Friday, April 26, 2013

Hans-Werner Sinn on the EZ

To exit or not to exit.
Hans-Werner Sinn takes on Soros and thinks that Soros is playing with fire. His arguments are clear and supported by the latest EEAG Report (pdf) , especially Chapter 2 

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Quote of the day/month/year/century/millennium ?

Henry Farrell on Social Democracy in Italy and elsewhere

Henry Farrell at aeon ( via CrookedTimber ) observes that
Governments now answer to business, not voters. Mainstream parties grow ever harder to distinguish. Is democracy dead?

Hm... well worth a re-read! 

Jonathan Portes advises on Which Economists we should listen to

Well, I for one, read Jonathan Portes at his blog: NotTheTreasuryView but also at the excellent new site pieria .
What he suggests is
that policymakers and the public should listen to economists who fulfill two criteria: first, they have made empirically testable predictions (conditional or unconditional - see Krugman here) that have proved, by and large, to be broadly consistent with the data; and second, they base those predictions on an analytic framework (not necessarily a formal model) that is persuasive.

SS. For exactly the same two criteria J.Portes proposes, I am not that keen on reading our Yiannis Varoufakis, who contributes at pieria. You see, I have a third criterion, i.e. brevity.

Friday, April 19, 2013

"Debt must be paid back"

Frances Coppola rightly says: "Don't be daft"!
Well, actually, what she says is this:
The reality is that governments do not have to pay all their debt off in one year - in fact most governments pay off little or no debt. What they have to do is service the debt.  
(emphasis added)
I would go further and note that this, in general, applies to corporations as well. Only individuals must pay back debts. (ss. even that last statement is not totally correct !)




Thursday, April 11, 2013

Παράλληλο Νόμισμα και EURO

hm!.. interesting, really!
 Wolfgang Richter, Carlos Abadi & Rafael de Arce Borda  have done some serious head scratching having decided that current policies of EE-Eurogroup-ECB are a scenario which in neither optimal nor realistic.
They propose a temporary regime of parallel currencies for the Euro-Perifery.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Tsipras gives interviews here, there, and everywhere

His last interview was at SKAI TV, here
Most analysts/commentators do not bother to draw conclusions from them. One exception is Mark Weisbrot who attended Tsipras 's presentation and interview at Columbia Univ. in February.
It seems that  Weisbrot was "taken" by young Alexis
Unlike most of the eurozone’s leaders, he knows what is wrong with Greece and the eurozone, and so does his party: austerity.  “We have become the guinea pig for barbaric, violent neoliberal policies,”
He naturally draws the one conclusion one can make heeding to Tsipras sayings:
What is the alternative, if Greeks refuse to submit to the “barbaric, violent, neoliberal” experiment any longer?  Clearly it would involve exiting the euro, and re-negotiating the Greek debt. 
Well, I am not so sure about the second part of his conclusion, the re-negotiating bit, but I am totally in tune with the first part. What other conclusion can anyone draw?
Mark Weisbrot goes on and argues for grexit, but acknowledges
But economic reality is one thing, and political reality is another.  Tsipras and the Syriza party don’t propose leaving the euro, and I would not criticize them for that.  A political party cannot move too far ahead of the electorate, and it could be that the majority of the country is not ready to get rid of the euro.  A government that decided to go that route would want strong backing from the public, and the ability, leadership, and expertise to do it right, so as to minimize the initial damage.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Συνέντευξη Α. Τσίπρα στο ΤΙΤΑΝΙΑ 3/4/13

http://left.gr/news/oi-erotiseis-kai-apantiseis-apo-ti-synenteyxi-typoy-toy-alexi-tsipra

Το κρατάω για ... future reference!

Α. Τσίπρας:
δουλεύουμε και επεξεργαζόμαστε σενάρια πάνω στα οποία θα οικοδομήσουμε και τη διαπραγματευτική μας τακτική
έχουμε σχέδιο ισχυρής διαπραγμάτευσης