The Federal Reserve is well into its third round of “quantitative easing,” in which it buys longer-term assets to bring down long-term lending rates.
Group items matching
in title, tags, annotations or urlEfforts to Revive the Economy Lead to Worries of a Bubble - NYTimes.com - 0 views
-
-
In March, a smaller percentage of working-age people were actually working than at any other time since 1979.
-
In March, a smaller percentage of working-age people were actually working than at any other time since 1979.
- ...6 more annotations...
Oversize Expectations for the Airbus A380 - NYTimes.com - 0 views
-
this aircraft, which can hold more than 500 passengers. The plane dwarfs every commercial jet in the skies.
-
Its two full-length decks total 6,000 square feet, 50 percent more than the original jumbo jet, the Boeing 747.
-
The A380 was also Airbus’s answer to a problematic trend: More and more passengers meant more flights and increasingly congested tarmacs. Airbus figured that the future of air travel belonged to big planes flying between major hubs.
- ...17 more annotations...
Even Greece Exports Rise in Europe's 11% Jobless Recovery - Bloomberg - 0 views
-
“The current- account deficits of countries that have been under stress diminished over the last years considerably.”
-
Just two of 14 euro-zone government leaders have kept their posts in elections since late 2009 and extremists such as Golden Dawn in Greece are gaining support.
-
“The internal rebalancing in the euro area is progressing,” said Fels. “Some of them, especially Spain but also Portugal not to speak of Ireland, are regaining competitiveness.”
- ...18 more annotations...
French Tax Proposal Tackles Data Harvest by Google and Facebook - NYTimes.com - 0 views
-
Internet companies like Amazon.com, Facebook and Google stay largely out of reach of tax collectors in large European countries like Britain, France and Germany by routing their sales through smaller countries, like Ireland and Luxembourg, where corporate tax rates are lower. The companies insist that such practices are permitted under European Union law and international taxation treaties.
-
France and other countries have begun talks to change those conventions, so Internet companies could be taxed in the country where a sale takes place, rather than in the location where the transaction is recorded. But that could take many years, with no guarantee of any change.
-
A recent study by Ovum, a research firm in London, showed that 81 percent of Internet users in France would use a “do not track” feature on Web sites if it were readily available. That was the highest percentage in any of the 11 countries surveyed.
The Eurozone's Delayed Reckoning by Nouriel Roubini - Project Syndicate - 0 views
-
For starters, the European Central Bank’s “outright monetary transactions” program has been incredibly effective: interest-rate spreads for Spain and Italy have fallen by about 250 basis points, even before a single euro has been spent to purchase government bonds.
-
The introduction of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which provides another €500 billion ($650 billion) to be used to backstop banks and sovereigns, has also helped, as has European leaders’ recognition that a monetary union alone is unstable and incomplete, requiring deeper banking, fiscal, economic, and political integration.
-
But, perhaps most important, Germany’s attitude toward the eurozone in general, and Greece in particular, has changed. German officials now understand that, given extensive trade and financial links, a disorderly eurozone hurts not just the periphery but the core.
- ...10 more annotations...
Oil tanker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views
-
Oil tankers are often classified by their size as well as their occupation. The size classes range from inland or coastal tankers of a few thousand metric tons of deadweight (DWT) to the mammoth ultra large crude carriers (ULCCs) of 550,000 DWT.
-
The expense was significant: for example, in the early years of the Russian oil industry, barrels accounted for half the cost of petroleum production.[10]
-
While a typical T2 tanker of the World War II era was 532 feet (162 m) long and had a capacity of 16,500 DWT, the ultra-large crude carriers (ULCC) built in the 1970s were over 1,300 feet (400 m) long and had a capacity of 500,000 DWT.[29]
- ...3 more annotations...
PORTFOLIO.HU | Blanchard: Eurozone integration needs to go forward or go back, but it can't stay here - 0 views
-
And, while lower investment since the beginning of the crisis has led to a smaller capital stock, again the effect appears quantitatively small. It is also difficult to see why the crisis would have led to a large decrease in total factor productivity. This being said, I would have expected a large output gap to lead to more downward pressure on inflation than we have seen. I see the fact that inflation is roughly stable is a puzzle. We are doing more research on this issue at the IMF.
-
O.B.:There is no question internal devaluations are tougher to achieve than when you can adjust the nominal exchange rate. That’s well understood. A number of European countries have a competitiveness problem, which shows up in a large current account deficit.
-
olve it. And there is no alternative for them than to become more competitive, to decrease the real exchange rate. Is it happening? I think it’s starting to happen, but it’s happening slowly, and it’s going to take a long time.
- ...3 more annotations...
A Declining Euro Can't Cure All Ills - WSJ.com - 0 views
-
but what would in normal times be a boon for the region may not help as much now, experts say.
-
Before the crisis, actions such as the European Central Bank rate cuts two weeks ago would have had a twofold effect in reviving the economy: Banks would have passed the lower rate on to their clients, while foreign-exchange markets would have marked the currency down, giving exporters better chances to sell their products abroad.
-
In today's polarized euro zone, it isn't that simple. For one thing, tThere is no certainty that euro-zone banks will pass on the cut in borrowing costs.
- ...5 more annotations...
Crippled eurozone to face fresh debt crisis this year, warns ex-ECB strongman Axel Weber - Telegraph - 0 views
-
Crippled eurozone to face fresh debt crisis this year, warns ex-ECB strongman Axel Weber
-
Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff said the launch of the euro had been a "giant historic mistake, done to soon" that now requires a degree of fiscal union and a common bank resolution fund to make it work, but EMU leaders are still refusing to take these steps.
-
"People are no longer talking about the euro falling apart but youth unemployment is really horrific. They can't leave this twisting in wind for another five years," he said.
- ...8 more annotations...
A Multibillion-Dollar Question for Airbus and Its A330 - NYTimes.com - 0 views
-
A Multibillion-Dollar Question for Airbus and Its A330
-
While the A330 continues to generate around 40 percent of Airbus’s civilian aircraft profits, new orders for the plane have slowed significantly in recent years.
-
But with the wait times to receive new planes now stretching to more than six years, airlines have been slower to reach for their checkbooks.
- ...5 more annotations...
The problem with TTIP | vox - 0 views
-
The problem with TTIP
-
The TPP is a deep international integration arrangement between the US and 11 other Pacific states, which would cover 40% of world GDP and over 30% of world trade. It seeks to address as series of issues that 21st century commerce, but arguably its most obvious feature is that it excludes China – the world’s largest international trader and before long the world’s largest economy. There are, of course, the ritual genuflections towards ‘open regionalism’ – China can join if only it will agree to the necessary policy requirements – but this is about as much use as saying the Chief Rabbi can dine with you while insisting that the menu contains pork.
-
By signing TTIP Europe would be tying itself to a static rather than a dynamic part of the world economy and substantially reinforcing the US’s exclusionary policies.
- ...9 more annotations...
Russia restricting Austria's gas supplies - The Local - 0 views
-
Russia restricting Austria's gas supplies
-
According to the energy regulator E-Control, Gazprom supplied Austria 15 percent less gas than had been previously agreed. Similar issues have hit Poland, which has seen their supplies cut by 45 percent, and Slovakia, which has ten percent less gas than expected for the period.
-
Poland on Thursday accused Russia's Gazprom of slashing gas deliveries by half, which analysts said was likely aimed at sending a message to the EU amid tensions over the Ukraine conflict.
- ...3 more annotations...
The German locomotive has become Europe's liability - FT.com - 0 views
-
It is true German exports to Russia and eastern Europe have declined since the beginning of the year. But, given that they never accounted for more than 4 per cent of total exports, this does little to explain the country’s lacklustre performance.
-
The main problem is not weak export demand or the reluctance of consumers to spend money but the fact that companies are unwilling to invest in new productive assets. Investment now accounts for a smaller portion of output in Germany than in most other industrialised countries.
-
Germany’s public investment in transport infrastructure and education has long been among the lowest in Europe.
- ...1 more annotation...
IBM Wants to Invent the Chips of the Future, Not Make Them - NYTimes.com - 0 views
-
For several months, IBM has been seeking to sell its chip-manufacturing operations
-
The most likely buyer is GlobalFoundries, a large contract chip manufacturer, the person said, for a price of probably less than $2 billion.
-
Ms. Rometty stated that while IBM’s priorities were in fields like data analytics and cloud computing, and it had agreed to sell its industry-standard computer server business to Lenovo of China for $2.3 billion, she added: “But let me be clear — we are not exiting hardware.”
- ...3 more annotations...
BBC - Future - Taiwan's struggle to become an innovation leader - 0 views
-
You may not have heard of the companies Quanta Computer, Compal Electronics, Pegatron, Wistron and Inventec, but together they make more than 90% of the laptops sold worldwide, including those sold by top brands such as Apple and Dell.
-
With a population of a little over 23 million, the island has a relatively small domestic market, and its companies tend to be small and medium in size, rather than the government-backed giants of some of its neighbours.
-
Last year Taiwan’s companies and individuals obtained 11,628 patents from the US Patent and Trade Office, compared to 14,196 for South Korea, despite Taiwan’s much smaller population.
The euro is in greater peril today than at the height of the crisis - FT.com - 0 views
-
The euro is in greater peril today than at the height of the crisis
-
Two years ago forecasters were hoping for strong economic recovery. Now we know it did not happen, nor is it about to happen.
-
Today the eurozone has no mechanism to defend itself against a drawn-out depression. And, unlike two years ago, policy makers have no appetite to create such a mechanism.
- ...4 more annotations...
Global flows in a digital age | McKinsey & Company - 0 views
-
Global flows in a digital age
-
Now, one in three goods crosses national borders, and more than one-third of financial investments are international transactions. In the next decade, global flows could triple,
-
Exchanges of goods such as aircraft and automobiles, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and microelectronics, as well as professional services and foreign direct investment flows, are growing faster than others.
- ...4 more annotations...
France and Europe: More special pleading | The Economist - 0 views
-
Bureaucratic France has 90 public-sector staff per 1,000 people compared to 50 in Germany. Most enjoy almost total job security.
-
France’s serial requests are treated as duplicitous by those who ask why big countries break rules that smaller ones have to obey (a game that first began when France and Germany bust the stability pact in 2002). The Hollande government has already been given one delay
-
Another would mark the third time in seven years that France has missed targets.
- ...2 more annotations...
Learning about global value chains by looking beyond official trade data: Part 1 | vox - 0 views
-
Gross trade accounting: A transparent method to discover global value chain-related information behind official trade data: Part 1
-
With the rapid increase in intermediate trade flows, trade economists and policymakers have reached a near consensus that official trade statistics based on gross terms are deficient, often hiding the extent of global value chains. There is also widespread recognition among the official international statistics agencies that fragmentation of global production requires a new approach to measure trade, in particular the need to measure trade in value-added. This led the WTO and the OECD to launch a joint “Measuring Trade in Value-Added” initiative on 15 March 2012, which is designed to mainstream the production of trade in value-added statistics and make them a permanent part of the statistical landscape.
-
All the estimation methods used in recent efforts to measure trade in value-added are rooted in Leontief (1936). His work demonstrated that the amount and type of intermediate inputs needed in the production of one unit of output can be estimated based on the input-output structures across countries and industries.
- ...6 more annotations...