A Cross-Party Way Forward on Brexit

Yes! (hfk)

Richard S. Grossman

Richard S. Grossman is a professor of economics at Wesleyan University and a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. His most recent book is WRONG: Nine Economic Policy Disasters and What We Can Learn from Them.

JUL 25, 2017 Project Syndicate

NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS – Britons who already realize that the United Kingdom cannot possibly withdraw from the European Union without incurring substantial economic costs were undoubtedly disappointed by their country’s recent general-election campaign. The leaders of Britain’s major parties showed that they have neither a coherent plan for Brexit, nor the courage to reject it.

It is time to hand leadership to an experienced, clear-eyed leader who can dispense with tribal politics and cobble together support from the sensible wings of the major political parties. That leader should be Kenneth Clarke, the current Father of the House.

Prime Minister Theresa May has proved incapable of leading the Conservative Party or the country. After calling an unnecessary snap election, she ran an incompetent campaign that left her government dependent on the dubious support of the right-wing Democratic Unionist Party. British voters have roundly rejected her call for a “hard Brexit,” in which the UK would leave both the EU single market and the customs union.

Unmasking the Climate-Change Deniers

Benjamin Franta

Benjamin Franta, a former research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is a doctoral student in the history of science at Stanford University, where his research focuses on climate politics and the manipulation of science.

JUL 25, 2017 Project Syndicate

STANFORD – Twenty-five years after the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change on May 9, 1992, the world has yet to implement a treaty that effectively addresses global warming. Now, following President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate agreement, it is time to investigate more deeply the forces driving delay.

Throughout the 1990s, the American Petroleum Institute (API) – the largest oil and gas trade association and lobbying group in the US – repeatedly relied on economic models created by two economists, Paul Bernstein and W. David Montgomery, to argue that pro-climate policies would be devastatingly expensive. API successfully lobbied for delaying measures to address climate change solutions, using Bernstein and Montgomery’s projections to claim that job losses and economic costs would outweigh environmental benefits.

The Croatian-Slovenian Spat Has Far-Reaching Implications For EU Unity

Dank an H.F.

Written by Andrew KORYBKO on 24/07/2017, Oriental Review

What might simply be dismissed by many as an inconsequential and petty spat between two former Yugoslav Republics is actually shaping out to be a pivotal event that could determine the future trajectory of EU-Intermarium relations.

Slovenia and Croatia are two tiny countries that most Americans can’t locate on a map, though they’re becoming ever more important in the context of European geopolitics and relations between the blocs two increasingly divergent camps. Both states are EU and NATO members, and they closely coordinated with one another in seceding from Yugoslavia and sparking the deadly series of wars that was to follow in their wake. This makes it somewhat odd to the casual observer that these two previous comrades-in-arms are in a heated disagreement with one another over maritime rights and wine sales, but the fact of the matter is that Slovenia believes that its core national interests are threatened by its much larger Croatian neighbor in both disputes.

Good News: China Is Making Less Useless Stuff

Date: 25-07-2017
Source: The Wall Street Journal

China’s fight against overcapacity is finally showing some results

One of Western politicians’ biggest complaints against China is that it invests and produces too much, consumes too little, and expects the rest of the world to absorb the remainder. But in the worst-offending sectors, including global trade flashpoints like steel, aluminum and petrochemicals, the picture is brightening at last. That could help put a floor under commodity prices, even if Chinese overcapacity is far from cured.

The recent improvement partly stems from an uptick in construction at home taking in more steel and cement. But there is also evidence that China’s endless campaigns against dirty steel and aluminum plants have been working, slowing the country’s reckless overinvestment.

Deciphering China’s Economic Resilience

Stephen S. Roach

Stephen S. Roach, former Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and the firm’s chief economist, is a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute of Global Affairs and a senior lecturer at Yale’s School of Management. He is the author of Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China.

JUL 25, 2017 Project Syndicate

NEW HAVEN – Once again, the Chinese economy has defied the hand wringing of the nattering nabobs of negativism. After decelerating for six consecutive years, real GDP growth appears to be inching up in 2017. The 6.9% annualized increase just reported for the second quarter exceeds the 6.7% rise in 2016 and is well above the consensus of international forecasters who, just a few months ago, expected growth to be closer to 6.5% this year, and to slow further, to 6%, in 2018.

I have long argued that the fixation on headline GDP overlooks deeper issues shaping the China growth debate. That is because the Chinese economy is in the midst of an extraordinary structural transformation – with a manufacturing-led producer model giving way to an increasingly powerful services-led consumer model.

Telecom Italia: 25 Millionen zum Abschied nach 16 Monaten als Chef

25. Juli 2017, 14:02 derstandard.at

Großaktionär Vivendi greift für Abgang von Flavio Cattaneo tief in die Tasche

Mailand – Nach nur 16 Monaten an der Spitze der Telecom Italia erhält Flavio Cattaneo 22,9 Millionen Euro aus seinem laufenden Vertrag inklusive einer Sonderprämie, wie das Unternehmen am Montagabend mitteilte. Außerdem bekommt er 2,1 Millionen Euro für den Verzicht auf den Wechsel zu einem Wettbewerber, wenn er Ende der Woche ausscheidet. Der französische Medienkonzern Vivendi ist damit endlich am Ziel und kann beim italienischen Telefonriesen durchregieren. Die Franzosen halten zwar nur 24 Prozent der Aktien an Telecom Italia, dominieren aber den Aufsichtsrat. Cattaneo hat zwar die Kosten des Konzerns deutlich gesenkt, Vivendi war aber wegen ständiger Differenzen des Chefs mit der Regierung in Rom unzufrieden. Dabei ging es vor allem um den Breitbandausbau im ländlichen Gebiet, bei dem Kontrahent Open Fiber beauftragt wurde.

Studie: Computer übernehmen bis zu 30 Prozent der Banker-Arbeit

Experten sind sich aber nicht einig, wie sich die Technologisierung im Bankenbereich auf die Mitarbeiterzahlenauswirken werde.

 25.07.2017 um 10:04, diepresse.com

Neue Technologien dürften bei den Investmentbanken Einzug halten und vielen der traditionellen Angestellten rund ein Drittel ihrer derzeitigen Arbeit abnehmen. Das geht aus einer Studie von McKinsey & Co. hervor. Der Wandel, der an der Wall Street bereits zu Sorgen über einen Verlust von Stellen führt, wird demnach möglicherweise nur ein paar Jahre benötigen.

Kognitive Technologien – also Programme oder Maschinen, die Aufgaben ausüben, bei denen einst das menschliche Gehirn unerlässlich war – sind inzwischen billig genug, damit Banken sie breit in Bereichen wie etwa dem Handel einsetzen können. Automatisierte Prozesse werden laut McKinsey „Kapazitäten freisetzen“ und es Mitarbeitern ermöglichen, sich auf Aufgaben mit höherem Wert zu konzentrieren. Dadurch würden unter anderem neue Ideen entstehen. 

The West’s Decadent Foreign Policy

Chris Patten

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong and a former EU commissioner for external affairs, is Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

JUL 24, 2017 Project Syndicate

LONDON – Nowadays, the West can be described as decadent. That does not mean simply that we are addicted to “bread and circuses,” from welfare programs in Europe (which we can barely afford) to the Super Bowl in the United States. It means also that we are increasingly reluctant to allow our own vision of civil liberties and human rights to shape our foreign policies, owing to the potential commercial costs.

Consider the case of the Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, who recently died while serving an 11-year prison sentence for calling for democracy in China. The Chinese authorities refused Liu’s request, made just weeks before his death, to seek treatment abroad for his aggressive cancer, and his wife remains under house arrest.

Eurasia Group Update – What Might Go Wrong

Thanks to P.B.

Ian Bremmer, Eurasia Group, 24/7

back in january, our top risk for the year was „independent america,“ the idea that trump’s “america first” would cause significant geopolitical knock-on effects. it was the first time we had the world’s only superpower as a top risk, never mind leading the list. six months in, growing uncertainties around the trump administration are driving this point home. so to start this week, let’s look at how things might truly derail. then the latest developments in the us-russia relationship. and turkey’s troubles, a year after the failed coup.

what might go wrong

watching the drama in the united states unfold has made for extraordinary political theater. it’s scorched earth strategy for both sides: the trump administration, congressional republicans, and fox news & alt-right media versus democrats, „mainstream media,“ and an ever-expanding robert mueller investigation.

it’s plausible that the sturm und drang continues while the system mostly minds its own business. the united states heads into midterm and then presidential elections, very little gets done while the circus plays out in the media, and—eventually—a level of normalcy and (at least somewhat) more civil discourse returns to washington. but the trajectory from the past six months is starting to suggest otherwise: that the pressure around president trump and family is tightening; trump’s willingness to act in extraordinary and unprecedented ways is increasing. both of these trends interact in an escalatory and combustible cycle. and precisely because so much of what’s unprecedented and incendiary from and around the trump administration has to do with informal norms of conduct that trump doesn’t accept (on civil discourse, conflicts of interest, national security, etc..) rather than explicit laws being broken that require formal recourse, there’s reason to expect this will continue.

The Coming Financial Volatility

Gene Frieda

Gene Frieda is an executive vice president and global strategist for PIMCO.

JUL 24, 2017 Project Syndicate

LONDON – Bond investors are from Mars, and central bankers are from Venus – or so suggests the bond market’s negative reaction to signals that the exceptional monetary-policy accommodation of the last decade is winding down. Risky asset markets, however, are ignoring the red flags that the bond markets are waving. Are they right?

Today, inflation remains low in much of the developed world. But previously dovish central banks in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom are itching to roll back the accommodative monetary policies that they have pursued since the eruption of the global financial crisis of 2008.

Inflation-targeting central banks assume that, when inflation expectations are stable, changes in inflation stem from changes in the amount of slack in the economy. When slack diminishes – as is happening now, with unemployment now well below average levels over the business cycle (and at multi-decade lows in the US and the UK) – inflation will eventually rise.