EU-valet 2014 hos Europaportalen

Snart 6 juni, när den goda sidan landsteg för att befria "Festung Europa"
De invaderande befriarna kom under häftig beskjutning från en bunker som försvarade Festung Europa.
Det var nödvändigt att rensa bunkern.
Rolf Englund blog 23 maj 2014

Gunnar Hökmarks kandidat får underkänt
David Cameron, Britain’s prime minister, is to launch a diplomatic offensive after this week’s European elections to try to stop the veteran federalist Jean-Claude Juncker from taking the top job in Brussels.
Downing Street fears that Mr Juncker, a supporter of European integration, would represent “business as usual” in Brussels.
Mr Juncker, a wily Brussels fixer, has the backing of the centre-right European People’s party.
The British prime minister has told allies that the former Luxembourg prime minister, who is the lead candidate of Europe’s main centre-right parties for the post of European Commission president, would be “totally unacceptable”.
Financial Times, 22 May 2014

Var tycker du att EU:s gräns bör gå?
Hökmark: Där vi tycker att det passar för tillfället.
Jag ser framför mig att Ukraina borde vara med, men inte i morgon.
Alla länder som ingår i det Östliga partnerskapet
(vid sidan av Ukraina är det Armenien, Azerbajdzjan, Georgien, Moldavien och Vitryssland. Reds. anm.)
är potentiella medlemmar i framtiden beroende på hur de utvecklas.
Europaportalen 19 maj 2014

Kan det vara barkborren?

The Netherlands saw the deepest slump in the EU, with its economy contracting 1.4 per cent in the first three months.
Finland recorded its eighth consecutive quarter without growth.
Financial Times 21 May 2014

Nej-sidans argumentation blir alltmera besynnerlig.
Låt oss följa Finlands exempel den 14 september!
Carl B Hamilton Dagens Industri 16/5 2003

Ukraina
EU-förordningen om frysta bankmedel blir direkt
och automatiskt tillämplig i svensk nationell rätt
Det behövs således ingen inblandning av Riksdagen, Regeringen eller Statsministern
Rolf Englund blog 2014-05-21

De europeiska partigrupper som våra svenska ledamöter tillhör intar samtliga
mer federalistiska ståndpunkter än vad några av de svenska partierna gör (med undantag för Folkpartiet).
Trots det avviker inte de svenska partierna i det dagliga arbetet i Europaparlamentet i någon särskilt stor utsträckning från sina partigrupper
Rapporten Vilket EU vill de ha?, Timbro 2014-05-16

Svenskarna är allt mer positiva till EU,
enligt en ny mätning från EU:s opinionsinstitut Europabarometern
Toppar gör Rumänien (57 procent positiva) och Bulgarien (55 procent).
Text-TV och Europaportalen 14 maj 2014

Ukraina och EU:s östliga och sydliga partnerskap
Rolf Englund blog 14 maj 2014

Svarar UD före valet?
Förfrågan lagrummet frysa enskilda personers banktillgodohavanden
Rolf Englund blog 14 maj 2014

Som jag ser har vi ingen fastighetsbubbla, säger finansmarknadsminister Peter Norman.
- Jag tycker man kan se fundamentala förklaringar /avskaffad fastighetsskatt/ till prisuppgången.
SvD Näringsliv 21 maj 2014

Det här är maktens syn på hur samhället fungerar nu, sade en svensk kollega efter att vi båda sett Maud Olofssons framträdande i Aktuellt häromdagen.
Att det går bra att ljuga, eller att vägra svara på frågor. Att låtsas som om det är vi som inte förstår hur vårt eget statsskick fungerar.
Att svenska folket accepterar en sådan behandling hur som helst utan att protestera.
Har svenska politiker alltid varit så här chockerande arroganta? Så … dåliga?
Jenny Nordberg, SvD 16 maj 2014

Om Johan Norberg, Eurokrasch, en tragedi i tre akter
Euron är statslös. Den föddes med ett distinkt värde men utan stat,
dock i fast förhoppning om att den /staten/ skulle infinna sig.
PM Nilsson, Expressen 7 nov 2012

Norberg tillhör en del av svensk borgerlighet som varit tillbakatryckt ända sedan Bildts statsministerskap. Det finns en ganska bred borgerlig Europa-skeptisk opinion som bejakar frihandeln i unionen
men som skyr de politiska överbyggnaderna.
PM Nilsson, Expressen 7 nov 2012

Kan dom inte bättre - Anna Kinberg Batra och Gunnar Hökmark?
Rolf Englund blog 2014-05-08

Nils Karlsson, Ratio:
Frågan vi bör ställa oss är om EU ska bejaka pluralism eller om EU ska utvecklas i centralistisk riktning
SvD 8 maj 2014

Moderaterna inför EU-valet:
"Vi är i grunden positiva till en gemensam valuta"
VI TROR PÅ EUROPA
Klicka här

Partiledarna, Lissabon och EU-parlamentets växande makt
Rolf Englund blog, 2014-05-04

Finanspolitiska rådeta ordförande John Hassler efterlyser en bred bostadskommission
med mandat att se över frågor kring hyresreglering, fastighetsskatt, ränteavdrag och reavinstbeskattning.

- Det är ett stort bekymmer att det har blivit tabu att prata om både hyresregleringen och fastighetsskatten,

ett tabu som förmodligen gäller båda politiska sidorna.
SvD Näringsliv 12 maj 2014

Stora journalistpriset bör tilldelas Johan Hellekant
för avslöjandet av byggindustrins, mäklarnas, bankernas och de stora revisionsbolagens
felaktiga bruk av progressiv avskrivning vid försäljning av bostadsrätter.
Rolf Englund blog 7 maj 2014

Den statliga Bokföringsnämnden förbjöd för en vecka sedan progressiv avskrivning på byggnader.
Försäljningen i nya bostadsrättsföreningar med progressiva planer har hamnat i en gråzon.
Från Institutet för fastighetsrättslig forskning, IFF, vid Juridiska fakulteten i Uppsala är rådet tydligt till byggbolag och ombildningskonsulter att
lyfta bort progressiviteten innan man fullföljer kontrakteringen med bostadsrättsköpare i nya föreningar.
SvD Näringsliv, Johan Hellekant, 6 maj 2014

SPP-chefen Sarah McPhee vill inte stänga dörren till euron.
Sverige hade lite flax som röstade nej, trots att många ledande intellektuella förespråkade ett ja.
EU behöver bli mer likt USA, mer federalt
Intervjuad av Louise Andrén Meiton, SvD 4 maj 2014

”Vad lärde du dig om Vietnam?” ”Tja, vissa grejer funkar, andra inte … Just den grejen funkade inte.”
Donald Rumsfeld, SvD Kultur, 4 maj 2014, Om filmen ”The unknown known”

Viktiga händelser som påverkat kredit- och valutapolitiken
Uppdaterat Kalendarium 1864-1994
Nils-Eric Sandberg, 2014

In i det sista har bland annat HSB och Riksbyggen fortsatt att sälja bostadsrätter med progressiv avskrivning,
trots att metoden var kraftigt ifrågasatt av både revisorer och den statliga Bokföringsnämnden, innan den i måndags totalförbjöds för byggnader.
SvD Näringsliv 30 april 2014

Englund frågar UD:
Vilket lagrum använder regeringen som stöd för att frysa /ryska/ enskilda personers banktillgångar m.m. ?
Rolf Englund blog 2014-04-30

Bäst för EU att den ryskspråkiga delen av Ukraina tillfaller Ryssland
Rolf Englund blog 2014-04-28

Exkludera Schulz och Juncker
Det finns två personer som är olämpliga i rollen som ordförande för Europeiska kommissionen;
socialdemokraten Martin Schulz och kristdemokraten Jean-Claude Juncker.
Det främsta skälet är att de på ett kuppartat sätt vill ta makten från medlemsländerna genom att föra över den till sig själva och Europaparlamentet.
Smålandsposten, signerad Marcus Svensson, 16 april 2014

Annika Ström Melin
I sin nya bok ”Europas svaga hjärta” gör hon en djupdykning i EU-byggets historia från Haag-konferensen 1948 till dagens Ungern och kommer upp besviken; var har visioner och gemensamma värden tagit vägen, principerna bortom affärsintressena? Skulle EU inte bli något mer än en gemensam marknad?
Mats Johansson SvD 13 april 2014

Finansinspektionens årliga bolånerapport
Chefsekonom Henrik Braconier anser att hushållen har en god motståndskraft mot arbetslöshet, högre räntor och prisfall på bostäder.
Braconier ser skönhetsfläckar i form av stigande belåningsgrader och en minskad amorteringsvilja.
SvD 10 april 2014

Kanske jag inte vet vad jag talar om?
Häromdagen lyssnade jag på en föredragning om världsekonomin
Det var fina ord och fina diagram. Men när jag lyssnade fick jag känslan av att
vare sig han eller jag riktigt förstod vad det är som pågår.
Rolf Englund blog 11 april 2014

Genombrott för solenergin?
Global solar dominance in sight as science trumps fossil fuels
Rolf Englund blog 2014-04-10

Grekland betalar 5 procents ränta på sitt nya lån på marknaden.
Är det mycket eller lite?
Skall Du låna i riksbanken för 0,75 % och göra en Carry Trade?
Rolf Englund blog 10 april 2014

Kan progressiva avskrivningar motiveras?
Problemet är att få bostadsrättsköpare förstår att de faktiskt köper en belånad tillgång. En nyproducerad bostadsrätt på 100 kvm brukar svara för cirka en miljon kronor av föreningens samlade lån. Det står ingenstans i annonsen.
Många kommer att bli förvånande när månadsavgiften stiger, den dag räntorna i samhället går upp.
Det borde därför vara lag på att annonsera priset på en bostadsrätt, som summan av säljarens pris, plus lägenhetens andel av föreningens lån. Då skulle priset vara jämförbart med ett villapris, som ju alltid avser en obelånad fastighet.
Peter Malmqvist, FAR Balans, 7 april 2014

Borde en bostadsrättsförenings syfte påverka redovisningen?
Diskussionen kring val av regelverk, K2 eller K3, för bostadsrättsföreningar har av naturliga orsaker primärt kommit att handla om redovisning av materiella anläggningstillgångar och avskrivningar.
Erik Davidsson och Jörgen Götehed, SRF-Konsult, nr 1, 2014

Volcker startade sedelpressarna, inte Greenspan
Rolf Englund blog 2014-04-08

Vändpunkten äntligen här? Neråt i New York i fredags.
För den som i decennier har varnat för börskrasch kanske vad som hände i fredags i New York kan vara ett nytt hopp?
Rolf Englund blog 2014-04-08

Norra Djurgårdsstaden, Ulvsunda, Hagastaden, Kvarnholmen och andra byggprojekt i Sverige

Fastighetsprofessor Stellan Lundström menar att nuvarande praxis leder till inledningsvis för låga månadsavgifter vilket i sin tur ger för höga marknadspriser på nya bostadsrätter.

Sveriges största bygg- och revisionsföretag har nu gått samman för att försöka påverka statliga Bokföringsnämndens beslut om avskrivningar i bostadsrättsföreningar.
Det framgår av nya mejl från JM:s financhef, direkt till ministrarna Stefan Attefall och Beatrice Ask.

Brf är en juridisk person som lyder under samma årsredovisningslag som aktiebolag.

Bokföringsnämnden har nyligen påmint om att progressiv avskrivning - alltså att kostnader skjuts på framtiden - inte får användas som generell metod. Nämnden väntas lämna ett närmare besked om praxis i bostadsrättsföreningar den 28 april.

Klicka här

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, warned of several obstacles to a sustained recovery
including job-killing “low-flation” in the eurozone
Financial Times 2 April 2014

Riktiga karlar är inte rädda för lite inflation
Rolf Englund 2010-02-19

David Wessels bok om finanskrisen 'In Fed we Trust'
I december firade Federal Reserve 100 år.
I december var det också fem år sedan styrräntan sänktes mot noll.
Louise Andrén Meiton, SvD 28 mars 2014

Sveriges valutareserv mindre än Peru's
Deutsche Bank via Telegraph och Rolf Englund blog 1 april 2014

I takt med att våra vanliga nationsgränser luckras upp, får de inre gränskontrollerna en allt större betydelse.
Gränskontrollutredningen från 2004 står att det, för att ”fullgöra våra åtaganden enligt Schengensamarbetet, behövs en utvecklad och effektiv personkontroll”.
Och vidare att kontrollen ”måste vara lika effektiv vid såväl inre som yttre gräns”.
DN-ledare, signerad Carl Johan von Seth, 29 mars 2014

Motion av Margit Gennser (m) om Prop. 1999/2000:64 Polissamarbete m.m. med anledning av Sveriges anslutning till Schengen
En självständig nation anses ha vissa självklara kännetecken som klart erkända och utmärkta gränser, en egen valuta samt en myndighetsutövning som är förbehållen den egna tjänste- och ämbetsmannakåren. Att överlåta myndighetsutövning på andra staters myndigheter – möjligen med undantag för extrema krislägen - har, åtminstone tidigare, ansetts vara oförenligt med begreppet en ”självständig nation”.

Politiska amatörer, tvivelaktiga oligarker och aggressiva ultranationalister.
Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik är tyska regeringens viktigaste utrikes- och säkerhetspolitiska rådgivare.
I ett längre, så kallat linjetal, nyanserade Obama på kvällen sitt politiska och filosofiska resonemang
Remarks by the President in Address to European Youth
Allt på ett ställe med länkar, 27 mars 2014. Klicka här

Fleckenstein, absurd stock prices, och Kenyes
"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent"
Rolf Englund blog 26 mars 2014

– Om EMU inte skulle fungera ekonomiskt, kan man ha hur vackra argument som helst för – det kommer ändå att haverera.
Det är det första testet. Jag är glad att jag började där. För på den punkten känner jag mig trygg och säker nu.

Vi ser nu att stabilitetspakten verkligen honoreras.
Det är inget tvivel om att både tyskar och fransmän är inriktade på att klara detta, trots sina bekymmer.
Det sätter en norm för framtiden och därför känner jag mig trygg i den delen.
Göran Persson i Tiden (s) nr 3, 2003

"Det är förskräckligt olyckligt att man tog bort fastighetsskatten."
Professorn i nationalekonomi, John Hassler, ordförande i finanspolitiska rådet.
Han och merparten av de svenska nationalekonomerna är överens om att det inte var något bra drag av alliansen
när man 2008 slopade den statliga fastighetsskatten.
I ett slag avskaffades en av de mest pålitliga skattebaserna.
SvD 22 mars 2014

Är den tyska författningsdomstolen anti-europeisk eller demokratisk?
Eller kanske både-och?
Rolf Englund blog 24 mars 2014

Om Xenofili och xenofobi och risken för fnatt
En vitbok
grundad på JO:s akt 2585-2000
En vitbok om vitböcker
Varför ger man ut vitböcker? De är kostsamma och vinner få läsare.
Fullgör de någon funktion? Jag skall här försöka ge ett svar.
Professor emeritus Jacob W.F. Sundberg.

EU:s bankunion har ingen backstop.
Backstop? De är en Lender of Last resort, helt enkelt.
Rolf Englund blog 24 mars 2014

Nils-Eric Sandberg, Stefan Ingves och mysteriet med den försvunna inflationen
Rolf Englund blog 23 mars 2014

Per Gudmundson, Tingsten och planerna på att överlämna riket till främmande makt
Rolf Englund blog 22 mars 2014

Bokföringsnämnden: – Vare sig nuvarande eller tidigare allmänna råd har gett stöd för progressiv avskrivning
som generell metod, säger Stefan Pärlhem, kanslichef vid Bokföringsnämnden.
SvD Näringsliv 21 mars 2014

Venedig liksom Katalonien och Skottland
Sedan i söndags pågår en inofficiell folkomröstning för att Venetos fem miljoner invånare och 10 procent av Italiens BNP ska bryta sig loss till en självständig republik.
Dagens Industri 20 mars 2014

För vissa är Jalta en exklusiv turistort, Krimhalvöns pärla som med skicklig hand kan utvecklas till Östeuropas Nice.
Här finns mycket som semester­resenären önskar sig: stränder, berg, palats.
Det var i dessa trakter som Tjechovs ”Damen med hunden” flanerade,
till följd av Katarina den storas erövring från det Osmanska riket ett sekel tidigare.
Peter Wolodarski, DN 16 mars 2014

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose:
One of the most remarkable characteristics of the European Union is the ability of its leaders to keep building their institutions and expanding their power, self-righteously ignoring whatever obstacles European voters throw in their path.
Anne Applebaum Washington Post 2/6 2005

Just att trovärdigheten för inflationsmålet hotas ser Karolina Ekholm som extra allvarligt,
klart allvarligare än utvecklingen på bostadsmarknaden.
”Jag kan tycka att prisutvecklingen, som påverkar skuldsättningsnivån, är en riskfaktor.
Men jag tycker inte att den är jättealarmerande.
För mig är det i dagsläget viktigare att fokusera på riskerna med att ligga under inflationsmålet länge.”
Karolina Ekholm, SvD Näringsliv 14 mars 2014

Slaget om Sevastopol och fältmarskalk von Manstein, född Lewinski
Källor: SO-rummet och Wikipedia (man kan inte längre skylla på att man inte vet)

Nytt rekord 20 av de senaste 26 månaderna i de centrala delarna av huvudstaden för Brf. Östermalm genomsnittligt pris på 73 730 kronor per kvadratmeter.
En genomsnittlig villa i riket kostar nu 2 457 000 kr. I Storstockholm är medelpriset snudd på 4,3 miljoner
SvD Näringsliv 14 mars 2014

Det i särklass mest oroväckande inslaget i konfliktutvecklingen är att snart sagt varje steg Ryssland tar tycks komma som en överraskning för väst,
som genast reagerar med ilska och tomma hotelser.
Den ryska inställningen har länge varit glasklar. Vladimir Putin har gjort klart att ytterligare expansion av EU och Nato inte kommer att accepteras
Carl Bildts hotfulla retorik måste i detta sammanhang uppfattas som extremt destruktiv. Stefan Hedlund, professor vid Centrum för Rysslandsstudier i Uppsala, SvD Brännpunkt 12 mars 2014

Sida: Vårt arbete i Ukraina
Sveriges bistånd till Ukraina är inriktat på att stödja en EU-anpassning,
där ett steg på vägen är ett associeringsavtal inklusive avtal om frihandel med EU.
Publicerad: den 9 september 2009 - Uppdaterad: den 7 mars 2014

Sveriges största bygg- och revisionsföretag har nu gått samman för att försöka påverka statliga Bokföringsnämndens beslut om avskrivningar i bostadsrättsföreningar.
Det framgår av nya mejl från JM:s financhef, direkt till ministrarna Stefan Attefall och Beatrice Ask.
Jacob Bursell, SvD Näringsliv, 11 mars 2014

Med drygt två månader kvar till Europaparlamentsvalet den 25 maj
DN/Ipsos första väljarundersökning inför valet.
Endast 18 procent av väljarna tycker att utvecklingen inom EU går åt rätt håll.
Samtidigt är andelen som anser att utvecklingen går i fel riktning dubbelt så stor, 38 procent.
DN 10 mars 2014

Centralbanker skall INTE vara förutsägbara. Basel-banken stöder Englund.
Rolf Englund blog 10 mars 2014

Asset price bubbles and Central Bank Policy

Hur kom det sig att du bestämde dig för att Folkpartiet, det är partiet för mig?
– Det har jag nog egentligen ärvt av mina barn. Vi har ganska många Folkpartiaktiva barn.
Marit Paulsen intervjuad i Arbetarbladet Publicerad 11 december 2011, Uppdaterad 30 januari 2012

Två av våra tonårsdöttrar är aktiva i ”Samarbete för fred”, en härlig organisation av helt unga människor som på egen hand ordnar möten mellan ungdomar i olika länder,
i höstas åkte ett par tusen unga från Norden till Sovjet, mina tjejer hamnade i Sverdlovsk som de första utlänningar som fått komma in i staden på årtionden.
Jobbigt för flickorna, de kände sig som bejublade UFOn, folk applåderade på bussen, vinkade och kramades på gatan.
Marit Paulsen i TCO-Tidningen 1990

Storyn har återkommit regelbundet de senaste åren:
Missnöje med en korrupt regering. Demonstrationer. Gatuprotester. Som urartar till kravaller.
“Strävan efter ett bättre liv.” Krav på nya ledare. Brinnande bilar. Minut för minut på twitter.
Så långt ingår fortfarande en viss revolutionsromantik för dem som ser på, och vi glömmer gärna att det kort därefter brukar helt haverera i någon riktning,
eftersom demokrati à la Sverige sällan fixas på fem minuter.
Den här gången ingår också den oturliga komplikationen att det är en före detta sovjetrepublik. Nästan i Europa.
Jenny Nordberg, SvD 6 mars 2014

Om Skottland kan ha folkomröstning om att lämna United Kingdom,
kan väl Katalonien och Krim få lämna sina länder?
Rolf Englund blog 6 mars 2014

Europeiska centralbankens (ECB) högste chef Mario Draghi
Nu har det snart gått två år sedan italienaren uttalade de numera välkända orden
”Inom ramen för vårt mandat, är ECB redo att göra allt som krävs för att rädda euron. Lita på mig, det kommer att räcka”.
Louise Andrén Meiton, SvD Näringsliv, 6 mars 2014

Ukraina kan komma att behöva motsvarande närmare 230 miljarder kronor i akut ekonomiskt stöd under de närmaste två åren.
I går tog den amerikanska kongressen ett beslut om att ge Ukraina ett nödlån på en miljard dollar
Och idag, tisdag, kom nyheten att Ukrainas parlament ratificerade ett lån på 610 miljoner euro från EU.
- Ukraina vandrar på randen till konkurs, säger Robert Bergqvist, chefekonom på SEB.
SvD Näringsliv, 4 mars 2014

Finland och Tyskland sida vid sida
The German and Finnish finance ministries have issued a stinging rebuke of Brussels’ attempt to ease austerity demands
on struggling eurozone countries, saying such flexibility improperly provided France and Spain with additional time to cut their budgets to meet EU deficit limits.

Financial Times, 28 February 2014

- Jag tycker det ser stabilt ut.
Hushållen konsumerar för pengar de har och sparar fortsatt mycket.
Lars Calmfors, SvD Näringsliv 28 februari 2014

Finland
valet av valutasystem under normala förhållanden inte spelar så stor roll.
Valutasystemet är däremot viktigt i krislägen.
Ekonomer talar om asymmetriska störningar: att konjunktur­utvecklingen ibland kan skilja sig kraftigt åt mellan olika länder. Då är det en nackdel att inte ha en egen valuta med en växelkurs som kan anpassa sig till det ekonomiska läget i landet. Lars Calmfors, kolumn DN 27 februari 2014

Redovisningskonsulters Förbund (SRF) har beslutat att alla anslutna redovisningskonsulter bör avråda från metoden.
Enligt SRF är progressiva avskrivningar på bostadshus ”med största sannolikhet inte förenlig med Årsredovisningslagen”.
SvD Näringsliv 24 februari 2014

Gunnar Hökmark, förstanamn på moderaternas valsedel i EU-parlamentsvalet, underblåser konflikten i Ukraina, Rolf Englund blog 2014-02-26

EU, Ryssland och IMF bailar ut Ukrainas fordringsägare?
Rolf Englund blog 2014-02-24

Högre fastighetsavgift och förändrade ränteavdrag
Göran Persson, konsult på JKL, tidigare bland annat statsminister, Agneta Dreber och Olle Wästberg
DN Debatt 2014-02-20

Erik Davidsson, Borevision, menar att nya föreningars ekonomiska planer ofta är så missvisande att det kan kallas "bedrägeri".
Enligt Borevisions nyckeltal ska en sund förening ha såpass höga månadsavgifter att man efter driftskostnader och räntor
har ett utrymme på 100–250 kronor per kvadratmeter och år för att täcka ”förbrukningen av byggnaden”, alltså pengar för fondering och avskrivning.
SvD Näringsliv, 18 februari 2014

Göran Persson vill knyta kronan till euron
- EU behöver gemensamma skatter
Göran Persson, 17 februari 2014, hos TCO, ref DN

Jet stream 'may drive weather shift'
New research suggests that the main system that helps determine the weather over Northern Europe and North America may be changing.
BBC, 15 February 2014

Nu gör Branschorganisationen för redovisningskonsulter, revisorer och rådgivare (Far) plötsligt tvärtom.
Istället föreslår Far att bostadsrätter ska undantas från striktare avskrivningsregler.
Man bollar äver till statliga Bokföringsnämnden att ta fram en långsiktig lösning specifikt för bostadsrättsföreningar.
SvD Näringsliv 14 februari 2014

McDonald's i Ho Chi Minh City
The first McDonald's in Vietnam opened Saturday,
bringing in 40,000 customers during its first two days of business.
Bloomberg, 13 February 2014

Svininfluensan går nu in i sin värsta fas. Minst tre personer har dött i Sverige. Fyra i Finland.
– Det är bara toppen av isberget. De flesta testas inte, så vi vet inte hur många som drabbats,
säger Hélène Englund, epidemiolog på Folkhälsomyndigheten.
Aftonbladet 13 februari 2014

Enligt mitt sätt att se det är vi inte i närheten av en bubbla.
En hel generation av 70- och 80-talister har vuxit upp på en marknad med ständigt stigande bopriser
Günther Mårder, sparekonom Nordnet Bank, SvD Börsforum 12 februari 2014

Skanska, JM, HSB, Riksbyggen och många andra.
Hos revisorernas branschorganisation FAR säger generalsekreteraren Dan Brännström att
det var ”rådande praxis, vanans makt, samt att ingen på allvar ifrågasatte” byggjättarnas modeller som nu
förklarar varför progressiv avskrivning tillämpades till och med 2013.
SvD Näringsliv, 13 februari 2014

Centralbanker skall INTE vara förutsägbara
Det är inte bra att aktörerna känner sig säkra. Det gör dem bara med oförsiktiga.
Rolf Englund blog 2014-02-13

I ett slag innebär revisororganisationen FAR:s underkännande av ”progressiv avskrivning” att
månadsavgifterna för nya bostadsrätter måste höjas med uppskattningsvis cirka 30 procent,
eller ett par tusen kronor för en större lägenhet.
SvD Näringsliv, 12 februari 2014

EMU:s chef för banktillsynsmyndigheten SSM, Danièle Nouy:
"En av de största lärdomarna av den nuvarande krisen är att det inte finns någon riskfri tillgång, så statspapper är inga riskfria tillgångar.
Det har visat sig, så nu måste vi reagera"
Rolf Englund blog med länkar 10 februari 2014

Do you think that the euro will fail?
The euro has already failed.
It was a project that was supposed to create convergence, growth and solidarity between the peoples of Europe, it was supposed to create a commonality among Europeans.
The euro has created divergences, recession, poverty, it is like a straitjacket for Europe, increases the national and the social tensions in Europe. It succeeds because it instills fear. I do not think this is sustainable for long
Lavanguardia.com, 5 February 2014

Euron har redan kollapsat I går kväll, efter att ha uppdaterat sidan om "När och hur spricker EMU?" stod sanningen helt plötsligt klar för mig.
Euron har redan kollapsat. Men vi har av någon konstig anledning inte märkt det.
Rolf Englund blog 17 mars 2012

- Skogsstyrelsen varnar för omfattande angrepp av granbarkborre i Skånes skogar under 2014. Kombinationen av stora mängder vindfällda träd och förra sensommarens torka utgör en perfekt grogrund för kommande angrepp, enligt DI 4 februari 2014.
Som den minnesgode (min website) erinrar sig så skrev Klas Eklund i SvD 1999-06-07 om den enligt honom överdrivna faran med fast växelkurs vid assymetriska chocker.
- De enda konkreta exempel som anförts på vad som skulle kunna konstituera en dylik asymmetrisk chock (med krav på isolerad svensk depreciering) är anfall av några snyltbaggar eller barkborrar eller andra underliga insekter som plötsligt slår ut hela den svenska skogen.
internetional.se/emuklas.html#barkborren

Spain promises non-interference on Scotland
Men varnar Katalonien och drar paralleler med South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Somaliland
Financial Times, 2 February 2014

EU:s finansmarknadskommissionär Michel Barnier förslag gäller de runt trettio största bankerna i medlemsländerna,
som är ”för stora för att gå omkull, för kostsamma att rädda och för komplexa att avveckla”.
Europaportalen 29 januari 2014

Fågelinfluensa sprids åter i Kina
Totalt har omkring 250 fall av fågelinfluensa H7N9 rapporterats från Kina, varav 56 personer har avlidit.
Samtidigt rapporteras det om två fall av typen H10N8 som tidigare aldrig smittat människor.
Folkhälsomyndigheten 30 januari 2014

Två forskare menar att EU:s bankfond inte kommer räcka till om storbanker i euroländerna börjar vackla.
Bankerna i euroländerna har ett kapitalunderskott på motsvarande 4,5 till 6,8 biljoner kronor.
Studien pekar ut banker i Cypern, Frankrike och Belgien som extra känsliga för kriser på finansmarknaden.
Europaportalen, 17 januari 2014

How to End the Crisis Now.
Det var den för mig lockande rubriken på en artikel i TIME av en Rana Foroohar
Reaffirm a Commitment to a True Political Union
- European leaders say economic unification was always meant to be the first step in greater political union.
Det är ett stort steg som jag menar man inte bör ta utan att ordentligt fråga de berörda folken.
Rolf Englund blog 22 januari 2014

Anders Borg, SvD 21 januari 2014:
- Jag tror att vi ska räkna med stillastående priser på bostäder under tio år framöver.

Professor Irving Fisher, October 1929:
"stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."

Professor Lars Calmfors skriver i en kolumn i DN idag 21/1-14 om hur eurokrisen borde kunna lösas. Rubriken är:
"Svångremmen politiskt ohållbar". Trots vissa ljuspunkter krävs "ytterligare kraftiga finanspolitiska åtstramningar" i krisländerna med den strategi som valts. De måste vidmakthållas kanske under ett decennium med dålig tillväxt och hög arbetslöshet som följd.
Han bedömer det rentav som osannolikt att krisländerna skulle fullfölja de åtstramningar som skulle behövas
Danne Nordling 21 januari 2014

Svenska bostadspriser 1952-2012
De reala bostadspriserna har historiskt pendlat i vågor kring reallönerna
Flute-tankar 2012-10-05

Bubblor, t ex bostadsbubblor, planar inte ut
Rolf Englund blog 2014-01-16

Lagarde 2014 och Englund 2010 om deflation och inflation
Rolf Englund blog 2014-01-15

Du håller inte heller med Paul Krugman om att Sverige har en bostadsbubbla?
Om man bara tittar på priser och skuldsättning kan man tro att det är en bubbla.
Lars EO Svensson, SvD Näringsliv 14 januari 2014

Sista chansen för 68-vänstern.
Dags att höja lånet på bostadsrätten och ta med barn och barnbarn till Kuba - innan det är för sent.

Marknaderna skiter i hur det går för Spanien, Grekland, Italien och andra krisländer
Det enda marknaderna bryr sig om är om dessa länders obligationer kommer att inlösas på förfallodagen, eller ej.
Rolf Englund blog, 10 januari 2014

Viviane Reding, "vice president of the European Commission" och tidigare ordförande i journalistförbundet i Luxenburg, vill att "a true political union" to be put on the agenda for EU elections this spring.
Rolf Englund blog 9 januari 2014

Sir David /Attenborough/ och jag om The Jet Stream som förklaring till vädret
Rolf Englund blog 8 januari 01:35 2014

De tyska förhandlarna i Versailles gick endast med på paragrafen för att de var därtill nödda och tvungna, inte för att de på allvar höll med om dess innehåll.

Österrike-Ungerns politiker beslöt att utnyttja morden politiskt för att stoppa Serbiens ambitioner på Balkan. Den 23 juli sändes ett ultimatum till Belgrad, i vilket man krävde att serberna skulle hjälpa till att utreda mordet och samtidigt gå till aktion mot anti-österrikiska kretsar i landet. Faktum är att serberna gick med på nästan allt, och i Wien borde man inte haft några större problem att inhösta en diplomatisk vinst.
Men österrikarna var inte nöjda – de ville ha krig.
Dick Harrison, SvD, 1 januari 2014

Kommentar av Rolf Englund 2004:
Det är väl alldeles uppenbart vem som startade Första Världskriget?
Kejsaren av Österrike-Ungern - en Habsburgare - undertecknade ordern om angrepp på Serbien.

Bostadsminister Stefan Attefall (kd) avvisar riksbankschefen Stefan Ingves förslag om en bostadskommission.
”Jag tror inte Stefan Ingves är fullt informerad om allt arbete som redan pågår”.
Nyckeln till problemen med skuldsättningen ligger i ett för litet utbud på bostäder som i sin tur ger kraftiga prislyft på befintliga bostäder.
- Vi har inga planer på att förändra avdragsrätten.
Stefan Attefall (kd), SvD Näringsliv 3 januari 2014

Om bostadspriserna i Sverige börjar falla leder det till att konsumtionen går ner. Det slår också mot sysselsättningen.
Detta mardrömscenario har inträffat i andra länder och då fört med sig en långvarig recession med hög arbetslöshet.
Sverige tillhör de relativt fåtaliga som hittills har klarat sig, trots att skuldsättningen är högt uppdriven även här.
Enligt riksbankschefen ger detta dock inget skydd mot kommande bakslag, som i värsta fall också kan leda till en ny finanskris.
Stefan Ingves, DN 3 januari 2014

De svenska bankerna har tillgångar som motsvarar fyra gånger Sveriges hela BNP.
– Schweiz, Cypern och Nederländerna ligger högre. De har haft sina problem. Och under oss har vi Storbritannien, Danmark och Spanien och de har haft sina problem
– Samtidigt vet vi att mer än hälften av bankernas finansiering sker utomlands och det betyder att man där kan ha synpunkter på vår bolånemarknad.
I slutändan är det de utländska placerarnas syn på oss som är avgörande.
Den svenska bolånemarknaden har därmed blivit systemviktig
Stefan Ingves, DN 3 januari 2014

Rolf Englund blog 5 december 2009:
- Jag tycker det är skriande uppenbart att räntan världen över är för låg och att en större del av stimulanserna borde ske via finanspolitiken. Men väljarna och därmed deras medlöpande politiker är rädda för budgetunderskott och vill hellre att villaägarna skall låna än att staten skall göra det.
Strategin synes vara att det gäller att stabilisera, helst höja, villapriserna så att konsumenterna främst i USA skall återgå till att konsumera med lånta pengar, dvs just det som ledde fram till katastrofen.
Detta kan inte vara klokt.
Klicka här

Stor euroskepsis i Lettland
När Lettland går över till euro vid årsskiftet är det ett eliternas projekt. I stora delar av befolkningen råder djup skepsis,
inte minst som den lettiska valutan lats är en symbol för landets korta perioder av oberoende.
SvD Näringsliv, 30 december 2013

Ingen kommer att riktigt kunna lita på den gemensamma bank­akuten. Det skapar förstås osäkerhet.
DN-ledare, signerad Carl Johan von Seth, 20 december 2013

Flera katalanska partier är nu överens om hur folket i regionen nästa år ska tillfrågas om självständighet.
En författningsvidrig folkomröstning som ska stoppas, hälsar regeringen i Madrid.
DI, 12 december 2013

SCB: "Minskat motstånd mot euron"
11 december 2013, nice chart

Det nya ramverket för bankkrishantering tydliggör ansvaret för ägare och långivare på ett sätt som både gör banksektorn mer robust
och säkerställer rätt incitament för de som investerar i banker.
Det är ett stort steg framåt för den finansiella stabiliteten i Europa.
Gunnar Hökmark, 12 december 2013

- Jag tycker nog att vi ska respektera att parlamentet har en roll som anges av fördraget.
Det finns ingen som helst anledning att misstänkliggöra det.
Vad tycker du om Gunnar Hökmarks insats som rapportör?
- Jag tycker det är bra att vi har den här ordningen som anges i fördraget.
Det är ju en del av den europeiska demokratin och vi tycker det i grund och botten är bra.
Anders Borg, SvD 11 december 2013

Större delen av de svenska hushållen sitter med sina bostadslån fast i ett skruvstäd.
Det är inte många, om ens ett varv med veven, som behövs för att boendekostnaderna ökar till gränsen att
hela Sveriges ekonomiska utveckling äventyras.
Anders Borg: Räkna ut vad det skulle betyda för er hushållsekonomi och hur stora amorteringar som skulle krävas för att betala av ett bolån på 4 miljoner kronor.
Patricia Hedelius, SvD Näringsliv 4 december 2013

I anledning av Summers
Det kanske är så att utan bubblor och snabb kreditexpansion skulle vi inte haft de tillväxttal vi kommit att vänja oss vid.
Det tycks finnas en underliggande och långsiktig stagnation som dolts av excesserna de senaste två decennierna.
Peter Wolodarski, DN, 1 december 2013

Om fonderna borde vi nu, trettio år senare, tala mer.
Sverige var en hårsmån från en ekonomisk och – i förlängningen – politisk härdsmälta.
Den 21 december 1983 fattade riksdagen beslut om löntagarfonderna. I riksdagsdebatten värjde sig statsminister Olof Palme mot borgerliga angrepp... Något systemskifte var det inte tal om, bedyrade han:
"Detta förslag är inte det första steget. Det är steget ... det blir alls icke fråga om något ensidigt övertagande från fondernas sida."
Per T Ohlsson, Sydsvenskan 10 november 2013

Feldt - Jag känner stor respekt för hans insats i flera viktiga avseenden. men...
Han reagerade på den hårda kritiken mot löntagarfonderna, men han sade inget tydligt nej när tanken väcktes.
Om några socialdemokrater förtjänar att lyftas fram från denna partiets mörka tid är det personer som Assar Lindbeck
PJ Anders Linder, Axess blog 2013-11-13

Fondsocialismen är det närmaste Sverige kommit att förvandlas till en öststat, i betydelsen överföring av ekonomisk makt från privat sektor till offentlig, från marknad till plan.
Inte bara företagens vinster skulle socialiseras utan framförallt skulle företagsägandets funktioner kollektiviseras, underordnas politisk styrning, integreras i en växande statsmakt över hela samhället – över en stat och en offentlighet som hade dominerats av socialdemokratin vid regeringsmakten mer än 40 år.
Detta var avsikten med fondsocialismen, inget misstag eller oavsiktlig konsekvens.
Olof Palme var tydlig på den punkten i sitt tal om införande av fonderna som ”det tredje steget”; efter den politiska demokratin och den sociala demokratin skulle nu den ekonomiska demokratin införas. Rolf Englund, en av de ledande fondmotståndarna under 1970- och 1980-talen, döpte med rätta om metaforen till bara ”steget” för att understryka att det handlade om ett politiskt systemskifte. Mats Johansson i "Trettio år efter löntagarfondsstriden", Svensk Tidskrift 2013

Tack, Mats, för vänliga ord.

Jag skall senare i dag lyssna på bokpresentation och mingla i Stadshuset, ordnat av Svensk Tidskrift, i anledning av "30 år efter löntagarfondsstriden", dvs 1983.
Jag passar på att återuppliva min första löntagarfondsartikel, 1974, i Svensk Linje m anl av Bo Södersten och Villy Bergström
Rolf Englund blog 25 november 2013

Med ett halvår kvar till Europaparlamentsvalet kan de följande månaderna lätt komma att bli en tävling om vilket EU-vänligt parti som är det mest EU-kritiska.
Vem intar den strängaste hållningen gentemot ”EU-byråkraterna” – denna föraktliga yrkesgrupp? Vem kan dra fram de mest absurda exemplen på regleringsiver? Sa någon lakritspipa…?
Vem förmår uttrycka störst avståndstagande till euron?
Det europeiska samarbetet är långt ifrån idealiskt. Ja, det solkas av politiker som inte förstår att tillämpa subsidiaritetsprincipen på ett klokt sätt.
Ja, valutasamarbetet har, milt uttryckt, visat sig problematiskt.
DN-ledare, osignerad, 23 november 2013

Larry Summers, Paul Krugman, Gavyn Davies
Utan bubblor kollapsar ekonomin
Andreas Cervenka, SvD Näringsliv 19 november 2013

Marit Paulsen är en av de mest pinsamma inslagen i svenskt politiskt liv.
Näringslivets Ja-sida med P J Anders Linder i spetsen och folkpartiet använde hänsynslöst och omdömeslöst henne för att förmodades ha en folklilg framtoning,
Men hon är en förvirrad person med en tragiskt bakagrund som kom till Sverige från Norge där hon varit "Tysketösens dotter".
Hon har varit kommunist, snarast Åsa-Nisse-marxist.
Läs här själva vad hon skrev efter Murens fall:
Rolf Englund blog 17 november 2013

I förhållande till ekonomins storlek så utklassar svensk bytesbalans faktiskt både Kinas och Tysklands,
vilket framgår av följande diagram eller nedanstående tabell.
Andreas Cervenka, SvD Näringsliv 16 november 2013

Irland - Den keltiska tigern väckte en gång beundran.
Men den låga räntan i valutaunionen ledde till överhettning, lönerna rusade, politiker och bankirer blev fartblinda.
Lehmankraschen spräckte den väldiga fastighetsbubblan och sänkte Irlands banker.
Här begicks ett grovt misstag när regeringen utfärdade en totalgaranti för alla deras kreditgivare.
DN-ledare signerad Gunnar Jonsson, 16 november 2013

Euroländerna grälar vidare om bankunionen.
Tyskland vill inte betala för någon kollektivisering av andras problem och håller fast vid att räddningsfonden ESM bara ska ge stöd till länder, inte direkt till banker.
Eurokrisen är inte över
DN-ledare signerad Gunnar Jonsson, 16 november 2013

FORES presenterar en antologi där några av Sveriges kunnigaste ekonomer beskriver bakgrunden till krisen
och hur eurons framtid kan komma att se ut.
Lars Calmfors, Harald Edquist, Nils Lundgren, Stefan de Vylder, Pehr Wissén, och Hans Tson Söderström, bokens redaktör
14 november 2013

Lars Calmfors: "Överlever euron?" Bokpresentation 14/11, Youtube

Andrew Huszar vittnar om intern kritik bland Fed-chefer som varnade för att QE inte fungerade som det var tänkt.
Hans egna köp av bostadsobligationer hjälpte inte vanliga amerikaner.
Bankerna lånade inte ut, och de lån som gavs blev inte billigare. Däremot gjorde bankerna själva enorma vinster.
Andreas Cervenka, SvD Näringsliv 12 november 2013

Lånen och stödköpen har inte i första hand gynnat grekerna.
Istället har pengarna gått till de främst tyska och franska banker som hade tagit stora positioner i Greklands och de andra krisländernas statsobligationer.
Genom att sälja sina obligationer till EU-fonderna, ECB och IMF har bankerna sluppit undan hotande förluster.
Mats Persson, Axess Nr 8, 2013

Ska vårt land då gå med i EMU när konjunkturen väl har återhämtat sig och krisen är över?
Det är en svår fråga som ekonomerna debatterar livligt.
Men rent allmänt bör man nog tänka sig för två gånger innan man går med i en förening där styrelsen plötsligt kan bryta mot konstitutionen (Maastrichtfördraget) och skänka bort hundratals miljarder till spekulerande bankägare.
Den lärdomen är nog den viktigaste vi kan dra av krisen.
Mats Persson, Axess Nr 8, 2013

Moderaterna antog för en tid sedan ett nytt EU-program, som markerade ett visst avståndstagande.
Ståndpunkten att ”Sverige ska tillhöra EU:s kärna” är borta, liksom att ”EU ska vara en ekonomisk stormakt i världen” och att ”EU gör Sverige större”.
Till en del hör förändringarna ihop med den ganska turbulenta utvecklingen inom EU, med krisande ekonomier och social och politisk oro.
”Man vore politiskt och socialt tondöv om man inte ser att det är en helt annan omvärld i dag än för fem år sedan”,
som Hans Wallmark, ordförande i gruppen som har tagit fram programmet, har sagt.
Barometern, 4 november 2013

IMF har uppskattat att banker i Spanien, Italien och Portugal hotas av förluster på 250 miljarder euro, 2 200 miljarder kronor, bara på sina lån till företag.
Siffran motsvarar en tredjedel av bankernas totala kapital.
Wolfgang Münchau, kolumnist i Financial Times, har uppskattat de totala förlusterna i euroländernas banker till 2 600 miljarder euro, 23 000 miljarder kronor (!).
Andreas Cervenka, SvD Näringsliv 2 november 2013

Opinionsvinden för ett svenskt medlemskap i den europeiska valutaunionen kommer snart att vända och
inom mindre än ett decennium kommer Sverige att vara en del av eurozonen.
Jan Björklund, SvD Näringsliv, 25 oktober 2013

Sverige och tio medlemsländer menar att kommissionen överträtt sitt mandat när den föreslog en EU-åklagare för att utreda brott mot unionens budget.
Om minst en tredjedel av parlamenten i EU-länderna anser att ett förslag från kommissionen bryter mot den så kallade subsidiaritetsprincipen – att besluten ska fattas så nära medborgarna som möjligt – måste kommissionen fundera över sitt förslag.
Europaportalen, 30 oktober 2013

Alla som är anställda på SAF och Industriförbundet och LO. Titta på den guldkant på tillvaron det redan har blivit för mängder av ämbetsmän med halvtråkiga jobb på SEB och så där, nu åker man till Bryssel och får med sig fri sprit hem (Lundgren skrattar), och man träffar intressant folk - det blir ett helt annat lyft. Man är med. Det tror jag är den riktigt tunga faktorn nu i det här, och det gäller inte bara EMU. Det leder just till att allt bör upp på EU nivå.
Den här subsidiaritetsprincipen kan inte fungera därför att de som i praktiken avgör fördelningen har alltid anledning att föra be sluten uppåt, och det tror jag är den starka kraften här.
Att man ska vara med, och vara med i allt, och det ska vara mycket att vara med i. Det tror jag är en drivkraft som är påtaglig.
Nils Lundgren i Torsten Sverenius "Vad hände med Sveriges ekonomi?" SOU 1999:150

Greenspans bok om finanskrisen sågas
”The map and the territory”
Den är tänkt som en analys av vad som gick snett före krisen
men slutar med försvaret att alla missade varningssignalerna.
SvD Näringsliv 22 oktober 2013

Resorting all too freely to the first person plural, Greenspan describes the book as “an effort to understand how we all got it so wrong, and what we can learn from the fact that we did.”
The remarkable thing is that Greenspan continues to get it wrong.
Daniel Akst, Bloomberg, Oct 17, 2013

It’s time to pounce on Alan. That’s Alan as in Greenspan, whose new book — “The Map and the Territory: Risk, Human Nature, and the Future of Forecasting ” — has just appeared. It provides a fresh opportunity for critics to attack the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (1987-2006).
Here are some samples.
Robert J. Samuelson, October 28, 2013

"One thing that shocked me is that
not only did the Federal Reserve's very sophisticated model completely miss (the Lehman crash on) September 15th, 2008,
but so did the IMF, so did JP Morgan, which was forecasting American economic growth three days before the crisis hit, going up all through 2009 and 2010."
Alan Greenspan, BBC, 20 October 2013

Click here for these articles

Söndag på Södermalm. Skorna fyller trappuppgången utanför lägenheten på Skånegatan. 125 kvadratmeter i behov av renovering är till salu, den accepterade prislappen är satt till knappt 7 miljoner kronor
– slutpriset landar på över 8 miljoner kronor!
SvD Näringsliv, 18 oktober 2013

Riksdagsledamoten Carl-Oskar Bohlin från Borlänge
EU-kritiker tar plats på M-lista
DN 18 oktober 2013

Nya Moderaterna har sänkt skatterna mer än de gamla Moderaterna föreslog, visar regeringens egna siffror.
Förra M-ledaren Bo Lundgren anser att hans efterträdare Fredrik Reinfeldt i stort genomfört den politik han föreslog 2002.
Det finns ingen större skillnad, säger Lundgren till DN 15 oktober 2013

Kommentar av Rolf Englund:
Säga vad man vill om Bo Lundgren, och det har jag gjort,
men han föreslog i alla fall inte av man skulle avskaffa Fastighetsskatten

”Vi ställer oss inte bakom förslaget om en gemensam valuta.
Det nationella självbestämmandet över finans- och penningpolitiken går inte att överföra till gemensam EU-nivå utan betydande demokratiska problem. Vi menar dessutom att en gemensam valuta förutsätter en gemensam fungerande arbetsmarknad.
Innan det är lika naturligt att flytta till Budapest som till Boden fungerar inte en gemensam valuta- och räntepolitik, och det är således inte aktuellt med en gemensam valuta för EU inom en överskådlig framtid.”
Reservationer från ledningen för MUF till partistämman 2013
Klicka här

EU har ett demokratiskt underskott som inte självklart balanseras av en bankunion.
”Eliten” är ofta en tacksam måltavla.
Att stå upp mot populisterna är nödvändigt. Men Europavänner måste också anstränga sig för att visa att EU-projektet är till för medborgarna.
DN-ledare, Gunnar Jonsson, 17 oktober 2013

Man måste skilja på finansiella och reala tillgångsmarknader. Då försvinner motsättningen mellan nobelpristagarna Fama och Shiller
Utdelandet av Nobelminnesspriset i ekonomi till tre amerikanska ekonomer med till synes motstridiga åsikter har förlöjligats i debatt och kommentarer.
Det är Eugene Famas forskning om effektiva marknader som ställs mot Robert Shillers forskning om irrationaliteten hos marknaderna.
Detta går inte ihop, menar man och antyder att det är symptomatiskt för den förvirring som råder inom nationalekonomin.
Slutsatsen verkar vara att den inte är någon vetenskap som man behöver bry sig om.
Sålunda skriver den beryktade kolumnisten Andreas Cervenka....
Danne Nordling, 17 oktober 2013

Robert J Shiller en djupt analytisk och matematiskt begåvad forskare pekade på att det skulle komma en finanskris
och att det inte var givet huspriserna aldrig skulle kunna gå ned och att räntorna aldrig skulle kunna gå upp,
säger Hubert Fromlet.
SvD Näringsliv 14 oktober 2013

Margit Gennser - ordförande i Medborgare mot EMU - fortsätter att sprida ytlig och föga faktabaserad argumentation i EMU-debatten, speciellt avseende Tyskland
Hubert Fromlet SvD Brännpunkt 18/6 2003

Är de finansiella marknaderna effektiva? Ja, svarar Eugene Fama. Nej, svarar Robert Shiller.
På måndagen tilldelades båda, tillsammans med Lars Peter Hansen ekonomipriset.
Tillspetsat kan sägas att Eugene Fama är fader till teorin om effektiva marknader och Robert Shiller fader till teorin om ineffektiva marknader.
Viktor Munkhammar, DI, 14 oktober 2013

Att samma år ge fysikpriset till två forskare vars upptäckter tycks tala rakt emot varandra känns inte alltför sannolikt.
Men i ekonomi går det alltså utmärkt. Hur är det möjligt?
Andreas Cervenka, SvD Näringsliv 14 oktober 2013

Eurons livslögn:
Grekland kommer att återbetala lånen på 2.088 miljarder kronor
Rolf Englund blog 2013-08-26

Sieps uppdrag är att på ett självständigt och allsidigt sätt belysa aktuella europapolitiska frågor.
EU och världsekonomin har i och med den finansiella och ekonomiska krisen upplevt den kraftigaste ekonomiska nedgången sedan andra världskriget.
Återverkningarna märks i dag på flera sätt, inte minst genom
euroländernas svåra statsskuldkris, som har resulterat i ett mycket starkt politiskt förändringstryck.
Sieps 2012-2014

Nordea, Dagens Nyheter och statlig utbailning av aktieägarna
för att undvika skadeståndskrav för vilseledande emissionsprospekt
Rolf Englund blog 26 september 2013

Nordea
Utdelningar och försäljnings­intäkter har resulterat i ett samlat överskott på cirka 80 miljarder kronor, visar DN:s beräkningar.
Utöver intäkterna från de tre stora utförsäljningarna av Nordea-aktier på sammanlagt 60 miljarder kronor har statskassan varje år fyllts på genom aktieutdelningar.
Totalt under åren handlar det om knappt 30 miljarder kronor i utdelningar.
Juan Flores och Thorbjörn Spängs, DN Ekonomi 26 september 2013

Kommentar av Rolf Englund:
Om man räknar utdelningarna som intäkt måste man räkna ränta på det insatta kapitalet som kostnad.
Och så bör man räkna i fast penningvärde.
Det är lite genant att behöva påpeka det.

Och staten skulle kanske inte ha betalat någonting för en konkursmässig bank, som jag skrev i maj 1992

Under hösten 1991 noterade även Nordbanken stora kreditförluster och ett behov av kapitalpåfyllnad för att klara 8 procent-gränsen. Eftersom Nordbanken ägdes till drygt 70 procent av staten var problemet i första hand en fråga för staten såsom ägare.
Staten garanterade därför en nyemission på 5,2 miljarder kronor och tecknade själv 4,2 av dessa. Dess ägarandel ökade därmed till 77 procent.

I Nordbankenfallet gav riksdagen regeringen ett bemyndigande att använda upp till 20 miljarder kronor för en omfattande omstrukturering av banken. Av detta belopp användes 2 miljarder för att köpa ut de privata aktieägarna ur banken.

Biståndsminister Gunilla Carlsson, som avgick förra veckan, har under fyra års tid fått sin lön betald med biståndspengar. Även hennes statssekreterares lön finansierades med biståndspengar.
Totalt rör det sig om över 20 miljoner kronor, rapporterar Ekot.
SvD 24 september 2013

Maria Borelius:
Why I was wrong about the Euro, am no longer a Europhile – and why Europe needs reform
Conservative Home, September 20, 2013

Trade Weighted US dollar Index och
myterna om de svenska devalveringarna och pratet om att Göran Persson räddade Sverige
Rolf Englund blog 17 september 2013

Lorenzo Bini Smaghi satt i högsta ledningen för ECB mellan juni 2005 och november 2011
Centralbankerna har en tendens att hela tiden fortsätta stimulera ekonomin med billiga pengar lite för länge.
Andreas Cervenka, SvD Näringsliv 15 september 2013

"medlemsstaterna ska utöva sin befogenhet i den mån som unionen inte har utövat sin befogenhet"
Folkmajoritetens nej var imponerande klarsynt. Nästan hela etablissemanget bedrev intensiv propaganda för att kronan skulle skrotas.
Håkan Larsson (c), Östersunds-Posten 14 september 2013

Bo Lundgren, Göran Persson, Rune Andersson, Anna Lindh och Leif Pagrotsky
Striden vanns av nejsidan redan under senvåren 2003, visar 2003 års folkomröstningsundersökning.
Thorbjörn Spängs, DN 13 september 2013

Eurokrisen, som nu har pågått i tre till fyra år, kunde inte förutses vid folkomröstningen 2003.
I efterhand står det klart att nejsidan var mer förutseende i sin argumentation än jasidan.
Kritikerna av euron varnade för den brist på handlingsfrihet som skulle uppstå med euron,
medan anhängarna utlovade lägre räntor och fler jobb.
Johan Schück, Poltava-föreningens hovreporter, DN 13 september 2013

Johan Schück, Poltava-föreningens hovreporter, är intressant, i en viss mening.
Rolf Englund blog 2012-10-28

I bankvärlden är förändringen före och efter Lehman Brothers krasch dramatisk.
Då: En sektor beroende av pengar varje dag för att överleva.
I dag: Betydligt starkare banker, väl förberedda på nästa skandal och med målet att faller en ska resten stå starka.
Carolina Neurath, SvD Näringsliv, 13 september 2013

Det politiska etablissemanget vill inte delta i en politisk utvärdering av sitt största nederlag i modern tid
– att de gjorde allt för att förmå svenska folket att rösta ja till euron.
När tio år nu har gått är det tydligt att folket tog ett insiktsfullt och ansvarsfullt beslut.
En rad debattörer som var engagerade i nej-kampanjen, SvD Brännpunkt, more or less, 12 september 2013 kl 16:13

"ja-sidan drev ibland närmast löjeväckande skräckpropaganda"
Tio år efter EMU-omröstningen
Ledarsidan stod förvisso på den förlorade sidan när det begav sig,
men vill ändå tipsa om begivelser med anledning av jubileet.
Per Gudmundson, SvD Ledarblogg, 12 september 2013

EMU2003:
Den borgerliga nejkampanjen
Strax efter folkomröstningen 2003 författade jag ihop med Margit Gennser ett kapitel om
det borgerliga EMU-motstånd som kom att organiseras i kampanjorganisationen Medborgare mot EMU.
Mattias Svensson, September 2013

EMU2003:
Moderaterna, euron och mitt kommunistiska fontänbad
Följande text är en essä från 2012 till Franke, Ulrik (red) Perspektiv på politik, Festskrift till Fria Moderata Studentförbundet 1942–2012.
Den bygger på mina personliga minnen och upplevelser av hur det inom Moderaterna och Fria Moderata studentförbundet
intrigerats och diskuterats kring EMU fram till och med kulmen i kampanjen mot EMU 2003.
Mattias Svenssonm, 2013-09-08

Försöksdjuren i Sverige har bättre skydd än människorna i Euroland
Rolf Englund blog 6 september 2013

Tidigare riksbankschefen Lars EO Svensson har nyligen argumenterat för att en lägre ränta i själva verket skulle ge lägre risker
men det resonemanget gav inte Stefan Ingves mycket för.
– Blir det billigare att låna så lånar man mer.
SvD Näringsliv, 5 september 2013

Enligt Riksbankens prognoser kommer reporäntan ligga kvar på låga 1 procent fram till slutet av 2014.
Men nu varnar IMF för en svensk bostadsbubbla och rekommenderar att det införs regler mot amorteringsfria lån.
SvD Näringsliv 5 september 2013

Bostadsrättslägenhet. Välplanerad 4,5:a med vardagsrum och renoverat kök i öppen planlösning.
Perfekta bostaden för barnfamiljen. 5.200.000 kr

I ett europeiskt perspektiv heter mardrömmen ”Alternativ för Tyskland” (AfD).
Om detta lilla parti skulle lyckas ta sig in i förbundsdagen så rubbas i grunden förutsättningarna för Tyskland som en betryggande pålitlig partner i Europa.
När nu ett tredje stödpaket till Grekland diskuteras offentligt får AfD understöd för sin agitation.
Fortfarande säger opinionsmätningarna att knappt 40 procent av väljarna är osäkra.
Rolf Gustavsson, SvD 1 september 2013.

Sannolikt är det för tidigt att räkna ut det nybildade eurokritiska partiet Alternativ för Tyskland.
DN besökte på måndagskvällen ett möte som borde vara en varningssignal för de etablerade partierna.
AfD präglas helt av talesmannen och nationalekonomen Bernd Lucke, professor vid universitetet i Hamburg och en debattör med pojkaktig utstrålning.
Han håller ett långt tal i på hotellet och gisslar det han konsekvent kallar gammelpartierna.
De cirka 400 åhörarna är helt i hans händer.
DN 27 augusti 2013

Nils Lundgren: Flexibel integration – Måste alla länder vara med i allt EU-samarbete?
Det grundläggande problemet är sannolikt att det finns starka intressen som inte primärt ser frihet, demokrati, materiellt välstånd och kulturell mångfald som huvudmål för den europeiska integrationen utan som framför allt vill etablera en mäktig federal EU-stat, en europeisk supermakt som kan agera på den internationella arenan på jämbördig nivå med USA, Kina och Indien. Rapport 2 september 2013

Björn von Sydow värre än Carl Lidbom
Jag lyssnade i dag på Nils Lundgren, den väluppfostrade folkpartisten Daniel Tarschys och Björn von Sydow
Jag letade i min dator efter dumheter som von Sydow sagt tidigare och fann följande citat som jag tycker uppfyller höga krav på dumhet
Rolf Englund blog 2 september 2013

Eurokrisen och Finanspakten: Ur askan i elden
Stefan de Vylder, 2013

Regeringen presenterade idag nya åtgärder kring hur den finansiella stabiliteten ska värnas
Sverige har Europas tredje största banksystem, ett system som dessutom har sämre tilltagna buffertar än i många andra länder.
Och som är väldigt beroende av att låna utomlands.
Andreas Cervenka, SvD Näringsliv, 26 augusti 2013

Spanien får beröm för att ha lyckats sina kostnader och för att ha vänt ett underskott i bytesbalansen på 10 procent till ett litet överskott.
Men en arbetslöshet på över 25 procent imponerar inte.
Betyget blir ”godkänt”.
Dagens Industris Henrik Mitelman, 2013-08-27

Man häpnar.
Hur kan man undvika att inse att 25 procents arbetslöshet är en katastrof för land och folk?
Att det är fullständigt oacceptabelt.
Det är till och med ett orimligt pris även om man inbillar sig tillhöra dem som håller på att skapa ett nytt Romerskt rike.
Rolf Englund blog 2013-08-27

Anders Borg är duktig,
men tänk om de goda tiderna beror på bostadsbubblan, som på Irland
Rolf Englund blog 23 november 2011

Varför min sida om Finanskrisen heter hedgefunds.htm
Finanskrisen och därmed eurokrisen tog sin början i Frankrike,
när tre hedgefonder tillhöriga Frankrikes största bank, BNP Paribas,
inställde betalningarna i augusti 2007.
Rolf Englund blog 26 augusti 2013

Svaret på galaxens alla frågor är inte 42.
För ekonomi och banker är svaret 20.
Rolf Engluns blog 23 augusti 2013

Tyskland är eurokrisens största vinnare.
Den tyska statskassan har sparat över 350 miljarder kronor på att landets räntekostnader rasat under krisen.
SvD Näringsliv, 21 augusti 2013

Stefan Löfven, Göran Persson och Humlan som faktiskt kan flyga, vi vet nu varför
Rolf Englund, 21 augusti 2013

Statsministern /Göran Persson/ säger att han delar Riksbankens syn att det inte finns någon risk för en bubbla på bostadsmarknaden
och han ser heller inga tendenser till att hushållens skuldsättning är oroande.
DI/Nyhetsbyrån Direkt 2006-01-25

Är det villaägarna och bostadsrättsinnehavarna som är Too Big To Fail?
Rolf Englund blog 13 augusti 2013

Ur skokartongen

Manus till anförande januari 1993

Samtliga mina anföranden på Nationalekonomiska Föreningen

Att Nederländerna ligger risigt till säger en del om Europa i stort.
Vissa likheter finns med Sverige. En trögrörlig bostadsmarknad, lik vår egen, har lett till uppblåsta huspriser och överbelånade hushåll.
Sedan toppen i augusti 2008 har huspriserna fallit med 18 procent.
SvD-ledare, Ivar Arpi, 13 augusti 2013

Inför tioårsdagen

- Innan jag får några kloka svar på hur den havererade stabilitetspakten ska kunna återupprättas och hur man ska kunna undvika att euron leder till mer skatter och en centralisering av politiken, så kan jag inte rösta ja till euron.
Johan Norberg, Göteborgs-Posten, 15 augusti 2003

Inför tioårsdagen

Lars Leijonborg gjorde Marit Paulsen, tidigare kommunist, till vice ordförande i folkpartiet.
Det var pinsamt att skåda när han i riksdagens talarstol visade upp en gammal pappersfemma som nu är utbytt mot en mynt-femma och sade att
”Precis så odramatiskt kommer det att kännas om och när Sverige byter till euro-sedlar”.
På folkomröstningsdagen om EMU hade han den dåliga smaken att lova svenska folket att
Anna Lindh skulle få pryda det svenska Euromyntet om det blev ett Ja.
Rolf Englund på internet 6/9 2006

Inför tioårsdagen

Carl Bildt tänker satsa helhjärtat på att övertyga svenskarna om fördelarna med euron
Bildt, som då just hade avgått som statsminister, spelade en avgörande roll inför folkomröstningen om medlemskapet i EU 1994.
I teves slutdebatt slogs han på jasidan sida vid sida med statsminister Ingvar Carlsson och Marit Paulsen (som då inte hade kommit ut som folkpartist).
"Tretton länder har infört den gemensamma valutan, och alla ser det som ett riktigt och klokt beslut".
Viktigast är de ekonomiska argumenten.
"För ekonomin är den gemensamma valutan självklart bättre än att fortsätta med kronan som en marginell skvalpvaluta.
Ökad konkurrens och ökad handel ger bättre förutsättning för tillväxt och välfärd".
DN nyhetsplats 9/5 2003

Elva latinamerikanska länder, med Brasilien i täten, sågar IMF:s fortsatta stöd till det konkursmässiga eurolandet Grekland.
Lånevillkoren uppfylls inte, anser ländernas regeringar, som avstod från att rösta när den senaste utbetalningen av grekiska nödlån godkändes.
Dagens Industri, 31 juli 2013

Havsisens försvinnande i Arktis medför troligen enorma utsläpp av metangas från havsbottnen.
Kostnaderna för utsläppen kan bli 60 biljoner dollar - nästan lika mycket som den nuvarande storleken på världsekonomin.
Det hävdar forskare i en studie som publiceras i tidskriften Nature.
Dagens Industri 24 juli 2013

Tomas Lundin
Klart står också att det tyska förbundsdagsvalet den 22 september lägger en död hand över hela krispolitiken.
Alla vet att Portugal sannolikt kommer att behöva ett nytt stödpaket, precis som Grekland. Men det får man inte ens viska om så länge Angela Merkel är på valturné och möter väljare som ser rött bara ordet Sydeuropa nämns.
Allt detta är naturligtvis makulatur när valet i Tyskland är över, oavsett vem som vinner.
Då finns det ingen anledning längre att blunda för det oundvikliga.
Klicka här

Germany is preparing for a national election in which – much like in last year’s French presidential election – the European crisis is to play no part, or at least only a minor one.
Both government and opposition believe that it would be better to tell the people the truth concerning
the most vital question of the day only after the election (and in measured doses).
Such an outcome would make a mockery of democracy.
Joschka Fischer, Project Syndicate, April 30, 2013

Elefanten i rummet är Frankrike – EU:s näst största ekonomi
Det tyska förbundsdagsvalet den 22 september lägger en död hand över europeisk krishantering under sommaren.
Thomas Gür, Kolumn SvD 20 juni 2013

Thomas Gür är nejsägaren som ändrat uppfattning och kommer att rösta för euron i folkomröstningen.
MUF:s Blått, nr 1 2003

Fram till folkomröstningen om euron i september kommer Thomas Gür att arbeta som rådgivare till partiet i samband med kampanjarbetet för ett moderat ja.

- Jag tycker att euron är felaktigt uppbyggd, och att en valutaunion skapar man
när den övriga integrationen är färdig. EMU som system kan man vara kritisk till

Läs mer här

I går presenterade EU-kommissionen ett förslag som för EU ett steg närmare en bankunion.
Men de europeiska länderna är så olika att en tätare union riskerar att splittra det europeiska projektet ännu mer.
EU är ännu inte en federal stat, som USA, eftersom Europas medborgare helt enkelt inte vill det.
Att fördjupa denna federala union ytterligare vore att ta ett steg som man inte har mandat för.
SvD-ledare signerad Ivar Arpi, 11 juli 2013

I länder som USA och Storbritannien ser vänstern med avund på vår välfärdsstat,
medan högern berömmer de marknadsreformer som genomförts i Margaret Thatchers anda och resulterat i god tillväxt.
Sverige framställs som den perfekta medelvägen mellan socialism och kapitalism; ett tema som ekar bekant från historien.
Peter Wolodarski, DN 7 juli 2013

Praeterea censeo
Vi befinner oss fortfarande nära toppen av bostadsprisbubblan.
Vi har fortfarande svenska löner och kinesiska priser. Men vänta bara.
Rolf Englund blog 4 januari 2013

De senaste 20 åren av kinesisk dominans på tillväxtmarknaden har sin förklaring i oljekonsumtionen.
Tyvärr så har nu peak oil inträffat och den globala oljeproduktionen har legat konstant runt 85 miljoner fat per dag de senaste åren.
Alltså måste Kinas eventuella framtida tillväxt ske på någon annans bekostnad, såvida vi inte får se ett riktigt mirakel.
Peakenergi, 5 juli 2013
Nice chart

”Mitt svar är kort och gott att det behövs en europeisk valuta.
Hade inte euron funnits hade den tyska marken fått spela den rollen men utan inflytande från andra länder.
Det måsta man också konstatera och inte bara säga att euron var fel. Man måste orka tänka lite längre.”
Ingvar Carlsson, Dagens Industri, 4 juli 2013

Kommentar av Rolf Englund:
Vad menar han? Han pladdrar ju på värre än Annie Lööf

Om tillväxten och produktiviteten varierar mellan olika länder så bör skillnaden tas upp i växelkursen. Fast växelkurs innebär att skillnader i produktivitet och kostnader mellan länder tas upp i produktion och sysselsättning, med arbetslöshet som följd.
Rörlig växelkurs innebär att skillnaderna tas upp i växelkursen – utan arbetslöshet.
En rad ekonomer har försökt förklara detta enkla samband för politikerna, i femtio år.
Några av oss överlevande försöker fortfarande.
Nils-Eric Sandberg, Kristianstadsbladet, 1 juli 2013

Nu ser det ut som att krisen i Portugal är på väg att blossa upp på nytt.
Åtstramningspolitiken har inte framkallat den utlovade läkningen av ekonomin
DN, Signerat Carl Johan von Seth, 4 juli 2013

Det allra svåraste - att landa på ett hangarfartyg, link to Youtube
Risks of a hard landing for China
The pilot is allowing the plane to slow down, but if it slows too much,
it will fall below stall speed and drop out of the sky.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times, July 2, 2013
Via Rolf Englund blog dagens länkar 3 juli 2013

What is the “stall speed” of an economy?

Euron är feltänkt från början och skadar allvarligt Europas chanser till återhämtning.
Det menar professorn i historia från Harvard Niall Ferguson och ekonomiprofessorn Assar Lindbeck.
Assar Lindbeck är inte säker på att politikerna visste vad man gjorde när euron lanserades men att
”man inte ska underskatta dumhetens betydelse för världens utveckling.”
EFN, "ett fristående dotterbolag ägt av Handelsbanken", 2 juli 2013

Kommentar av Rolf Englund:
Man skall heller inte underskatta opportunismens och skamlöshetens betydelse
Assar Lindbeck propagerade för Ja-sidan i folkomröstningen 2003
Man måste betrakta honom som en osympatisk person som utan egen förskyllan har höljts i ära.

”Slopandet av fastighetsskatten ter sig i efterhand som ett av de mest korkade ekonomisk-politiska beslut som fattats.”
Klas Eklund, Dagens Industri 2 juli 2013

Efter ett tiotal räddningspaket och en arbetslöshet som nått rekordnivåer har skepsisen mot EU-samarbetet spritt sig över Europa.
Opinionen i Sverige har på kort tid vänt i negativ riktning.
I debatten finns knappast någon politiker längre – Carl Bildt och Birgitta Ohlsson är två lysande undantag –
som orkar stå upp för det nödvändiga samarbetet mellan Europas demokratier.
Peter Wolodarski, DN 30 juni 2013

Drömmen om EU på väg att spricka
Mauricio Rojas, ledarsidan SvD 14 augusti 2011

Drömmen om ett enat Europa växte ur andra världskrigets tragiska erfarenheter och det kalla krigets hotbild. Dessa drivkrafter var starka nog för att skapa en union som annars saknade inre livskraft.

Det europeiska giftermålet var ett konvenansäktenskap med ett rejält underskott av genuin kärlek. Sådana varar så länge de behövs, men idag finns det mycket som talar för att en civiliserad skilsmässa kan bli bästa alternativet innan makarna hinner bli riktigt osams.

Anpassningsprocessen kommer att kräva inte bara stor uppfinningsrikedom utan också det som den arabiske tänkaren från 1300-talet, Ibn Khaldun, kallade asabijja: gemenskapsanda och vilja till gemensamma ansträngningar.

Det förutsätter i sin tur betydande mått av pliktkänsla, disciplin, solidaritet och samhällstillit.

I det perspektivet finns det mycket som tyder på att Nord- och Sydeuropa, i denna prövningens tid, kommer att gå skilda vägar.

I en sådan tid är det inte sannolikt att länder med stor samhällstillit, icke-korrupta institutioner och en kanske sovande men inte helt försvunnen pliktmentalitet kommer att vilja dela sitt öde med länder som saknar dessa egenskaper.

Mauricio Rojas, ledarsidan SvD 14 augusti 2011

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DNs ledarsida, signerat Magdalena Nordensson 21/8 2003

Ja-trion Carl Bildt (m), Mauricio Rojas (fp) och Anna Ibrisagic (m) har
begett sig till de invandrartäta norra förorterna utanför Stockholm för att vinna invandrare för euron

Vem tror ni bestämmer över kronan?

-Det är kungen, ropar pojken.

-Nej, det är finansmarknaderna, förklarar Rojas.
Euron blir som ett starkt paraply för oss om det regnar eller blåser för mycket.

DNs ledarsida, signerat Magdalena Nordensson 21/8 2003

Fler av EMU:s vacklande Ja-sägare

Att säga nej till EMU var ett framsynt och klokt beslut. Verkligt ledarskap handlar om att våga ta ställning i just sådana kontroversiella och långsiktiga frågor.

När Sverige folkomröstade om euron var Centerpartiets slutsats att riskerna med att gå med var för stora. Vi har fått mycket mer rätt i våra antaganden än vi hade önskat.

Det är uppenbart inte möjligt att för

Det som nu sker i Europa borde leda till att Sverige åtminstone för de närmaste tio åren avför tanken på ett svenskt eurointräde. Innan den frågan kan bli aktuell igen måste vi se substantiella förbättringar vad gäller statsskuldernas andelar av BNP i eurozonen och vi måste se ett helt annat ramverk för EMU. Därefter måste det nya ramverket testas och visa sig fungera i praktiken.

Först då är jag beredd att ompröva medlemsfrågan för svensk del. Min bedömning är att det tar minst tio år innan vi på allvar kommer att kunna utvärdera hur eurokrisen har hanterats, och innan vi kan se om en hållbar lösning finns inom ramen för det nuvarande eurosamarbetet.

ANNA-KARIN HATT(C) It-minister, partiledarkandidat
SvD 14 augusti 2011

It- och regionminister, Näringsdepartementet

Annie Johansson, numera Lööf, (c) är en kappvändare om EMU
Rolf Englund blog 14 augusti 2011

German and French banks had so much Greek (and other peripheral-country) debt that if Greece defaulted they would be bankrupt.
That would of course force the respective governments to capitalize their banks to keep their countries afloat. But then that would call into question their own credit worthiness. If Greece were allowed to default, then what would that imply about other peripheral-country debt?
The word contagion slipped into the economic lexicon and many European leaders worried that if Greece were allowed (or forced) to exit the euro, the entire euro experiment might be called into question.
Nästan alla etablerade partipolitiker kommer framstå som åsnor om EMU havererar.
Rolf Englund 30 januari 2013

Snart 6 juni, när den goda sidan landsteg för att befria "Festung Europa"
De invaderande befriarna kom under häftig beskjutning från en bunker som försvarade Festung Europa.
Det var nödvändigt att rensa bunkern.
Rolf Englund blog 23 maj 2014

Polls: 23%, against 21% for the centre-right UMP, med socialisterna på tredje plats
The biggest fallout from the European elections will come from the success of Marine Le Pen’s National Front.
The Economist print, daterad 24 May 2014

"It all began with the euro crisis," said Herman Van Rompuy, the EU president.
For some it began earlier with the "Stolen Referendum",
the fateful decision to ram through the Lisbon Treaty without a vote
after the French people had already rejected an almost identical text called the European Constitution.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 21 May 2014

The mystery is why a French Socialist president with a parliamentary majority should so passively submit to policies that are sapping the lifeblood of the French economy and destroying his presidency.
Francois Hollande won the presidency two years ago on a growth ticket, vowing to lead an EMU-wide reflation drive that would lift Europe out of slump.
He promised to veto the EU Fiscal Compact.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 21 May 2014

From March 2000 to the autumn of 2002,
the US stock market declined more than 40 per cent. Losses were a staggering $8tn.
The reason that the real economic effects of the collapse of internet stocks were well contained is that the internet bubble was not financed by debt
Contrast the situation that followed the collapse of real estate prices in 2007
after a period when the (inflation adjusted) prices of single family houses had doubled over the preceding decade.
Burton Malkiel, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street, Financial Times 21 May 2014

Martin Hellwig ”The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It”
The 2008 crisis was made possible by an extremely fragile financial system
in which banks and many other businesses indulged in excessive leverage — too much borrowing — as well as hazardous reliance on short-term funding
and negligent risk management, with lax regulatory supervision by the government.
Roger E. Alcaly, The York Review of Books, 5 June 2014

As these books all argue, the crisis was always about more than whether financial markets would buy government debt.
It raised broad worries over how countries with widely differing levels of prosperity, competitiveness, public spending and taxes, and regulation of labour and product markets,
could share a currency without economic shocks blowing them apart.
And it was about whether euro-zone voters would accept low growth, high unemployment and a permanent loss of sovereignty to the centre.
The Economist print, May 17th 2014

Under article 123 of the Treaty of Lisbon, the ECB is prevented from buying the government bonds of member states,
but it has nonetheless already promised to do so even though the threat was never carried out.
The ECB does not appear to find this rule wise and its members are not threatened with jail it it is broken.
Andrew Smithers FT 16 May 2014

Tim Geithner recounts in his book Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises just how far the EU elites are willing to go to save the euro, even if it means toppling elected leaders and eviscerating Europe’s sovereign parliaments.
The former US Treasury Secretary says that EU officials approached him in the white heat of the EMU crisis in November 2011 with a plan to overthrow Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s elected leader.
"They wanted us to refuse to back IMF loans to Italy as long as he refused to go," he writes.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, May 15th, 2014

‘If the euro falls, Europe falls’ - How the euro was saved - the third part
Angela Merkel was handed the piece of paper Barack Obama had just passed around.
“What is this?” the German chancellor asked. “I haven’t seen this before.”
A full-scale endorsement of a plan for the European Central Bank to protect eurozone countries when they came under attack from financial markets by automatically buying their bonds.
In retrospect, it marked the beginning of the final turning point in the crisis.
Peter Spiegel, Financial Times, 15 May 2014

This month marks the fourth anniversary of the May 2010 financial rescue of Greece.
Clearly, the supposed experts who predicted the imminent disintegration of the eurozone have been proved wrong.
But it is equally likely that those now declaring that the crisis is over will be proved wrong as well.
Barry Eichengreen, Project Syndicate, 12 May 2014

Stocks are telling you a bear market is coming
MarketWatch, May 14, 2014

Europe’s Plan Z - The Grexit gamble
Part two of Peter Spiegel’s series from behind the scenes on how the euro was saved
"no single Plan Z document was ever compiled and no emails were exchanged between participants"
Financial Times 14 May 2014

Complacent policy makers and investors imagine the crisis is over.
Avoiding catastrophe is still not guaranteed. That is anyway a grossly insufficient goal.
Martin Wolf, FT, May 13, 2014

After almost two decades of nearly unceasing increases in real estate prices and construction across China,
one of the world’s longest-running bull markets finally seems to be stalling,
with broad consequences for China’s economy and possibly its politics as well.
New York Times 13 May 2014

The Writing Is On The Wall
The "Shiller P/E" shows that U.S. equity valuations are pushing towards crash-worthy levels.
This measure of long term earnings power to current price is currently at 25.3x,
or close to 2 standard deviations away from its long run median of 15.9x
Tyler Durden, zerohedge, 12 May 2014

Bear market won’t come until the yield curve says so: Kleintop
Says Jeffrey Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial:
the yield curve has a perfect track record of predicting the top of the stock market over the past 50 years,
and it’s not signaling a bear market right now.
MarketWatch, May 13, 2014

How the euro was saved
In the French seaside resort of Cannes
To the astonishment of almost everyone in the room, Angela Merkel began to cry.
the man sitting next to her, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and the other across the table, US President Barack Obama
Peter Spiegel, Financial Times 11 May 2014

Wolfgang Münchau
Supporters of currency union have failed to explain how Italy can prosper inside a monetary union with Germany.
The lazy argument is that Italy’s problems have nothing to do with the exchange rate regime. It is all about structural rigidities. As long as Italy reforms, all is well.
This is nonsense. Globalisation was an asymmetric shock.
It brought new customers for German luxury cars, but for Italy it mainly brought new competitors.
It would not be unreasonable for a country to respond to an asymmetric shock through an exchange rate devaluation.

Charlemagne
Beware of europhoria
Stagnation and a looming political backlash make optimism about the euro overdone
The Economist, May 10th 2014, print edition

Split from Spain would be an error but autonomy is needed
a shadow over the nation’s political future shows no sign of resolution:
the demand by millions of Catalans for independence.
Scots are set to vote this September in an independence referendum
Financial Times editorial, May 5, 2014

“The Great Recession: Causes and Consequences.”
We were suffering from inadequate demand.
Why, at the moment it was most needed and could have done the most good, did economics fail?
Paul Krugman, NYT 1 May 2014

Paul Krugman is puzzled why it’s suddenly news that banks have the power to create money.
As he noted on his blog this week, it’s hardly something that contradicts standing economic theory.
We have, as he notes, known about the money-creation role of banks for a long time
Izabella Kaminska, FT blog Apr 30 2014

At present the world’s high propensity to save is not matched by a desire to invest.
High-income economies have had ultra-cheap money for more than five years. Japan has lived with it for almost 20.
The highest interest rate charged by any of the four most important central banks in the high-income economies is 0.5 per cent at the Bank of England.
Martin Wolf, FT May 6, 2014

US vs UK median real wage growth since 1988
FT Alphavillle, 29 April 2014

Why are real interest rates so low? And will they stay this low for long?
If they do – as it seems they might – the implications will be profound: good for debtors, bad for creditors and above all, worrying for the vigour of global demand.
Martin Wolf, FT April 29, 2014

Money Mania: Booms, Panics and Busts from Ancient Greece to the Great Meltdown by Bob Swarup. Bloomsbury Press
So what does Mr Swarup’s offering, Money Mania, add to the field? First it is unusually well-told, and expansive in scope.
Similarities between different episodes are breathtaking. Events in Ancient Rome and Athens, and Georgian Britain followed the same pattern as the crisis of 2008.
Review by John Authers, FT 27 April 2014

Back in 1856 one of this newspaper’s editors, Walter Bagehot:
the need for central banks to rescue banks during crises. But the bail-out charges should be punitive.
The Economist editorial, 12 April 2014

They never told us we could do that,” said Sidney Webb, a bruised former minister, when Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald took Britain off the gold standard in 1931.
That momentous decision – forced on the government, in the end, by a mutiny of the Royal Navy –
took 25 per cent off the value of the pound and scarred the Labour party for decades.
But it also saved Britain from the Great Depression.
Stephanie Flanders, FT 18 April 2014

Biggest US banks forced to hold $68bn in extra capital
US regulators have held out the prospect of more draconian measures after ratcheting up capital requirements for the biggest US banks – from JPMorgan Chase to Goldman Sachs – forcing them to hold at least $68bn in additional capital.
A new “leverage ratio” will force the eight largest US banks to hold a minimum of 5 per cent equity to total assets to absorb losses in a crisis and proposes adopting a more stringent way of calculating the rule.
FT April 8, 2014

Secular stagnation
There’s something more significant going on in the industrialised global economy than the effects of a banking crisis per se
The financial intermediation industry loses its raison d’etre in such an environment
Izabella Kaminska, FT Alphaville 17 April 2014

Everyone knows how the Great Depression fuelled support for extremists on both the left and right. Less well known is the way
the original Great Depression – the one that began in 1873 and involved a quarter-century of deflation – led to a wave of populism on both sides of the Atlantic.
Causes dear to 1870s populists ranged from anti-Semitism to bimetallism. Nowadays anti-immigration and euroscepticism are more likely.
Niall Ferguson, FT April 18, 2014

The Great Moderation, Version 2.0
“Great Moderation” – was invented to describe the stable period from 1984-2008, when the variability of real GDP growth and inflation both fell markedly
Gavyn Davies, FT blog April 13, 2014

France is the new cauldron /kittel/ of Eurosceptic revolution
Britain is marginal to the great debate on Europe.
France is the linchpin, fast becoming a cauldron of Eurosceptic/Poujadist views on the Right,
anti-EMU reflationary Keynesian views on the Left, mixed with soul-searching over the wisdom of monetary union across the French establishment.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, April 15th, 2014

Five years after the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus emerged,
the world's ability to cope with a flu pandemic is a bit better than it was in April 2009, but there's still a long way to go,
says Harvey Fineberg, MD, PhD, who chaired the international committee that was assigned by the World Health Organization (WHO) to evaluate the global response to the pandemic.
The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP; "SID-wrap"), 9 April 2014

Faber notes that "the market is slowly waking up to the fact that the Federal Reserve is a clueless organization."
The Fed "have no idea what they're doing. And so the confidence level of investors is diminishing,"
and that means we will see a major decline.
Marc Faber, Tyler Durden, zerohedge, 10 April 2014

It is now nearly seven years since the start of the ?nancial crisis,
yet despite growing evidence in America and Britain of a return to relative normality,
something remains profoundly broken at the heart of the world economy.
Low interest rates in the US and Greece are not a sign of recovery,
but a warning of permanent stagnation, creating the potential for future financial instability
Jeremy Warner, 10 Apr 2014

Only the ignorant live in fear of hyperinflation
Failure to understand the monetary system has made it more difficult for central banks to act
Martin Wolf, FT April 10, 2014

“secular stagnation”
What the world must do to kickstart growth
The IMF in its current World Economic Outlook essentially endorses the “secular stagnation” hypothesis
Lawrence Summers, FT April 6, 2014

I’m pretty annoyed with Larry Summers right now.
His presentation at the IMF Research Conference is, justifiably, getting a lot of attention. And here’s the thing: I’ve been thinking along the same lines, and have, I think, hinted at this analysis in various writings.
But Larry’s formulation is much clearer and more forceful, and altogether better, than anything I’ve done
Paul Krugman, November 16, 2013

The number of people believed to have been killed by the Ebola virus in Guinea has passed 100,
the UN World Health Organization says.
It was "one of the most challenging Ebola outbreaks we have ever dealt with"
and could take another four months to contain, the WHO said.
BBC 8 April 2014

IMF published a fascinating chapter in its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) on global real interest rates,
showing that the global real rate has fallen from about 6 per cent in the early 1980s to about zero today.
Gavyn Davies, FT blog April 6, 2014
Highly recommended

Nigel Farage:
an anti-politics anti-hero who confounds the Westminster consensus
Telegraph, April 1st, 2014

Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis
The longer the period of stability, the higher the potential risk for even greater instability when market participants must change their behavior.
Its source turns out to be a rather unprepossessing five-page paper Dr. Minsky published at Bard College in 1992.
John Mauldin 27 March 2014
Highly Recommended

"Signs of stabilisation are emerging in the banking sector,"
said the IMF in a report.
Cyprus agreed to a 10 bn-euro bailout with the European Union and the IMF last year.
Cyprus's second-largest lender - Laiki Bank - was closed down.
BBC 2 April 2014

The Dismal Art Economic forecasting has become much more sophisticated in the decades since its invention.
So why are we still so bad at it?
James Surowiecki, Democracyjournal 2014

Problem of banks seen as ‘too big to fail’ still unsolved, IMF warns
public subsidies worth as much as USD 590 bn
FT March 31, 2014

Yellen said recovery still feels like a recession to many Americans,
which is why the central bank will keep its “extraordinary” support for the economy for “some time to come.”
MarketWatch, 31 March 2014

I’ll eat my hat. The St Louis Federal Reserve – the last bastion of monetary orthodoxy in the Fed family –
has just published a paper that basically deems quantitative easing to be useless.
John Maynard Keynes was right all along.
The working paper by Yi Wen and Jing Wu cites China as the world’s resounding success story post-Lehman
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, March 28th, 2014

At present, the argument for German leadership boils down to a plea that it should put more and more money on the European table.
Yet the principle that there should be no bailouts is fundamental in a union of countries that share a currency but remain sovereign when it comes to public finances.
A democratic European monetary union could not have been built without respecting this principle.
It will be a long time before a fully fledged political union is established.
Fiscal transfers will remain a matter for national parliaments.

Jointly issued eurozone bonds would violate this principle and undermine democracy.
Otmar Issing, Financial Times 25 March 2014

US House Prices: Graphs, Nominal and Real Prices
Calculated Risk, 25 March 2014
Nice Charts, Highly Recommended

The growth in lending at the Hong Kong subsidiaries of China’s largest banks
has led to Moody’s warning about the increased risks they pose to their parents
as they increase their exposure to the mainland economy.
Telegraph 25 March 2014

One of the abiding truisms of economics is that growth doesn’t happen without credit expansion.
This is well explained in a recent paper by the Bank of England,
which points out that money in the modern economy is largely created by commercial banks making loans.
It is a common misconception to think that banks only lend what they can borrow from depositors.
Jeremy Warner, 24 March 2014

Money creation in the modern economy
Bank of England pdf, QB 2014 Q1

The Global Economy’s Tale Risks
Fluctuations in the world’s economies are largely due to the stories we hear and tell about them. These popular, emotionally relevant narratives sometimes inspire us to go out and spend,
at other times, they put fear in our hearts and impel us to sit tight, save our resources, curtail spending, and reduce risk.
They either stimulate our “animal spirits” or muffle them.
Robert Shiller, Project Syndicate March 2014

Did Hyman Minsky find the secret behind financial crashes?
Minsky's main idea is so simple that it could fit on a T-shirt, with just three words:
"Stability is destabilising."
BBC 24 March 2014

"Is Germany's High Court Anti-European?"
Germany's Federal Constitutional Court recently has faced criticism for its rulings on the euro and European unification.
Have its justices crossed the line between jurisprudence and politics?
In their 2009 ruling on the Lisbon Treaty, the court ruled that if the EU wanted to evolve towards becoming a United States of Europe,
it would have put deeper integration up to a popular vote.
Der Spiegel 13 March 2014

Consumer credit and falling savings are indeed driving Britain’s unhealthy boomlet
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, March 21st, 2014

Violence has broken out at the end of an anti-austerity protest
attended by tens of thousands of people in the Spanish capital Madrid.
Dozens of youths threw projectiles at police, who responded by charging at them.
Demonstrators were protesting over issues including unemployment, poverty and official corruption.
BBC 23 March 2014
Nice video and pics

On a street corner here 100 years ago,
a 19-year-old Serb nationalist shot the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne
and triggered the first world war.
Simon Kuper, FT, 21 March 2014

Kahneman Shiller
The past decade has been a triumph for behavioural economics,
the fashionable cross-breed of psychology and economics.
Tim Harford, FT 21 March 2014

EU leaders have signed an agreement on closer relations with Ukraine The EU signed the deal hours after announcing more targeted sanctions.
Pro-Moscow leader Viktor Yanukovych's abandonment of the deal in November had led to deadly protests,
his removal and Russia taking over Crimea.
BBC 21 march 2014
Nice timeline

Greece has reached a deal with international lenders that will allow it to unlock a much-needed €10bn tranche of bailout aid.
The €10bn payment will cover a similar amount of sovereign bond repayments coming due in May
FT 18 March 2014

EU banking union
After a marathon negotiation stretching until dawn,
the European parliament and EU member states finally settled terms on the unified system for handling crises.
FT 20 March 2014

MEPS hailed the compromise, arguing it showed they had the clout to make Wolfgang Schäuble, German finance minister, make bigger concessions to them than to his fellow finance ministers.
Referring to calls between finance ministers in the early hours, Sven Giegold, a Green MEP in the negotiating team, said:
“The European parliament is powerful. We can wake up Wolfgang Schäuble at 5.30am – and he actually made concessions.”

Fed stress test:
Banks lose $501 bln in bad recession
29 of 30 banks above Fed’s minimum levels for capital
MarketWatch, March 20, 2014

How the Ukraine crisis ends
Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of state from 1973 to 1977
Washington Post 5 March 2014

This week, the Federal Reserve will present the results of stress tests designed to ensure that the largest U.S. banks won't turn the next financial crisis into an economic disaster.
There's just one problem: If the tests were realistic, most of the banks would fail.
Bloomberg 19 March 2014

Wednesday deadline to agree legislation with the European parliament
so that it has time to pass before the European elections.
France and Germany squabble over who pays 55 bn euros (nästan 500 mrd kr) for EU banking union
FT, March 17, 2014

Var är reservfonden? Var är bankunionsfonden? Vem skall betala 500 miljarder kr?
Det här är frågor som väl bara Klas Eklund kan svara på.
Rolf Englund blog 2014-03-18

Tom Lehrer Send The Marines

Russia 'planned Wall Street bear raid'
Hank Paulson, the former US treasury secretary
was talking about the financial crisis of the autumn of 2008,
and in particular the devastation being wreaked on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two huge underwriters of American mortgages - huge financial institutions that had a funny status at the time of being seen by investors to be the liability of the US government, which in legal reality were not exactly that.
Chinese government owned $1.7tn of mortgage-backed bonds issued by Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac
Robert Peston, BBC, 17 March 2014

A bad banking union is worse than none.
Some advocates miscalculated because they thought of it as a cheap alternative to a fiscal union
The matter is now in the hands of the European parliament.
A deadline for a compromise in the negotiations between finance ministers and parliamentary representatives is approaching fast.
Wolfgang Münchau, FT March 16, 2014

Charge of the Right Brigade
The really smart Wall Street money - Jan Hatzius and the rest of the economics group at Goldman
have an underlying macroeconomic framework pretty much indistinguishable from mine.
Paul Krugman - New York Times Blog MARCH 16, 2014

Japan
Which major economy is most likely to disappoint expectations this year,
and perhaps even cause a financial crisis big enough to break the momentum of global economic recovery?
Anatole Kaletsky, 14 March 2014

We believe strongly that monetary policy should be based on rules rather than on discretion.
But to change the wrong rules (inflation targeting) to the right rules (NGDP targeting) you need to make a discretionary decision.
The Market Monetarist 15 March 2014

Krimkriget
But what can the world reasonably do? Turki smiles.
“You’re British, he says, “so you would remember the charge of the light brigade
Prince Turki al-Faisal, The man who headed Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service for 24 years, Financial Times 14 March 2014

In recent years an astonishing amount of money has quietly flooded into fixed income funds,
which buy corporate bonds, emerging markets bonds and mortgage debt.
And as the US looks more likely to raise interest rates, creating potential losses for bondholders,
the flows could reverse – creating destabilising shocks for regulators and investors alike.
Gillian Tett, 13 March 2014

Ukraine's new prime minister looks and sounds mild. He is young, bespectacled and balding, but his words were full of fire.
He said his country is and will be part of the West, it would sign an agreement with the European Union next week, it would never surrender.
If he is right it is hard to see what the West does about it.
Mark Mardell, BBC North America editor, 12 March 2014

Deflation - A nightmare for the debt-stricken states of southern Europe, still trapped in a slump with mass unemployment
With Germany at zero inflation, they have to go into even deeper deflation to claw back lost competitiveness within EMU under "internal devaluations".
This, in turn, plays havoc with debt dynamics through the denominator effect.
Their debt loads are rising on a base of flat or contracting nominal GDP.
It is a key reason why Italy's public debt has risen from 119pc to 133pc of GDP since 2010 despite achieving a primary budget surplus
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 12 March 2014

Euro Area — “Deflation” Versus “Lowflation”
March 4, 2014 by iMFdirect
Recent talk about deflation in the euro area has evoked two kinds of reactions.
On one side are those who worry about the associated prospect of prolonged recession.
On the other are those who see the risk as overblown.
This blog and the video below sift through both sides of the debate
Click

George Soros says EU may not survive crisis
"My hope is that Germany is going to change and realise that the policy of austerity is counter-productive.
"The only people who can change it are the Germans, because they are in charge.
They don't want to be in charge, in fact they are determined not to be in charge. And that's the tragedy."
Georg Soros, BBC 12 March 2014

Low inflation has, as is to be expected, coincided with weak demand.
In the fourth quarter of last year, eurozone real demand was 5 per cent below levels in the first quarter of 2008.
In Spain, real demand fell 16 per cent. In Italy, it fell 12 per cent.
Even in Germany, real demand stagnated from the second quarter of 2011: this is no locomotive.
Martin Wolf, FT 11 March 2014
Nice chart

Greenspan - The Map and the Territory: Risk, Human Nature, and the Future of Forecasting
Why is it called The Map and the Territory ? I could not find reference to map or territory in it.
And I was looking for such references, because more than two years ago I wrote an essay on the state of economics called “The Map is not the Territory”.
Mr Greenspan did not refer to that essay. Nor, more strikingly, did he refer to another book published the previous year with exactly Mr Greenspan’s own title.
John Kay, FT 11 March 2014

A combination of sharp falls in asset prices and debt levels has caused financial crises.
This was the case in the US in 1929, in Japan in 1990 and worldwide in 2008.
Andrew Smithers, ft.com blogs, 11 March 2014
Nice chart

The Bank of England will never unwind QE, nor should it
Governor Mark Carney more or less acknowledged this morning that the Bank of England will never reverse its £375bn of Gilts purchases.
Quite right too.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 11 March 2014

How to make a graceful exit
Central banks’ forward guidance is a forgivable sin
Financial Times editorial, March 10, 2014

The White House’s economics team, like many economic forecasters, expects the economy to improve. Here’s why.
MarketWatch 10 March 2014

Put Your Portfolio on the Defensive
A. Gary Shilling, 7 March 2014

The EU wants money-market funds to hold more reserves.
Furthermore, EU finance ministers are drafting rules for winding down troubled banks that would force stock- and bondholders to take a hit before any taxpayer bailouts are approved.

The EU plan also would require banks to contribute to a 55 billion-euro ($75.5 billion) bailout fund.
A. Gary Shilling, 10 March 2014

Peaks often are reached when everyone has been sucked in.
Then, a major shock could force investors to focus on the slow global economy
A. Gary Shilling, 10 March 2014

Seth Klarman, the publicity shy head of the $27bn Baupost Group
whose investment opinions have attracted a near cult-like following, said that investors were underplaying risk and were
not prepared for an end to central banks reversing a five-year experiment in ultra-loose money.
Financial Times, 10 march 2014

The proposed solution of a European banking union does not address the underlying problems, Mr Soros adds.
“A real danger to the financial system is the incestuous relationship between national authorities and bank managements,” he said.
“France in particular is famous for its inspecteurs de finance, who end up running its major banks.
Germany has its Landesbanken and Spain its caixas, which have unhealthy connections with provincial politicians.”
George Soros, Telegraph 8 March 2014

Getting creditors not taxpayers to rescue banks seemed like a good idea,
but it has not worked well in Cyprus
The Economist, 8 March 2014, print

The Russians still want to return to the 21 February agreement brokered by the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland
which, incidentally, Russia declined to sign, but which, in their view, offers the prospect of a national unity government and consultation with the regions.
Gavin Hewitt, BBC Europe editor, 6 March 2014

There is no easy path to democracy
The basic needs are true citizens, honest guardians, proper markets and just laws
Martin Wolf, FT 4 March 2014

Deleveraging
Both households and financial institutions have reduced their leverage,
but they still have a long way to go to reach their previous trend relationship to GDP.
A. Gary Shilling, Bloomberg, 5 March 2014

These concerns have led the Bank of Italy to conduct its own intensive examinations across the nation, such as the one at Banca Alberobello, ahead of the ECB tests. From Banca di Sicilia in the deep south to Banco di Trento e Bolzano, in the German-speaking northeast, the Bank of Italy is staging its toughest examination of the nation’s banks in history.
Financial Times, 4 March 2014

Ben Bernanke about what caused the financial crash
So what was the reason, according to the man who was easily the most powerful person in the world for nearly a decade?
Ready?
"Overconfidence."
Tyler Durden, zerohedge, 4 March 2014

Financial Times:
Vladimir Putin came out on Tuesday with a classic performance: clever, tough, sardonic and deeply cynical.
Rolf Englund blog 5 mars 2014

Ukraine opposition leaders sign deal with government
Deal sets out plans to hold early presidential elections, form a national unity government and revert to the 2004 constitution

The deal was also signed by two European Union foreign ministers
theguardian.com, Friday 21 February 2014

The relatively large exposures of some Austrian and Italian banks,
mostly through subsidiaries, may raise a few eyebrows.
Financial Times Alphaville 3 March 2014
Nice chart

Matthew O’Brien at The Atlantic has done the math. Fed.
In August 2008 there were 322 mentions of inflation, versus only 28 of unemployment and 19 of systemic risks or crises.
In the meeting on Sept. 16, 2008 — the day after Lehman fell! — there were 129 mentions of inflation
versus 26 mentions of unemployment and only four of systemic risks or crises.
Paul Krugman, 2 March 2014

Den assisterande utrikesministern i Washington, Victoria Nuland, och den amerikanske Kiev-ambassadören Geoffrey R. Pyatt
där Nuland dels yttrar de bevingade orden ”Fuck the EU”, dels säger följande i konversationen:
V.N.: Good. I don’t think Klitsch (Klitschko’s nickname) should be in the government.
I don’t think it’s necessary, I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Tidens tecken - Torsten Kälvemarks blogg om allt mellan himmel och jord, 2 mars 2014

The New Great Game:
The risk is that Ukraine will disintegrate. Opposition parties united only in their hatred of Yanukovych
range from Europhile democrats to rightist nationalists.
If the West doesn’t manage to stabilize Ukraine, Putin could plausibly present himself as the nation’s savior a year or two from now.
Business Week, February 27, 2014

Putin told a closed NATO summit in Romania in 2008 that
the military alliance was threatening Ukraine’s very existence by courting it as a member,
according to a secret cable published by Wikileaks.
Bloomberg 2 March 2014

To a remarkable degree EU officials championed their cause. They stood shoulder to shoulder with the protesters.

They chose to ignore the fact that - tolerate or loathe him - Viktor Yanukovych was an elected leader.
Gavin Hewitt, BBC Europe editor, 2 March 2014

Yanis Varoufakis:
What You Should Know About Greece’s Present State of Affairs
Greece has been, and remains, a failed social economy - a failed nation-state
naked capitalism, March 2, 2014

Draghi's Monetary Nightmare
European Private Lending Remains Stuck At Record Low Levels
Tyler Durden,2/27/2014

Why does everyone
— or, to be more accurate, everyone except those who have seriously studied the issue —
believe that the stimulus was a failure?
Because the U.S. economy continued to perform poorly — not disastrously, but poorly — after the stimulus went into effect.
There’s no mystery about why
Paul Krugman, NYT 20 February 2014

Recession - The R-word - Transcripts
Policy makers at the Federal Reserve tell us not to worry,
that it’s mostly just bad weather and the normal ups and downs of the economic data.
But what if they’re wrong? Would they tell us if they thought we were heading for a new recession?
Rex Nutting, MarketWatch, Feb. 27, 2014

France jobless rate at a record 3.32 millions
– about 11 per cent of the workforce.
FT, February 26, 2014

The Federal Reserve final rule requiring higher capital levels from non-US banks,
including Deutsche Bank, Barclays and Credit Suisse,
with the aim of avoiding a US government bailout if their New York operations run into trouble.
FT February 19, 2014

The Battle of Balaclava and The Charge of the Light Brigade
Place: On the southern Crimean coast in the Ukraine.
Combatants: British, French and Turkish troops against the Imperial Russian Army
Klicka här

The territory that is now Ukraine has a long and painful history as a bloody borderland between East and West.
But it came into being as an independent nation only in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Combining lands in the west that had once been part of Austria-Hungary, and a Russian-speaking south and east,
the new country always had its doubters.
The Economist print edition Feb 22nd 2014

Can the European Central Bank legally act as lender of last resort to ensure the survival of the euro?
This question is of fundamental importance for the sustainability of the monetary union. Recently, the German Constitutional Court ruled that it cannot.
In the court’s view the ECB has the power to conduct monetary policy,
but not to support member states in financial distress even if necessary to ensure the survival of the common currency.
Katharina Pistor, Vox, 26 February 2014

Spain's Prime Minister maintained that a referendum on independence for Catalonia would be "illegal"
on Tuesday (25 February) as he delivered his annual state of the nation speech.
Mariano Rajoy vowed to block the vote, which the Catalan authorities intend to hold on 9 November.
EU Observer, 26 February 2014

It is slow moving variables — long term unemployment, gradual shifts in public opinion, and so on — that pose the greatest threat to the Euro’s survival.
If the far right does as well as people now seem to think it will in the European elections,
this will presumably be presented in the media as a “shock” to the system,
but has it not been obvious since 2010 at the latest that something like this was likely, given Eurozone macroeconomic policies?
And has it not been obvious for years that actually existing EMU is harming the broader European project?
Kevin O Rourke, The Irish Economy, 25 February 2014

Bonds have been in a major bull market for nearly 33 years
— ever since the 30-year Treasury yield hit its all-time a high of 15.20% on Sept. 29, 1981.
MarketWatch, 25 February 2014

Laughing all the way to an economic crash
How the central bank coped with a crisis
DAVID WEIDNER'S WRITING ON THE WALL, MarketWatch, Feb. 25, 2014

RE: Det förefaller som om det var Fed och inte ECB som ställde upp som Lender of Last Resort för de europeiska bankerna
som professor Pelotard har viskat i mitt öra.

The Fed's $600 Billion Stealth Bailout Of Foreign /European/ Banks Continues
At The Expense Of The Domestic Economy, Or Explaining Where All The QE2 Money Went
Many speculated that the US central bank would primarily focus its "rescue" efforts on US banks,
not US-based (or local branches) of foreign (read European) banks:
after all that's what the ECB is for.
Tyler Durden, zerohedge, 6 December 2011

Janet Yellen announced February 19th that America’s central bank is moving to
cut off the massive financial lifeline that has been subsidizing the European banking system since the beginning of the global financial crisis in March of 2008.
By delaying foreign bank compliance with the stringent capital and borrowing requirements of section 165 of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) imposed on American banks,
the Fed was engaging in the moral hazard of allowing Europe to borrow at virtually zero interest from the Fed to fund its bloated social welfare states.
Chair Yellen’s actions mean the Fed is cutting off Europe and providing greater support for U.S. borrowing.
Breitbart, 24 February 2014

CAPE
Robert Shiller's cyclically-adjusted price-earnings ratio is, as recent research has shown,
one of the best ways of predicting long-term returns in the stockmarket.
But it is not popular because it shows the US market as expensive in historical terms.
Buttonwood, The Economist, Febr 13th, 2014

The Great Recession: Bailout
Paul Krugman, NYT, 23 February 23, 2014

Why Humans Are Hard-Wired To Create Asset Bubbles
I think that most bankers are in fact inherently decent people.
We just put them in situation in which their conflict of interest is tremendously high and their social norms are incredibly dysfunctional.
Adam Taggart, Peakprosperity, February 15, 2014

I Hitlers hemland, Österrike - Don't mention the War or The Sound of Music
Rolf Englund blog 2014-02-23

The Rise and Fall of Austria or the Habsburg Empire
Austria was ruled by the Habsburg dynasty from 1278/1282 to 1918. Therefore, historical Austria is also known as the Habsburg Empire or the Habsburg Monarchy.
The Habsburgs made Austria a great power in 1477, when they inherited much of what is now the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Click

Transcripts of the U.S. central bank's meeting on Sept. 16 2008
Federal Reserve policymakers, in an emotional meeting on one of the darkest days of the 2008 financial crisis,
were worried the failure of Lehman Brothers a day earlier would wreak havoc on a teetering financial system
but feared cutting already low interest rates might prove an over-reaction.
Feb 21, 2014 Reuters/CNBC

On the morning after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in 2008, most Federal Reserve officials still believed that the American economy would keep growing despite the metastasizing financial crisis.
The Fed’s policy-making committee voted unanimously against bolstering the economy by cutting interest rates, and several officials praised what they described as the decision to let Lehman fail,
saying it would help to restore a sense of accountability on Wall Street.
New York Times, 21 February 2014

That optimism would not long endure. Just minutes after the end of that first meeting, a smaller group of Fed officials agreed to rescue the faltering insurance giant the American International Group, a company never before subject to Fed supervision that until then was barely on the government’s radar.
New York Times, 21 February 2014

As the world’s financial system stood on the verge of collapse in October 2008, Janet L. Yellen...
Mr. Bernanke, as chairman, played the role of mediator and consensus builder, Ms. Yellen often became the most outspoken defender of the policies, and a reference point for others.
New York Times, FEB. 21, 2014

German wages fell 0.2pc in 2013. Germany too is in wage deflation.
Which raises the question: how on earth are France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece supposed to claw back lost labour competitiveness against Germany
by means of "internal devaluations" if German wages are falling?
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, February 20th, 2014

Basel
We should accept that government-led international financial regulation has failed
Any bank operating internationally can be effectively wound up without bringing the banking system down.
That is a worthy aim and one that is achievable.
Philip Booth, The Institute of Economic Affairs and professor at Cass Business School, Telegraph 20 February 2014

Italy’s new prime minister will have the most difficult job in Europe.
Once confirmed, he will preside over a country with three fundamental economic problems:
it has very large debt; it has no growth; and it is a member of a poorly functioning monetary union.
Wolfgang Münchau, FT, February 16, 2014

Is there an inflation bubble?
For five years, two of the country’s leading economists have disagreed over whether billions of pounds of quantitative easing
will lead to uncontrolled inflation or a deflationary spiral.
Here Liam Halligan and Professor Tim Congdon try to settle their differences
Telegraph, 15 Feb 2014

No, the Fed doesn’t have a helicopter, why do you ask?
The growth of the money supply has actually slowed since the adoption of QE3.
In a $16 trillion economy, $1 trillion would be if that money were in circulation in the economy.
But most (if not all) of that money remains outside the economy, parked at the Fed
Rex Nutting, MarketWatch 14 February 2014

"It is difficult to gently deflate a bubble."
The balance of evidence is that most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong
aims to prick China's $24 trillion credit bubble early in his 10-year term,
This may be well-advised for China, but the rest of the world seems remarkably nonchalant over the implications.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 12 Feb 2014

US GDP at the end of 2013 was 86.7% of its trend value.
That's actually 3 points below where it was when the recession ended.
John Mauldin, 10 February 2014
Nice chart

Wolfgang Munchau says the most serious legal argument against OMT was that it is obviously not a monetary policy operation in the first instance.
If it were a pure monetary policy operation, it would not have conditionality attached.
That argument, brought by the Bundesbank and accepted by the court, is hard to refute.
Eurointelligelnce 13 February 2014

If market follows the same script as in 1929, trouble lies directly ahead
MarketWatch, Feb. 11, 2014 with nice chart

Europe or Democracy?
What German Court Ruling Means for the Euro
Either the European Court of Justice has to stop bond purchases or German justices will.
SPIEGEL Staff, February 10, 2014

Investors are hoping for a Goldilocks outcome for the US economy,
with growth forecast to be close to 3 per cent, but inflation just 1.6
This may happen. But the consensus is dangerously, well, consensual.
The gap between the highest and lowest growth forecasts is down to levels last seen at the height of the credit bubble in 2007, and before that at the end of the dotcom boom.
James Mackintosh, FT 11 Febr 2014

Some 3.65 million people /in the US/ have gone more than six months without a job.
While their ranks have thinned 53% from a record 6.77 million in 2010,
the number of long-term unemployed is still sharply higher compared to any time before the 2007-2009 recession (chart)
MarketWatch 11 February 2014

Whatever your view on EU migrants
Swiss show sovereignty really matters
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, February 10th, 2014

Germany has surrendered and the euro is saved.
That seems to be the markets’ interpretation of last week’s ruling by the German constitutional court on the European Central Bank’s “whatever it takes” policy to save the single currency.
But the crisis has profoundly undermined the pro-European sentiment that would be necessary to build a United States of Europe.
Gideon Rachman, FT 10 February 10, 2014

Outright Monetary Infractions
The Court has now declared that it fully endorses the plaintiffs' arguments, and that the OMT program does indeed violate EU primary law.
Since its launch in 2012, the OMT program has allowed the ECB to buy, if necessary, unlimited amounts of troubled euro zone countries' government bonds,
provided the affected countries subscribe to the rules of Europe's rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism.
Hans-Werner Sinn/Project Syndicate/CNBC, 10 Feb 2014

Wealthy Chinese mainlanders are voting with their feet in eye-popping numbers and preparing to emigrate
— taking both their money and family with them.
MarketWatch, 9 February 2014

When Europe’s leaders set out in June 2012 to break the “vicious circle” between banks and sovereigns,
they left rules for treating government bonds untouched, an oversight that may subvert their drive to prevent a recurrence of the debt crisis.
Under EU rules, banks can rate all debt issued by the bloc’s 28 national governments as risk-free,
avoiding any increase in their capital requirements.
Bloomberg, 10 February 2012

Janet Yellen starts off with a problem that affected none of her predecessors:
the Fed has run out of ammunition.
Moreover the one remaining weapon the Fed thinks it has – the hocus-pocus of “forward guidance” – is a gun that fires blanks.
Edward Luce, FT 9 February 2014

Germany's constitutional court
The European Court of Justice will now decide the legality of the so-called debt "backstop", introduced in 2012.
Although the ECB has not used the emergency power, its existence calmed turmoil in European financial markets.
When he announced the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme, ECB President Mario Draghi said he would do "whatever it takes" to save the single currency.
BBC 7 February 2014

The /German Constitutional/ court concludes that OMT violates the German constitution.
It accuses the ECB of making a power grab by extending its own mandate.
It says the scheme endangers the underpinnings of the eurozone rescue programmes.
Worse, it says OMT undermined deep principles of democracy.
Wolfgang Münchau, FT 9 February 2014

Germany’s top court has issued a blistering attack on the European Central Bank,
arguing that its rescue plan for the euro violates EU treaty law and exceeds the bank’s policy mandate.
The tough language leaves it doubtful whether the ECB’s back-stop scheme for Spanish and Italian bonds can be implemented if Europe’s debt crisis blows up again,
and greatly complicates any future recourse to quantitative easing if needed to head off Japanese-style deflation.
Ambrose Evans-Pitchard, 7 Feb 2014

It is tempting to think about what would have happened had US President Woodrow Wilson adhered to his original resolution to keep the United States out of the war.
Throughout most of the war, the Germans were tactically superior to their opponents.
What they lacked in materiel and manpower they managed to make up through battlefield strategy.
Indeed, in the summer of 1917 France was on the verge of collapse. The number of dead French soldiers had surpassed one million.
Der Spiegel, 7 February 2014

I’m the German Constitutional Court, get me out of here!
Court sees ECB bond buying as illegal but refers questions to ECJ
Open Europe Flash Analysis, 7 Feb 2014

Whatever happened to the eurozone crisis?
To many people the eurozone crisis has disappeared. It is off the front pages.
It has certainly left the TV screens. I have heard prime ministers and presidents declare the crisis "over".
Gavin Hewitt, BBC 28 January 2014

Why the dollar stays steady as America declines
Eswar Prasad, a former IMF economist, points out in his new book The Dollar Trap, there is a paradox.
While common sense would say that these developments should have sparked a dollar crisis, precisely the opposite has occurred.
Against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, the value of the dollar is little changed from 2008.
Gillan Tett, FT 6 February 2014

ABOUT THE WORLD'S BIGGEST RISKS - (EMU, Bird Flu, Hard Landing in China)
With the world becoming more interconnected, it’s getting harder to anticipate and manage global risks.
We take a look at some of the biggest risks and ways to mitigate them.
CNBC Special Report February 2014

On a spring morning in 1918 Private Albert Gitchell, a cook in the U.S. Army, woke up feeling unwell.
His throat was sore, his bones ached and he had a fever.
By midday, over one hundred other soldiers reported symptoms matching Gitchell's.
These were, it is claimed, the first recorded cases of the 1918 flu pandemic, or "Spanish Flu".
When it was over, up to 50 million people around the world had died from the disease.
CNBC, 5 Feb 2014

H10N8
New strain of 'deadly' bird flu
Scientists told The Lancet the potential for it to become a pandemic "should not be underestimated"
BBC 5 February 2014

What was radical, if you like, was my style, not my content
On macroeconomics, there’s not a lot of air between my views and those of, say,
staff economists at the Fed Board of Governors, the New York Fed, the IMF, and even (say it quietly) the ECB.
Paul Krugman, New York Times 4 February 2014

Yellen
The minutes from Federal Reserve meetings show that she did consider the possibility of a property market bubble as early as 2005,
but along with the rest of the Fed committee failed to predict the scale of the financial crisis that started in 2007.
BBC 3 February 2014

"We've Created A Global Debt Monster" China
Jim Reid, Deutsche Bank, via zerohedge, 3 February 2014

The government’s list of the greatest threats facing the country.
Antibiotics have transformed human health and saved millions of lives.
Now, as a result of overuse, they are no longer working.
The golden age of medicine has come to an end
Daily Telegraph 2014

Bernanke has been a great Fed chairman who helped to avert financial meltdown
His emergency policies aided recovery
but now Yellen must engineer a successful escape
Roger Bootle, 2 Feb 2014

Not only does today's CAPE of 25.4x suggest a seriously overvalued market,
but the rapid multiple expansion of the last few years coupled with sluggish earnings growth suggests that this market is also seriously overbought
Today's CAPE is just slightly less expensive than the 27x level seen at the October 2007 market peak and
modestly below the level seen before the stock market crash in 1929.
John Mauldin, 27 January 2014

Members of a European Parliament committee investigating the role of the troika
call to replace this “interim” institution by a “more democratically accountable and transparent” inspection process
“We need more transparency, more democratic legitimacy,” Othmar Karas, the conservative Austrian MEP leading the inquiry.
“All instruments of the EU must be based on community law,” he added.
His colleague, the French Socialist MEP Liem Hoang Ngoc, was more categorical, declaring that there was “no legal basis for the actions of the troika.”
Eurointelligence 31 January 2014

Since the debt crisis of 2008, the foreign-exchange market has been the dog that didn’t bark.
The euro has not broken up; the dollar has not imploded in the face of quantitative easing;
The yuan has not become the world’s reserve currency of choice.
USD trade-weighted index is within 2% of where it was when Lehman Brothers crumbled
Charlemagne, The Economist print 1 February 2014

Britain entering first world war was 'biggest error in modern history'
Historian Niall Ferguson says Britain could have lived with German victory and should have stayed out of war
The Guardian, 30 January 2014

In 1918 50m-100m people were killed by Spanish flu,
compared with 16m in the first world war
The Economist print, April 20th 2013

Ms Merkel called for a “real economic union” in Europe through treaty change
saying that the current level of economic co-ordination in the eurozone is unsatisfactory.
The eurozone is currently in a state of “deceptive calm” in which the crisis is “under control, at best,” she said
Financial Times, 14 January 2014

Carry Trade
For anyone familiar with financial markets,
a prevalent trading strategy and a key mechanism behind short-term price developments has long been the cross border, cross-currency carry trade.
But until recently, this was frequently met with disbelief in official circles and neglected amongst academic macroeconomists.
Recently, thankfully, there has been extensive academic work on the carry trade.
Paul Tucker/Cardiff Garcia, FT Alphaville, 28 Jan 2014

Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives!
Suppose the heir to the Austrian emperor had not, through various accidents on the day,
become the victim of a Serbian assassin in Sarajevo in June 1914: what then?
Review by Peter Clarke of "Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives! A World Without World War I"
by Richard Ned Lebow, FT 24 January 2014

China’s credit-fueled bubble economy is falling to pieces before our very eyes.
Between 2008 and 2013, China’s credit market increased from $9 trillion to an incredible $23 trillion.
zerohedge, 25 January 2014

Cash
Global companies sitting on $7 trillion cash, double 2003
When the corporate cash dam bursts, everything will be ok, right? Well, maybe.
Investors have long assumed that a corporate spending revival will nurture a building economic recovery.
CNBC, 22 January 2014

Vietnam
When the Vietnam war ended in 1975 the country was on its knees, and economic policies copied from the Soviet union did nothing to help.
Collectivising agriculture proved to be a disaster, so in 1986 the Communist Party carried out a U-turn - placing a big bet, at the same time, on coffee.
While large numbers of Vietnamese have made a living from coffee, a few have become very rich.
Take for example multi-millionaire Dang Le Nguyen Vu - Chairman Vu, as he is nicknamed.
BBC News 25 January 2014

Carry Trade
All Of The Turmoil In Global Markets Right Now Is
Just One Gigantic Hedge Fund Short Squeeze
Matthew Boesler, Business Insider, 24 January 2014

Consider what happened in 1936. F.D.R. had just won a smashing re-election victory
It’s very hard to communicate even the most basic truths of macroeconomics,
like the need to run deficits to support employment in bad times.
You can argue that Mr. Obama should have tried harder to get these ideas across;
many economists cringed when he began echoing Republican rhetoric about the need for the federal government to tighten its belt along with America’s families.
Paul Krugman, New York Times 23 January 2014

Davos
One of the big stories here is that despite returning growth, business investment of the type that drives innovation, productivity gain and income growth is still as dead as a dodo.
They’ve got trillions of dollars in cash lying around on their balance sheets, but business leaders are still too cautious to loosen the purse strings.
So there is definitely something of a problem.
Jeremy Warner, Telegraph, 23 Jan 2014

“secular stagnation” In a fascinating discussion with other leading international economists, Professor Summers argued that the only compelling solution to low growth was public investment.
Unconventional monetary policy, he argued, was no match for the problem, and in any case ran the risk of creating asset bubbles and renewed financial instability.
He also expressed grave concerns about the distributional consequences of sustained periods of negative real interest rates.
Jeremy Warner, Telegraph, 23 Jan 2014

Who’s right: Yale’s Stephen Roach or Harvard’s Martin Feldstein
To Roach, 68, Americans are still working to rebuild savings and will be slow to increase spending
Feldstein, 74, predicts “we finally are going to see a good year in 2014,”
thanks to stock-market and home-price gains that have boosted household wealth and given consumers the confidence to spend.
Bloomberg, 24 January 2014

The inevitability of instability
Buttonwood Jan 25th 2014, The Economist print edition

Keynes, Krugman, Secular Stagnation and The Death of the Rentiers
Izabella Kaminska, FT Alphaville, 23 January 2014

Longer-Term Refinancing Operations
When the eurozone debt crisis was at its most intense in late 2011, Mario Draghi, the new ECB president,
decided to flood banks with a “wall of money”.
Eurozone banks were urged to take advantage of cheap three-year ECB loans, or “longer-term refinancing operations”,
The sweetener helped ensure the LTROs were successful in averting disaster:
banks borrowed more than €1tn and the eurozone crisis eased, at least temporarily.
FT 23 January 2014

Ben Bernanke – a distinguished scholar, he brought to the Fed a brilliant and well-informed mind.
His knowledge of economic history helped him halt a terrifying panic.
But he also made mistakes.
History will probably judge him kindly. But there is much to be learnt from his time at the Fed.
Martin Wolf, FT 21 January 2014

More months of double-digit growth of Consumer Credit over the last three-years,
than during ANY other period in the post-WWII
The stock market has replaced the housing market as that collateral base against which the US consumer is now borrowing
Greg Weldon, via John Mauldin, 22 January 2014

Jag tror på Mohamed (El-Erian)
Debt, Lehman and Europe’s game of chicken
Mohamed El-Erian, who resigned unexpectedly as chief executive of Pimco on Tuesday,
has delivered trenchant insights on global finance and economics in the years leading up to the financial crisis and beyond in columns for the FT, as well as A-List blogs and in guest posts on Alphaville. Here are some of his more memorable lines on the biggest financial themes of the past decade.
Financial Times January 22, 2014

If you want to understand the financial crisis and the subsequent recession, Say’s Law is of no help whatsoever.
Mr Hollande’s embrace of this defunct economist has three important consequences. If France goes to the trouble of aligning with Germany on German terms, expect no mercy for others.
The message of righteousness will be broadcast in stereophonic quality.
Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times, January 19, 2014

If France goes to the trouble of aligning with Germany on German terms, expect no mercy for others.
The new consensus spans the entire mainstream political spectrum.
If you live on the European continent and if you have a problem with Say’s Law,
the only political parties that cater to you are the extreme left or the extreme right.
Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times, January 19, 2014

The euro zone needs a history lesson
Choices that appear to have been made by Europe’s policy-making elite:
To preclude any form of debt mutualisation; to have individual debtor countries pay off their existing debts; and to have them adjust macroeconomically via austerity and deflation.
Kevin O'Rourke, University of Oxford, The Economist Free Exchange, Jan 17th 2014

Europe’s landmark deal to establish a common €55bn fund to rescue troubled banks
is facing a concerted legal challenge from the European Parliament,
which argues the German designed side-pact breaches fundamental EU law.
Financial Times, January 16, 2014

The failures of Europe’s political, economic and intellectual elites created the disaster that befell their peoples between 1914 and 1945. The west is not immune to elite failures.
On the contrary, it is living with them. Here are three visible failures.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times 14 January 2014
Highly recommended

In Denmark, a property boom that peaked in 2007 burst a year later.
In Norway, the housing market is showing signs of deflating after prices doubled over the past decade.
In Sweden, apartment prices have almost tripled nationwide since 2002, while house prices have more than doubled and are still rising.
“... people say ‘well, that’s different from high house prices elsewhere,’” Krugman said.
“It’s a warning phrase. When you hear that, you should get very worried.”
Bloomberg 14 January 2014

Over the past 12 months, inflation throughout much of the world has dropped like a stone, ending up at levels wholly unanticipated at the end of 2012.
If Japan’s problems partly stemmed from a failure to spot the onset of deflation, might it be that policy makers in the west could be sleepwalking into the very same problem?
Stephen King, Financial Times 13 January 2014

The large drop in inflation last year elsewhere in the world may only be a lagged response to earlier economic weakness but,
if that is so obvious now, why was it that no one managed to forecast the drop a year ago?
Stephen King, Financial Times 13 January 2014

Summers on bubbles and secular stagnation forever
Larry Summers’ speech to the IMF Research Conference on November 8, the video of which started circulating at old fashioned money multiplier rates this Sunday.
Izabella Kaminska, FT Alphaville 18 November 2013

Greenspan, the Keynesian Justin Fox at the Harvard Business Review has collated some interesting extracts from a conversation he had with Alan Greenspan late last year.
Greenspan (generally pigeon-holed as a free-market loving Ayn Randian type) is getting pretty Keynesian nowadays.
Indeed, having understood that the 2008 crisis revealed a “flaw” in his world view, rather than getting bitter about it, Greenspan appears to have spent the last few years trying to understand where he went wrong.
Izabella Kaminska, FT Alphaville, Jan 9, 2014

I’m not a euro-skeptic. I am a skeptic because I am European.
Never before have Europeans been more tired and disillusioned with the promises of the Brussels mandarins.
Europe has come through the last years of crisis with a new momentum, and yet the situation is reminiscent of how a star reaches its greatest density just before it explodes.
If that is so, is there a remedy for what the analyst Roderick Parkes has called the “supernova moment”?
Jochen Bittner, political editor for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, New York Times, 9 January 2014

2014 will be the year when Europe's voters get to deliver their verdict on the European Union.
The European elections in May are not intended as a referendum, but there will be plenty of parties determined to make the vote about the European project itself.
Across much of the EU, anti-establishment parties have been polling strongly.
They have very different agendas but most of them are anti-immigrant, anti-euro, anti-austerity and anti-Brussels and its power.
Gavin Hewitt, BBC Europe editor, 30 December 2013

Many are convinced that the US is a victim of secular economic stagnation and that its power and influence are waning inexorably as a result.
It is politically dysfunctional, its political class has been bought by Wall Street bankers with an efficiency and cynicism not seen since Cosimo de Medici bought up the 15th century papacy.
But... One of the important consequences of the financial crisis has been that it reinforced the role of the dollar as the world’s most sought after store of value in a storm.
John Plender, Financial Times 7 January 2014

Much of North America was gripped by the coldest weather in decades as extreme conditions,
caused by a polar vortex, spread east and south.
The US National Weather Service warned of “dangerously cold Arctic air” overtaking the eastern two-thirds of the country, with temperatures below freezing “in most places from the central plains to the east coast and as far south as the gulf coast.”
Financial Times, January 7, 2014

“Polar vortex” has taken an uncontested lead in the competition for buzzword of 2014.
It’s brought Arctic chill to the continental United States
Temperature difference between the Arctic and North America is shrinking.
That’s one factor causing wobbliness in the jet stream
Bloomberg, 7 January 2014

Argentina is an economic basket case. It is that simple. The country never seems to be able to emerge from its problems.
The key reason is that the country is extremely weak constitutionally and institutionally and as a result
the country has some of the worst policy makers in Latin America (if not in the world).
The Market Monetarist 4 January 2014
Nice chart

While gentle deflation can be benign in low-debt economies, it plays havoc with the debt dynamics of leveraged economies,
an effect described by US economist Irving Fisher in his 1933 classic “Debt-deflation Theory of Great Depressions”.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 7 Jan 2014

Catalonia's President, Artur Mas, has written to EU leaders and world powers seeking
their support for a vote on independence from Spain.
The appeal comes amid strong resistance to his plan to hold a referendum in November.
EU Observer, 3 January 2014

Can Policy Boost Growth?
Some economic experts have suggested that US may be in a period of secular stagnation,
or protracted slow growth, similar to what followe Depression.
They propose further monetary and fiscal stimulus, but those have proven to provide only a temporary boost for short-term growth.
John H. Makin, American Enterprise Institute, 6 January 2014

The US trade deficit narrowed to its lowest level in four years in November,
as rising sales of oil pushed US exports to a record high.
BBC 7 January 2014

Day by day it is becoming more and more clear that the euro zone is heading for deflation and
despite of this the ECB so far has failed to act and it is blatantly obvious that
the ECB is in breach of its own mandate to secure "price stability" defined as 2% inflation.
The Market Monetarist, 7 January 2014

In 1914, national leaders were so keen to appear strong and to protect their honour
or “credibility” as they would call it nowadays),
that they were unable to step back from the brink of conflict.
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, 6 January 2014

A long time ago, the debate between monetarists and Keynesians was the debate in macro.
But it was a rather limited debate: both sides generally used the same model (IS-LM), and so it was all about parameter values.
More recently, but before the recession, that debate had largely gone away, but since then it seems to have come back.
This post asks why that is.
Simon Wren-Lewis, an economics professor at Oxford University, and a fellow of Merton College, 6 January 2014

Secular stagnation
Since the start of this century, annual US gross domestic product growth has averaged less than 1.8 per cent.
The economy is now operating nearly 10 per cent – or more than $1.6tn – below what was judged to be its potential as recently as 2007.
And all this is in the face of negative real interest rates for terms of more than five years and extraordinarily easy monetary policy.
Lawrence Summers, Financial Times, January 5, 2014

What euro crisis watchers should look for in 2014
The decision not to set up a common backstop for the eurozone’s banks has closed the last window for any form of debt mutualisation as a tool of crisis resolution.
All of the adjustment will take place through austerity and price deflation in the periphery.
Most of the adjustment still lies ahead.
Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times, January 5, 2014
Highly recommended

This time is different
Don’t fret about soaring asset prices – this time is different
The probability of a rerun of what happened in the past decade is low
Wolfgang Munchau, Financial Times, December 29, 2013

All-time-high house prices in 10 of top 50 US metro areas
Home prices have zipped back into record territory in a handful of American cities,
a milestone that comes seven years after the housing bust ravaged the market and the broader economy.
MarketWatch, Dec. 30, 2013

Some 4.1 million Americans have been out of work for six months or longer
More than a million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits after an emergency federal programme expired on Saturday.
BBC, 30 December 2013

Martin Hellwig betonar att många problem återfinns i det tyska banksystemet.
"This is the most important book to have come out of the financial crisis", Martin Wolf
Martin Hellwig har skrivit boken ”The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It”.
Han anser att en äkta bankunion är en absolut nödvändighet om eurosamarbetet ska överleva.
SvD Näringsliv 26 december 2013

Paul Krugman's Blind Spot
Sorry, but the New York Times' star columnist just doesn’t understand Europe.
Anders Åslund, Foreign Policy 8 November 2013

Aslund praises Reinhart and Rogoff for providing an important corrective to the view that fiscal stimulus is always right – a position that is common across the Anglo-American economic commentariat, led by Paul Krugman in the New York Times.
This is a curious thing for him to say, because it’s an outright lie
I can’t believe that Aslund doesn’t know this; why, then, would he discredit himself by repeating an easily refuted falsehood?
Paul Krugman, New York Times, 22 April 2013

Latvia will join the euro on 1 January
but nearly 60% of Latvians oppose the single currency
EU Observer 27 December 2013

Eight ways conventional financial wisdom has changed post crisis
Nobody assumes subprime mortgage bonds are safe, for example, or blithely trusts triple-A credit ratings.
Nor do they presume that big banks cannot collapse, or that western central banks cannot keep rates at zero.
Gillian Tett, Financial Times December 26, 2013

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has negotiated a European banking union suited perfectly to his country's tastes.
It looks like a victory, but it could prove to be very expensive if Europe or Germany face another financial crisis.
The EU must arm itself for the "day after tomorrow," the Economist writes
Der Spiegel, 19 december 2013

Quick: I say "German banks," and what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
Deutsche Bank? Big, German – must be stable and low-risk.
The fact that southern Europeans are opening accounts left and right in DB must mean that DB is lower-risk than the local wild guys.
Except that they have the largest derivatives portfolio, at $70 trillion
(but don't worry because it all nets out, sort of, and of course there is no counter-party risk!),
and they are the most highly leveraged bank in Europe (at 60:1 in the last tests – not a misprint)
John Mauldin, 16 december 2013

Larry Summers has argued that the short-term real interest rate consistent with full employment
fell to minus 2 or 3 per cent sometime in the middle of the last decade. This was due to an ex-ante global saving glut,
possibly reinforced by a weakening in ex-ante investment demand.
Because currency has a riskless zero nominal interest rate, nominal interest rates on other financial instruments cannot fall much below zero.
Willem Buiter, Financial Times 23 December 2013

In 2010, most of the world’s wealthy nations, although still deeply depressed in the wake of the financial crisis, turned to fiscal austerity: slashing spending and, in some cases, raising taxes in an effort to reduce budget deficits that had surged as their economies collapsed.
Basic economics said that austerity in an already depressed economy would deepen the depression. But the “austerians,” as many of us began calling them, insisted that spending cuts would lead to economic expansion, because they would improve business confidence.
The result came as close to a controlled experiment as one ever gets in macroeconomics
Paul Krugman, New York Times 19 December 2013

If the /UK/ economy was not massively overheated in 2007 and fiscal policy had not been hugely irresponsible,
what caused the post-crisis losses of output and consequent fiscal deterioration?
The answer to the first question is the global financial crisis.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times 19 December 2013

Banking union as an idea emerged at the peak of the euro crisis,
when Greece’s departure from the eurozone was a real possibility
and the prospect of a large-scale depositor flight from Spain’s fragile banks kept EU policy makers awake at night. Germany was sceptical, having recognised banking union as fiscal union by the back door, which it was.
Sony Kapoor, Director of Re-Define, a think-tank, Financial Times 19 December 2013

The field of economics is desperately in need of a paradigm shift if it wants to play a role in improving the lot of humanity.
Instead, mainstream economists keep trying to get away with tiny tweaks in their fundamentally flawed way of looking at the world.
Consider, for example, the concept that still underpins most mathematical models of the economy:
that firms and individuals have “rational expectations,”
Mark Buchanan, Bloomberg Dec 16, 2013

Are banks dead?
Mobile payments are a smarter financial investment
Jeff Reeves, MarketWatch Dec. 16, 2013

Why stagnation might prove to be the new normal
In the past decade, before the crisis, bubbles and loose credit were only sufficient to drive moderate growth
Lawrence Summers, December 15, 2013

Jorg Asmussen, the second resignation of a German member of the ECB’s executive board within the last two years.
Angela Merkel will most likely be proposing Bundesbank deputy Sabine Lautenschläger to the ECB’s executive board.
Eurointelligence, 16 December 2013

Sabine Lautenschläger, vice-president of the Bundesbank, said banking union could only work in tandem with fiscal union – meaning some common cross-border binding rules on how countries could set budgets. Ms Lautenschläger also cast doubt on how quickly any banking union could be implemented, saying “comprehensive EU treaty changes” would be needed.
Financial Times 11 juni 2012

Fears are growing that the eurozone’s proposed new banking regime will be too bureaucratic for the task of handling a sudden collapse of a cross-border institution.
The latest proposals could see up to 126 people being consulted on how to wind up a bank,
even though agreement might need to be reached over the course of a weekend while financial markets are closed.
Financial Times, 15 December 2013

Nobel laureate Christopher Pissarides earlier this week gave a lecture at the London School of Economics on the theme “Is Europe Working?”.
It is an extremely interesting lecture. I disagree with a lot of what professor Pissarides is saying. He focuses far too much on fiscal policy issues and far to little on monetary policy.
But it is in general a very enlightened lecture and he raises a number of extremely important questions about the future of the euro zone.
The Market Monetarist, 13 december 2013

Catalan leaders set date for vote on independence
“This consultation will not take place because it is not allowed by the constitution,” said the minister for justice.
FT, December 12, 2013

Investors assume that the global financial crisis is now ancient history and normality has returned.
But while financial markets are buoyant, the real economy remains moribund, stuck in a “secular stagnation” of low, volatile growth,
high and rising debt, slow investment, overcapacity, high unemployment, low income growth and negative real interest rates.
Satyajit Das, MarketWatch, Dec. 12, 2013

Another decade of western economic malaise – or, God forbid, another financial crisis –
is likely to see more radical solutions and politicians emerging.
Gideon Rachman. FT December 9, 2013

One of the world’s leading economists will today admit he was wrong to back the creation of the euro – and call for it to be dismantled.
Sir Christopher Pissarides, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2010, was once a passionate believer in the benefits of the single currency.
But in an extraordinary change of heart, today he will warn the euro is creating a ‘lost generation’ of unemployed youngsters and is ‘dividing Europe’.
Daily Mail 12 December 2013

European Union finance ministers headed toward a showdown with the bloc’s parliament
over a proposed bank-failure fund as they struggled to put together a blueprint to present to leaders next week.
Blooomberg, 11 December 2013

Plans by Malta to sell EU passports for €650,000, allowing buyers immediate rights of residency in all member states.
Maltese citizenship allows visa-free travel to the US and 160 other countries.
Financial Times 9 December 2013

International Commission of Inquiry Into the 1932–33 Famine in Ukraine
Jacob Sundberg

At the base of the Volcker rule is a sound principle – that federally insured deposits should be not be used for speculation. If banks want cheap funding from deposits, they must accept limits on what they can do with the money.
Lex, Financial Times December 6, 2013

The Hubble bubble theory of the continuous expansion of the financial universe
All of which is a whimsical way of suggesting that perhaps Larry Summers has a point.
Perhaps inflating asset bubbles one after the other isn’t such a bad idea. Perhaps it’s even necessary?
Izabella Kaminska, FT Alphaville 6 December 2013

The participation rate, which indicates the share of working-age people in the labor force, increased to 63 percent in November.
A month earlier it fell to 62.8 percent, the lowest level since March 1978.
Bloomberg 6 December 2013

Peter Praet, the chief economist of the European Central Bank, a PRE, a Perfectly Reasonable Economist
Praet is aware of the problems of the two zeroes — the zero lower bound on interest rates and
the great difficulty in engineering downward movements in nominal wages.
Paul Krugman, New York Times 4 December 2013

Is the global economy confronting another rash of housing bubbles?
In the aftermath of the most recent housing crash in the US,
to forecast a repeat performance in short order would imply a collective memory loss in banking of quite colossal dimensions.
John Plender, Financial Times 3 December 2013

The question is, if it might not be better to dissolve the European Union in an orderly fashion instead of continuing the German led calamity.
How the European Union can achieve an internal rebalancing?
If Germany with its high productivity has low inflation, the other EU countries, who would have devalued their currency before the inception of the Euro, will have to dramatically deflate their economies – and that after years of virulent austerity.
This might seem a simple solution for economists and bureaucrats, but EU member states are democracies and patience in many of the peripheral nations – and not only those – is running very short.
Mathew D. Rose, via Naked Capitalism (Yves Smith), 3 December 2013
Highly Recommended

Hong Kong has reported its first confirmed human infection of H7N9 avian influenza,
the strain of the virus that has killed 45 people in China this year.
Bloomberg, Dec 2, 2013 8:46 PM GMT+0100

CAPE
Robert Shiller has been out there talking about a stock-market bubble again.
“The boom in the U.S. stock market makes me most worried. Also, because our economy is still weak and vulnerable.”
Shiller has some clout among investors because he called a bubble in the U.S. housing market
via his book “Irrational Exhuberance” just as everyone thought prices had nowhere to go but up.
MarketWatch, December 2, 2013

It is widely agreed that a series of collapsing housing-market bubbles triggered the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, along with the severe recession that followed.
Now, five years later, signs of frothiness, if not outright bubbles, are reappearing in housing markets
in Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and, back for an encore, the UK (well, London).
Nouriel Roubini, Project Syndicate, 19 november 2013

This is the most important book to have come out of the financial crisis.
The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It,
by Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig, Princeton
Review by Martin Wolf, March 17, 2013

Conservatives and the cult of home-ownership
Promoting house-buying is a form of stimulus that does not overtly add to the fiscal deficit
Samuel Brittan, FT, November 28, 2013

Welcome Back, Leveraged Super Senior Synthetic CDOs
You can tell that leveraged super senior synthetic collateralized debt obligation tranches are fun
because they are called leveraged super senior synthetic collateralized debt obligation tranches,
and anything with that many words in its name is up to something.
Matt Levine Nov 27, 2013

Former Fed Chief Greenspan Sees No Bubble in Dow 16,000
Bloomberg, Nov 28, 2013

The Stock Market's Da Vinci Code
The Plunge Protection Team
Jonathan Moreland, March. 1, 2006

It is two years since Mario Draghi launched his first big policy initiative as ECB president,
with the longer-term refinancing operation gratefully taken up by about 1,000 banks across the eurozone
The €1tn flood of cheap money extended under the scheme has served three vital purposes.
Patrick Jenkins, FT, November 27, 2013

The U.S. Treasury yield curve has lost its forecasting power
An ideal leading indicator would exclude components such as the yield curve that behave perversely during times of financial stress, said Morgan Stanley economist Ellen Zentner.
She suggested investors look at the Duncan Leading Indicator,
devised in 1977 by Wallace Duncan, then of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Bloomberg, Simon Kennedy, Nov 27, 2013

Without a truly integrated union and strong institutions to coordinate and enforce policy decisions,
the cries of “Berlin must do something” ring hollow.
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, New York Times, 27 November 2013

My trips to Sweden have once again reminded me about the dangers of conducting monetary policy with interest rates at the Zero Lower Bound (ZLB).
Lets say we can describe monetary policy with a simple Taylor rule:
r = rN+a*(p-pT)+b(ygap)
The Market Monetarist, 26 November 2013

Strong Governments, Weak Banks
Banks in the northern eurozone have capital ratios that are, on average, less than half of the capital ratios of banks in the eurozone’s periphery.
Paradoxically, financially strong governments breed fragile banks.
Paul De Grauwe, Yuemei Ji, CEPS Policy Briefs, 25 November 2013

If bubbles are out there these 10 sages will warn us
Views on asset imbalances from Buffett to Yellen to Faber
MarketWatch 23 November 2013

Some of Kennedy’s most ardent admirers still like to believe that he would have prevented the escalation of the Vietnam War had he lived longer.
But there is no evidence for that at all. Kennedy was a hardened Cold Warrior. And his anti-Communism was couched in terms of American idealism.
As he said in his inaugural speech: “[W]e shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Ian Buruma, Pofessor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College, Project Syndicate, November 7, 2013

"We should not dismiss the possibility, raised by Larry Summers
that we may need negative real rates for a long time"
I interpret this as IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard saying,
as clearly and straightforwardly as his office allows him to,
that in his judgment the 2% per year inflation target is past its sell-by date and rotted,
and that the North Atlantic economies need to move to a 4% per year inflation target
in order to reduce the risk of another 1932, or another 2010.
Brad DeLong, November 20, 2013

Harvard economist Larry Summers created a stir earlier this month when he suggested that
the world economy may be entering a period of “secular stagnation,”
where aggregate demand fails to recover and sustain growth on anything like the pre-crisis trajectory.
Darrell Delamaide, MarketWatch, 20 November 2013

13 miljarder dollar - 86 miljarder kronor
US bank JP Morgan Chase has agreed to a record $13bn settlement with US authorities
for misleading investors during the housing crisis.
BBC, 20 November 2013

No, Larry Summers, We Don’t Need More Bubbles
Would-be Fed chairmen aren’t supposed to ask unsettling questions about bubbles.
Clive Crook, Bloomberg, Nov 20, 2013

"A bravura performance"
Lawrence Summers has poured gallons of icy water on any remaining optimists.
Speaking on a panel at the International Monetary Fund’s annual research conference,
the former US Treasury secretary suggested that there could be no easy return to pre-crisis normality in high-income economies.
Instead, he sketched out a disturbing future of chronically weak demand and slow economic growth.
Martin Wolf, November 19, 2013

The Nazis only won 32 Reichstag seats in the election of May 1924, and just 12 in 1928.
Germany's hyperinflation-phobia
The Nazi party did not become a popular political force until long after the hyperinflation period ended.
The Economist, November 15th 2013

"Everybody knows you can draw a straight line from its hyperinflation to Hitler, but, in this case, what everybody knows is wrong.
The Nazis didn't take power when prices were doubling every 4 days in 1923-- they tried, and failed -- but rather when prices were falling in 1933."
Lenin's Brilliant Plot to Destroy Capitalism And its essential lessons about money and the economy today MATTHEW O'BRIEN, The Atlantic, September 26, 2013

Why Draghi was wrong to cut interest rates
Deflation in parts of a currency union is not the same as deflation of a union as a whole
Hans-Werner Sinn, Financial Times, November 13, 2013

Greece, Spain and Portugal need to devalue in real terms by about 30 per cent
relative to the eurozone average in order to correct the distortions that were
brought about before the crisis by the inflationary credit bubble created by the single currency
and thus restore their competitiveness.
Hans-Werner Sinn, Financial Times, November 13, 2013

Is Economics a Science?
– I am one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences,
which makes me acutely aware of criticism of the prize by those who claim that economics
– unlike chemistry, physics, or medicine, for which Nobel Prizes are also awarded –
is not a science. Are they right?
Robert J. Shiller, Project Syndicate, 6 November 2013

A new economics
The failure of the dismal science to predict and explain the worst financial crash since the Depression has understandably prompted some reflection among the more thoughtful ranks of academics.
Financial Times editorial, November 12, 2013

As a former Federal Reserve official, I was responsible for executing the centerpiece program of the Fed's first plunge into the bond-buying experiment known as quantitative easing.
The central bank continues to spin QE as a tool for helping Main Street.
But I've come to recognize the program for what it really is: the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time.
Mr. Huszar, a senior fellow at Rutgers Business School, is a former Morgan Stanley managing director,
Wall Street Journal via zerohedge, 12 November 2013

IEA 2012 forecast that the US would be a net oil exporter by 2030 helped bring shale oil production to global attention.
But now it expects US light tight oil production, which includes shale, to peak in 2020 and decline thereafter
Financial Times, 12 November 2013

A concern is that the monetary policy of the ECB is unsuitable for Germany and might even cause asset price bubbles.
This is surely true, just as the monetary policy pursued before 2007 was unsuitable for Ireland and Spain and did indeed drive asset price bubbles.
A central bank called upon to deliver a target rate of inflation in a union of diverse economies will destabilise nearly all the members at some time.
But that is what joining a currency union entails for all members, including even the largest.
Martin Wolf, FT, November 12, 2013

Don't blame Germany for the eurozone's travails, blame the euro itself
Germany didn’t set out to design an economic model that impoverishes much of the rest of Europe
Any attempt to set a single interest rate for 17 politically and fiscally sovereign nations is almost by definition doomed to failure.
Perpetual crisis is more or less guaranteed.
Jeremy Warner, Telegraph, 11 Nov 2013

There is no Plan Bee for when we run out of pollinators
Dave Goulson, FT, November 8, 2013

Prospect of a deal on Volcker rule worries banks
FT, November 11, 2013

France’s 'AA' Hollande pays price for kowtowing to EMU deflation madness
Let me be clear. The quarrel is not with the German nation, but with the 1930s policies being enforced on Europe by Angela Merkel and German political establishment.
(Have they all forgotten – or never learned – that it was the Bruning deflation of 1930-1932 that destroyed Weimar?)
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, November 8th, 2013

Growth rates have remained stubbornly low and unemployment rates unacceptably high,
partly because the increase in money supply following QE has not led to credit creation to finance private consumption or investment.
Nouriel Roubini, Project Syndicate, 31 October 2013

Since the end of the credit boom in 2008, cross-border claims of banks based in the eurozone core (essentially Germany and its smaller neighbors)
toward the eurozone periphery have plummeted from about € 1.6 trillion to less than half that amount.
Part of the difference has ended up on the ECB balance sheet, but this cannot be a permanent solution.
Daniel Gros, Director of the Brussels-based Center for European Policy Studies, Project Syndicate, Nov. 6, 2013

The plot is thickening fast in Italy.
Romano Prodi – Mr Euro himself – is calling for a Latin Front to rise up against Germany
and force through a reflation policy before the whole experiment of monetary union spins out of control.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, November 4th, 2013

When the euro was born everyone knew that sooner or later a crisis would occur.
It was also clear that the stability and growth pact was – as I have said before – “stupid”
Romano Prodi, FT May 20 2010

Men om man ställer till rejäla kriser, så kan varje nationell maktelit skrämma sitt folk till underkastelse. De tvingas acceptera.
EU-kommissionens tidigare ordförande, virrpannan Romano Prodi, var så omedveten att han skrev en kolumn i självaste Financial Times (20 maj 2010),
där han lugnt konstaterade att han och alla de andra som drev fram europrojektet naturligtvis visste att det skulle leda till en svår kris förr eller senare.
Nila Lundgren

What to do with the eurozone banking system?
The ECB’s recent announcement that it will start a comprehensive assessment of the eurozone banking system is good news.
However, there are also uncertainties.
Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, FT November 5, 2013

The German finance ministry responded that its current account surplus was “no cause for concern, neither for Germany, nor for the eurozone, or the global economy”.
This reaction is as predictable as it is wrong.
The surplus, forecast by the IMF at $215bn this year (virtually the same as China’s) is indeed a big issue, above all for the future of the eurozone.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 5 Novermber 2013

U.S. criticism of Germany points to euro strains
Debt write-downs is the only way out for the euro zone
David Marsh, MarketWatch, Nov. 4, 2013

Japanese-style lost decade. But at least Japan maintained near full employment.
The eurozone faces a far worse prospect: a lost generation.
The political consequences of this scenario are the subject of an important book published in France by
François Heisbourg, chairman of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Geneva Centre for Security. In La Fin du Rêve Européen, he says the situation has become so intractable that the only way to save the EU is to abandon the euro.
Wolfgang Münchau, FT, November 3, 2013

The German banking system appears healthy at first sight.
It certainly fulfils its function of providing the private sector with credit at low interest rates.
But I still find it hard to believe that the German banking system as a whole is solvent.

The country has been running large current account surpluses for a decade, currently at about 6 per cent of gross domestic product. This means German banks must have been building up huge stocks of foreign securities – a large yet unknown proportion of which are likely to default, especially if the main crisis resolution tool turns out to be a bail-in of investors.
Wolfgang Münchau, FT, June 23, 2013

[Sarcasm]Yes, I know: "small businesses and families are tightening their belts. Their government should, too".

Brad DeLong 31 October 2013 Nice Chart

Lysande och pedagogisk
Too much state-created money is by definition a bad thing. And so is too little.
But how do we know how much is too much and how much too little?
It is a pity that the central banks decided to use the ugly term quantitative easing for what they were doing.
If they had called them “extended open-market operations”, or something similar, they would have had less explaining to do.
Samuel Brittan, Financial Times, October 31, 2013

China, Germany Criticized by U.S. for Account Imbalances
Germany’s nominal current-account surplus was larger than that of China
Bloomberg, Oct 31, 2013

IMF Backs U.S. Treasury in Criticizing German Exports
"neglect of domestic demand has delayed ending the misery"
Bloomberg, Nov 1, 2013

The so-called "Frenkel Cycle", the brutal denouement of every fixed-exchange rate system and every monetary union that fails to meet the four basic conditions
"The debt-to-GDP ratio has risen by 15 percentage points [to 133pc] over the past 15 months because there is no growth.
It is all because of the effects of austerity and the fiscal multiiplier. We are making the same mistake they made in Greece."
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 30 Oct 2013

When Lehman Brothers went bankrupt and AIG was taken over by the US government in the fall of 2008, the world almost came to an end.
Major banks in the US and the UK were literally hours away from shutting down, and ATMs were on the verge of running out of cash.
John Mauldin 29 October 2013

Treasuries have turned anything but risk-free
The global financial system is hostage to a big rise in borrowing costs
when the retreat from QE puts an end to the current era of extraordinarily low interest rates.
John Plender, FT 22 October 2013

Europe Breakup Forces Mount as Union Relevance Fades
Collapse, slow decline, or renaissance are the EU’s three alternative futures, a U.S. intelligence analysis argued last year
Their “Global Trends” paper - released on the same day in December 2012 as EU leaders accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo - found a “low” likelihood of collapse, in which the euro and European single market fragment and civic order breaks down.
Bloomberg, Oct 22, 2013

An astonishing new book by François Heisbourg
– La Fin du Rêve Européen (The end of the European dream) –
A product of the Quai d'Orsay, he is an ardent European federalist and long-time champion of EMU, and currently chairman of the very blue-chip International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS)
argues that the "euro cancer" must be cut out to save the rest of the EU Project before it is too late.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, October 21st, 2013

"One thing that shocked me is that
not only did the Federal Reserve's very sophisticated model completely miss (the Lehman crash on) September 15th, 2008,
but so did the IMF, so did JP Morgan, which was forecasting American economic growth three days before the crisis hit, going up all through 2009 and 2010."
Alan Greenspan, BBC, 20 October 2013

Time to stop this pretence – economics is not science
Economics is a study of human behaviour – above all, the allocation of scarce resources between competing ends.
It requires the analysis of economic, commercial and financial life in all its institutional richness, or it is nothing.
A solid grounding in theory and numeracy is essential but so, too, are broad dashes of politics, history, sociology and common sense.
Liam Halligan, 19 Oct 2013

More silliness from the tin foil hat Austrians
The Market Monetarist, Lars Christensen 19 October 2013

The Flat Earth Society has all but disappeared, but the efficient-market hypothesis is alive and well.
This week, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to its most tenacious advocate, Eugene F. Fama of the University of Chicago. Robert Shiller of Yale University dubbed the efficient-market hypothesis “the most remarkable error in the history of economic theory.”
By trying to have it both ways, the Nobel committee missed a chance to confirm that observed experience has undermined a beguiling but simplistic theory that has charmed the economics profession.
Roger Lowenstein, writing a book on the origins of the Federal Reserve System, Bloomberg 16 October 2013

"The election had to take place before new policy initiatives could be rolled out."
This was always naïve. Mrs. Merkel is not about to pull a rabbit out of her hat.
Barry Eichengreen, 15 October 2013

And the biggest problem is yet to come
Italy that is unable to grow, incapable of reforming, and burdened with what increasingly looks like an unsustainable debt.
Barry Eichengreen, 15 October 2013

We have a minor earthquake in France.
A party committed to withdrawal from the euro, the restoration of French franc, and the complete destruction of monetary union has just defeated the establishment in the Brignoles run-off election.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, October 14th, 2013

From May 2007 until the day before the Lehman bankruptcy, bank stock prices measured by the KBW index had already fallen by 40 per cent,
signalling that a recession had started which brought down housing prices.
Regulators did nothing because they were focused on meaningless indicators of financial distress:
risk-weighted capital ratios, which basically remained unchanged during the whole period.
Theo Vermaelen, Professor of Finance, Insead, Fontainebleau, France, FT, October 16, 2013

If anyone ever doubted that the Nobel Prize for Economics was a farce, Monday’s announcement of the latest winners should put the matter to rest.
Fama questions whether “bubbles” exist. Shiller says they are common, and easy to see.
Fama said U.S. house prices weren’t in a bubble in 2006, even in retrospect.
Shiller warned that they were—even before the crash. (He also correctly warned of a stock-market bubble in the late 1990s).
Fama thinks you should never try to time the market, because future returns are completely unpredictable and stocks will follow a “random walk.”
Shiller says that for most of the past century or more you could have timed the market quite easily.
All you really had to do was to invest in the stock market when stocks were cheap (when measured against the previous 10 years’ earnings).
MarketWatch, 15 October 2013

Robert Schiller

Reneging on its debt obligations would make the U.S.
the first major Western government to default since Nazi Germany 80 years ago.
John Glover, Bloomberg, Oct 14, 2013

Med sjunkande privata inkomster följde minskade offentliga skatteinkomster, och 1932 måste kommuner, städer och till och med en delstat gå i konkurs och ställa sig under riksadministration...

Då Brünings sparsamhetsiver till slut också riktades mot statsbidragen till godsägarna öster om Elbe, tröt /president/ Hindenburgs tålamod, och den 30 maj 1932 tillträdde en ny regering under ledning ytterst konservative tidigare centrumpolitikern Franz von Papen. Hans regering hade praktiskt taget inget parlamentariskt stöd och förbluffade samtiden genom att majoriteten av ministrarna var adliga.

Socialdemokraterna fällde regeringen. Därefter utlystes nyval.

Jag tycker det är skriande uppenbart att räntan världen över är för låg och att
en större del av stimulanserna borde ske via finanspolitiken.
Rolf Englund blog, 2009-12-05

The four most important central banks – Fed, ECB, Bank of Japan and the Bank of England – all have short-term interest rates of half a per cent, or less.
These rates have remained extremely low for four years, or more.
What then has all this monetary activism bought? Disappointment.
Martin Wolf, FT October 10, 2013

Inordinate reliance on monetary policy, often highly unconventional monetary policy, whose effects on the economy are at least as uncertain as those of fiscal stimulus.
Future economists may wonder about our extraordinary belief in the efficacy of monetary policy during what is, quite clearly, a private sector savings glut.
Martin Wolf, 8 October 2013

'Greece Can Never Pay Back Its Debt'
George Soros, Der Spiegel, 7 October 2013

Eurons livslögn: Grekland kommer att återbetala lånen på 2.088 miljarder kronor
Rolf Englund blog 2013-08-26

Greece may need a third aid package as soon as next year,
Klaus Regling, the head of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) permanent bailout fund is quoted as saying
Greece might not be in a condition to raise money by selling sovereign debt on the open market in 2014.
Der Spiegel, October 04, 2013

Interndevalvering
To deal with the Great Depression, the new National Government launched cuts to public spending...
For two days, ships of the Royal Navy at Invergordon were in open mutiny
The Invergordon Mutiny caused a panic on the London Stock Exchange and a run on the pound,
and forced UK off the Gold Standard on 20 September 1931.
Wikipedia

So it's goodbye from me. This is my final contribution.
In many ways, I will be doing the same thing in my new job at JP Morgan Asset Management
Stephanie Flanders, BBC Eonomics editor, 26 September 2013

If any issue is going to cause surprises in the system in the coming years, it is not necessarily going to be a credit risk at all; interest rate risk could be more dangerous.
Gillian Tett, FT October 3, 2013

In a democracy, people overturn laws by winning elections, not by threatening the closure of government or even an outright default.
It is impossible to run the government of a serious country under blackmail threats of this kind.
Every time the administration gives in, it stores up more difficulty for itself. It has to stop doing so.
Martin Wolf, FT October 1, 2013

This time is different. What is at stake in this government shutdown forced by a radical Tea Party minority is
nothing less than the principle upon which our democracy is based: majority rule.
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times October 1, 2013

Roubini about Greece
as households have already run down their assets and have few resources left in reserve.
Roubini Monitor Spotlight, 1 October 2013

Shadow insurance schemes multiply to $360bn
Financial Times, September 30, 2013

Who Predicted The Global Financial Crisis?
Michael J. Panzner, Financial Armageddon

Not that long ago, macroeconomists were congratulating central bankers
(and central bankers were, of course, congratulating themselves)
over doing a pretty good job of getting this right.
Inflation, occasional commodity shocks aside, was indeed low and stable, and from 1985 to 2007 the real economy was fairly stable too.
Then came catastrophe – and as so often happens, when the house collapses you find the skeletons that were lurking in the closet all along.
The stability of prices and output masked an underlying unsustainable growth in leverage
Paul Krugman, New York Times blog, September 25, 2013

And here’s the worrisome thing:
what if it turns out that we need ever-growing debt to stay out of a liquidity trap?
Paul Krugman, New York Times blog, September 25, 2013

Forget ERM, now SSM and AQR will save the EUR
The SSM empowers the ECB to carry out banking supervision in the eurozone
AQR can be a potential game-changer, putting the eurozone crisis behind us.
Philipp Hildebrand, Financial Times blog, September 20, 2013

The Single Supervisory Mechanism, approved last week by the European Parliament

Read more at Rolf Englund blog

The parallels drawn by Mr Schäuble between Germany’s reforms in the 2000s
and the position of today’s vulnerable countries are absurd.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times, September 24, 2013

“pretend and extend”
You extend the maturity of the loans, reduce the interest rates and pretend your credit is still whole.
Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times, September 24, 2013

Americans for Prosperity, a Koch brothers group that has already spent millions on ads fighting health reform
These groups, all financed with secret and unlimited money, feed on chaos and would like nothing better than to claim credit for pushing Washington into another crisis.
Winning an ideological victory is far more important to them than the severe economic effects of a shutdown or, worse, a default, which could shatter the credit markets.
New York Times, September 17, 2013

From 2008 to now: Charts of the financial crisis
MarketWatch, September 18, 2013

A small open economy like Sweden in the 1990s may well be able to tighten its way back to vitality in a the middle of a global boom,
but if half Europe does so in unison in a slump, it will inflict carnage.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph, September 17th, 2013

Can fiscal austerity be expansionary in present Europe?
The lessons from Sweden
Lennart Erixon, Department of Economics, Stockholm University, September 4, 2013

The main conclusion in this article is that the fiscal austerity measures in the mid-1990s delayed the Swedish economic recovery
and that neither these measures nor the fiscal rules were responsible for the impressive Swedish macroeconomic performance in the following period.
The positive economic development in Sweden was driven by export, profit and technology, reflecting an international upswing
and the country’s flexible exchange rates and industrial composition.
Click

Anniversary of that Lehman collapse, is the system any safer or saner?
The good news is that the chance of another full-blown banking crisis has receded
The bad news is that the system is just as insane – perhaps more so.
Gillian Tett, Financial Times, September 12, 2013

IMF boss Christine Lagarde calls for speedy EU bank union
How banking union will be achieved is unclear, with some countries maintaining it would require a change to EU treaties.
BBC, 10 September 2013

One in four people between the ages of 18 and 24 defined the American Dream as being debt-free.
Once upon a time, the American Dream was a Technicolor affair, replete with two and a half thriving, college-bound kids,
a dog or cat and not one, but two cars in the garage that were owned outright, or would be before they were ready for the crusher.
For generations of Americans the American Dream was about owning a home.
ABC News, 8 September 2013

The percentage of the population in the US labour force fell to its lowest level since August 1978, at 63.2 per cent.
The lower number of Americans looking for work drove the unemployment rate down from 7.4 per cent to 7.3 per cent.
That leaves the Fed with a conundrum: unemployment is closer to its goal of a “substantial improvement in the labour market”
but for the negative reason that fewer people are seeking jobs.
Financial Times, September 6, 2013

Debt loads rise faster than nominal GDP - The "denominator effect"
The complacency of those dictating Euroland's policies - though not its victims - is breathtaking.
"Europe, it seems, has become anaesthetised to bad news,"
Ambrose, September 4, 2013

The last big rupiah plunge was in 1997-98, when Indonesia was the epicenter of an Asian financial crisis.
In retrospect, that crisis was a sort of dress rehearsal for the much bigger crisis that engulfed the advanced world a decade later.
a reminder of how little we learned from that crisis 16 years ago.
We didn’t reform the financial industry — on the contrary, deregulation went full speed ahead.
Nor did we learn the right lessons about how to respond when crisis strikes.
Paul Krugman, New York Times, 29 August 2013

Germany’s path to competitiveness: cutting the cost of labour.
Make no mistake; that has been the basis of the nation’s export success in the past dozen years;
and exports have been its sole consistent source of growth in that period.
But low wages are not the basis on which a rich nation should compete.
Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, FT 3 September 2013

Holy Grail?
Market-based bank capital regulation
A new, robust approach that uses market information but does not depend upon markets being ‘right’.
Under the proposed regulatory system (i) bank losses are credibly borne by the private sector
(ii) systemically important institutions cannot collapse suddenly;
(iii) bank investment is counter-cyclical;
and (iv) regulatory actions depend upon market signals.
Jeremy Bulow, Jacob Goldfield, Paul Klemperer, Vox, 29 August 2013

We will start with a remarkable example of both hubris and economic ignorance published earlier this year in Le Monde.
Under the headline "No: France Is Not Bankrupt," Bruno Moschetto, a professor of economics at the University of Paris I and HEC, made the following case.
No, France is not bankrupt .... The claim is untrue economically and financially. France is not and will not bankrupt because it would then be in a state of insolvency.
Professor, saying a country is not bankrupt because it would then be insolvent is kind of like saying your daughter cannot be pregnant because she would then have a baby.
John Mauldin, August 23, 2013