Before I occupied Wall Street, Wall Street occupied me.
German voters must break the Merkel mindset that got them into this
If Germany cannot pull itself together to keep Spain in the euro, then the markets can no longer ignore the fact that the lack of leadership and governance is a fatal flaw in the system.
What accounts for this? I would argue that the heart of the problem lies in the political culture of Germany and the mindset of its political and economic elites, which have never been willing to admit to their own voters the sacrifices that must be undertaken in order to be the leader of Europe. Instead, they have led Germans to believe that they can have it both ways: enjoying the fruits of the eurozone while times were good, and lobbing the burden of adjustment onto others when times got bad.
Peter Orszag: Good U.S. Jobs News Can Be Found in Big Business
Big business, we keep being told, has been so hampered by regulatory uncertainty over the past few years, it has been reluctant to hire workers.
So it is surprising to read the results of a little-known survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Very large businesses, it turns out, have been expanding their domestic workforces relatively rapidly. If, since January 2011, businesses of all sizes had hired at the same rate as those with 5,000 or more employees, we would have almost 4 million more jobs today.
Greek Chaos Threatens World Economy—And Obama
The whole episode underscores the need for a European growth strategy to supplement budget cuts and structural reforms. With the Germans blocking any idea of a fiscal stimulus—a stance they are unlikely to alter anytime soon, despite the election of François Hollande in France—the obvious way out is for the European Central Bank to engineer a large-scale monetary expansion and a devaluation of the euro, which would give a boost to European exporters. At $1.30, the euro is still grossly overvalued given the continent’s chronic problems.
New York Magazine: 2012=1968?
In 2008, Barack Obama lit a fire among young activists. Next year, Occupy Wall Street could consume him.
2021: The New Europe
Niall Ferguson peers into Europe’s future and sees Greek gardeners, German sunbathers—and a new fiscal union. Welcome to the other United States.
By virtue of being born in the wrong year, today’s college grads are doing far worse — and research shows that that disadvantage is likely to stick with them for years to come.
