THE European Monetary Union, the basis of the euro, began with a grand illusion. On one side were countries — Austria, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands — whose currencies had persistently appreciated, both within Europe and worldwide; the countries on the other side — Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain — had persistently depreciating currencies.
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in title, tags, annotations or urlOp-Ed Contributor - The Greek crisis shows why Germany should leave the European Monetary Union. - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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Rather than pulling the lagging countries forward, the low interest rates of the European Central Bank have lured governments and households, especially in the southern part of the euro zone, into frivolous budgetary policies and excessive consumption.
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the solution is clear: the only way to avoid further harm to the global economy is for Germany to lead its fellow stable states out of the euro and into a new and stronger currency bloc.
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Shinzo Abe's Monetary-Policy Delusions by Stephen S. Roach - Project Syndicate - 0 views
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The reason is not hard to fathom. Hobbled by severe damage to private and public-sector balance sheets, and with policy interest rates at or near zero, post-bubble economies have been mired in a classic “liquidity trap.” They are more focused on paying down massive debt overhangs built up before the crisis than on assuming new debt and boosting aggregate demand.
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The sad case of the American consumer is a classic example of how this plays out. In the years leading up to the crisis, two bubbles – property and credit – fueled a record-high personal-consumption binge. When the bubbles burst, households understandably became fixated on balance-sheet repair – namely, paying down debt and rebuilding personal savings, rather than resuming excessive spending habits.CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraph
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US consumers have pulled back as never before.
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Big trouble from little Cyprus - FT.com - 0 views
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The banks stand on the edge of collapse. But it is the European Central Bank that has pulled the plug by threatening not to accept Cypriot government debt as collateral against liquidity support.
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A restructuring of public debt is still likely. As Hamlet advises: If it be not now, yet it will come.
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Is there no alternative to the bail-ins? Yes: direct bank recapitalisation by the eurozone, for which the sum required is a small matter. If the banking union had been up and running, that would have happened. It is not, presumably because core countries do not want to bail out mismanaged banking systems,
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PIMCO | - TARGET2: A Channel for Europe's Capital Flight - 0 views
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Why Is Zambia So Poor? And Will Things Ever Get Better? - 0 views
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Sixty-four percent of the population lives on less than $1 per day, 14 percent have HIV, 40 percent don’t have access to clean drinking water. Almost 90 percent of women in rural areas cannot read or write. Name a category—schools, health care, environment—and I’ll give you statistics that will depress the shit out of you.
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For more than 150 years, the only reason to come to Kitwe—to Zambia, really—was the copper.
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Most of the buildings in Kitwe, the roads, the health clinics, the schools, were built by the national mining company
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Coming Full Circle in Energy, to Nuclear - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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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.
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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.
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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
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Europe's banking union: Till default do us part | The Economist - 0 views
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Almost a year ago, as the euro crisis raged, Europe’s leaders boldly pledged a union to break the dangerous link between indebted governments and ailing banking systems, where the troubles of one threatened to pull down the other.
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Almost everyone involved agrees that in theory a banking union ought to have three legs.
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a single supervisor
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How to Get a Job at Google - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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How to Get a Job at Google
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noted that Google had determined that “G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. ... We found that they don’t predict anything.”
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“Good grades certainly don’t hurt.” Many jobs at Google require math, computing and coding skills, so if your good grades truly reflect skills in those areas that you can apply, it would be an advantage.
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The Insourcing Boom - Charles Fishman - The Atlantic - 0 views
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The magic is in that head: GE has put a small heat pump up there, and the GeoSpring pulls ambient heat from the air to help heat water. As a result, the GeoSpring uses some 60 percent less electricity than a typical water heater. (You can also control it using your iPhone.)
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The GeoSpring is an innovative product in a mature category
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We really had zero communications into the assembly line there.”
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