delivered at the conference by Maloney and Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Maloney struggled to deliver the speech due to a cough, and perhaps also due to some form of the flu, she seemed medicated and perhaps to be reading the speech for the first time, although the arguments were very familiar. Later that day the House was scheduled to vote on what is known as the "Ryan budget," authored by Rep.
Paul Ryan, R-Wis. In , I predicted privately that there would be a bank bailout, based on a cynical recollection of the deals that were put together in during the savings and loan crisis to stretch that mess out past the November election at what was then considerable cost to taxpayers.
However, this prediction was not nearly cynical enough. The George W. Bush administration, with Henry Paulson as Treasury Secretary, was so incompetent, or the needs of Paulson's former firm, Goldman Sachs, were so pressing, that the bailout could not be put off. The election offered a choice between a candidate who had virtually no experience and one who had a lifetime of experience but seemed not to have learned much from it. Candidate John McCain made a big show of "suspending" a campaign that voters may not have noticed even existed.
McCain flew back to Washington, ostensibly to intervene in the crisis, but without any actual plan. Meanwhile, candidate Barack Obama stayed coolly on the sidelines and benefited from the contrast with the manic McCain. After the failure of Lehman Brothers and the bailouts of Bear Stearns and AIG, the official story line was, not surprisingly, that the reason the crisis happened was that the regulators lacked the authority to resolve nonbanks whose failure threatened the health of the financial system.
The Ryan budget wants to repeal this authority, and Maloney is extremely exercised about this prospect. Given that this move has engendered such a reaction from bailout apologists like Maloney, legislators seeking to prevent yet another round of bailouts might consider attaching the repeal of title II to any legislation coming out of the Senate that looks promising.
With the exception of me, the modest-sized audience was composed of liberals who follow economic policy very closely and believe that governmental authorities should tinker constantly with the economy in order to improve its performance and the distribution of income. The conference honors Minsky as one of the earliest exponents of this view, who propagated it articulately from the earliest years of the permanent and ongoing financial crisis.
Chicago has traditionally been a hotbed of conservative and even hard money economics, especially at the University of Chicago. However, the Chicago Fed under Evans has placed itself firmly in the dovish camp on monetary policy, and in Evans will rotate into a voting seat on the FOMC, so that he can back his sentiments with a vote. Evans has taught at the University of Chicago, University of Michigan and University of South Carolina, and he received degrees in economics from the University of Virginia and Carnegie-Mellon University, which is a stronghold of conservative monetary scholarship.
What makes Evans' speech especially significant is that he poses a scholarly challenge to conservative advocates of a monetary rule, particularly in circumstances where the economy has performed so poorly that the federal funds rate has already dropped to the bottom, and he contends that under these conditions, even Milton Friedman would agree that the FOMC should take an aggressive stance in order to keep the economy from slipping into a zone of negative inflation that could cripple economic growth for decades.
The speech was divided into four parts. He defended the independence of the Fed, but accepted in a serious way, not just rhetorically, that with the independence must go accountability. Second, Evans laid out a three-part strategy for achieving the goals the FOMC has set out during the long term. Third, he used bulls-eye charts to demonstrate that the Fed has missed both its employment and inflation targets.
And finally, he lamented the inability to stimulate the economy by adjusting the federal funds rate once it has reached its lower bound.
He concluded by advocating that the Fed adopt more aggressive policies now to stimulate growth, even at the risk of exceeding the 2 percent inflation target for some time after the employment target has been reached.
He criticized as "timid" the stance of most of his colleagues who argue for a slow glide path to the target so as not to risk touching off another bout of inflation. A copy of the speech can be found here. By Panos Mourdoukoutas Forbes, April 14, The bad way is to pursue European-style austerity, which reins in central government deficits.
That remains to be seen. En general las observaciones del Fondo no son tomadas con seriedad, puesto que ya ha habido suficiente experiencia global para comprobar el fracaso de sus recomendaciones. Ambos rasgos son particularmente ciertos en el caso de Argentina. The Bond Buyer, April 11, Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo said the central bank shouldn't raise interest rates. March 19 statement in which the Federal Open Market Committee said it will keep the main interest rate.
In a wide-ranging speech, Tarullo cited slower productivity growth, the smaller share of national income. Monetary policy, by focusing on the full-employment component of the dual mandate, can. Minsky Conference in. The Fed governor rebuffed concerns about near-term inflation from wages, noting that even as. And that parallel govt is killing Pakistan. Not just directly, as in killing journalists "by mistake" "how were we supposed to know he had a chest wound" but much more thoroughly by undermining the visible levers of administration and power and politics and creating a secret government of ISI operatives in every nook and cranny of the country.
Small anecdote: a friend is a successful and very popular doctor in a small town. There were rumors he might get a PPP ticket to run for the provincial assembly. The next day, he was visited by a captain from "intelligence" who wanted to know the details.
A police officer said generals are scared of majors and colonels in "intelligence". I am not kidding. I dont think the army is going to give up this shadow govt without a fight. Regarding CNAS policy prescriptions on continued civilian aid: How does aid money work in such a security state? Even if you build a school whose curricula you have limited real life control over you can't regulate from afar each aspect of such a shadowy security state. Even as you may improve one "on paper" metric, many people remain unable to say what they really think, thus further radicalizing the society.
Given that non-state actors are a part of internal power politics, why does the DC policy community continue to think "resolving Kashmir" or other border issues will prevent the Pakistani state compulsions to "grow" such groups? Fear of India is overused in DC policy circles in understanding the nature of the security state.
Money and internal politics play an important role and Washingtonians of various stripes are always a good target for the skilled foreign diplomat, especially when their advice overlaps with American domestic impulses. In a National Interest article, Dr. Christine Fair writes, "In an effort to persuade Pakistan to cease and desist, the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act also known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill made security assistance dependent upon the U.
Astonishingly, Secretary Clinton gave that certification on March 18 of this year--even while plans to capture bin Laden were under way. Bogus certification is not an auspicious way to begin enforcing the new legislations efforts to deal with Pakistan-based security threats. The United States has a long history of such bogus certifications, including during the time of the Pressler Amendment when Pakistan continued to receive some military assistance. Official Washington will look away again.
It is happening now. There are many institutions in Washington that benefit from the current relationship with Pakistan - outsourced human intelligence, large contracts for various aid and defence programs - and their interests may prevent a clear eyed look at the realities. I don't mean that in a conspiratorial way. There are many patriots and brave people in Washington.
I am talking about human nature and the tendency to see what we want to see. You have previously stated that we lost a generation Donald Rumsfeld made the same point on Greta Van Sustern - ahem of Pakistani military officers because we cut relations and didn't have joint training. But prior to that, many a Pakistani military officer studied in the states, including Gen. It made no appreciable difference in the prioritization of strategic interests as far as I can see.
Indians will do what they think best, Pakistanis will do what they think best, and so on and so forth. Our leverages are magnified in our own eyes and we need to look at reality. In the post Cold War era, we must be more nimble and return to our 19th century roots. The old Cold War desire to pull entire countries into our court, regardless the nature of the regime, won't work in this era. Again, my opinion. This time, by golly, they'll get Kayani sahib to see the light. I'm used to seeing a few hundred or a few thousand comments at the end of news articles.
What does it mean? I don't know. Never seen anything like it, though. Well, in a layperson's way. I do have a day job and a life outside the afpak blog world.
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