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Gene Ellis

How Putin Forged a Pipeline Deal That Derailed - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...eline-deal-that-derailed-.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • How Putin Forged a Pipeline Deal That Derailed
  • The pipeline, known as South Stream, was Mr. Putin’s most important European project, a tool of economic and geopolitical power critical to twin goals: keeping Europe hooked on Russian gas, and further entrenching Russian influence in fragile former Soviet satellite states as part of a broader effort to undermine European unity.
  • The bill that Parliament took up on April 4 was arcane. But it swept aside a host of European regulations — rules that Mr. Putin did not want to abide by — for a pipeline that would deliver gas throughout southern Europe. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage In Diplomatic Defeat, Putin Diverts Pipeline to TurkeyDEC. 1, 2014
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • In France, the leader of the far-right National Front, Marine Le Pen, recently acknowledged that her party had received a loan for 9 million euros, or about $11 million, from a Kremlin-linked bank.
  • Faced with punishing sanctions, a petro-economy pushed to the brink by plunging oil prices and the wildly gyrating value of the ruble, Mr. Putin this month halted the project.
  • Geological surveys suggested that Bulgaria could be sitting atop an underground ocean of natural gas, enough to be self-sufficient for years, enough to eclipse the advantages of South Stream.
  • On April 4, 2014, soon after Mr. Putin annexed Crimea, Bulgaria’s Parliament gave initial passage to a bill that effectively exempted South Stream from a number of European Union regulations, most important, the one that would have forced Gazprom to allow non-Russian gas to flow through the pipeline.
  • “If I hear one more word about competition, I’m going to freeze your you-know-whats off,” Mr. Putin reportedly shouted.
  • The anti-fracking movement became so broad that in January 2012, Parliament banned not only the extraction of shale gas, but even exploration that would quantify the country’s reserves.
  • When the Bulgarian government refused, the European Union cut off tens of millions of euros in regional development funds.
  • In desperate need of the European funds, the prime minister announced the next day that South Stream would be halted until it had full European Union approval.
  • While “he overreached, and he underestimated the response” to his intervention in Ukraine, said Mr. Gray, the former American diplomat, the Russian leader has been “quite effective” in countries like Bulgaria.“He won a great deal by getting Nabucco stopped,” Mr. Gray said. “Ultimately, his goal is to keep as much control over the former parts of the Soviet empire as possible.”
Gene Ellis

The problem with TTIP | vox - 0 views

www.voxeu.org/...problem-ttip

shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • 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...
  • In the areas that are sound, it is mainly that TPP members will probably have to approach the US norms faster than desirable, and possibly faster than they can effectively administer. But there are also areas in which the TPP is not in the interests of most non-US members.
  • However, it is generally accepted that TTIP is more important to Europe than to the US, which greatly strengthens the US’s hand in negotiations.
  • it is widely accepted that the deeper intra-European integration fostered by the Single Market initiative was a major contributor to European prosperity between 1992 and 2007
  • he US has strongly promoted Investor-State Dispute Arbitration in which foreign-owned private firms can seek settlements against governments for taking actions that are not prohibited by the agreements but which reduce the value of investments that the firms have made in member countries.
  • For states that do not have a lot of, say, social or environmental legislation at the time TPP is signed, Investor-State Arbitration threatens to make progress in these dimensions difficult.
  • f China, India or Brazil felt that these disciplines were too arduous or just did not fit, the world trading system would be effectively be split with arguably the most dynamic areas excluded. And given that the TPP would be attractive to smaller economies and that the latter would probably be offered quite accommodating terms, the split would probably deepen rather than the opposite.
  • This reads very much like an agreement to cooperate to make sure that outcomes in the trading system are as the US and EU want them – and with around half of world GDP between them and a further 15% in the rest of TPP, it suggests that the choice facing other will be capitulation vs. exclusion. I fear the latter.
  • Champions of the multilateral system must be much more explicit about its virtues and value – and among these I include Europe (middle-sized countries with a strong belief in negotiated outcomes and order) and China (which has been a massive beneficiary of open markets and non-discrimination to date).
  • urope had better get on with an internally driven liberalisation, especially of services and utilities markets, to stimulate the recovery quite independent of the outside pressures of a trade negotiation;
Gene Ellis

George Soros: how to save the EU from the euro crisis - the speech in full | Business | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ave-eu-from-euro-crisis-speech

shared by Gene Ellis on 09 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • The crisis has also transformed the European Union into something radically different from what was originally intended. The EU was meant to be a voluntary association of equal states but the crisis has turned it into a hierarchy with Germany and other creditors in charge and the heavily indebted countries relegated to second-class status. While in theory Germany cannot dictate policy, in practice no policy can be proposed without obtaining Germany's permission first.
  • Italy now has a majority opposed to the euro and the trend is likely to grow. There is now a real danger that the euro crisis may end up destroying the European Union.
  • The answer to the first question is extremely complicated because the euro crisis is extremely complex. It has both a political and a financial dimension. And the financial dimension can be divided into at least three components: a sovereign debt crisis and a banking crisis, as well as divergences in competitiveness
  • ...37 more annotations...
  • The crisis is almost entirely self-inflicted. It has the quality of a nightmare.
  • My interpretation of the euro crisis is very different from the views prevailing in Germany. I hope that by offering you a different perspective I may get you to reconsider your position before more damage is done. That is my goal in coming here.
  • I regarded the European Union as the embodiment of an open society – a voluntary association of equal states who surrendered part of their sovereignty for the common good.
  • The process of integration was spearheaded by a small group of far sighted statesmen who recognised that perfection was unattainable and practiced what Karl Popper called piecemeal social engineering. They set themselves limited objectives and firm timelines and then mobilised the political will for a small step forward, knowing full well that when they achieved it, its inadequacy would become apparent and require a further step.
    • Gene Ellis
      Gene Ellis on 09 Apr 13
       
      Excellent point!
  • Unfortunately, the Maastricht treaty was fundamentally flawed. The architects of the euro recognised that it was an incomplete construct: a currency union without a political union. The architects had reason to believe, however, that when the need arose, the political will to take the next step forward could be mobilized. After all, that was how the process of integration had worked until then.
  • For instance, the Maastricht Treaty took it for granted that only the public sector could produce chronic deficits because the private sector would always correct its own excesses. The financial crisis of 2007-8 proved that wrong.
  • When the Soviet empire started to disintegrate, Germany's leaders realized that reunification was possible only in the context of a more united Europe and they were prepared to make considerable sacrifices to achieve it. When it came to bargaining, they were willing to contribute a little more and take a little less than the others, thereby facilitating agreement.
  • The financial crisis also revealed a near fatal defect in the construction of the euro: by creating an independent central bank, member countries became indebted in a currency they did not control. This exposed them to the risk of default.
  • Developed countries have no reason to default; they can always print money. Their currency may depreciate in value, but the risk of default is practically nonexistent. By contrast, less developed countries that have to borrow in a foreign currency run the risk of default. To make matters worse, financial markets can actually drive such countries into default through bear raids. The risk of default relegated some member countries to the status of a third world country that became over-indebted in a foreign currency. 
    • Gene Ellis
      Gene Ellis on 09 Apr 13
       
      Again, another excellent point!
    • Gene Ellis
      Gene Ellis on 09 Apr 13
       
      Not quite... Maggie Thatcher, a Conservative; and Gordon Brown, of Labour, both recognized this possible loss of sovereignty (and economic policy weapons they might use to keep the UK afloat), and refused to join the euro.
  • The emphasis placed on sovereign credit revealed the hitherto ignored feature of the euro, namely that by creating an independent central bank the euro member countries signed away part of their sovereign status.
  • Only at the end of 2009, when the extent of the Greek deficit was revealed, did the financial markets realize that a member country could actually default. But then the markets raised the risk premiums on the weaker countries with a vengeance.
  • Then the IMF and the international banking authorities saved the international banking system by lending just enough money to the heavily indebted countries to enable them to avoid default but at the cost of pushing them into a lasting depression. Latin America suffered a lost decade.
  • In effect, however, the euro had turned their government bonds into bonds of third world countries that carry the risk of default.
  • In retrospect, that was the root cause of the euro crisis.
  • The burden of responsibility falls mainly on Germany. The Bundesbank helped design the blueprint for the euro whose defects put Germany into the driver's seat.
  • he fact that Greece blatantly broke the rules has helped to support this attitude. But other countries like Spain and Ireland had played by the rules;
  • the misfortunes of the heavily indebted countries are largely caused by the rules that govern the euro.
    • Gene Ellis
      Gene Ellis on 09 Apr 13
       
      Well, yes, but this is an extremely big point.  If, instead of convergence, we continue to see growth patterns growing apart, what then?
  • Germany did not seek the dominant position into which it has been thrust and it is unwilling to accept the obligations and liabilities that go with it.
  • Austerity doesn't work.
  • As soon as the pressure from the financial markets abated, Germany started to whittle down the promises it had made at the height of the crisis.
  • What happened in Cyprus undermined the business model of European banks, which relies heavily on deposits. Until now the authorities went out of their way to protect depositors
  • Banks will have to pay risk premiums that will fall more heavily on weaker banks and the banks of weaker countries. The insidious link between the cost of sovereign debt and bank debt will be reinforced.
  • In this context the German word "Schuld" plays a key role. As you know it means both debt and responsibility or guilt.
  • If countries that abide by the fiscal compact were allowed to convert their entire existing stock of government debt into eurobonds, the positive impact would be little short of the miraculous.
  • Only the divergences in competitiveness would remain unresolved.
  • Germany is opposed to eurobonds on the grounds that once they are introduced there can be no assurance that the so-called periphery countries would not break the rules once again. I believe these fears are misplaced.
  • Losing the privilege of issuing eurobonds and having to pay stiff risk premiums would be a powerful inducement to stay in compliance.
  • There are also widespread fears that eurobonds would ruin Germany's credit rating. eurobonds are often compared with the Marshall Plan.
  • It is up to Germany to decide whether it is willing to authorise eurobonds or not. But it has no right to prevent the heavily indebted countries from escaping their misery by banding together and issuing eurobonds. In other words, if Germany is opposed to eurobonds it should consider leaving the euro and letting the others introduce them.
  • Individual countries would still need to undertake structural reforms. Those that fail to do so would turn into permanent pockets of poverty and dependency similar to the ones that persist in many rich countries.
  • They would survive on limited support from European Structural Funds and remittances
  • Second, the European Union also needs a banking union and eventually a political union.
  • If Germany left, the euro would depreciate. The debtor countries would regain their competitiveness. Their debt would diminish in real terms and, if they issued eurobonds, the threat of default would disappear. 
Gene Ellis

World leaders scramble to respond to Ukraine-Russian conflict - 0 views

www.usatoday.com/...5928479

shared by Gene Ellis on 04 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Interactive: Key geography, demographics in Ukraine
Gene Ellis

Is Europe's gas supply threatened by the Ukraine crisis? | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...raine-crisis-russsia-pipelines

shared by Gene Ellis on 04 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Is Europe's gas supply threatened by the Ukraine crisis?
  • more than a quarter of the EU's total gas needs were met by Russian gas, and some 80% of it came via Ukrainian pipelines. Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Poland soon reported gas pressure in their own pipelines was down by as much as 30%.
  • While it was eventually resolved through a complex deal that saw Ukraine buying gas from Russia (at full price) and Turkmenistan (at cut price) via a Swiss-registered Gazprom subsidiary
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • But three years later, the same row erupted again: Gazprom demanded a price hike to $400-plus from $250, Kiev flatly refused, and on New Year's day 2009, Gazprom began pumping only enough gas to meet the needs of its customers beyond Ukraine.
  • Again, the consequences were marked. Inevitably, Russia accused Ukraine of siphoning off supplies meant for European customers to meet its own needs, and cut supplies completely
  • several countries – particularly in south-eastern Europe, almost completely dependent on supplies from Ukraine – simply ran out of gas.
  • Bulgaria shut down production in its main industrial plants; Slovakia declared a state of emergency
  • Many industry experts, though, point out that the world has changed since 2009, and that there are any number of reasons why Moscow's natural gas supplies may not prove quite the potent economic and diplomatic weapon they once were.
  • higher than normal temperatures are forecast to continue for several weeks yet, significantly reducing demand for gas and leaving prices at their lowest for two years
  • since the first "gas war" of 2006, many European countries have made huge efforts to increase their gas storage capacity and stocks are high. Some countries, such as Bulgaria, Slovakia and Moldova, which lack large storage capacity and depend heavily on gas supplies via Ukraine, would certainly suffer from any disruption in supplies
  • New Gazprom pipelines via Belarus and the Baltic Sea to Germany (Nord Stream) have cut the proportion of Gazprom's Europe-bound exports that transit via Ukraine to around half the total, meaning only about 15% of Europe's gas now relies on Ukraine's pipelines. Gazprom is also planning a Black Sea pipeline (South Stream), expected in 2015, meaning its exports to Europe will bypass Ukraine completely. Ukraine itself has cut its domestic gas consumption by nearly 40% over the past few years, halving its imports from Russia in the process.
  • Europe is increasingly installing specialist terminals that will allow gas to be imported from countries such as Qatar in the form of liquefied natural gas – while Norway's Statoil sold more gas to European countries in 2012 than Gazprom did. "Since the Russian supply cuts of 2006 and 2009, the tables have totally turned," Anders åslund, an energy advisor to both the Russian and Ukrainian governments, told the Washington Post.
  • Europe accounts for around a third of Gazprom's total gas sales, and around half of Russia's total budget revenue comes from oil and gas. Moscow needs that source of revenue, and whatever Vladimir Putin's geo-political ambitions, most energy analysts seem to agree he will think twice about jeopardising it.
Gene Ellis

Missing Growth Multipliers by Ashoka Mody - Project Syndicate - 0 views

www.project-syndicate.org/...conomic-outlook-by-ashoka-mody

growth project syndicate

shared by Gene Ellis on 12 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • The eurozone has been at the epicenter of this contractionary force on global growth. Since eurozone countries trade extensively with each other and the rest of the world, their slowdowns have contributed significantly to a decrease in global trade, in turn undermining global growth. In particular, as European imports from East Asia have fallen, East Asian economies’ growth is down sharply from last year and the 2010 forecast – and, predictably, growth in their imports from the rest of the world has lost momentum.
Gene Ellis

Germany May Not Offer Best Lessons for Weaker Euro-Zone States - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...4543904577396391401884860.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 11 May 12 - No Cached
  • 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.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • While German interest rates remained little changed, rates in Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy tumbled, fueling consumption and swelling their imports of German cars and other products.
  • Now, budget stringency is being accompanied by labor-market reforms across Southern Europe.
  • At best, these adjustments yield benefits only after several years,
  • "The ECB was created with the mission to avoid the inflation of the 1970s and 1980s, when there was global inflation. Now we have global deflationary pressure, we need a different point of view," he says.
  • They say it's arithmetically impossible for every economy in the world to build growth on the German model of export success; and if every country in the euro zone is to do it, they need to find others willing to run big deficits in the rest of the world.
Gene Ellis

Coming Full Circle in Energy, to Nuclear - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ing-full-circle-in-energy.html

coal nuclear

shared by Gene Ellis on 10 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • 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
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Today renewable energy supplies only about 6 percent of American demand. And most of that comes from water flowing through dams. Solar energy contributes next to nothing.
  • The arithmetic is merciless. To make it likely that the world’s temperature will rise no more than 2 degrees Celsius above the average of the preindustrial era — a target agreed to by the world’s governments in 2010 — humanity must spew no more than 900 billion more tons of carbon dioxide into the air from now through 2050 and only 75 billion tons after that, according to an authoritative new study in Britain.
  • The United States Energy Information Administration forecasts that global energy consumption will grow 56 percent between now and 2040.
  • “We have trillions of tons of coal resources in the world,” Vic Svec, spokesman for Peabody Energy, told me. “You can expect the world to use them all.”
  • The only way around this is to put something in coal’s place, at a reasonably competitive price. Neither the warm glow of the sun nor the restless power of the wind is going to do the trick, at least not soon enough to make a difference in the battle to prevent climate change.
Gene Ellis

Why China will not buy the world - FT.com - 0 views

www.ft.com/...ba-11e2-babb-00144feabdc0.html

China will not buy the world

shared by Gene Ellis on 10 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • 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
  • Much the same concentration can be seen among component suppliers.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Such a business “typically possesses some combination of a number of key attributes, among them the capability to raise finance for large new projects and the resources necessary to fund a high level of research and development spending to sustain technological leadership, to develop a global brand, to invest in state-of-the-art information technology and to attract the best human resources”.
  • Moreover, “one hundred giant firms, all from the high-income countries, account for over three-fifths of the total R&D expenditure among the world’s top 1,400 companies. They are the foundation of the world’s technical progress in the era of capitalist globalisation”.
  • This creates growing tension, as governments find “their” companies ever harder to tax or regulate.
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
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • 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

Reversing the Flow of Oil - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...eversing-the-flow-of-oil-.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 08 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Reversing the Flow of Oil
  • “Economically, it means that money that was flowing out of the United States into sovereign wealth funds and treasuries around the world will now stay in the U.S. and be invested in the U.S., creating jobs. It doesn’t change everything, but it certainly provides a new dimension to U.S. influence in the world.”
  • The oil bounty is thanks to modern production techniques including hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves injecting water and chemicals into the ground to crack oil-saturated shale.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Domestic oil production has rocketed by roughly 70 percent over the last six years to 8.7 million barrels a day, and imports from members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have already been cut roughly by half.
  • many oil experts predict that the country’s output will rise to as much as 12 million barrels a day over the nex
  • Shale oil is predominately light, sweet oil, meaning it is low in sulfur content and flows freely at room temperature.
  • United States exports of oil could reach three million to four million barrels a day in a few years, more than most OPEC producers currently provide world markets.
Gene Ellis

Pollution Around the World: A Matter of Choices - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...world-a-matter-of-choices.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 21 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Pollution Around the World: A Matter of Choices
Gene Ellis

In Push to Assert Rights, China Plans to Send 2nd Oil Rig to Waters Near Vietnam - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ig-to-waters-near-vietnam.html

shared by Gene Ellis on 18 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • In Push to Assert Rights, China Plans to Send 2nd Oil Rig to Waters Near Vietnam
  • though in fact many were owned by proprietors based in Taiwan
Gene Ellis

Countries of the World - 30 years of CIA World Fact Books - 0 views

www.theodora.com/wfb

shared by Gene Ellis on 04 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Countries of the World
Gene Ellis

This one number explains how China is taking over the world - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...china-is-taking-over-the-world

SWIFT global finance

shared by Gene Ellis on 03 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • This one number explains how China is taking over the world
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