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In fact, some economists view the German reform narrative as a myth

Wage restraint was instead a function of weak demand after the collapse of the reunification-fueled construction boom in the mid-1990s.

Even if one accepts the story, economists also point out that Germany undertook its labor-market reforms when the winds of the world economy were extremely favorable. The global economy was growing, and China and other emerging economies were sucking in machine tools and other capital goods in which German manufacturers excelled.

Like an inmate on death row, the euro has received another last-minute stay of execution. It will survive a little longer. The markets are celebrating, as they have after each of the four previous “euro crisis” summits – until they come to understand that the fundamental problems have yet to be addressed.

Europe’s leaders did not recognize this rising danger, which could easily be averted by a common guarantee, which would simultaneously correct the market distortion arising from the differential implicit subsidy.

Likewise, they now recognize that bailout loans that give the new lender seniority over other creditors worsen the position of private investors, who will simply demand even higher interest rates.CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraph

You should look at it more holistically. We wouldn't have been able to increase our exports if the other countries had behaved like us and had not increased their demand for an entire decade.

Excluding Greece from the union would be the completely wrong approach. Greece's problem is its inefficiency in terms of public finances. That can be corrected.

Starbatty: In my experience, speculators are only successful when political promises diverge from economic reality, as has become clear in Greece.

Its full name is more than a mouthful. Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement System is better known as TARGET2 for short. It is the behind-the-scene payments system that conveniently enables citizens across the euro area to settle electronic transactions in euro. And at just over €500 billion, its TARGET2 claim on the Eurosystem is also the largest and fastest growing item on the Bundesbank’s balance sheet, as well as a source of much misunderstanding and debate.

The allocation of TARGET2 balances among the seventeen national central banks, which together with the ECB make up the Eurosystem, reflects where the market allocates the money created by the ECB. The fact that the Bundesbank has a large TARGET2 claim (asset) on the Eurosystem, while national central banks in southern Europe and Ireland together have an equally large TARGET2 liability, simply reflects that a lot of the ECB’s newly created money has ended up in Germany. Why? Because of capital flight.

Since the euro eliminated exchange rate risk among its member states, Germany has invested a substantial portion of its savings in Europe’s current account deficit countries. Some of those savings are now returning home. That’s the capital flight.

But the shortcomings of the agreement have once again undermined renewed confidence in the eurozone and sent the bond yields of several countries higher, including Spain and Italy.

The Spanish government said a predicted rise in GDP next year of 0.4% had proved optimistic, and the economy would suffer another year of recession.

Regional governments deliver the key parts of the welfare state, including health, education and social services.

Davos view: Don’t get too confident about Eurozone prospects

One was the danger that European elections could show a growing mood of political protest – and volatility. Secondly, the ECB’s stress tests could spark new market alarm about the banks – which would impact sovereigns too.

U.S.D.A. does not stand alone. The Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.), knowing that manufacturers grow animals under conditions virtually guaranteed to breed disease, allows them to attempt to ward off disease by feeding them antibiotics from birth until death. (This despite the stated intention of the agency to change that, and a court order requiring it to.)

About a quarter of all chicken parts are contaminated,

The F.D.A. must disallow the use of prophylactic antibiotics in animal production.

No one is certain why Goss’s wilt has become so rampant in recent years. But many plant pathologists suspect that the biggest factor is the hybrids chosen for genetic modification by major seed companies like Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta. “My theory is that there were a couple of hybrids planted that were selected because they had extremely high yield potentials,” said Dr. Robertson, whose research is financed by Monsanto and the Agriculture Department. “They also may have been highly susceptible to Goss’s wilt.”

About 90 percent of the corn grown in the United States comes from seeds that have been engineered in a laboratory, their DNA modified with genetic material not naturally found in corn species. Almost all American corn, for instance, is now engineered to resist the powerful herbicide glyphosate (often sold as Roundup), so farmers can kill weeds without killing their corn.

As farmers grow more corn to satisfy the demand for ethanol, they are rotating it less frequently with other crops.

What is ironic is that these vines represented about the least scary GMO crop imaginable.  They were engineered to be resistant to a disease called Fan Leaf Virus that is spread by nematodes that live in the soil.  Back before people understood this disease it was unintentionally spread to many grape-growing areas.  Once a given vineyard is contaminated with the nematodes and virus, grapes will only survive for a few years on that site before declining and dying.  Some of the best wine production areas around the world are seriously compromised this way, and there has been no lasting cure.

at was being tested in Colmar was a “rootstock.”  All grapes are cuttings of the desired variety (Gewurtztraminer, Cabernet, Chardonnay…) grafted on to a root that is resistant to various pests.  The Colmar roots would have also been resistant to the virus.  The top of the vine (all that is above ground) would be exactly like all the neighboring vineyards.  In theory the grapes wouldn’t die in a few years (that is what the researchers were hoping to demonstrate).

but this same irrationality is hindering efforts to provide things like virus resistant Cassava to poor farmers in Africa or virus resistant Papayas to people in Thailand. 

“Pretty much every human on earth can access all human knowledge,” said Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist.

o how to measure the Internet’s contribution to our lives? A few years ago, Austan Goolsbee of the University of Chicago and Peter J. Klenow of Stanford gave it a shot. They estimated that the value consumers gained from the Internet amounted to about 2 percent of their income — an order of magnitude larger than what they spent to go online. Their trick was to measure not only how much money users spent on access but also how much of their leisure time they spent online.

In a typical day, Mr. Durgin tells me, 21 trains depart the mine, pulling 135 cars each. Each car bears 120 tons of coal. At this pace, he says, there is more than 20 years’ worth of coal ready to mine under my feet.

North Antelope Rochelle is among the biggest coal mines in the world. It produced 108 million tons last year — about 10 percent of all the coal burned by the nation’s power plants.

North Antelope Rochelle and the other vast strip mines cutting through the plains of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin — whose low-sulfur carbon met standards imposed by the Clean Air Act — were the result

At the heart of the new global economy are what Prof Nolan calls “systems integrator” companies – businesses with dominant brands and superior technologies, which are at the apex of value chains that serve the global middle classes. These global businesses, in turn, exert enormous pressure on their supply chains, creating ever-rising consolidation there, as well.

Using data from 2006-09, Prof Nolan concludes that the number of globally dominant businesses in the manufacture of large commercial aircraft and carbonated drinks was two; of mobile telecommunications infrastructure and smart phones, just three; of beer, elevators, heavy-duty trucks and personal computers, four; of digital cameras, six; and of motor vehicles and pharmaceuticals, 10. In these cases, dominant businesses supplied between half and all of the world market. Similar degrees of concentration have emerged, after consolidation, in many industries

The tragedy of Argentina A century of decline

In the 43 years leading up to 1914, GDP had grown at an annual rate of 6%, the fastest recorded in the world.

The country ranked among the ten richest in the world, after the likes of Australia, Britain and the United States, but ahead of France, Germany and Italy.

Squaring the Eurozone’s Vicious Circle

Although eurozone sovereign-debt markets have stabilized, the share of sovereign bonds held by domestic banks has increased sharply in the last few months, accounting for more than half of the net increase in debt emissions in some countries. In Spain and Italy, sovereign bonds now account for roughly 10% of banks’ total assets

What accounts for banks’ growing bias toward their own country’s sovereign debt?

Despite 42 consecutive months of gains in private-sector employment, the unemployment rate is still at 7.3 percent; in December 2007 it was only 4.6 percent. The current unemployment rate is higher now than in 2007 across all age, education, occupation, gender and ethnic groups.

That’s despite the fact that about four million workers have left the labor force, driving the labor force participation rate to a historic low

Although the share of the long-term unemployed has fallen from its peak of 45 percent in 2011 to 38 percent today, it is still far above its 2001-7 average. And about eight million people are working part-time for “economic reasons,”

The Growing Divide Within Developing Economies

Former ECB chief blames governments for euro-crisis

But the 71-year-old French banker said he had warned EU governments of growing economic divergences in the euro area as far back as 2005 and that he had criticised member states, notably France and Germany, for ignoring the deficit and debt rules which underpin the common currency.

Trichet noted that the ECB intervened on bond markets and bought up Greek debt as early as May 2010, when he was still chief and when the first-ever EU bailout was still being drafted. It interevened again in 2011 to buy Italian and Spanish debt when investors started to bet against the larger euro-states.

How Jean Tirole’s Work Helps Explain the Internet Economy

He also said that industries should be regulated differently depending on their distinct characteristics.

Technology isn’t working

Technology isn’t working

n the 1970s the blistering growth after the second world war vanished in both Europe and America. In the early 1990s Japan joined the slump, entering a prolonged period of economic stagnation.

“We’re focusing on the trade impact,” said Mr. Lin, a professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at Peking University’s School of Physics. “Trade changes the location of production and thus affects emissions.”

“Dust, ozone and carbon can accumulate in valleys and basins in California and other Western states,” the statement said.Black carbon is a particular problem because rain does not wash it out of the atmosphere, so it persists across long distances, the statement said. Black carbon is linked to asthma, cancer, emphysema, and heart and lung disease.

The study’s scientists also looked at the impact of China’s export industries on its own air quality. They estimated that in 2006, China’s exporting of goods to the United States was responsible for 7.4 percent of production-based Chinese emissions for sulfur dioxide, 5.7 percent for nitrogen oxides, 3.6 percent for black carbon and 4.6 percent for carbon monoxide.