During the
weekend a conference titled “How can we govern Europe?`” created plenty of discussion. The
conference programme is here,
and you can follow what was said on Twitter with the hashtag #HowToGovEU.
Previously
on MoreLiver’s:
Follow ‘MoreLiver’ on Twitter
EUROPE
Europe is not Japan. Total Japanese debt (private and
public) was about 460% of GDP in 2012. It could be 480% now. In contrast, Europe has a debt position of only 178% of
GDP – for total public and private
debt. Of all Eurozone countries, only tiny Greece has any genuine issues over
solvency. Yet somehow that has created panic over the viability of the EU
itself.
Concern
rises as cracks appear in Nordic model – FT
Among
Nordic political and business leaders concerns are increasingly emerging about
the model’s sustainability. In a series of interviews with the Financial Times,
they pointed to mounting challenges from immigration, stagnating productivity,
rising inequality and sluggish economic growth in Finland and Denmark as many called for urgent fixes.
Dutch
had euro-exit plan at height of crisis – euobserver
3
Accounts of Euro-Zone Crisis Management – Place
du Luxembourg
We need
more transparency, to shame our leaders into behaving a little bit better. For
all our stately facade, the European Council seems less like the conference of Westphalia or the Vienna Treaty negotiations,
and more like the circus we see on the floor of the US Senate and the House of
Representative as shown on C-Span.
EU
investment plan to take shape next week – Reuters
Jean-Claude
Juncker will unveil a much anticipated 300-billion-euro ($370 billion) investment
plan on Wednesday that is meant to trigger economic growth in the European
Union.
Eurozone
stagnation demands real solutions – FT
Juncker’s
EU investment plan is noble – but much more will be needed
For
decades, European nations have been ruled by two-party systems. Not any more:
fragmentation is the new normal as the economic crisis has led to a surge in
popular, maverick parties that appeal to the young
Incoming
data is now beating these low expectations, which if history repeats, could
trigger a near-term bounce in euro area stocks.
GERMANY
Germany’s stance toward Europe has become one of refusal and
rejection: No to a more active fiscal policy for distressed eurozone countries;
no to a European investment agenda to boost demand; no to anything but a
domestic budget surplus; and, most ominously, no to the European Central Bank.
On all four counts, Germany is wrong.
Germany is getting too weak to pull Europe out of its crisis
Germany’s European commissioner has
questioned whether President François Hollande has the “willingness to act” to
reform the French economy in a blunt warning set to add to tensions between Berlin and Paris.
UNITED KINGDOM
A
multiparty coalition or minority government, even if it can be patched together
in post-election haggling, will probably collapse within a year or two
[video] Ukip’s
impact on British politics – FT
The UK
Independence Party has won its second seat in parliament. The FT's Janan Ganesh
and Michael Stott discuss the implications for the UK political landscape, why Ukip is
winning support and whether its momentum will continue in the lead-up to next
year's general election.
CRISIS COUNTRIES
Recent
polls show pro-default parties growing popular in peripheral euro-area
countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain.
Italy accuses Brussels of ‘shaky’ accounting – FT
Italy has accused the EU of using “shaky”
methodology to evaluate countries’ fiscal policies, raising the stakes ahead of
next week’s first verdict on the budgets of eurozone member states by the new
European Commission.
Spanish
politics: A three-cornered hat – The
Economist
Greece presented the final draft of next
year’s budget to parliament on Friday without seeking approval from its foreign
lenders in a defiant move that underscored increasing tension over its
hoped-for exit in December from a €172bn bailout programme.
Greece's creditors are testing the
country's endurance -- again. If they keep pressing, they could split the euro
area apart, which would be a disaster for them as much as for Greece. They need to stop insisting on the
impossible, and find a way to relieve the country's debts.
RUSSIA
Russia: A wounded economy – The
Economist
The Russian
economy: The end of the line – The
Economist
Foreign-exchange
reserves: Not quite all there? – The
Economist
EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK
Thoughts
On Draghi’s Speech
– Global
Macro Trading
UNITED STATES
Three
theories about why important economic clues are pointing different ways.
Levine
on Wall Street: Supervising the Supervisors – View
/ BB
ASIA
China, which does nothing in small doses,
will need about 1,000 nuclear reactors, 500,000 wind turbines or 50,000 solar
farms as it takes up the fight against climate change.
MARKETS / ECONOMICS
The
liquidity monster that awaits – FT
Fears are
growing that the next crisis, if it should manifest, won’t come from any of the
areas that spawned the 2008 crisis. To the contrary, it will emerge from areas
we’ve not really had to worry about to date. The key areas those in high places
are now worrying about: the taken-for-granted presumed liquidity of the system.
Global:
the war on inflation expectations – Nordea
Inflation
expectations have been all the rage for months now, with disinflation the
global theme. Too low inflation expectations are driving the ECB towards QE;
this while US developments suggest the Fed doesn’t care that much about
inflation – at least not right now. Uncertainty regarding the Fed’s reaction
function and misunderstood quantitative policies may be two important drivers
behind recent disinflation woes. Inflation expectations are key for FX markets.
Market-making
and proprietary trading – BIS
Industry
trends, drivers and policy implications
Paul
Krugman: Why Weren’t Alarm Bells Ringing? – NY
Books
The Shifts
and the Shocks: What We’ve Learned—and Have Still to Learn—from the Financial
Crisis
by Martin
Wolf
"Secular
stagnation" in graphics: Doom and gloom – The
Economist
The Basel committee will stick close to a
December 2013 proposal that set out tougher rules for how banks model risks
associated with asset-backed securities
The
manufacturing trap –
Worthwhile
While
exporting resources can generate great wealth, the danger of such a path is
that a staples economy becomes overspecialized in raw material extraction to
meet foreign needs, and runs up large external and domestic debts over-developing
the resource base and associated infrastructure.
Banking
crises and sovereign defaults in emerging markets – VoxEU.org
The
feedback loop between banking crises and sovereign debt crises has been at the
heart of recent problems in the Eurozone. This column presents stylised facts
on the mechanisms through which banking and sovereign crises combine and become
‘twin’ crises.
On the
recent slowdown in global trade – VoxEU.org
The past
three years have witnessed a slowdown in global trade. This column shows that
the slowdown was particularly pronounced in advanced economies, especially the
Eurozone.
Contagion
in the European sovereign debt crisis – VoxEU.org
Understanding
the probability and magnitude of financial contagion is essential for
policymaking. This column applies a framework for modelling financial contagion
to data on the cross-holding and credit risk of sovereign debt in Europe.
OFF-TOPIC
The
Secret Life of Passwords – NYT
We despise
them – yet we imbue them with our hopes and dreams, our dearest memories, our
deepest meanings. They unlock much more than our accounts.
Money is
the crystallisation of time and free will
Are we
in denial? – FT
How many of
our most cherished beliefs are strongly immune from evidence?
Cage
fighting with Alex Reid, mixed martial arts professional – FT
The
celebrity master of the multi-discipline contact sport shows how to succeed
inside the ring
Good
Game – The New Yorker
The rise of
the professional cyber athlete
An Atlas
of Genetic Time – The
New Yorker
Many
aspects of our physiology fluctuate in a twenty-four-hour rhythm. We sleep and
wake; our blood pressure, body temperature, and hormonal secretions oscillate;
even the composition of breast milk changes from morning to evening. It wasn’t
until the early nineteen-seventies, however, that a group of biologists
discovered the circadian pacemaker in mammals—the body’s master clock.
The
Group That Rules the Web – The
New Yorker
Billions of
humans will use the Web over the next decade, yet not many of those people are
in a position to define what is “the Web” and what isn’t. The W3C is in that
position. So who is in this cabal? What is it up to? Who writes the checks?
Internal
Uber Deck Reveals Staggering Revenue And Growth Metrics – BI
Man and
Uber Man – Vanity
Fair
Punch a
hole in the sky: Oral history of the Right Stuff – Wired
Before
writer-director Philip Kaufman brought Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff to the
big screen in 1983, onscreen astronauts were little more than alien quarry or
asteroid bait.
Dave
Chappelle Is Back –
GQ
The
Creative Gifts of ADHD – SciAm
The Real
Roots of Midlife Crisis – The
Atlantic
What a
growing body of research reveals about the biology of human happiness—and how
to navigate the (temporary) slump in middle age
Why Some
Money Managers Succeed by Losing – View
/ BB
You’ve
Been in This Business Too Long If... – ZH
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-21/you%E2%80%99ve-been-business-too-long-if
So, what
makes an investment banker? – efinancialcareers
Startup
CEO Offers 1,284 Slides In The Most Insane PowerPoint Ever – Valleywag
Serial entrepreneur Ryan Allis made
a 1,284 slide PowerPoint titled "Lessons From My 20s." Direct link.
FINNISH
"Frankenstein": Euro on hirviö – TalSa
Euroalueen näkymät ovat synkkiä sekä lyhyellä että pitkällä
aikavälillä, sillä euro on pohjimmiltaan viallinen järjestelmä. Näin arvioi
Taloussanomien haastattelussa maailman suurimpiin kuuluvan varainhoitoyhtiö
SSGA:n pääekonomisti Christopher Probyn, joka vieraili Helsingissä maanantaina.
Hollanti ja euron loppu – mielenkiintoisia paljastuksia
– Tyhmyri
Pääkirjoitus: Konkaripoliitikot yrittävät paluuta – IS
Pääkirjoitus: Kokoomuksella ei ole enää kivaa – IS
Keskustalla menee nyt todella lujaa – IL
Tänään perustetaan Perusyrittäjät – PS
”Yrittäjyys on työttömyysturvan este” – PS
Miten tuhotaan itsenäinen valtio alle 30 vuodessa? – Timo
Isosaari / US