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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Gene Ellis

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Gene Ellis

American trade policy: How to make the world $600 billion poorer | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...pensive-mistake-how-make-world

american trade policy

shared by Gene Ellis on 25 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • American trade policy How to make the world $600 billion poorer
  • Reasonable estimates say that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could boost the world’s annual output by $600 billion—equivalent to adding another Saudi Arabia. Some $200 billion of that would accrue to America.
  • And the actual gains could be even larger. The agreements would clear the way for freer trade in services, which account for most of rich countries’ GDP but only a small share of trade. Opening up trade in services could help reduce the cost of everything from shipping to banking, education and health care. Exposing professional occupations to the same global competition that factory workers have faced for decades could even strike a blow against the income inequality that Mr Obama so often decries
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  • Why should Japanese politicians risk infuriating their farmers when any agreement can be torn up on Capitol Hill?
  • Europe’s leaders will now doubt America’s commitment, given how feebly Mr Obama has fought for fast-track. Trade sceptics, such as French farmers, are drooling. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, who is already furious about American spying, may decide that a trade deal is not worth battling for.
  • He seldom mentions, for example, that cheap imports help the poor by cutting their shopping bills, and so reduce inequality of consumption.
Gene Ellis

Steel Industry Feeling Stress as Automakers Turn to Aluminum - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...detroits-aluminum-diet.html

steel industry stress aluminum feeling

shared by Gene Ellis on 25 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Steel Industry Feeling Stress as Automakers Turn to Aluminum
  • These are headed for Mexico, to Navistar’s stamping plant there.Continue reading the main story
  • Now, they are trying to respond, making lighter, stronger steel in a bid to retain one of their most important customers, the automakers.
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  • chief executive of Severstal North America, the United States subsidiary of Russia’s Severstal Group, which now owns the Rouge steel operations.
  • At Severstal’s Dearborn factory, for example, carmakers including Ford and others account for 70 percent of sales,
  • The shift to aluminum is gaining momentum. Automakers are under increasing pressure to meet strict new fuel-economy standards by 2025
  • United States Steel has invested $400 million in a joint venture with Kobe Steel of Japan to make advanced high-strength steel in a Leipsic, Ohio, factory expected to produce 500,000 tons annually.
  • Inside Severstal’s steel mill on a cold January day, hissing heavy machinery removed oxides from steel sheets, reducing their thickness to the equivalent of five human hairs.
  • For nearly a century, Ford’s River Rouge factory and its neighboring steel mill have worked in close harmony
  • Steel makers argue that they still have advantages in price — aluminum can cost as much as three times more — and flexibility, both for the manufacturer and the mechanic who will be fixing the car.“When you build a mass-produced vehicle, you really need to think about the consequences of the supply chain and repair and insurance costs,” Mr. Dey said.
  • new federal fuel-efficiency standards that will require a fleetwide average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, a significant boost from the roughly 25 m.p.g. that vehicles average today.
  • “Sometimes there is a push from the aluminum side, and they win over with a particular model, and steel tends to be the comeback kid, with more innovation,” said Felix Schuler, a Munich-based partner in the Boston Consulting Group’s metals and mining practice.
  • What seems certain is that ordinary steel is likelier to lose out to its new and improved cousin than to aluminum, Mr. Schuler said.
  • Novelis is investing nearly $550 million to upgrade plants in Oswego, N.Y., and Nachterstedt, Germany, and to build a new factory in Changzhou, China, to triple its capacity from a year ago to 900,000 tons annually.
  • Alcoa, the country’s biggest aluminum producer, is investing about $670 million in its Iowa, Tennessee and Saudi Arabia facilities.Continue reading the main story
  • “Henry Ford was a control freak, and he wanted to control as much of the manufacturing as possible,” Mr. Casey said. “He made the steel, he made the glass, he made the tires.”
  • Gene Ellis on 25 Feb 14
     
    "said"
Gene Ellis

Shipping Boom: Hamburg's Port Sees Fruits of German Upturn - SPIEGEL ONLINE - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...of-german-upturn-a-720267.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 21 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Shipping Boom: Hamburg's Port Sees Fruits of German Upturn
Gene Ellis

Ireland should press for debt relief - Buiter - RTÉ News - 0 views

www.rte.ie/...500613-citigroup-economist

shared by Gene Ellis on 21 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Citigroup economist says Ireland should press for debt relief for bailing out banks
Gene Ellis

The tragedy of Argentina: A century of decline | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...hat-went-wrong-century-decline

shared by Gene Ellis on 19 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • 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.
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  • Its income per head was 92% of the average of 16 rich economies
  • Its income per head is now 43% of those same 16 rich economies; it trails Chile and Uruguay in its own back yard.
  • The election of 1989 marked the first time in more than 60 years that a civilian president had handed power to an elected successor.
  • the repeated recessions of the 1970s and 1980s, the hyperinflation of 1989-90, the economic crisis of 2001 and now the possibility of another crisis to come.
  • But three deep-lying explanations help to illuminate the country’s diminishment. Firstly, Argentina may have been rich 100 years ago but it was not modern. That made adjustment hard when external shocks hit. The second theory stresses the role of trade policy. Third, when it needed to change, Argentina lacked the institutions to create successful policies.
  • Railways transformed the economics of agriculture and refrigerated shipping made it possible to export meat on an unprecedented scale: between 1900 and 1916 Argentine exports of frozen beef rose from 26,000 tonnes to 411,000 tonnes a year. But Argentina mainly consumed technology from abroad rather than inventing its own.
  • External shocks duly materialised, which leads to the second theory for Argentine decline: trade policy.
  • Argentina raised import tariffs from an average of 16.7% in 1930 to 28.7% in 1933. Reliance on Britain, another country in decline, backfired as Argentina’s favoured export market signed preferential deals with Commonwealth countries.
  • an existing policy of import substitution deepened; the share of trade as a percentage of GDP continued to fall.
  • High food prices meant big profits for farmers but empty stomachs for ordinary Argentines. Open borders increased farmers’ takings but sharpened competition from abroad for domestic industry.
  • “One-third of the country—the commodities industry, engineers and regional industries like wine and tourism—is ready to compete,” says Sergio Berensztein, a political analyst. “Two-thirds are not.”
  • Property rights are insecure
  • Statistics cannot be trusted: Argentina was due this week to unveil new inflation data in a bid to avoid censure from the IMF for its wildly undercooked previous estimates.
  • hort-termism is embedded in the system
  • “We have spent 50 years thinking about maintaining government spending, not about investing to grow,” says Fernando de la Rúa, a former president who resigned during the 2001 crisis.
  • The country’s Vaca Muerta (“Dead Cow”) shale-oil and gasfield is estimated to be the world’s third-largest. If Argentina can attract foreign capital, the money could start flowing within a decade.
Gene Ellis

How to Build a Perfect Refugee Camp - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ld-a-perfect-refugee-camp.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 19 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • How to Build a Perfect Refugee Camp
Gene Ellis

German Village Resists Plans to Strip It Away for the Coal Underneath - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...y-for-the-coal-underneath.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 19 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • German Village Resists Plans to Strip It Away for the Coal Underneath
Gene Ellis

Dani Rodrik reviews the fundamental lessons about emerging economies that economists ha... - 0 views

www.project-syndicate.org/...onomists-have-refused-to-learn

shared by Gene Ellis on 11 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Death by Finance
  • First, emerging-market hype is just that. Economic miracles rarely occur, and for good reason. Governments that can intervene massively to restructure and diversify the economy, while preventing the state from becoming a mechanism of corruption and rent-seeking, are the exception.
  • the rapid industrialization that they engineered has eluded most of Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
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  • We have long known that portfolio and short-term inflows fuel consumption booms and real-estate bubbles, with disastrous consequences when market sentiment inevitably sours and finance dries up. Governments that enjoyed the rollercoaster ride on the way up should not have been surprised by the plunge that inevitably follows.
  • Third, floating exchange rates are flawed shock absorbers. In theory, market-determined currency values are supposed to isolate the domestic economy from the vagaries of international finance, rising when money floods in and falling when the flows are reversed. In reality, few economies can bear the requisite currency alignments without pain.
  • They must resist the temptation to binge on foreign finance when it is cheap and plentiful.
  • It is true, but unhelpful, to say that governments have only themselves to blame for having recklessly rushed into this wild ride. It is now time to think about how the world can create a saner balance between finance and the real economy.
  • Death by Finance
Gene Ellis

http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focus/2012/q1/pdf/feature1.pdf - 1 views

www.richmondfed.org/...feature1.pdf

shared by Gene Ellis on 09 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Gene Ellis on 09 Feb 14
     
    The Dream behind the Eurozone
Gene Ellis

Marek Belka examines the hurdles that Polish policymakers must surmount prior to euro m... - 0 views

www.project-syndicate.org/...mount-prior-to-euro-membership

shared by Gene Ellis on 07 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Poland’s Eurozone Tests
  • As long as eurozone debts continue to rise and member economies diverge rather than converge, prospective members should also be stress-tested to see if they can withstand external shocks and sustain the membership criteria over the long term.
  • Rather, Poland simply combines low costs (including wages) and high-quality production.
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  • But competitiveness based on cost, rather than brand value or innovation, makes the Polish economy vulnerable.
  • And Poland’s cost advantage would disappear if the złoty were to strengthen sharply.
  • the country must be careful about joining the exchange rate mechanism (ERM II) – the narrow band within which applicant currencies must operate for at least two years prior to adopting the euro. Doing so could cause the złoty to strengthen, as it did to the Slovak koruna, and wipe out Poland’s competitive advantage.
  • One in four employees is on a fixed-term contract or self-employed.
  • But flexible labor markets have disadvantages, too. Companies tend not to invest in talent or develop new skills, and the quality of existing skills can suffer. In the longer run, flexible labor markets also increase structural unemployment and fuel the informal economy.
  • Finally, Poland needs sound public finances – that is, fiscal space for automatic stabilizers during economic crises.
Gene Ellis

German Judges Refer E.C.B. Bond-Buying Plan to European Court - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ng-plan-to-european-court.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 07 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • German Judges Refer E.C.B. Bond-Buying Plan to European Court
Gene Ellis

Long-Haul Expansion by a Norwegian Carrier Upsets U.S. Airlines - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...arrier-upsets-us-airlines.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 07 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Long-Haul Expansion by a Norwegian Carrier Upsets U.S. Airlines
Gene Ellis

Nouriel Roubini explains why many previously fast-growing economies suddenly find thems... - 0 views

www.project-syndicate.org/...selves-facing-strong-headwinds

shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Nonetheless, the threat of a full-fledged currency, sovereign-debt, and banking crisis remains low, even in the Fragile Five, for several reasons
  • All have flexible exchange rates,
  • a large war chest of reserves
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • and fewer currency mismatches
  • Many also have sounder banking systems, while their public and private debt ratios, though rising, are still low
  • But the short-run policy tradeoffs that many of these countries face – damned if they tighten monetary and fiscal policy fast enough, and damned if they do not – remain ugly.
  • As it is widely known, transfer pricing is the major tool for corporate tax avoidance, and it creates current account deficit when a multinational company receives from its own branch
  • abroad, the previously transferred own profit, as a debt.
Gene Ellis

Ukraine: Running in Place | Open Society Foundations (OSF) - 0 views

www.opensocietyfoundations.org/...ukraine-running-place

shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Ukraine: Running in Place
  • Corruption is simultaneously a cause and symptom of this situation. According to Transparency International’s 2008 Global Corruption Report, higher education is widely considered one of the most corrupt spheres in Ukrainian life. The report cites a survey conducted the previous year by Management Systems International and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in which 47.3 percent of respondents said a bribe was demanded up front in their dealings with universities, while 29 percent said they gave a bribe on their own initiative.
  • Many teachers, from the primary to the university level, received their formal education 10 or 20 years ago and have not updated their qualifications since. There is no movement to force teachers at any level to update their skills.
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  • “The Ukrainian education system has retained its Soviet shape,” Kasianov said. “It worked in a mono-ideological system with a centralized economic and social system. But now it is outdated. It needs to be reformed to meet the needs of a mobile market economy, a globalized world, and a fluid society.”
Gene Ellis

List of International Organization for Standardization standards - Wikipedia, the free ... - 1 views

en.wikipedia.org/...List_of_ISO_standards

shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 14 - Cached
  • List of International Organization for Standardization standards
Gene Ellis

World Bank Blogs - 0 views

blogs.worldbank.org

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Gene Ellis

Designer Seed Thought to Be Latest Target by Chinese - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ultural-espionage-efforts.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Designer Seed Thought to Be Latest Target by Chinese
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