(John Gapper - The Net)

I am not sure of the moral to be drawn from the fact that Citigroup, in its role as lender, has taken control of a resort hotel in California where American International Group held a retreat after being bailed out by the US government, but it is a straw in the wind.

The St Regis Monarch Beach in Dana Point is far from the only resort hotel to be in trouble as a result of the severe cutbacks in business travel and conferences following the financial crisis.
(...)

Go to the source

(Economix - The Net)

Green banks -- created to aid environmentally conscious businesses and consumers through better loan rates and other incentives -- are sprouting up around the country despite the recession.

Recent examples include E3bank in Philadelphia; the First Green Bank in Florida; and GreenChoice Bank in Chicago. Other examples, like ShoreBank Pacific and the Green Bank of Houston, have been around for a few years.

But is green banking a sensible business strategy for banks? The proposed One Earth Bank in Austin, Tex., fell by the wayside this spring even before its opening. Its backers blamed the economy and complications with the Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation.(...)

Go to the source

The New Stars of the Blogosphere (Wall Street Journal - U.S.)

Americans trying to understand the nail-biting financial trauma of the past several months are flocking by the millions to a surprisingly lively source of enlightenment: blogs written by economists.

Such blogs are thriving in this recession, driven by intense interest from policymakers, investors, academics and people like Zina Poletz, a Minneapolis public-relations executive who says she had little interest in economics before the financial crisis intensified last fall. "I never thought I'd be sitting up late at night reading what [Federal Reserve chairman] Ben Bernanke thinks, but now I do," she says.

For many people, economics has never seemed so captivating, or so relevant. The enormous appetite for information and guidance right now is hardly a surprise: Even those with a basic knowledge of supply and demand have struggled to keep tabs on the global downturn.(...)

Go to the source

New sins, new virtues (Economist - U.K.)

GLOBALISATION, technology and growth are in themselves neither positive or negative; they are whatever humanity makes of them. Summed up like that, the central message of a keenly awaited papal pronouncement on the social and economic woes of the world may sound like a statement of the obvious.(...)

Go to the source

The Elusive Green Economy (The Atlantic - U.S.)

By Joshua Green

It feels like 1977 all over again: economy in the doldrums, crisis in the Middle East, and a charismatic new Democrat in the White House preaching the gospel of clean energy. Can Obama succeed where Carter did not? Yes--but only if we've learned the lessons of three decades of failure.(...)

Go to the source

My country, boom or bust (Ode - Netherlands)

By Philippe Legrain

As the world economy plunges into recession, globalization is going into reverse. A virtuous circle of rising trade and booming economic growth has turned into a vicious spiral of plunging demand and collapsing trade. Faced with the most severe downturn since the Great Depression, governments promise not to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s. At the G-20 summit in Washington, D.C., last November, leaders of 22 of the world's major economies pledged to reject protectionism. Yet they aren't living up to their commitments.

Go to the source

The Science of Economic Bubbles and Busts (Scientific American - U.S.)

By Gary Stix

The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has prompted a reassessment of how financial markets work and how people make decisions about money.

Go to the source

(American Prospect - U.S.)

By Richard Wells

Planning theorists argue we need to rethink the spatial coordinates of the national economy.

Go to the source

(The Economist - U.K.)

IN THE boom years, migrants picked fruit in southern California's orange groves, worked on construction sites in Spain and Ireland, designed software in Silicon Valley and toiled in factories all over the rich world. Many will continue to do so, despite the economic downturn. But as unemployment rises in most rich countries, attitudes towards migrants are hardening.(...)

Go to the source

(Al Arabyia - UAE)

Iraq announced Tuesday that British energy giant BP and China's CNPC International Ltd were the first foreign firms in nearly four decades to win contracts to invest and develop in Iraq's war-battered energy sector.

The companies succeeded in their bid for the giant Rumaila oil field in southern Iraq, which has known reserves of 17.7 billion barrels, the oil ministry announced.The contract was the first to be awarded in open tendering for six major oil fields and two gas fields.(...)

Go to the source

(The New York Times - U.S.)

A landmark climate bill that narrowly passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday would cap greenhouse gas emissions across the United States for the first time and also create a national target for renewable energy production.

Environmentalists and advocates of clean energy hailed the news in a flurry of statements. Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called it a "dramatic breakthrough for America's future." Denise Bode, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, described the renewable energy target as "a key first step in balancing our electric generation mix."

The legislation, however, remains far from becoming law. The House passed the bill only narrowly -- and it has been weakened since being introduced months ago -- and the fight in the Senate may be even tougher.(...)

Go to the source

BA staff back 'survival plan' as 7,000 agree to pay cuts (The Telegraph - U.K.)

Nearly 7,000 British Airways staff have agreed to voluntary pay cuts to help the struggling airline, including 800 employees who are prepared to work for nothing. They have responded to a plea from Willie Walsh, BA's chief executive, for help as the airline faces the biggest financial crisis in its history. One in 10 of BA's 40,000 employees has agreed to take voluntary unpaid leave, while another 1,400 people have said they are ready to work part-time. The staff who will be willing to work unpaid for up to a month will be following the example of Mr Walsh and BA's chief financial officer, Keith Williams. (...)

Go to the source

How to Cut Health Care Costs: Less Care, More Data (TIME - U.S.)

By Michael Grunwald

The U.S. spends more on health care than any other country does, and studies have suggested that as much as 30% of it -- perhaps $700 billion a year -- may be wasted on unneeded care, mostly routine CT scans and MRIs, office visits, hospital stays, minor procedures and brand-name prescriptions that are requested by patients and ordered by doctors every day.(...)

Go to the source

Foreclosures grind on as lenders fail to modify loans (USA Today - U.S.)

The Obama administration's $75 billion program to reduce foreclosures has been beset by backlogs and delays, leading many overstretched homeowners to complain about unreturned phone calls and inaccurate information from lenders, while others say they were denied help for reasons that weren't clear. Details of the plan were unveiled in early March. The goal is to prevent up to 4 million foreclosures by having banks modify loans into more affordable monthly payments. (...)

Go to the source

How Moldova Escaped the Crisis(The Atlantic - U.S.)

On a sun-drenched spring day in Moldova's capital of Chişinău, a laid-back, leafy city of about 785,000 built atop seven hills, I strolled down the central boulevard, Stefan Cel Mare, talking with my friend and guide, whom I'll here call Roman, a trim fellow in his mid-40s. The global economic crisis was on everyone's lips in Moscow (where I live, and where it is known succinctly as the kreezis), so I asked Roman about it, Russian-style, without adjectives.

He shot me a puzzled look. "What crisis?"

"The global financial crisis!"

"Oh, that. I scratch my head and try to remember it. It's something we see on TV. We perceive it as distant from us." (...)

Go to the source

Ready to roll again(The Economist - U.K.)

"NEVER before in the country's history" is the catchphrase of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that most annoys his opponents. The president, in his selective amnesia, would have voters believe that everything good about Brazil dates from his election in 2002. Even more infuriating for the previous government, which provided the precursors for progress but got no credit for it, he is often right. Take interest rates: on June 10th the central bank cut its benchmark SELIC rate to 9.25%, the first time the figure has been in single digits since the 1960s.(...)

Go to the source

China's "money trap" mires (video) (Al Jazeera - Qatar)

China is estimated to have currency reserves of two trillion dollars, but the bulk of it is tied up in US markets. Caught in a "dollar trap", it has little choice but to buy more and more US government bonds to keep up the value of the dollar and hope a US recovery takes place - and quickly. (...)

Go to the source

Big four emerging economies meet for first summit (France24 - France)

Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India and China, four of the world's emerging big economies known collectively as 'BRIC', meet on Tuesday in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg to discuss their ambitions for economic growth. Dubbed the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China), the forum will be seeking to show that their ambitions for economic growth remain intact, despite the impact of the worst economic crisis of modern times.
   
Presidents Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, Hu Jintao of China, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh were to meet in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg for their first official four-way meeting.
   
The idea for the BRIC grouping was spawned after research by US investment bank Goldman Sachs suggested the four economies were developing at such pace they could be amongst the world's strongest by 2050.. (...)

Go to the source

Why Wealthy Nations are Stiffing Africa (TIME - U.S.)

It may be no surprise, in light of the global economic recession, that the world's richest nations have failed to deliver much of the aid they promised Africa four years ago. But campaigners are not letting the Group of 8 (G-8) industrialized countries off the hook. According to ONE, an advocacy group founded by U2 singer Bono, most of the blame for the shortfall in pledges made at the high-profile Gleneagles summit in 2005 rests on just two countries -- Italy and France. Italy, which next month hosts a summit of G-8 leaders, has delivered a miniscule 3% of the amount it pledged at Gleneagles, according to ONE's annual DATA report tracking aid delivery. France has given just 7% of its pledged amount.(...)

Go to the source

Companies Willing to Take Risks in a Recession (Business Week - U.S.)

"The time to buy," said Baron Rothschild, "is when there's blood in the streets."

These days it's hard enough for many managers to keep their businesses afloat, much less think about taking risks. After all, excessive risk-taking is what put us in the current financial mess.

Yet a few companies, big and small, are daring to go against the grain. They're scouring the bankruptcy courts for deals, getting tough with suppliers on prices, and muscling in on rivals--all to gain advantage for the eventual upswing. Fiat has successfully snapped up the bulk of assets in Chrysler, overcoming opposition. Toys 'R' Us has bought FAO Schwarz to gain market share. Procter & Gamble (PG) is investing heavily in research while others cut back. Novartis is betting its future on discoveries linked to diseases most people have never heard of. (...)

Go to the source

How Canada Does Banking (Economix - The Net)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is among many Canadians these days who are boasting about the strength of the country's banking system.

During the credit crisis, no Canadian banks failed, and none required government capital infusions. And last week when Canada's major banks issued their quarterly statements, all but one were profitable. Even that exception, a second-quarter loss of 50 million Canadian dollars (on 6.8 billion Canadian dollars in revenue) at the Royal Bank of Canada, was largely related to a write-down in the value of its American operations.

Mr. Harper, a Conservative who generally favors limiting government influence in markets, credits Canada's regulatory system for the banks' good fortune and suggests that it should be a model for the world. (...)

Go to the source

Gay-onomics and the Marriage Debate (Newsweek - U.S.)

The phones started ringing at the Timberholm Inn in Stowe, Vt., in April, as soon as lawmakers voted to override a gubernatorial veto and allow same-sex marriage in the state. "It doesn't go into effect till Sept. 1, but people are thinking ahead," says the inn's co-owner, Susan Barnes. "We've got two same-sex weddings booked for October." Those bookings are good news for Barnes, who says the gay-friendly inn takes in a "couple of thousand" dollars with every wedding it hosts. And they are part of the reason some same-sex-wedding advocates are now pointing out a new legalization angle: the economic payoff.

In the five years since legalizing same-sex marriage, Massachusetts has gained $111 million in spending from gay weddings, according to a new study published by UCLA's Williams Institute, which studies sexual-orientation law and public policy. "That's money buying flowers, hotels, caterers, hiring a band--all the things that go into a wedding," explains M. V. Lee Badgett, a coauthor of the study. (...)

Go to the source

(Businessweek - U.S.)

As gas prices hovered around $4 a gallon and American automakers watched their pickup-truck and sport-utility sales plummet last summer, investment managers for some 100,000 Indiana teachers, police officers, and other civil servants poured millions of pension dollars into what the funds considered a safe investment: secured debt in Chrysler. Now, as the company speeds toward an exit from bankruptcy court, they are crying foul.

On Friday, June 5, the Indiana State Teachers Retirement Fund, the Indiana State Police Pension Trust, and the Indiana Major Moves Construction Fund will attempt to block Chrysler's structured bankruptcy and sale to Fiat (FIA.MI) in New York's Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The group argues that the U.S. government's intervention in the bankruptcy is unconstitutional, since the proposed plan will pay back unsecured lenders before those that were secured. The unsecured creditors and the United Auto Workers contend the sale is fair and is supported by a majority of Chrysler's creditors. (...)

Go to the source

(The Globe and Mail - Canada)

Bombardier Inc. says general economic weakness and order cancellations in its aerospace division have led to a decline in profits and revenues during the first quarter of fiscal 2010. The Montreal-based manufacturing giant says it earned $158-million (U.S.) or nine cents per share during the quarter ended April 30, down from profits of $229-million or 12 cents per share recorded during the same quarter a year ago. Revenue slipped to $4.5-billion compared to $4.8-billion recorded last year.(...)

Go to the source

GM's Long Road to Bankruptcy (TIME - U.S.)

GM stood atop the Fortune 500 nine years ago; it now stands on the brink of bankruptcy court. Moreover, GM bondholders are intensely unhappy with the terms they were offered as part of a plan to avoid bankruptcy, so even though the United Auto Workers struck a deal with management on Thursday, bankruptcy still looms as the probable course. Moreover, GM bondholders are unhappy with the terms they were offered as part of a plan to avoid bankruptcy, and even the United Auto Workers are unable to strike a deal with management.

How did such a once great company become so desperate? Perhaps the better question is, how did GM's well-paid management fritter away a treasure chest of brand loyalty and corporate wealth? There's not a single bad decision or one misguided executive that we can point to and say, "but for that GM would still rein supreme." GM's is a long-term management failure with a litany of losing moves over the decades, from the Chevy Corvair to the acquisition of Hummer -- a rolling insult to the environment -- that have collectively destroyed GM's balance sheet and sent its customers wandering. (...)

Go to the source

Smooth operators (The Economist - U.S.)

Even those with very little money have a sophisticated approach to finance. Paying interest on your savings will strike most people as odd. Yet some poor people in the developing world do just that. In West Africa, for example, some people pay roving susu collectors a fee amounting to a -40% annual interest rate for looking after their deposits. (...)

Go to the source

California Will Survive Its Crackup (The New York Times - U.S.)

California's problem is its democracy. The legislators, term-limited yet complacent, long ago threw in the towel. Now the citizens have had enough, expressing a pox-on-both-houses rejection Tuesday of every major ballot measure except the one that limited pay raises for politicians.

Think of Italy -- which reminds me of California in so many ways -- and its chronic inability to form a government. That's California, with even better food and no parliamentary system. (...)

Go to the source

Activist Financier 'Terrorizes' Bankers in Foreclosure Fight (The Wall Street Journal - U.S.)

Bruce Marks doesn't bother being diplomatic. A campaigner on behalf of homeowners facing foreclosure, he was on the phone one day in March to a loan executive at Bank of America Corp.

"I'm tired of borrowers being screwed!" Mr. Marks yelled into the phone. "You're incompetent!" Before hanging up, he threatened to call bank CEO Kenneth Lewis at home to complain about the loan executive.

Mr. Marks's nonprofit organization, Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, has emerged as one of the loudest scourges of the banking industry in the post-bubble economy. It salts its Web site with photos of executives it accuses of standing in the way of helping homeowners -- emblazoning "Predator" across their photos, picturing their homes and sometimes including home phone numbers. In February, NACA, as it's called, protested at the home of a mortgage investor by scattering furniture on his lawn, to give him a taste of what it feels like to be evicted. (...)

Go to the source

(The New York Times - U.S.)

If there was anybody who should have avoided the mortgage catastrophe, it was I. As an economics reporter for The New York Times, I have been the paper's chief eyes and ears on the Federal Reserve for the past six years. I watched Alan Greenspan and his successor, Ben S. Bernanke, at close range. I wrote several early-warning articles in 2004 about the spike in go-go mortgages. Before that, I had a hand in covering the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the Russia meltdown in 1998 and the dot-com collapse in 2000. I know a lot about the curveballs that the economy can throw at us.

But in 2004, I joined millions of otherwise-sane Americans in what we now know was a catastrophic binge on overpriced real estate and reckless mortgages. Nobody duped or hypnotized me. Like so many others -- borrowers, lenders and the Wall Street dealmakers behind them -- I just thought I could beat the odds. We all had our reasons. The brokers and dealmakers were scoring huge commissions. Ordinary homebuyers were stretching to get into first houses, or bigger houses, or better neighborhoods. Some were greedy, some were desperate and some were deceived. (...)

Go to the source

Thriving Norway Provides an Economics Lesson (The New York Times - U.S.)

When capitalism seemed on the verge of collapse last fall, Kristin Halvorsen, Norway's Socialist finance minister and a longtime free market skeptic, did more than crow.

As investors the world over sold in a panic, she bucked the tide, authorizing Norway's $300 billion sovereign wealth fund to ramp up its stock buying program by $60 billion -- or about 23 percent of Norway 's economic output.

"The timing was not that bad," Ms. Halvorsen said, smiling with satisfaction over the broad worldwide market rally that began in early March.

The global financial crisis has brought low the economies of just about every country on earth. But not Norway. (...)

Go to the source

(Time - U.S.)

Chrysler and GM (GM) propose closing 3,000 dealers in an effort to save money by narrowing down their distribution networks. Some of the larger dealers probably employ 100 people. In an economy that is losing nearly 600,000 jobs a month, the new efficiency program from Detroit is going to add to the burden of unemployed Americans very quickly. (...)

Go to the source

Sickness of the savers (Financial Times - U.K.)

By Geoff Dyer

China's economy has turned the corner. Government banks have been lending at a rapid rate, factory output is rising again and the local stock market is blazing ahead. But just how quickly the world's most populous country emerges from the global economic crisis will depend, in part, on places such as the cancer ward of Jingdong hospital in Sanhe, not far from Beijing, and how they treat patients like Cao Jun.(...)

Go to the source

Aid and the financial crisis (Vox EU - The Net)

By Emmanuel Frot

The Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD, a forum for the major bilateral aid donors, released, at the end of March, the 2008 figures of official development assistance. It announced it at $119.8 billion, the highest level ever recorded.

These numbers allow for some optimism about donors meeting their past aid pledges, but they refer to a different economic cycle, to a world where the financial crisis had barely started to gain momentum. The strain that the crisis is imposing on donor countries may well lead them to cut their aid effort, at the expense of developing countries. The whole aid community is now more concerned about the possible consequences of the crisis on aid, rather than commending itself for the high aid levels of 2008. But what consequences shall be expected?(...)

Go to the source

(The Telegraph - U.K.)

By Angela Monaghan

The OECD's widely respected gauge of "leading indicators" showed that Britain progressed from being in a "strong slowdown" to a "possible trough" in March, as the pace of decline slows. Separate surveys from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) also showed an improvement in consumer confidence. (...)

Go to the source

(Matthew Yglesias - The Net)

The credit card industry's business model is basically a disaster waiting to happen. If people pay their bills in a timely manner, the credit card companies don't make much money. And if people default on their bills, they lose money. So the correct strategy is to try to get people to carry heavy month-to-month balances that charge usurious interest rates without ever quite tipping over the brink into default.

Go to the source

Federal Reserve Bank Stress Test Overview (The New York Times - U.S.)

A report from the Federal Reserve on the government's "stress tests" of the nation's 19 largest financial institutions.

Go to the source

(The Wall Street Journal - U.S.)

In Germany, losing his factory job didn't stop Alfred Butt from taking a Mediterranean vacation this winter. Thanks to generous jobless benefits, being out of work "hasn't changed my life that much," Mr. Butt says.

In the U.S., Dylan DeRoberts lost similar work -- but there's no seaside getaway for him. Instead, he's giving up life's little pleasures, like riding his snowmobile, because he lost his insurance, too. "I've learned to live at a new level," Mr. DeRoberts says.

Unemployment is taking a very different human toll on opposite sides of the Atlantic, which helps explain why Europe and the U.S. can't agree on how to attack the global recession. The U.S. is spending hundreds of billions of dollars -- including increased assistance to the unemployed -- to prop up the economy, and wants Europe to follow suit. But most of Western Europe already has a strong, if costly, social safety net, so governments feel less pressure to spend their way out of trouble.

Go to the source

Assuming the worst (The Economist - U.K.)

Business-continuity planning has become standard in big firms in recent years. But most plans are designed to deal with short-term events such as hurricanes or terrorist attacks. Preparation for these sorts of emergency can be fairly straightforward: arranging office space in case the usual workplace becomes unusable; having backup computer facilities in case the main ones are hit; and installing software that lets staff work from home.

Much as these preparations are an improvement over a decade ago, when few firms outside the hurricane belt were prepared for even minor disruptions, they still have failings. A study published in 2005 by the Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury found that almost half of the sites that the British banking industry depends on were within ten kilometres (six miles) of the Bank of England. Many of the banks' backup sites were within the same radius. Thus a single catastrophe, such as a dirty bomb, in the middle of London could have crippled the banking system. Much has been improved since then but preparing for a pandemic is yet another order of magnitude harder and costlier.

Go to the source

Monsters, Inc. (The New Yorker - U.S.)

By James Surowiecki

Amid the blizzard of economic data that the government puts out every week, last Tuesday's report analyzing G.D.P. industry by industry got little notice. But it contained one very interesting piece of data: in 2008, for the first time in sixteen years, the finance and insurance industry shrank. Since 1980, this sector's share of the economy has grown by almost half. Now, apparently, the worm has turned.

For many, this comes as a welcome development: the size of the banking industry has become a symbol of the much lamented "financialization" of the U.S. economy over the past thirty years, and of what the M.I.T. economist Simon Johnson has called a "quiet coup" by Wall Street. But, while banking has become a hypertrophied monster, we still need to understand how the industry got so big in the first place in order to right-size it. And although bad policy and regulatory somnambulism have something to do with it, much of the industry's growth has been driven by major changes in the economy as a whole, rather than vice versa.

Go to the source

(Sidney Morning Herald - Australia)

Home owners are turning to do-it-yourself improvements because of the financial crisis and more people are entertaining at home, according to new research.

Almost three-quarters (71 per cent) of Australians planned to spend on home improvements.

Go to the source

(Businessweek - U.S.)

Car ownership in India brings feelings of pride and freedom, which is why 350,000 people have entered a lottery to buy a Tata Nano

Go to the source

Of couples and copulas (Financial Times - U.K.)

By Sam Jones

When mathematicians and physicists want to describe the chances of events occurring, they often rely on a curve called a copula. The Latin root is a noun meaning a "link or tie", and indeed, copulas connect variables in such a way that their interdependence can be plotted. Throughout his PhD at Waterloo, and at CIBC, Li had been interested in how he could use copulas to develop existing actuarial models of the ¬broken heart syndrome. The problem with relying on Markov chains was that they painted a far too mechanical, physical - atomic, even - picture of the human lifespan. Li reasoned that with a copula that showed a probable distribution of outcomes, a more accurate, encompassing picture of the broken heart or, for that matter, the broken company, could be devised.

He decided to use a very standard type of curve - the Gaussian copula, which is better known as a bell curve, or normal distribution - to map and determine the correlation on any given portfolio of assets. In the same way that actuaries could tell their employers the chances of Johnny Cash dying soon after June Carter without knowing anything about Cash other than the fact of his recent widowhood, so quants could tell their employers the effect one company defaulting might have on another doing the same - without knowing anything about the companies themselves. From this point on, it really could be, would be, a number-crunching game.

Go to the source

(Al Jazeera - Qatar)

Once ranked as the fourth happiest country in the world, Iceland's prospects are now looking seriously bleak after its economy collapsed six months ago. Iceland may have dropped a few notches from its recent high happiness rating. The mood now is characterised by anger and uncertainty. The nation was also ranked as the world's most developed country in 2007 by the United Nations Human Development Index, and its fourth most productive per capita.(...)

Go to the source

(Der Spiegel - Germany)

The financial crisis in the US has triggered a social crisis of historic dimensions. Soup kitchens are suddenly in great demand and tent cities are popping up in the shadow of glistening office towers. Even drug dealers are feeling the pinch. By Gregor Peter Schmitz and Gabor Steingart(...)

Go to the source

The Wail of the 1% (New York Magazine - U.S.)

It is difficult to sympathize with these people, their comments laced with snobbery and petulance. But you can understand their shock: Their world has been turned on its head. After years of enjoying favorable tax rates, they are facing an administration that wants to redistribute their wealth. Their industry is being reordered--no one knows what Wall Street will look like in a few years. They are anxious, and their anxiety is making them mad.(...)

Go to the source

Dragon Nightmares (The Economist - U.K.)

Here is a quick way to spoil a Brussels dinner party. Simply suggest that world governance is slipping away from the G20, G7, G8 or other bodies in which Europeans may hog up to half the seats. Then propose, with gloomy relish, that the future belongs to the G2: newly fashionable jargon for a putative body formed by China and America.

The fear of irrelevance haunts Euro-types, for all their public boasting about Europe's future might. The thought that the European Union might not greatly interest China is especially painful. After all, the 21st century was meant to be different. Indeed, to earlier leaders like France's Jacques Chirac, a rising China was welcome as another challenge to American hegemony, ushering in a "multipolar world" in which the EU would play a big role. If that meant kow-towing to Chinese demands to shun Taiwan, snub the Dalai Lama or tone down criticism of human-rights abuses, so be it. Most EU countries focused on commercial diplomacy with China, to ensure that their leaders' visits could end with flashing cameras and the signing of juicy contracts.(...)

Go to the source

A flawed first draft of history (Financial Times - U.K.)

By Lionel Barber

These are the best of times and the worst of times to be a financial journalist. The best, because we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to report and analyse the most serious financial crisis since the Great Crash of 1929. The worst, because the newspaper and television industries are suffering, not only from the shock of a recession but also from the structural shock of the internet revolution.

Now comes a third shock. The financial media are accused of mis­sing the global financial crisis. Asleep at the wheel. Head in the clouds. No cliché has been left unturned as reporters, commentators - yes, even editors - have been castigated for failing to warn an unsuspecting public of impending disaster. Do these charges add up? To paraphrase the killer question from the Watergate hearings: what did the press know and when did it know it?(...)

Go to the source

Conservative hypocrisy about Obama's proposal to limit charitable tax deductions for the rich. (Slate - The Net)

By Daniel Gross

Should we use the tax code to encourage virtuous behavior, such as, say, charitable giving? And should we avoid making changes in the tax code that would discourage charitable giving at this time of charitable stress? These questions would seem to be a matter of principle: It's either a good idea or a bad idea. But it all depends on how you're using the tax code. If the change involves a moderate tax hike on merely rich people, some think it's a bad idea that would be the equivalent of kicking widows and orphans in the face. But if the change is a massive tax cut for a few really, really rich people that would reduce charitable giving much more, the very same people think it's a great idea.(...)

Go to the source

Goldman Sachs hires law firm to shut blogger's site (The Telegraph - U.K.)

Goldman Sachs is attempting to shut down a dissident blogger who is extremely critical of the investment bank, its board members and its practices.

The bank has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website.

Florida-based Mr Morgan began a blog entitled "Facts about Goldman Sachs" - the web address for which is goldmansachs666.com - just a few weeks ago. (...)

Go to the source

(BBC - U.K.)

Back in the late 1990s, Brazil's Pao de Acucar supermarket chain relaunched itself with a slogan that still speaks volumes about the country's aspirations to be a global power (...)

Go to the source

Under the tarnish, still golden (Economist - U.K.)

Its economy is dismal, its politicians worse. But nowhere can reinvent itself so capably as California.

PITY California. Not only must it endure an epidemic of foreclosure, a 10.5% unemployment rate and the lowest bond rating of any state. It is also suffering a critical assault. In the past few weeks Forbes, Fortune, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal have all published scathing reviews of California. Even this newspaper has called it ungovernable. Although many other states have been knocked by the recession, none has been kicked so enthusiastically while down.

The most trenchant critic is Joel Kotkin, an urbanist at Chapman University. Mr Kotkin, who defended California during the early 1990s recession, now believes it is decaying. In his view, the state has been captured by environmentalists and slow-growth zealots who are stymieing house-building and running down dirty industries like agriculture and manufacturing. They are turning California from a place of working- and middle-class opportunity into a playground for the rich and a trap for the poor.(...)

Go to the source

Reading Into the Future (Newsweek - U.S.)

By Eva Gronowska

Libraries are my world. I've been a patron all my life, and for the past nine years I've worked at multiple libraries and archives in and around Detroit. The library as an institution has many roles, but as our country struggles through an economic crisis, I have watched the library where I work evolve into a career and business center, a community gathering place and a bastion for hope (...)

Go to the source

Too Many Cars, and They're Not on the Road (The Washington Post - U.S.)

After 'Car Bubble' Collapses, Excess Inventory Creates a Backlog

The sea of new cars, 57,000 of them, stretches for acres along the Port of Baltimore. They are imports just in from foreign shores and exports waiting to ship out -- Chryslers and Subarus, Fords and Hyundais, Mercedeses and Kias. But the customers who once bought them by the millions have largely vanished, and so the cars continue to pile up, so many that some are now stored at nearby Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport.(...)

Go to the source

Job seeking has lost its way (J@pan.Inc - Japan)

Japan's job hunting is unique in a brutal way, and it has become even tougher for job-hunters to find employment amidst the worst economic crisis to hit Japan in a century. News of unemployment and layoffs have become commonplace in the media, but the recent announcement that 1,845 students' naitei (employment offers) have been withdrawn since the Lehman collapse last year made headlines throughout the country. This number exceeds the previous record of 1,077 cancellations in 1997, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare(...)

Go to the source

'JUMP bankers!' (Alphaville - The Net)

Clad in an army surplus jacket, baggy jeans and the obligatory scuffed trainers, FT Alphaville set forth to the G20 City protests.

The marchers, divided into four individual groups covering money crimes, climate chaos, homelessness, and war, were to meet at noon by the Bank of England, having snaked their way through the City.(...)

Go to the source

Venezuela Slashes Oil Investment By 40% (Latin America Herald Tribune - Latin America)

As low oil prices and the worldwide economic downturn continue to bite in Venezuela, state-owned oil monopoly PDVSA announces that it is cutting its investment plan to only $12 billion, the majority of which will go to the modernization of two refineries and the Orinoco Belt. (...)

Go to the source

Homesteaders in the Hood (Slate - The Net)

To survive, everyone needs to have a place to be and to sleep, eat, and, let's face it, go to the bathroom. For most of us, that place is the home. As rising unemployment pushes more people out of their houses and apartments, however, and growing numbers of Americans cannot find a place to perform these essential functions legally, they will have little choice but to break the law. And so some of them are turning to a strategy that has cropped up repeatedly in American history--squatting. Governments are sometimes tempted to respond to a spike in this form of outlaw residency by simply forcing squatters out. The better strategy, however is to treat squatting as a symptom of a simultaneous failure of both the market and the government. Viewed in this light, an outbreak of squatting is a sign that governments should change their housing policies to make it easier for poor people to find the housing they need--as law-abiders instead of renegades.(...)

Go to the source