re: "Greece's Dangerous Gamble"

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway ("an online journal of politics and foreign affairs analysis") looked at the Greek financial crisis.

Money quote(s):

"As much as the Germans and French resent having to bail out profligate Greece, the Greeks resent having their core political decisions dictated from Paris and Berlin even more."

Likewise for Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Iceland. To name a few.

"European integration has been achieved through stealth and technocratic maneuvering on the part of elites, quite frequently bypassing the clear preferences of the ostensibly democratic populations in various countries. The passing of so much authority to the European Central Bank and to appointed officials in Brussels has been inexorable, with little input from the European publics and often against the expressed wishes demonstrated via referenda."

This is not a bug in the European experiment: it's a feature.

11/1

re: "The Golden Days Are Over"

Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye looks at economic, immigration, and trade policies.

Money quote(s):

"I think that trade and immigration policies must conform to actual needs and realities rather than some ideological view. The reality is that we have millions of unemployed unskilled or semi-skilled people here in the U. S. already and wages for unskilled and semi-skilled workers have been stagnant or falling for decades, a sure sign of flagging demand. Our immigration policy wih respect to Mexico should reflect that reality; sadly, it does not."

The current (our second annual) "recovery summer" is driving this point home to the point where even Congress may catch on to what everyone who isn't Mexican (and petitioning for their under-educated and unskilled relatives) already knows: unlimited (which is the result of lax enforcement) immigration of under-skilled workers does nothing but pull the rug out from under our own (U.S. citizen) labor pool.

"China poses a unique challenge for American economic policy. I trace many of our economic woes to three events, all involving China: China’s 1979 abandoning of its official policy of autarky, China’s pegging of the yuan to the dollar in 1993, and the admission of China to the WTO in 2001. I think that these actions eroded manufacturing jobs in the U. S., increased our imports from China to the detriment of American-made goods, and drove money into housing construction with the results that we see around us today. Our trade policy with respect to China should reflect the unique challenges that China presents; it does not."

Not being an economist, I'm unable to discern the linkage between the three Chinese developments cited and increased U.S. housing construction. Anyone care to spell this out for me?

JO - Marking time in Caricom? Awaiting leaders' 'message' after Belize meeting.

Jamaica Observer



Marking time in Caricom?


Awaiting leaders' 'message' after Belize meeting


RICKEY SINGH


Sunday, March 15, 2009


BY yesterday (Saturday), the official communiqué on the outcome of the 20th Intersessional Meeting of Caribbean Community Heads of Government, held in Belize from March 12-13, should have been circulated to the media by the Caricom Secretariat for public information.

RICKEY SINGH

Their work programme, based on the draft agenda seen by this correspondent, was impressive with a listing of issues of much importance to the region's economic integration movement, now in its 36th year.

Read the whole article here.