2008年12月31日星期三
替代需求弄死了PSP
中央现在也在考虑怎样构建网络规则,怎样统治网络
传统企业、传统家庭和中国社会
中国的先贤们
2008年12月30日星期二
【政府挽救房市】重庆地产商深陷高利贷危机
也谈经济学的运用
2008年12月29日星期一
tax swap?
理论指导实践
What Did Barack Obama Know and When Did He Know it?
typepad
TypePad is a blogging service from company Six Apart Ltd, and the largest paid blogging service in the world.Originally launched in October 2003, TypePad is based on Six Apart's Movable Type platform, and shares technology with Movable Type such as templates and APIs, but is marketed to non-technical users and includes additional features like multiple author support, photo albums and moblogging.The service is available in several languages and countries around the world, but in the United States is sold at three different subscription levels.TypePad is currently used by many large organizations and media companies to host their weblog, such as ABC, MSNBC, the CBC, the BBC and Sky News.On June 9, 2008, Steve Jobs announced Typepad will be available for the iPhone in early July.
how about a GDP Balance Sheet?
在宏观上,经济学家喜欢分为总供给和总需求,而且喜欢把
那么利润表,现金流量表,所有者权益变动表?
2008年12月28日星期日
CEA VS. NEC
第五项修炼
重庆一锰厂发生喷炉事故致6人死
2008年12月27日星期六
全球失序与失衡
中介
看看经济学家都有哪些变量去反映我们的身外之物---经济活动
每场危机的解决都为下一场危机埋下了种子
面对“狄克推多”
这里不妨以他们自己的话语呈堂。
30年代,一位记者采访鲁迅时说:苏联是无产阶级专政的,智识阶级就要饿死。鲁迅回答:“无产阶级专政,不是为了将来的无阶级社会么?只要你不去谋害它,自然成功就早,阶级的消灭也就早,那时就谁也不会‘饿死’了。”鲁迅当然难以逆料几十年后大面积饿死人的情形;但,对专政的信任和表述如此简陋,确也让人汗颜,因为这是一个民族最深刻的大脑。《解放了的堂·吉诃德》是象征苏俄革命的一出话剧,剧中的革命者有一段道白:“是的,我们是专制魔王,我们是专政的。你看这把剑——看见罢?——它和贵族的剑一样,杀起人来是很准的;不过他们的剑是为着奴隶制度去杀人,我们的剑是为着自由去杀人。”这不啻是苏俄专政的宣言,鲁迅却为此颔首:“这是解剖得十分明白的。”
鲁迅晚年支持专政却几乎不谈民主,胡适一生力推民主——当然是英美制度框架中的民主。但在专政问题上,有过一个认知上的误区。误区发生在莫斯科,1926年胡适去过那里三天。他轻易接受了一位美国左派和一位苏俄外交官员的诱导。那位“美左”这样忽悠他:“向来作dictator(独裁者)的,总想愚民以自固权力。此间一切设施,尤其是教育的设施,都注意在实地造成一辈新国民,……此一辈新国民造成之日,即是Dictatorship可以终止之时。”这样的表述和上面一样,压迫是为了取消压迫,专政是为了终止专政。看来一个美好的“为了”不啻一贴蒙汗药,它让人只迷惑目标,却罔顾它的实现方式及后果,以致为了明天的美好,今天可以行使罪恶。可是,人们从来都活在今天而非明天,没有为明天就要拿今天作牺牲的道理。但吃亏再多,人类因其固有的弱点,怕都难以摆脱“目的伦理”的道德魅力。
于是,身在国外的胡适几乎向国内复制了那位“美左”的观点:“狄克推多向来是不肯放弃已得之权力的,故其下的政体总是趋向愚民政策。苏俄虽是狄克推多,但他们却真是用力办教育,努力想造成一个社会主义的新时代。依此趋势认真做去,将来可以由狄克推多过渡到社会主义的民治制度。”胡适的看法当即遭到徐志摩等人的批评。胡适后来反戈,说:“‘狄克推多’制之下,只有顺逆,没有是非”;又说:“独裁政治之下的阿斗,天天自以为专政,然而他们只能画‘诺’而不能画‘No’。”但,对专政的看法,胡适留下了他认知上的“前科”。
书写20世纪的思想史绕不过胡鲁,却不会有人想到徐志摩。如果把当时胡鲁的时论文字和徐志摩放在一起,尤其在苏俄、专政、革命等百年以来这一系列致命问题上,徐的言论比前两位更经得起历史的挑剔。比如针对以上的胡适,徐志摩说:由愚民政策过渡到民治制度,“等于说由俄国式共产主义过渡到英国的工党,或是由列宁过渡到麦克唐诺尔德”,这两者间的不可能性徐志摩看得清楚、说得明白。在自由主义的学理上,胡适功夫未深,作为诗人的徐志摩却不浅。
徐志摩分明看出“一党完全专制治下”,“你没有选择的权利”,“只能依,不能异”。因此,他的推论是:“即使一党的狄克推多,尤其是一阶级的狄克推多,的确是改造社会最有捷效的一个路子,但单只开辟这条路,我怕再没有更血腥的工作了。”这是他比胡鲁高明的地方,不是为了明天,今天就可以流血。他更看重如何避免今天的血腥——这是“责任伦理”的表述。专制的血腥在于:“除了你‘宗教化’你的党的目标(绝对的信服,不怀疑教主或教义),武力化你的党的手段,你就不能期望苏俄革命的效果。”思想上的“宗教化”和手段上的“武力化”,是徐志摩概括出的苏俄专政的两个特点,这纯然一副思想家的手笔。诗人僭越,它很难出于惯称为思想家的鲁迅。
在面对苏俄的价值坐标上,徐、胡、鲁不妨是一个左中右。徐志摩是反苏俄专制的,正如鲁迅是支持。胡适一度徘徊,最后走向反专制。不妨注意一下他们对专制态度的时间表,徐志摩批苏俄在前(20年代),鲁迅拥戴苏俄在后(30年代)。因此,就中国知识人对苏俄专政的认知谱系言,鲁迅是徐志摩的倒退和反动。
但,历史却朝着鲁迅的方向延伸……■
邵建:学者,任教于南京晓庄学院
以个案评价机制防止司法腐败
2008年,京城巨贪的“落马”扰动得地产界风声鹤唳。原北京市海淀区区长周良洛,于3月28日上午在北京市二中院领受了死缓判决。其为官14载,收受1672万元贿赂,其中九成来自土地审批和房产项目。同样案起京城地产寻租的北京市原副市长刘志华,则于 10月18日在河北省衡水市中级法院一审被判死缓。其单独或伙同情妇收受贿款(物)共计折合人民币696.59万元,同样有九成源自京城地产项目。
和地产界一样惴惴不安的,还有证券界。2008年6月8日端午节当天,前国家开发银行副行长、原中国证监会副主席王益因严重违纪,在出差返京后被有关部门隔离审查。不过,时至六个月后的今天,王益一案尚无任何已进入司法程序的公开消息。
保险业“硕鼠”关国亮,在案发两年后,于2008年11月25日走上了北京市二中院的被告席。关受到职务侵占、挪用资金两项指控。保监会2006年的调查显示,关擅用新华人寿资金累计近130亿元,而检方的指控已缩水到2.61亿元。新华人寿和股东们将面对追债难题。
在资本市场,三度加冕为内地“首富”的黄光裕,留给世人的更是一团迷雾。2008年11月19日晚间,黄光裕因涉嫌经济犯罪被北京警方带走调查。拥有20多万员工及数百亿银行贷款的“国美系”终将走向何方?黄发家历程的种种瑕疵能否左右该案走向?人们持续观望。
2008年8月13日,因涉嫌受贿,商务部条法司正司级巡视员郭京毅被有关部门“双规”。他的同学、北京思峰律师事务所主任张玉栋以及曾在该所担任律师的刘阳亦牵涉其中。不久后的9月下旬,商务部原外国投资管理司副司长、中国外商投资企业协会副会长邓湛即因涉嫌腐败犯罪被相关部门采取强制措施。
10月底,商务部条法司行政法律处处长杜宝忠被抓。随后,国家工商总局外商投资企业注册局副局长刘伟被刑拘。一条利用外资并购审查权力而结成的寻租腐败链由是渐次清晰。
司法系统内部同样大案频发。现年51岁原最高人民法院副院长黄松有,因涉嫌以权谋私、严重经济问题和生活腐化“三宗罪”,于2008年10月15日被中央纪检部门带走接受调查。黄案发重要起因是牵涉广东杨贤才案。杨为广东高院副巡视员、原广东高院执行庭庭长(该庭后更名为执行局),已于此前的2008年6月下旬涉案被查。
在首都司法系统中浸淫30余载的西城区人民法院原党组书记、院长郭生贵,则于2008年10月30日被北京市第一中级人民法院以受贿罪、贪污罪数罪并罚,一审判处死刑,缓期两年执行。
同样掀起舆论风暴的要案,除了身居要职的高官们,还有本来默默无闻的北京青年杨佳。事发149天后,独闯上海市闸北区政法办公大楼、连续捅伤九名民警和一名保安并致其中六名警察死亡的杨佳,于11月26日上午被执行死刑。
在2008年年底“尘埃落定”的案件还有“华南虎照风波”。11月17日晚,周正龙在陕西省安康市旬阳县法院迎来了终审判决。在法庭上坚持认罪、独揽全责的周正龙,因“有较好的认罪态度和明显的悔罪表现”,被改判有期徒刑两年六个月,缓期三年执行。其律师称:“或许只有时间能够揭开虎照风波的真相。”
今天早上起来,赖世兵打扮自己
在中国,政府和私人
2008年12月26日星期五
周而复始千古不变 中国历史十大定律
我们怎样去量化这个世界
温家宝去新校区
稳定经济学
【人大审议】《劳动合同法》遭遇执行难
在“保企业”与保障劳工权益两者之间,决策的天平需要寻求新的平衡
社会保险法二审稿争议
2008年12月25日星期四
拯救最贫穷的10亿人
保罗•柯里尔,牛津大学非洲经济研究中心(Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford university)主任,对非洲经济进行了长达30年的研究。在这部出色的著作中,他运用自己的研究成果,回答了发展中最重要的问题:为什么现在有如此多的国家正走向失败?
发展中国家约80%的人口生活在人民日渐富裕的国家里。数十亿人生活在快速发展的国家中。但是,约有10亿人口——其中70%居住在撒哈拉以南的非洲国家——生活在经济陷入停顿或衰退的国家。总共有58个国家处在这种绝望的境地。然而,正如柯里尔所言:“一个10亿人口的贫民区,将越来越不可能被舒适的世界所忍受。”
柯里尔认为,这些国家陷入了四个几乎无法逃脱的陷阱中的一个或者几个。这四个陷阱是:“冲突陷阱”、“自然资源陷阱”、“有恶邻的内陆国家”陷阱,以及“小国治理不良”陷阱。
在最底层的10亿人口中,有73%的人处于内战之中;29%的人生活在不良自然资源政治主导的国家;30%的人处在恶邻包围、自然资源贫乏的内陆国家;76%的人所在的国家长期处于治理糟糕、经济政策拙劣的环境中。许多国家落入了不止一个陷阱。
应该做些什么呢?柯里尔认为,贸易尽管有各种潜在好处,却不能帮助处于最底层的10亿人。鉴于亚洲生产商的低成本和成熟的市场地位,这些国家无法成为有竞争力的劳动密集型产品及服务的出口国。它们无法与中国或越南竞争。同样地,如果不是要利用它们的自然资源,私人资本也不会流入这些国家。问题恰好相反,这些国家面临巨额资本的外逃。柯里尔估计,1990年,非洲几乎40%的私人财富放在海外。
柯里尔对援助——至少是援助本身——发挥作用的能力也持怀疑态度。他相信,援助可以帮助、并且已经帮助了最贫困的10亿人。但是,援助的作用是维持生计,而非启动持续增长。他对无条件预算支持能够奏效的观点尤其表示怀疑。毕竟,我们已经对无条件融资的后果进过实验:石油收入。援助游说者所青睐的债务减免,是援助行业能够提供的与石油收入最为接近的东西,其倡议者并没有注意到这一点。
援助无法使这些国家摆脱陷阱。它无法停止冲突,尽管它可以在冲突结束后提供帮助。它对自然资源陷阱束手无策:事实上,它就像是拥有另一项自然资源。它可以帮助内陆国家改善交通设施,但无法消除拥有恶邻带来的灾难。
那么,需要做些什么来帮助最贫困的10亿人所在的国家呢?柯里尔提出了三条建议:首先,军事干预;第二,为改善治理而制定法律、条例及宪章;第三,贸易优惠。
军事干预的做法虽然存在争议,但理由是最显而易见的。内战的代价如此高昂,因此,适时的军事行动很可能是成本有效的(尽管这不是必然的)。
第二个领域要求高收入国家作出改变:一个改变是不再接受从最贫穷的国家掠夺来的金钱;另一个是消除其企业的贿赂行为。最贫穷的10亿人所在的国家,还需要制定宪章,完善治理:自然资源的透明管理是其中最重要的举措之一,英国的采掘行业透明度行动计划(Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, EITI)就是一个良好的开端。本书还建议为民主、预算透明、冲突后的形势和投资制定宪章。
这种观点似乎很天真。但欧盟(EU)已经证明,外部标准可以造成巨大差别。这些国家为什么不能签署关于改善治理的宪章,以换得更多援助呢?这不是帝国主义。这是为自己的人民谋福利。
第三个建议是,允许来自最贫穷10亿人口的劳动密集型产品无限制地进入高收入国家市场。柯里尔认为,只有这样,那些资源贫乏的国家才有可能进入全球制造市场。
本书分析透彻,还提供了大量建议。我尤其欣赏书中对许多非政府组织被误导的经济理论的驳斥。柯里尔深入剖析了全球应如何应对其最大道德挑战。这本书还展示出,西方政府和其它外部参与者目前距离给予这些国家迫切需要的援助还有多远。 FT Martin Wolf
一味的援助是无用的,援助只能起一个杠杆作用,激励非洲人自己奋斗,于是援助需要条件。但是这个逻辑在过去几十年内不起作用,为啥子,不是这个观点不对,而是执行的不够彻底,一个问题,谁来激励援助人持续不断的援助呢?上帝,还是自然资源?
一个很奇怪的现象是,这些贫穷国家都没有一个稳定的投资环境,无法公平保护私有产权。
Greenspan and Democracy
In 2004 and 2005, when many economists warned that a speculative bubble in home prices and home construction posed a risk to the financial system, Greenspan brushed aside such worries, saying housing prices never declined. Before that he had resisted calls for tighter regulation of subprime mortgages and other instruments which allowed people to borrow far more than they could afford. He had also opposed tougher regulation of derivatives. Almost a decade earlier, Greenspan had urged Congress to knock down the regulatory walls that separated investment and commercial banks, thereby inviting investment banks to place huge bets with other peoples’ money.
Barely two months ago, when Greenspan appeared before Congress to explain what had happened to the economy, Representative Henry Waxman asked him pointedly: "Were you wrong?"
"Partially," Greenspan responded. "This crisis has turned out to be much broader than anything I could have imagined."
It might be argued that Alan Greenspan’s failure of imagination was not just about the scale of the crisis. More basically, his ideology had made it difficult for him to imagine what could happen when financial markets are left to themselves. He had supposed that the interplay of millions of self-seeking individuals would make government regulation unnecessary – except to prevent outright fraud or theft. To Greenspan and others like him, the global financial market represented the almost perfect form of the free market, because buyers and sellers were could gather almost unlimited information about one another, at almost instantaneous speed, at very low cost. Not only would the financial market be self-correcting, but it would automatically give us everything we might reasonably wish from it.
Greenspan’s real failure of imagination was his inability to believe there are useful market rules beyond those that protect private property and prevent outright fraud. This, presumably, was why he kept insisting for so long that government be held at bay.
But now the United States has chosen to deal with the financial crisis by buying up a significant fraction of the shares of the nation’s major banks and its largest insurance company, underwriting the loans of a large portion of the nation’s home-lending industry, and is on the verge of underwriting the nation’s largest automobile makers. Yet little if any of this largesse has found its way to the broader public – to homeowners in danger of defaulting on their mortgages and losing their homes, small businesses close to insolvency, state and local governments cutting public services because of budget shortfalls, families unable to afford health insurance, or young people unable to obtain loans to finance university tuition.
The ideology of a perfectly self-correctly free market has given way to what might be described as a raid by America’s biggest banks and corporations on the public purse, supposedly justified by benefits to the broader public which seem never to materialize. What happened to the ideology? On closer inspection, it turned out to be something of a cover all along.
During the same years Greenspan called for deregulation of financial markets, Wall Street was accelerating its bankrolling of the U.S. Congress. Securities and investment firms contributed larger and larger amounts of money – not just to conservative Republicans who might expect such support but also to Democrats who had never been so graced before. According to Center for Responsive Politics, Wall Street firms dramatically increased their contributions to both parties during these years. Their share of total donations to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, for example, rose continuously, from 5 percent during the 1999-2000 election cycle to 15 percent by the 2007-2008 cycle.
The money was accompanied, and often raised, by Wall Street lobbyists who pushed Congress in the same direction Greenspan urged – blocking regulation of derivatives, weakening oversight of subprime mortgage lending, and preventing the Securities and Exchange Commission from doing its job.
To take but one example, the collapses of Enron, WorldCom, and several other giant corporations in 2002 revealed a troubling pattern of credit-rating agencies repeatedly assuring investors that such companies were good investments until just before they went under. When the Securities and Exchange Commission asked Congress for additional authority to oversee the credit-rating agencies, Wall Street and its lobbyists blocked the measure. With hindsight, it’s clear why. Wall Street investment banks were paying the agencies to rate various mortgage backed securities after first advising the firms that issued them – and collecting fees – on how to package them to get high ratings. Years later many of these same securities, based on risky loans, would prove to be worthless, threatening financial institutions worldwide.
Apparently Greenspan hasn't learned anything from all this, but the rest of us have no excuse. The real choice ahead is between democratic capitalism and authoritarian capitalism. China is perfecting the latter. But unless we are careful we – the citizens of democratic capitalist nations – will discover that our form of capitalism has become more authoritarian than democratic. The current economic crisis surely poses a test for capitalism. But it is also a test of democracy.
The Debate to Come over Wall Street, Autos, and Everything Else: Cyclical or Structural?
Exhibit one is Goldman Sach's CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who says the firm's business strategy doesn't need to change.
What? Goldman got $10 billion of taxpayer money precisely because it and other big banks were so over-leveraged they threatened the whole financial system. I can understand why Blankfein doesn’t want to change. He took home $54 million last year. (He has foregone a bonus this year and is taking home a piddling $600,000.) But the public expects real reform for its $10 billion at Goldman and tens of billions more in other major banks.
Blankfein isn't alone. I've heard the same thing from CEOs and directors all over the Street. They see the problem as cyclical, not structural. "The economy stinks," they tell me, "but it'll turn around in 18 months, and then we're back to the same business."
Or take the Big Three. They've agreed to become far more fuel efficient, as a condition for their bailout. But they promised this before -- during the oil crisis of the 1970s, when Congress threatened higher fuel-economy standards. But after the crisis passed, they never delivered. Why? Because their biggest profits were in gas guzzlers that consumers wanted to buy as soon as the first oil crisis was over.
Will history repeat itself? Now that gas prices are half what they were six months ago, consumers who can afford it are suddenly less interested in fuel efficiency. They're buying fewer hybrids and showing renewed interest in SUVs. So why should we think Detroit will revolutionize itself?
I'm not so cynical as to accuse anyone of bad faith. It's just that both Wall Street and Detroit earned big bucks from their old strategies, before the bottom fell out of the economy. So it’s natural they’d view the bailouts as ways to hold on until the economy rebounds. And it's clear they see their problem as cyclical, not structural.
Right now, Wall Street and Detroit are willing to say whatever they need to say to keep the taxpayer money coming. But when the economy begins turning up, my betting is that their Washington lobbyists will push back hard against any major restructurings the government wants to impose on them. New regulations of Wall Street will be watered down and circumvented; new requirements on the Big Three for green technologies will be resisted.
Yet the bailouts have been sold to the public as means toward fundamental change in finance and autos. If the bailouts are to do what they're supposed to – stop Wall Street from wild risk-taking with piles of borrowed money, and push the auto industry into making fundamentally new products that conserve energy -- Washington will not only have to set strict standards now and in the months ahead when the bailout money flows, but also hang tough when the economy begins to revive.
The emerging debate over Wall Street's and the Big Three's ongoing obligations to reform themselves is but one part of a much larger national debate we'll be entering upon in 2009 and beyond -- whether the economic crisis we're experiencing is basically cyclical (in which case, nothing really needs to change over the long term, after the economy gets back on track) or structural (in which case, many aspects of our economy and society will needs to change permanently).
Bernard Madoff and Ponzi Schemes
你看到的是哪一个中国?
然而麻省理工学院的黄亚生教授却在《中国经济增长的南柯一梦》中指出,中国的农村家庭收入和GDP增长率之间的鸿沟持续存在这一事实表明,中国的经济增长模式是不可持续的,根本不值得效仿。
但这似乎并不足以反证美国的经济模式就更好。美国经济学家Thomas Piketty和Emmanuel Saez分析美国国税局的统计数据后发现,经通货膨胀因素调整后,美国收入最高的那1%人口其年收入增幅在2002至2006年期间达到11%。而其余99%的美国人这期间的年收入增幅不足1%。2002年至2005年期间美国的年均经济增长率为3.48%,中国的年均经济增长率则约为10%,如果按照黄教授所说──中国农村家庭收入增幅只有中国GDP增幅的一半,那么中国农民在此期间的年收入增幅应在5%左右,这样看来,美国家庭收入增长率和GDP增长率之间的“鸿沟”比中国还大,难怪美国经济要先于中国出问题了。
但这同样不能反证中国模式要优于美国模式,至少四川大地震中一些遇难小学生的家长可能持这种观点。他们申诉自己的孩子是死于校舍低劣的建筑质量,但德阳市中级人民法院拒绝受理这一诉讼,理由据称是政府的“内部文件”明确要求任何法院不得受理此类案件。
对于那些评价中国模式的人来说,恐怕先要搞清他看到的是哪一个中国。
(本文作者刘罡是《华尔街日报》中文网编辑兼专栏撰稿人。文中所述仅代表他个人观点)
2008年12月24日星期三
地道战、日本侵华、美国打伊拉克、企业并购
Where Life Revolves Around Your Cellphone, the Factory Floor, and Forged Diplomas: A Q&A With the Author of Factory Girls
A major part of the curriculum involved how to lie your way through job interviews into an office position. This ultra-pragmatism is pervasive in Chinese society today; people are less concerned with abstract notions of right and wrong than with getting things done. In economic terms, this fosters a business climate in which companies copy each others’ products, steal employees and business plans, and compete ruthlessly over tiny profit margins. But with little trust or sense of long-term planning and investment, they find it hard to grow and develop their businesses.
This system also takes an emotional toll on individuals. Everyone I knew in Dongguan had stories of being cheated and robbed and lied to, and over and over people told me, “You can only rely on yourself.” But even though this is a world marked by corruption and deceit, it is at the same time highly functional. It just functions by its own set of rules.
My promotion this time let me see the hundred varieties of human experience. Some people cheer me, some envy me, some congratulate me, some wish me luck, some are jealous of me, and some cannot accept it … As to those who envy me … I will only treat them as an obstacle on the road to progress, kicking them aside and walking on. In the future there will be even more to envy!
Now I will talk about copying. I think copying is very important. Everyone always talks about how innovation is important. But you need to invest a lot of time to innovate and the risk is high. Why not take things that have already been proven to work in other places? That is copying.
A woman called a mami came in to tally which customers wanted sex and which just wanted to sing.
The girls entered. There were seven of them, wearing shiny gold evening gowns with spaghetti straps that made them look like high-school girls on prom night. … Each girl had a plastic tag clipped at her waste with a four-digit number. … If a man liked a girl, he would tell the mami her number …
If a girl went out with a customer for sex, the club charged 800 yuan for a single encounter; that was called kuaican, fast food. … Some of the girls didn’t like to go with men very often. The ones who did could make 20,000 yuan a month — $2,500, an astronomical sum in the migrant world. … [The karaoke girls] lived a casual and disorderly existence. In a city where most lives were ruled by the factory clock, they slept as late as they pleased and worked fewer hours than anyone I had met.
贸易保护政策有利可图吗?
西方试图用制度去解决委托代理关系,我们喜欢培养忠诚
经济学未来向哪发展?
Crazy conspiracy theorists
So Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Karl Rove all claim that the financial crisis was a liberal conspiracy, generated either by evil mastermind Chuck Schumer or by wily journalists.
Why does such stuff flourish? Probably because there is no punishment for it — as long as you’re on the right, and I mean right, side. Let Michael Moore point out, entirely correctly, the close ties between the Saudis and the Bush family, and he’s blasted as a crazy conspiracy theorist. On the other hand, let Donald Luskin suggest, in 2004, that George Soros is planning to engineer a financial crisis to defeat Bush, and he gets to publish front-page articles in the Washington Post Outlook section declaring that there isn’t a recession.
为啥子经济学家没人能够预测到经济危机?
Latvia is the new Argentina (slightly wonkish)
I’ve been saying this for a couple of weeks, but Edward Hugh has the goods.
Hugh puts his finger, in particular, on one gaping hole in the logic of the opponents of devaluation. We can’t devalue, they say, because the Latvian private sector has a lot of debts in euros, and a devaluation would make it very hard for borrowers to service those debts. As Hugh points out, the proposed alternative — sharp wage cuts, and basically a major domestic deflation — will also make it hard to service those debts. In fact, I’d be a bit more specific than Hugh: other things equal, a nominal devaluation and a real depreciation achieved through deflation should have exactly the same effect on debt service (unless some of the debt is in lats rather than euros, in which case devaluation would do less damage.)
This looks like events repeating themselves, the first time as tragedy, the second time as another tragedy.
资本主义就怕别人不还钱。信用和委托代理关系。怕人不还钱,怕人不道德
Going Green Is Way Out of Financial Crisis




