in reply to Re^2: How do North Americans find Europe as a workplace?
in thread How do North Americans find Europe as a workplace?

So let me see if I have this right. I should be paying attention to the MSM, even though they failed to predict the financial crisis and continue to miss[report] important details and generally lag a couple months behind several more well informed blogs (when they do report something blogs were covering)??

And I should ignore sites like Calculated Risk that predicted the housing market collapse before it happened? Ditto for sites like naked capitalism that were discussing problems with derivatives, CDS's, shady accounting, etc. back in e.g. 2007??

And Simon Johnson, the former Chief Economist of the IMF who has testified before Congress (about the current financial crisis) multiple times -- no credibility there either? Look for his posts on The Baseline Sceanrio.

And the Financial Times, generally considered to be the best and most credible publication on economics -- I should ignore that too?

And Nobel Prize Laurette Professor Paul Krugman? He has decades of articles and several years worth of blog posts that show he has a proven track record. A lot of people don't like him, especially "economists" focused almost entirely on ideology over substance, but we can actually go back and see what he said back then vs. now to see who was right. For example a year ago many "economists" where warning about bond vigilantes and hyperinflation because bond rates went up a small amount. Meanwhile Professor Krugman was concerned about deflation. Well, a year later, there has been no hyperinflation and no bond vigilates destroying the market. In fact, bond rates dropped a fair amount. Meanwhile deflation a la Japan's Lost Decade (which has been more than a lost decade) seems much likely now than ever!! Though perhaps the most important and sobering article he written as of late is Defining Prosperity Down. Well worth a read.

As a side note, anyone looking for a good summary blog site, check out Professor Mark Thoma's Economist's View. He often links to the blogs I mentioned above along with several others, making it a great jumping off place.

Anyway, as empirical evidence has shown, there are several blogs that provide accurate information, reporting and serious commentary. If you want to get a better feel for what's really going on, then that's where you need to turn to these days. If you think you are getting accurate reporting from the MSM, then barring a few exceptions, you are sadly mistaken.

Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks
  • Comment on Re^3: How do North Americans find Europe as a workplace?

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Dollar crisis!
by LanX (Saint) on Aug 20, 2010 at 08:52 UTC
    As a side note:

    The situation of US-states like California ain't any better than of the PIIGS.

    The difference is that overall the per capita debt in the €-zone is considerably lower than in the $ or £ zones!

    It's already clear that countries like Germany and France will pay for others €-debts, but for sure not without considerable change in economic policy.

    So lets talk about the dollar or pound crisis ... and about when the Renminbi will get it's own key and currency symbol on our keyboards ...¹)

    Cheers Rolf

    1) oops, it (¥) already happend! :)

[reply]

      In essence, I think that states and countries all around the world have been suckered by well-heeled speculators whose motives and methods were not honest.   Things, like credit ratings and bond ratings, that are supposed to be reliable and relied-upon, were instead “gamed” in what has become an international pattern of crime ... and governments, and government officials, throughout the world were effectively “part of it.”   We are only just now reaching the point of admitting to ourselves, and to one another, that we have all been swindled.  (We still can’t quite fathom “to what degree.”)   We (as a world-wide community) must come to terms with the fact that the very people in whom we had vested great amounts of public trust, are key perpetrators of these very public crimes.   Trust is a linchpin of every civilized pursuit (and quite a few not-so-civilized ones), and it has been “more than shattered” in a deliberate, heartless, ruthless way.

      Now, back to your regularly scheduled Perl...

        > In essence, I think that states and countries all around the world have been suckered by well-heeled speculators whose motives and methods were not honest.

        yes but some economies not only rely heavily on the banking sector, a considerable part of their wealth is produced by "earning" from other economies.

        Those governments are reluctant to better control one of their main sources of income.

        To take a neutral example: Switzerland and Lichtenstein profit from people hiding their money from local tax.

        While those countries are now under heavy attack, nobody dares to talk about Channel and Cayman Islands.

        Cheers Rolf

[reply]

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